Hey, question for some solar panel expert.
Would it be possible to create a solar panel in the form of foil? I know flexible panels exists but I've only seen ones embedded in plastic like this:
Is the plastic somehow necessary for power generation or could the solar panel layer be sprayed directly on some sort of foil?
Or to put it another way: how densely could we pack a solar panel if we didn't care that much about durability?
Let's say I just want something that will last a month and maybe 100 unfolding-folding cycles. Would it be possible to fit it a box like this:
Sort of:
https://www.powerfilmsolar.com/products/rollable-solar-panels/14-watt-rollable-solar-panel
That's very close but I wonder if we can go even farther. Basically I saw people doing this:
but obviously if you look at the numbers you have to stop for hours to charge your bike and even with flexible panels you need some sort of a cart to carry them. This is because we need some durability but what if I'm only interested in single trip? Couple weeks, maybe a month. Would it be possible to make an ultra light panel that can charge my bike in let's say an hour?
Whats your goal here? Are you planning to ride around the country on like an electric mountain bike or something? Im not sure you'll get a compact solar panel that can change a battery in an hour, my panles on my house can only put out 250watts, 50v at 5 amps in full sun, at a brief glance and some dodgy math it would still take 2-3 hours to change an e-bike battery
They have different size on the website, but it really depends on how large your bicycle battery is. The largest one is 60W and ways 1.7kg. A small bicycle like that might have 300Wh or so. Since you probably just lay them on the ground and they are not 100% efficent anyway with charging you need 10 solar panels or so to charge your bicycle up within an hour.
If you want it for a cycle trip, then you are probably better of having a fixed panel on a trailer. That way you can charge during the trip and non flexible panels are much more efficent. You end up with something like these.
I'm not looking for existing product. I don't think anything like this exists. I'm just wondering if it's possible to make with existing solar panel tech. Something like rescue foil solar panel. Or does it need some plastic casing?
With silicon based cells this seems unlikely, but with Perovskite based cells it exists already.
You're right, looking for Perovskite I see publications about foil based solar panels. Thanks, I will dig some more.
Cadmium telluride might also be of interest