Japan unveils first solar super-panel
41 comments
·April 29, 2025blaze33
Mr_Eri_Atlov
Thank you, I couldn't make heads or tails of that press release
pjc50
I like solar, but this is a press release with almost zero details. Not a product with an efficiency rating and price tag.
Perovskites: non-silicon based semiconductors, in theory much cheaper for solar panels, in practice have lifetime issues.
johnklos
It's a sales writeup:
"Japan unveils world’s first solar super-panel: More powerful than 20 nuclear reactors"
How can a "super-panel" be more powerful than twenty nuclear reactors? By letting salespeople write stuff, it seems.
nicoburns
Perovskite cells still don't make much sense for the majority of applications (and I suspect they never will): they're expensive, generally use toxic materials, and degrade much more quickly than silicon panels. Silicon panels are cheap, non-toxic, and long-lasting and plenty efficient enough for 90% of use cases.
elcritch
Agreed, thought if we could get silicon + perovskite working well with stable perovskite that combined efficiency might be worthwhile.
tim333
Oxford PV say they have some that work ok being put into commercial use on a small scale - https://www.oxfordpv.com/news/20-more-powerful-tandem-solar-...
dmd
Only 20? Why not 50? 100? These are rookie numbers. As long as you're just making shit up, I want a solar panel more powerful than 9000 nuclear reactors.
Mr_Eri_Atlov
I want one over 9000 nuclear reactors!
strongpigeon
There’s no unveiling right? This is just an announcement that they’ll build perovskite solar cells and sell them in 2030s.
> Supported by the government, Sekisui Chemical Co. is now developing advanced PSC modules for their future application to a broad market in the 2030s.
cubefox
Additionally, if they currently target the 2030s, there absolutely no guarantee that they will ever sell them. The technology is in the research phase and as such may well turn out to be not a viable product.
raydiak
Besides the words "Japan" and "solar", the headline has nothing at all to do with the content of the article or technical reality, and sounds more like the beginning of an anime story arc. Like someone prompted an AI with "every headline should have a power level over 9000".
robin_reala
An awful headline, but interesting to hear about a perovskite push. I’m not deep into the solar world, but they always seemed like something with potential from the limited reading I’ve done.
juliansimioni
>Renewable energy in Japan will receive a *seismic shift*
Maybe not the best analogy for the most earthquake-prone country in the world?
RajT88
Yes maybe something along the lines of "Japan will receive a giant monster of a solar panel".
babyent
It would suck to build a massive solar panel array only for it to break after an earthquake. Hopefully they are seismic proofed like many buildings there.
PaulDavisThe1st
Solar PV arrays are not really contiguous structures like buildings. A major earthquake could certainly cause some damage, but the fundamental design of the arrays makes them much less sensitive to seismic activity than any building.
achow
> At the center of this strategy is Japan’s position as the second-largest iodine producer in the world, a necessary ingredient in the manufacturing of perovskite solar cells.
Perovskites are a type of crystalline material, [most common are] methylammonium lead iodide perovskite (MAPbI3).. researchers have found that gaseous iodine produced by MAPbI3 make them inherently unstable.. and may not be a fixable issue.
[2017] https://www.asianscientist.com/2017/01/tech/stability-iodine...
limaoscarjuliet
In my experience, no matter how many panels you install, Solar can cover power consumption 30-40% of its max capacity. Winter, night, bad weather will eat the rest. To go beyond the 30-40% you will need energy store or alternative sources.
This is still great but not a 100% solution.
Retric
At scale things look very different. A great deal of nighttime energy use occurs because electricity prices are cheaper at night. Panels to the east of you get sunlight earlier in the day and panels to the west of you get it later in the day. Tracking panels get sunlight across a larger fraction of the day.
Output from panels on a single home are highly correlated seeing large drop offs from an individual cloud, where solar farms across a wide geographic area experience different weather systems. It wouldn’t be cost effective but with absolutely zero storage the US could get 70+% of its electricity from solar. Add wind and hydro to the mix and you can get quite far without grid storage, but adding options lowers costs so there’s an optimal amount of grid storage for any given energy mix.
rickydroll
> A great deal of nighttime energy use occurs because electricity prices are cheaper at night.
Utility companies gave away streetlights, security lights, etc., because they would raise the electricity usage generated at times of lower demand. This minimized the need to spin up and spin down generating plants and let them make money on what would have been otherwise wasted power.
Nighttime lighting doesn't consume all of the excess power generated at night. Utilities have cleverly shifted power consumption loads to later times through TOD pricing for residential and industrial customers.
It's no secret that I'm a big advocate for turning down lights at night. Increasing dependency on solar and batteries would make running electricity-intensive processes and industries cheaper during the daytime and reduce the need for baseload power at night.
eminence32
> Panels to the east of you get sunlight earlier in the day and panels to the west of you get it later in the day.
I sometimes think about a sci-fi world in which there is a globally interconnected power grid, so solar panels in daylight India can provide power to Spain. And then when the sun shines in Spain, it can generate solar power for California
PaulDavisThe1st
This model prioritizes generation [0] over storage, by dramatic reliance on transmission systems. That's not inherently a stupid thing to do, but given the reality of global and even national politics, most places are prioritizing storage [1] over generation and limiting transmission goals to national needs.
[0] because India would need to generate not just it's daytime requirements, but also Spain's overnight requirements, and so forth.
[1] because each nation/grid system would need to store significant excess generation to make it through the night/storm systems etc.
greenavocado
Most people who care about independence should be concerned with having a system that can run in island mode but at least 90% of systems installed today are grid tied and cannot function as an island
PaulDavisThe1st
I care about indepedence, but I also care about scale.
It makes absolutely zero sense for me, a homeowner in New Mexico, to have my own storage facilities capable of getting me through a winter heating season (using air-source heat pumps). It makes much more sense for the storage to be centralized, scaled and managed, while my own PV array contributes to it during the summer time.
kopirgan
It is so full of hyperbole but hardly any useful fact!
domoregood
The "Cold Fusion" vibes are strong with this one.
This article is a bad rewrite of this one from a month ago:
https://www.ecoticias.com/en/japan-super-solar-panel/12474/
> Scientists in Japan have been discussing the possibility of using a material called perovskite for solar panels
> The perovskite tandem cell has a theoretical efficiency limit of 43 per cent, while the silicon-based cell has a theoretical efficiency limit of 29 percent. It is speculated that these solar panels will be able to produce 20 gigawatts of electricity by 2040
> Under Section 0 of Japan’s revised energy plan, the Ministry of Industry prioritises the use of perovskite solar cells over the less efficient silicon-based solar cells of yore.
> Japanese company, Sekisui Chemical Co., with the help of the Japanese government, is now working towards developing advanced perovskite solar cells for circulation in the global market in the 2030s.