Is printing solar panels or wine labels a better use of this machine? Gif: Charge in Australia
One of the main complaints people have about the benefits of electric cars is that they will always contribute to global emissions unless the electricity they use is generated in a clean way. And sure they do, but the emissions per mile from an electric vehicle are a heck of a lot lower than the average gas-powered car.
But scientists around the world are always keen to make things better, and that includes developing much cleaner and more efficient ways of generating the electricity we need to run all of our devices. And that brings us to a group of Australian scientists who are working on something pretty exciting.
A team of scientists from the University of Newcastle in Australia are working on a much cheaper way to make solar panels and have come up with an ambitious way to present their findings.
The team, led by Paul Dastoor, is working on a new solar panel that can be printed on with a standard printer.
In particular, these new bars are made with a wine label maker. Constructing the panels in this way makes them much cheaper than traditional solar cells at just AU$10 per meter. That’s about $2 a foot.
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Currently, the solar cells have an efficiency of about two percent, but the team is aiming for at least a four percent cell efficiency. They also hope to construct the power supplies using organic electronics technology to ensure they are fully renewable.
The scientists will release the new technology from Tesla later this year. Photo: Tesla
It’s a lofty goal for the scientists, and one that’s getting even more ambitious as you hear how they plan to showcase the new technology.
That’s because the University of Newcastle scientists are planning a road trip across Australia in an electric vehicle powered solely by electricity generated on these panels.
According to Reuters, Paul Dastoor and his team will take a Tesla on a 9,400-mile trip across Australia later this year. The journey starts in Newcastle and ends in cities like Sydney and Melbourne.
Dubbed The Charge Around Australia, the trip will see the team travel solely on solar power for 84 days. Along the way, they hope to overcome people’s range anxiety when driving electric cars.
To do this, they transport an 18-meter-long solar panel in the trunk of a Tesla electric car. At each charging stop, the solar cells are rolled out to absorb the sun’s energy and convert it into electricity.
The team says it will take the solar panels six hours to fully recharge the car’s batteries.
But why are these printed solar cells better than ours even though they are much less efficient?
Well, in a blog post on the project’s website, Dr. Benjamin Vaughan of the University of Newcastle that it all boils down to the weight of the panels.
While they require a larger panel area to generate the electricity they need, using the printed panels means the weight of it all would be significantly lighter than using traditional solar cells.
“It makes it easier to carry when traveling. They also roll up so we take up less space, which is handy,” he explained.