PV Gap

Felicia Said:

How do I tell what type of Solar panels I have and how much theyre worth?

We Answered:

You bought a house with Solar and it never came up during the sale process? i find that hard to believe. I agree they sound like pool panels. They do make 4x12 hot water panels but if you have 4 you would have a huge storage tank somewhere.I'm going with pool panels. you can make your own you know.

Angela Said:

Why are solar panels not that efficient?

We Answered:

first off, single digit power conversion are those on bendable cells like the ones used on handheld calculators.
moving on to the question...
in very layman terms, solar cells are inherently inefficient since the basic principles of the solar industry has remained the same for decades. there have been improevments but the full potential of solar energy is still to come in the future when a revolution in either base cell or cell composition is discovered. maybe then we'll be looking at 50% or more efficient cells.
for one reason, solar panel power conversion is very limited by the substrate which they use.
the more economical, sensible and less life-threatening substrates like silicon are usually the ones that give back less power.
solar panels using silicon-based cells are cheaper to manufacture and usually use "less dangerous" industry standard chemicals like phosphorus, aluminum and boron are yet to be more than 30% efficient. the cells i'm working on now (at least the ones that are available in the market) are about 22% (arguably the best in the market although not the cheapest).
if you wish to increase the power conversion, you might use "more dangerous" albeit also industry standard chemicals like gallium and arsenic.
another reason is obscurity. since big oil is still pretty big and solar is still considered as alternative, less scientific effort is focused on developing solar technology.

if you wish to do self-study on device physics for more technical details on solar cells, you can visit this site:

http://www.pveducation.org/pvcdrom