They use Physical Vapor Deposition (PVD) using a hard vacuum to put the silly decorative metallic finish on plastic kitchen blenders; it becomes economic with large quantities. And very nice antireflective coatings are commonplace in camera lenses.
With that in mind, I'd be very surprised if the glass used in solar panels wasn't coated (at least on the underside) -- it seems like a very easy efficiency win for a very low recurring cost? I know the glass panels are larger than camera lens elements, but still.
Also, regarding antireflective coatings being delicate: yeah, making a coating that is both durable, not overly sticky, and antireflective is a difficult compromise. But don't forget that the underside of the glass is a potential reflection point. Even if they only coated the underside of the glass, that still halves your reflection losses, and the side of the glass that sees the outside environment is dead-standard uncoated glass (or differently coated).
The encapsulant ("glue") between the glass and the cells is usually EVA or sometimes silicone, but in any case it has a similar refractive index to glass so there is not much reflection from the interface between the glass and the encapsulant and not much point in applying anti-reflective coatings on the underside of the glass.
What can be done with a shattered solar panel? Once the new panel is up and working, maybe a teardown? Can the shattered glass be effectively re-bonded by resins like the one in the video near the start of the topic? Can the glass be removed and the panel hacked up and re-glazed to power small low voltage projects?
What can be done with a shattered solar panel? Once the new panel is up and working, maybe a teardown? Can the shattered glass be effectively re-bonded by resins like the one in the video near the start of the topic? Can the glass be removed and the panel hacked up and re-glazed to power small low voltage projects?
UV Resistant epoxy, no filler, slow reactant, very thin layer.
Free panels! I can see people sticking on those shattered glass decals and taking a picture.
A simple AR coating (just 1 or 2 layers) is not expensive. You can get this on windows at a rather low extra costs. Coating window panes is standard (at least in Europe) - in small quatities you may have to pay extra for an uncoated gals.
Even if its only some 3 % of more energy gained, the cost of the coating is likely less than 3% of the panel, and higher efficiency panels also need less area and mounting.
Sould not be a golf ball, as the panels should withstand hail of comparable size and weight und thus therminal speed. This one looks like not just shatterd but way over the design limit.
I found proof of what happened...
