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In addition to lack of performance numbers, they misstate the amount of sunlight hitting earth by a factor of 10- it's supposed to be 1000 W/m2, not 100.


If you look at the (random) chart I found here[1] some places in the US are getting 6 - 7 sun hours (hours of insolation) so 7000 / 24 = 291 watts / square meter / day. So using a figure of 100 is quite reasonable when you consider that lots of places don't get that much sun.

1. http://www.solarpanelsplus.com/industry-professionals/insola...


Insolation is usually given as peak power with no clouds or other shade when talking about solar panels (unless you specifically say you're talking about average power over a 24hr period). I think it's probably just a typo in the article.


100w is closer to reality for most places. 1000W per meter squared is an ideal case for some near-equatorual desert at noon with very clean air.


Sorry, no.

100W/m2 is highly unusual for any place on Earth. Take the most overcast midday conditions you can imagine and they'll exceed 100W/m2 by a comfortable margin. That can be in Germany, Canada, Colombia, or Antarctica. If it's sunny, it's very close to 1000, no matter where you are. Partly cloudy can even exceed 1000, since clouds can reflect additional sunlight onto the ground.

Then there's of course nighttime, which is 0 W/m2.

You will have to work really hard to find conditions of 100 W/m2, which is why they standardize on 1000, itself quite straightforward to find anywhere on Earth.

"10% sounds right" is specious.


For Germany the yearly average is 110 W/m² or so. Clear summer days go to >1000, but nights and bad weather days push the average down. Maybe they meant that in the article, maybe they missed a zero.

If they meant it, it seems like an odd comparison without data if the cell scales with power. If it doesn't, it can't properly utilize bright days and would miss out on most of that average power.


Sorry, yes.

You're only counting the peak hour of the day. And yes, there's also nighttime, morning, afternoon, and evening.

And guess what, nighttime is not zero. The moon gives off some light too.


Moonlight is 0.00 watts per square meter. It's almost a million times dimmer than sunlight.




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