{"id":81080,"date":"2018-07-31T07:22:22","date_gmt":"2018-07-31T14:22:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2018\/07\/designing-a-solar-tarp-a-foldable-packable-way-to-generate-power-from-the-sun"},"modified":"2018-08-04T10:01:39","modified_gmt":"2018-08-04T17:01:39","slug":"designing-a-solar-tarp-a-foldable-packable-way-to-generate-power-from-the-sun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2018\/07\/designing-a-solar-tarp-a-foldable-packable-way-to-generate-power-from-the-sun","title":{"rendered":"Designing a \u2018solar tarp,\u2019 a foldable, packable way to generate power from the sun"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/designing-a-solar-tarp-a-foldable-packable-way-to-generate-power-from-the-sun.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The energy-generating potential of solar panels \u2013 and a key limitation on their use \u2013 is a result of what they\u2019re made of. Panels made of silicon are declining in price such that in some locations they can provide electricity that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.greenrhinoenergy.com\/solar\/market\/mkt_trends.php\">costs about the same as power from fossil fuels<\/a> like coal and natural gas. But silicon solar panels are also bulky, rigid and brittle, so they can\u2019t be used just anywhere.<\/p>\n<p>In many parts of the world that don\u2019t have regular electricity, solar panels could provide <a href=\"http:\/\/pubs.rsc.org\/en\/content\/articlelanding\/2010\/ee\/b918441d\">reading light after dark<\/a> and energy to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.earthisland.org\/journal\/index.php\/elist\/eListRead\/in_africa_clean_energy_provides_a_route_to_clean_water\/\">pump drinking water<\/a>, help <a href=\"https:\/\/e360.yale.edu\/features\/african_lights_microgrids_are_bringing_power_to_rural_kenya\">power small household or village-based businesses<\/a> or even serve <a href=\"https:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/entry\/refugee-camp-solar-energy-azraq_us_591c6ba4e4b0ed14cddb4685\">emergency shelters and refugee encampments<\/a>. But the mechanical fragility, heaviness and transportation difficulties of silicon solar panels suggest that silicon may not be ideal.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1002\/adma.201302563\">Building on<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nrel.gov\/pv\/organic-photovoltaic-solar-cells.html\">others\u2019 work<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lipomigroup.org\/\">my research group<\/a> is working to <a href=\"https:\/\/scholar.google.com\/citations?user=ADi0TFMAAAAJ&hl=en\">develop flexible solar panels<\/a>, which would be as efficient as a silicon panel, but would be thin, lightweight and bendable. This sort of device, which we call a \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1016\/j.joule.2017.12.011\">solar tarp<\/a>,\u201d could be spread out to the size of a room and generate electricity from the sun, and it could be balled up to be the size of a grapefruit and stuffed in a backpack as many as 1,000 times without breaking. While there has been some effort to make organic solar cells more flexible simply by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.photonics.com\/Articles\/Ultrathin_solar_cells_for_stretchable_applications\/a51133\">making them ultra-thin<\/a>, real durability requires a molecular structure that makes the solar panels stretchable and tough.<\/p>\n<p><!-- Link: <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2018-07-solar-tarp-foldable-packable-power.html\">https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2018&#45;07-solar-tarp-foldable-packable-power.html<\/a> --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The energy-generating potential of solar panels \u2013 and a key limitation on their use \u2013 is a result of what they\u2019re made of. Panels made of silicon are declining in price such that in some locations they can provide electricity that costs about the same as power from fossil fuels like coal and natural gas. [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":467,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43,1633,17,1491],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-81080","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business","category-solar-power","category-sustainability","category-transportation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81080","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/467"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81080"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81080\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81094,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81080\/revisions\/81094"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81080"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81080"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81080"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}