Hair Raising DIY Solar Panel Poised To Revolutionize Green Energy!!

No mention of the quantity of power produced. There are countless ways to generate very small amounts of electricity.

This effort shows the kid is intelligent and in a few years will have one of those ivy league diplomas and do something worthwhile. 

Russ, There are many reasons why no one should build their own solar panels. Without experience, knowledge and tools this will never happen. Lets just get away from this subject. Think about cars. I don't know anyone that wants to build a car. Well solar panels are like cars. They need to be UL approved as the first reason. The second reason is why would anyone want to build a solar panel or panels when you can just buy a solar panel? Would you want to build a cell phone? I have been building solar panels for over 40 years. Your are not saving money at all by building solar panels. What you are doing is wasting time and money. A solar panel factory uses very expensive equipment to make solar cells. Silicon solar cells are one of the most expensive processes for equipment. Laser cutters, ovens, process cleaning, etching of glass. Thin film is sputtering equipment, CIGS solar cells are also sputtering and material layers of metals. Just in machinery you will need to spend over $15 million USD to build solar panels. If you think the ROI of a installed solar PV system is long the ROI for solar cell machines is almost 10 years for silicon solar processing machines.
     Now with that being said, our company builds solar cells. We produce CIGS type solar cells. Our solar cells are used in solar calculators, cell phone solar chargers, street lighting, and yes solar panels. We produce two main types of solar cell. 5 layer and 8 layer cells. The 5 layer cells are high volts and low amps. The 8 layer cells are high volts and high amps. We produce 120 different size solar PV cells. The best feature about our solar cells is that they produce electric power in low light conditions. This means we produce electric power during cloudy days and for longer periods of time during day light hours. A fixed silicon solar panel in the right place and time of the year can produce up to 6 hours a day of electric power. Our solar products produce under the same conditions 9.5 hours a day of electric power. The testing of efficiency of a silicon solar panel or silicon solar cells is only one answer. With our solar cells we have two test. Low Light Conditions and  the same test as silicon solar cells. Our low light conditions are at 200 LUX. At 200 lux a silicon solar cell will not produce any measureable amount of current and maybe a small fraction of a volt. Our most powerful solar cell under low light conditions is 17 volts @ 177 mA. Under the standard testing the same solar cell produces 25 volts @ 220 mA. This information is important to know when designing a solar panel. Size of the solar cells is also important. I look at it this way. The bigger the solar cell the less waste. High volts and low amps makes for small gage wires. Low volts and high amps makes for larger gage wires. Larger gage wires cost more. We even have customers that pay us to design solar panels using our solar cells. Most of these companies are in Germany, USA, China and now India. We have been mostly the only solution for Off-Grid Applications. 20 years ago 90%, of our business was off grid. Now only 7% of our business is for Off-Grid Applications. On grid is all about greed and money. Most of our customers now use our products in big solar farm application. These customers are selling electric power to power companies. Every week when we are contacted from a company wanting to build their own solar panels using our solar cells. Individuals that want to build solar panels maybe wrong in their thinking. Think about this; and write down the pros and cons. Remember time is money!  

Like I said, the kid has shown he intelligent and after the years at a university (a good one) he will probably be able to make 'his mark'.

The kid wanted to build a solar cell because he can't afford to buy one at western prices I suppose - plus the challenge of doing so as a project. I expect pocket cash is very limited in his location and at his age. Just the sealing of a solar panel is next to impossible in a home shop!

We are waiting for a web site we can go to in order to see more about your companies solar cells.

In my (not humble at all) opinion, off grid is a waste of money. Grid connected allows one the most benefit - especially if there is a decent FIT. Even if the meter just spins backwards you can be a winner.

Batteries are not yet to the point where they make economic sense plus there is a very significant loss of efficiency in the battery connected systems in the conversion.

The claims about greater production from CIGS under all conditions are still out to the jury - many claims made and few proofs - especially from the large companies. CIGS is still to show they can compete with the standard PV panels for that matter - the loss of efficiency is still in the 50% range.. 

False hair I'm afraid...

http://www.southasianmedia.net/cnn.cfm?id=592678&category=Science&Technology&Country=NEPAL

The hair was just a carrier for a solution that made it photovoltaic.  Still, nice use of hair as a large surface area filament.  Being round it will absorb incident light arriving at funny angles in the cell.

Curious about the output figures from the CIGS cells...  17V @ 177mA is 3W but 25V @ 220mA is only 5.5W for 500 times the luminous input (200lx vs 100,000lx for full overhead sunlight).  Either one figure is very low or the other is very high for the illumination.

My regular polysilicon wafer modules make a 100:1 ratio of current output when going from 100,000lx to 100lx (10A at direct noon sun and about 0.1A on a dark overcast sky).  What's the reason for the much flatter power profile of the cells you're making?

Yeah... I'm playing about with off grid stuff and batteries are a bummer.  At least the lead and plastic from my decaying leisure batteries can be totally recycled. 

On-grid is not just about greed.  In a small system like mine (~1kW) I don't stand a chance of being able to make and store enough power to run my cooker or instant heating shower as they would require a massive battery bank and a ludicrously expensive 7kW inverter.  I'm thinking of converting half my array (700W) to be able to switch over to grid connected by a 1kW inverter.  It still won't power the total load I want but over time it will put the same amount of kWh into the grid as I take out with 5 minutes of 7kW consumption by my shower or 2 hours of 3kW load to heat my water tank.  The problem is the worst when the battery is full and it's sunny.  All that power just goes to waste as I can't use it at the time or store it and then I have to use grid power to heat my water.  At least if I pumped it into the grid I could sell it when I've got too much and buy it back when I need it... and without having to buy a 7kW inverter.

Buying bigger batteries isn't the answer as big batteries are fine in the summer when you can keep them charged but in the winter there isn't enough solar power to keep them charged fully and they then sulphate and rot... or you end up using grid power to charge them.

Even in the summer it's better to have smaller batteries that can be filled completely in a day as lead acid batteries rot if you don't keep them at 100% charge.  Solar systems with several days worth of battery capacity can therefore spend several days at a time being only 50-60% charged... shortens their life.

Lithium iron magnesium phosphate batteries look promising (but very expensive).  They are light, small, hold their charge well, don't mind being kept either fully charged or partially charged or flat for ages, don't catch fire at the drop of a hat... but are hugely expensive at the moment and makers are only interested in doing deals with car makers (I tried to get a quote for some Valence U-Charge batteries).