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Matt and Sean talk about solar power generation from two-faced panels … no, not lying panels, but bifacial solar panels with some big updates that should help them become more common.
Watch the Undecided with Matt Ferrell episode, How the Back of a New Solar Panel Just Changed Everything https://youtu.be/tQoV4Qj0NQs?list=PLnTSM-ORSgi7uzySCXq8VXhodHB5B5OiQ
Matt and Sean talk about solar power generation from two-faced panels … no, not lying panels, but bifacial solar panels with some big updates that should help them become more common.
Watch the Undecided with Matt Ferrell episode, How the Back of a New Solar Panel Just Changed Everything https://youtu.be/tQoV4Qj0NQs?list=PLnTSM-ORSgi7uzySCXq8VXhodHB5B5OiQ
Follow us on X: @stilltbdfm @byseanferrell @mattferrell or @undecidedmf
Undecided with Matt Ferrell: https://www.youtube.com/undecidedmf
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Creators and Guests
What is Still To Be Determined?
Join Matt Ferrell from the YouTube Channel, Undecided, and his brother Sean Ferrell as they discuss electric vehicles, renewable energy, smart technologies, and how they impact our lives. Still TBD continues the conversation from the Undecided YouTube channel.
Sean Ferrell: Today on Still to Be Determined, we're talking about the Batman villain that is taking the solar powered generation world by storm. That's right. We're talking about Two Face. Wait, no, we're talking about bifacial solar panels. Sorry about that. I've got Batman on my mind. Who am I? Well, I'm Sean Ferrell. I'm a writer. I write some sci fi, I write some horror, I write some stuff for kids, and I’m just generally curious about technology. Luckily for me, my brother is that Matt behind Undecided with Matt Ferrell, which takes a look at merging tech and its impact on our lives. Excuse me. While I suddenly hiccuped just like my mother.
Matt Ferrell: There's only one person that gets that comment.
Sean Ferrell: These are heady, heady days. With me, as always, is the aforementioned Matt. Matt, how are you today?
Matt Ferrell: I'm doing great, Sean.
Sean Ferrell: Glad you are.
Matt Ferrell: It's iPhone weekend. My wife's getting a new iPhone and I got the new orange iPhone. I'm very excited about the new camera system. I use this for film for actual work. So there's a reason why I'm getting this. Not just because it's the newest, latest, best.
Sean Ferrell: Where does that stand? I mean, let's talk about emerging tech and its impact on our lives. Okay, so brand new iPhone.
Matt Ferrell: Yeah.
Sean Ferrell: Let's wrestle with when does somebody get a new phone? What's your suggestion for?
Matt Ferrell: Yeah, I think you should get a new phone only if it's not performing in the way that you need to get stuff done. If your phone is ticks all the boxes for you, don't even consider it. Just keep, keep, keep on trucking. If the battery's getting bad but the phone itself is good, get the battery replaced and keep on going. Don't replace it unless you need to. For me, it's like the improvements to the cameras and the phone for the quality of the video I can get out of it is the main reason I wanted to upgrade. So it's like if, if that wasn't in here, I wouldn't have considered upgrading. I would have kept my old phone. But.
Sean Ferrell: And what is the improvement over your old phone as far as the camera?
Matt Ferrell: Not to get too techy, but it's. There are 48 megapixel chips on there, larger chips, so it gives you better quality image with less noise in it. So it makes using my phone more viable when I'm on the go and filming things out in the world, like I'm going to go into CES probably. It's like I could use my phone in addition to whatever camera I bring with me, that's a huge benefit because it's always on me, really easy to use. That's the main reason why I got it.
Sean Ferrell: And what was your previous phone?
Matt Ferrell: It was the previous iPhone.
Sean Ferrell: So this is a do as I say, not as I do situation. You are, you are a person who does get the newest and latest and greatest, but you also know that not everybody needs to do that. Is that how you live your life?
Matt Ferrell: Well, no, no, it's. I sometimes go a couple years older.
Sean Ferrell: Than I meant to.
