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The electric power industry is facing several challenges, from fossil fuel and energy infrastructure constraints to energy security and environmental concerns. These challenges are forcing industries, governments and private citizens to consider alternative energy solutions. Luckily the renewable energy industry presents technologies that provide several solutions to the ever-increasing energy predicament in the form of wind, hydroelectric and solar power generation.

Problems with solar power

Solar power generation is steadily becoming a viable energy alternative as the oil price per barrel keeps increasing, and more people are turning to solar systems to power devices in their homes, or to pump electricity back into the grid. Unfortunately, solar power has its own problems. Some of the principal problems facing the solar power industry include a shortage in secure silicon supply, a need to decrease the cost per watt of solar power systems and a lack of aesthetically pleasing solar roof panels.

Solar panel aesthetics

Some may scoff at the idea that solar roof panel aesthetics can be a cause for concern in the marketing and installation of solar power systems; however aesthetics are especially important to home owners and residential communities. Some community councils will go so far as to deny a citizen the right to a solar power installation, if doing so will harm the aesthetics and atmosphere of the community as a whole. The same can be said for commercial and industrial solar power installations; therefore the lack of solar panel aesthetics can cause serious harm to the popularity and implimentation of solar power systems.

Thin film solar panel roof tiles

Manufacturers of solar panels acknowledge aesthetics as a genuine concern and solar power research has produced a new kind of solar panel that uses copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS) instead of silicon in order to produce thin film panels, which are significantly thinner and much easier to hide than traditional solar panels. However, these new aesthetically pleasing thin film panels aren’t as efficient as their bulkier counterparts, and force solar panel manufacturers to focus more on commercial application for the time being.

Brett Adams, from Daystar said, “Because it’s capital-intensive, the way to get cost down is to get volume up, so the thin-film manufacturers are looking for more high volume production applications – that’s how you can get the cost parity to silicon.”

However, thin film technology is still very new, and experts believe that costs will go down and will dominate residential solar power usage as it becomes part of the building process. John Langdon, from HelioVolt, believes that “Solar power today is where air conditioning was in 1950 — everything is a window unit designed for retrofit on existing construction – it’s more expensive, it’s not as good, it’s not as a cost effective. But by 1960 no one built a building without saying ‘Should I put a central air system in?’ – and the same thing is going to happen with solar.”

Solar panel aesthetics is one of the last obstacles facing widespread residential solar power usage. Fortunately, the new thin solar panels give solar power manufacturers an alternative that will secure the future of solar panels. These thin film solar panels masquerade as normal roof tiles, making it almost impossible to differentiate between a solar powered house and a traditional house. The application of solar power is definitely on the rise; soon it will be almost impossible to spot a solar panel on the roof of a house of tomorrow.

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