Solar panel washing tool - GIF

**PJs** · Dec 6, 2018, 01:46 PM

Looks like a decent tool and some sort of Job Security in the desert. It's not just the dust/dirt but Pterodactyl droppings and other critters staining and corroding the covers (best is infused quartz type but Pricey), plus UV's corroding them over time.

Agreed about the efficiency but they are getting better. Perhaps when we could grow and build them in space without costing more than they could produce in a life cycle, the efficiency could break the 50% barrier.

The hesolarllc article didn't address how much and what kind of dirty they were in the test nor the situation with the suns input b4 and after...let alone the single panel instant stress test...at manufacture, at 1 year, etc. Not white paper material to me and speculation at best.

The PM/Duke/NASA article seems like it may have taken things more seriously in testing but still felt Alarmist rather than scientific, protocol oriented.

All worth pondering as the Grid continues to deteriorate, and policy avoids action.

**ranald** · Dec 6, 2018, 04:10 PM

That is a lot of generating going on there.

I saw, a few years back on 'new inventors', where a professor & students at Newcastle Uni,Aus (if I remember correctly), had developed a method of roof finish (like paint) for solar generation of electricity: the whole roof of a dwelling or barn or highrise could effectively convert solar energy. I don't know how that is going but can imagine the results but some entrepreneurial, fly by night, company would make excessive profits at the beginning. Cost effective with extremes of climate? Our better paints claim to be much improved though the best offer about 10 year gaurantee=same as before.

I know, I know=very electrifying.

cheers

**PJs** · Dec 7, 2018, 01:02 PM

A 12 year old article/white paper but worth the read. Pg. 9 in particular and that is just with PV's...personally I support local generation "Systems" supported by large scale global "Systems".

I've been spewing this stuff for at least 30 years now, and watched technologies and systems roll out of science and engineering minds and companies only to be lost or put down, stolen, ignored, underfunded and worst of all shuttered by commercial interests. In the words of Dr. Murray Banks - "As you ramble on through life, brother, whatever be your goal: keep your eyes upon the donut, and not upon the hole!"

Perhaps Elon Musk is one of the few with horsepower and vision watching the donut in our times. Bucky Fuller before and Tesla before him...