Matt Ferrell: I know you did. Yeah. I go a couple years on my phone sometimes. But on occasion, if there's a big enough upgrade, that solves something for me, I see a potential for me, I will upgrade. So this was a one year between upgrades, but previous phones, it's been two years. So it's like I haven't. My wife, it's been three years. So it's like we're not crazy people. It's, it's, it's honestly comes down to, oh, the, the photography and videography stuff on this phone. There was enough new stuff added that made me kind of like perk up. I wasn't considering getting any until I saw what it could do for videos.
Sean Ferrell: Right. And how would you say it stacks up against an iPhone 13?
Matt Ferrell: Sure. Time to upgrade, buddy.
Sean Ferrell: So you hear to hear first, everybody. You should stick with what works for you unless you are dealing with something as ancient as a 13. Serious question. I know that Apple reaches points where they're like our newest tech and our previous generations reach a point where maintaining the oldest of the old is no longer viable. They always hit that like there's that rolling window of moving forward. Where is that window closing right now? What generation of iPhone?
Matt Ferrell: I can't remember what the generation is, but Apple typically keeps it in that five to kind of like seven year window. So if you're in that window, you might want to start thinking about maybe it's time to.
Sean Ferrell: Does that go back to a 10?
Matt Ferrell: Maybe it doesn't go that far back. It might be around the 13 or 12 kind of area.
Sean Ferrell: Asking not necessarily for myself as much as for my son who I think is lugging around a 10. And I'm thinking like, oh, maybe, maybe, maybe I should get myself a new one and then give him this 13. Maybe he'll be better off with that. But we'll see. We'll see. Now to our discussion about our most recent episode. This would be our discussion from episode 280 in which we talked about seaweed collection and the uses people are finding for Sargassum, basically take this stuff that used to just happily swirl in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. And then climate change, current change, storms started pushing it into areas where it's finding its way to the Caribbean parts of Mexico. And people are grossed out by rotting vegetation on beaches. Who knew? But there have been some enterprising people who have been finding ways of taking this and using it in different ways. And there was some discussion about our discussion like this from Freeluna2, who said, I can see that harvesting seaweed on land is a lot easier than attempting to collect it at sea, especially since land collection is essentially a byproduct of cleaning the beach. I'm wondering if locating a seaweed collection boom off of a beach might be a way to go that way. The boom can protect the beach from getting fouled while aiding in harvesting. And one minor point about solar on the islands, hurricanes. Hurricanes are frequent and a pain in the ass for solar panels. Thank you, Freelooma. Yes, we talked a bit about the collection methods and one of the things that did come up in our conversation and from the comments on that episode, was that, yeah, trying to go out into the ocean and collect these things is going to be trickier because you end up with, well, how do you get out there and find the right spot? But then there's the other issue, which is, well, you don't want to let it get to the beaches.
So putting something in place might be a solution. The only problem is, what if you build a boom and it's in the wrong part of the beach? So picking up on the comment about solar panels in the Caribbean, is there any kind of research that you're aware of around solar panels in areas where you do have this kind of storm potential? Like, I guess I'm generally curious, the Caribbean parts of Mexico, Florida, are these places where they shy away from solar panels for just these reasons, or are there ways just like building? You build homes, you build homes that have glass windows. You have areas where there's going to be a storm moving through, but it doesn't stop you from building other things. So why not build a solar panel farm as well? So is that basically where we're landing, is that. Yeah, we just need to make these things as resilient as possible and potentially replace them when they break?
Matt Ferrell: Yes, it's one of those. When I hear this, it's kind of like I understand where it's coming from. When people say they're concerned about like, oh, I live somewhere there’s lots of hail. Like in Texas or something like that, or in Florida, the hurricanes. There are ways that you can install these things, and there are panels you can get that are rated for certain wind speeds, Mounting systems that are rated for certain wind speeds. Hail size. It can take a hail hit that's a inch and a half in diameter, and it will not even show a scratch. It's like, these are far more resilient than I think a lot of people realize. And there have been some devastating hurricanes that came through Florida not too long ago, a few years ago, and sections of Florida lost power. And there's this one community that didn't because they had a community solar farm that kept on chugging and kept those homes going. And guess what didn't get damaged. Solar panels. Because they're a lot more resilient than you'd expect. So it's kind of like there are ways to do it. And, yeah, if some get damaged, then just like part of your roof got damaged from a hail storm, you have to replace it. You replace the handful of panels got damaged. So it's. You just kind of roll with it. But they're far more robust than I think people realize.
