Solar Tarps Could Be Cheaper Alternative To Solar Roofs

Tesla’s Solar Roof is undeniably a huge revolution in solar energy simply because it made the technology more palatable. The tiles look gorgeous and don’t appear out of place when placed on rooftops. Unfortunately, it can also be incredibly expensive, which puts it out of reach of most people. For those on a budget, researchers are thinking that Solar Tarps might be more suitable.

This new innovation in solar energy is courtesy of a cross-university team of researchers, including members of institutions like the University of Cambridge, MIT, Oxford, Bath, and Delft. Sam Stranks is from Cambridge and in a recent interview with Inverse, he explains the idea behind the solar tarp.

“There’s a lot of areas that actually can’t take the weight of silicon solar panels,” Stranks said. “There’s an estimate that 40 percent of commercial rooftops in the US actually can’t take the weight of silicon panels.”

Publishing their findings on Joule, the researchers revealed using a material called perovskite instead of the silicone that is usually used to create solar cells and which are incredibly expensive. Perovskite is abundant in supply and is also substantially cheaper than silicone, which makes it the perfect raw material to use for building cheaper solar resources.

“Metal halide perovskites are exciting materials for low-cost optoelectronic devices such as solar cells and LEDs. In order to reach the theoretical efficiency limits for both applications, any parasitic non-radiative charge-carrier recombination losses, such as those mediated by carrier trapping, must be eliminated,” the paper reads.

Before anyone gets too excited, the researchers note that the resulting material is still losing too much energy, which makes them less efficient than modern solar cells. Even so, the mere prospect of having the option to rely on solar energy at such low costs and with so little effort is still inspiring.