Sean Ferrell: I think that this falls into the category for me of the newness of a thing lends a heightened sense of concern. And then once they become more regularly seen and we become accustomed to them, we stop giving them special, like, oh, we need to wrap them in cotton swabs so they never get touched. And I'm thinking of things like, there was a point in time where people were like, why would you carry a phone in your pocket? You could drop it and it could break. And yes, that was true then. That is true now. But can you imagine walking up to anybody in this point and day and saying, hey, buddy, what are you doing with your phone in your pocket?
Matt Ferrell: They're going to be like, you're a crazy person. Think about the, like, they call it gorilla glass. There’s a company makes it here in the United States, that's on the front of iPhones. And there's Android phones with the same kind of thing where you could take your car keys and, like, scratch the front of your glass all you want, and it will not leave a mark. Because on the most hardest scale, the metal of your key is not as strong as the ceramic on the front of your screen. So it's like there's. There's ways to make these things way more robust than you'd think. Glass is glass, and glass breaks. As Zach from Jerryrigeverything always says on his YouTube channel, and he's not wrong, but it's like you can make it more robust than you'd expect to stand up to a lot of stuff.
Sean Ferrell: This comment from Max Kennedy hit me where I live. Don't know if this was mentioned, but feeding seaweed to cattle reduces methane production. Yeah, I know cow farts aren't high tech and glamorous, but it's a good alternative use. I couldn't help. Like this is. This is one of those things about, like biochemistry that's fascinating to me that not all fibers are created equal. And the idea that you could feed an animal one thing and it's going to result in something that's more or less catastrophic on a certain scale. But I wanted to include this not because I thought it was funny, but I mean, there are scientists who say part of the climate change issue is in fact cattle.
Matt Ferrell: Oh, yeah, it's a huge part.
Sean Ferrell: The, the, like, the causes of climate change historically. There are those scientists who say, yeah, one of the things that killed the dinosaurs was climate change. What caused that climate change? Well, dinosaurs, they ate a lot of plants, they passed a lot of gas, and that put a lot of things in the atmosphere that changed the atmosphere itself. So, Max, I enjoyed your comment, not because I thought it was funny, but because I think it's scientifically accurate. It's something we need to consider. Yes, and it's funny. And finally, these from Mac Fisher and Mark Loveless. They struck me as a pair, not just because they were next to each other, but, I mean, we'll understand why in a moment. Mac writes, Matt, I like your facial smirk when your brother starts a rant. Believe me, Mac, I'm accustomed to that face. And Mark writes, huh? I already have a coastal fouling back tattoo. I guess Sean and I will become tattoo buddies. That's right, Mark, as soon as I get mine done, which is happening this weekend. On now to our discussion about one from a couple of weeks ago. For Matt, this is how the back of a new solar panel just changed everything. This dropped two weeks ago. We are visiting this one instead of the more recent one about nanorobots, because this one, well, Matt and I really wanted to talk about solar panels. It's something we haven't talked about before on this channel.
Matt Ferrell: It's a first.
Sean Ferrell: So let's get the clickbait monster out of the room, shall we?
Matt Ferrell: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
Sean Ferrell: A number of comments that I could have chosen from. I chose this one to stand in for all of them. This is From Dave Dalfa, who writes, skip the entire clickbait at 8:50, rear panels are 91% efficient as the front. That's all. So, Matt, I know you. I trust you. I do not see you as a clickbait guy. But there were a number of people showing up in the comments of your video saying, Matt Clickbait. Really?
Matt Ferrell: Yes.
Sean Ferrell: I want to ask you a couple of questions. First, yes.
Matt Ferrell: Yes.
Sean Ferrell: Did you mean to clickbait? Second, do you feel you clickbaited? Third, what did you do about the clickbait?
Matt Ferrell: Okay, so did I try to clickbait? Let me respond to that. In everybody's definition of clickbait is different. Where you draw that line is different. And where I draw the line is this makes me feel old when I say this, but like Bait and Switch. In a store, there's a Black Friday sale. We have a 65 inch LED TV for 150 bucks. People crash the store to get that sale when the door is open and they have one in stock and it sells out like that. And then it's like, well, we do have this one over here for 450. It's still a great deal. You know, it's that Bait and Switch.
Sean Ferrell: Yeah.
Matt Ferrell: I never want to do that in my videos. To me, that is where the clickbait line is drawn. So it's like, yes, if you make a title and a thumbnail enticing to make the viewer want to click to watch that video, I see nothing wrong with that if you deliver on what is in that title and thumbnail. So for me, that's the criteria. So when you say, did I clickbait? It depends on your definition. I tried to be enticing. I'm always trying to be enticing in the titles. It's the game you have to play on YouTube and there are people that get on the soapbox and like, you shouldn't do any of that. And if I didn't do that, I could make the best video that has ever been produced. That when somebody starts watching it, they watch all the way to the very end. And 100% of people watch that entire video. And if I have the worst title and just like a thumbnail is like a black box and like nothing on it. Like, like it's the worst that you could possibly imagine. It's gonna get no views. Like, nobody will watch it. It's the combination of you have to create a video that people want to watch once they get inside the video. And then you have to create a video that people want to click on to watch in the first place. That's the way YouTube's algorithm works. And so it's like when people rail against this, I understand why they rail against it, but don't hate the player, hate the game, I guess I would say. And I can show you in my analytics the proof. There are videos where I stayed as far away from clickbait as I possibly could, and those videos got no views. And then when I changed the thumbnail and changed the title, something a little more provocative, suddenly they take off. It's like, it's just the way it is. But I did not try to do anything deliberately deceptive or like a lie or anything in that title.
Sean Ferrell: But so what happened?
Matt Ferrell: What happened was when I saw the comments come flooding in of, like, clickbait, I was like, the number of people was.
Sean Ferrell: I don't know that I saw it.
Matt Ferrell: How this bifacial solar panel reaches 91% efficiency. I thought it was clear because I said it's a bifacial solar panel, but because
Sean Ferrell: I can tell you my instinctive response to that is that that is not accurate to what I understand after watching your video, what that means now. But I would have clicked through thinking something else.
Matt Ferrell: Yes, exactly. So that's why it was like, I made the mistake of I'm in the know of what that all means. And I wasn't trying to be deceptive. It was just a. I wasn't looking. I made the mistake of not looking at it from somebody's point of view who doesn't know the topic, what the efficiency numbers mean. Yeah, right. So when I saw the clickbait coming in, it was like, oh, oh, oh, no. And so I changed it right away. So the title changed because of the feedback. So, again, thanks for everybody for keeping me honest. But it's one of those. It was not an intentional lie or intentional thing. And I'm always trying to find that line of where I think is a fair place to be. Because you have to do that on YouTube. Yeah. On this one, it went a little. It obviously went too far on the other side.
Sean Ferrell: So, yeah, it's a. I mean, it is a business and it is. It is marketing, and it is understandable that you need to get people's eyeballs on the thing. And the way you do that is by being enticing, as you said. So I think. Yeah, go ahead.
Matt Ferrell: I will point out. There's a huge YouTube channel that anybody that watches my videos knows this channel. It's Veritasium and Derek and Veritasium has not just one, he has a couple of videos that are directly about, like, what is clickbait that he goes into in depth. He breaks the analytics of how the algorithms work and all the analytics of testing he's done. And what is in trying to define this, they're fantastic videos and he does a way better job explaining the system than what I, you know, whatever I just said now. But they're really entertaining videos and I think they kind of might help you understand why youtubers do what they do.
Sean Ferrell: I was curious, I recently watched a video about YouTube's recent changes to the system, and I'm curious if you've considered doing a video about this yourself to talk about what maybe taking the angle of what are these new tools? How do they work and how might they impact things like this for you as a producer of your own things? Because one of the things that came up was the ability to test multiple versions of thumbnails and titles. The ability to like, to see, okay, what is getting the clicks. But the analysis I saw was very much just about the tech. It didn't include any of the creative analysis that you're also talking about, which is you, okay, you've tested three things, and this one gets 300% more clicks than these other two. So I'm gonna go with that one. What if that one is nothing but clickbait? Like, the tech is not built around avoiding clickbait. The tech is just to get the click correct. So something from the analysis of the creative who's saying, okay, yeah, these tools exist, and if you aren't conscious of how to use them, they lead you down the path of potentially clickbaity. So how do you find that balance? I think it's an interesting conversation.
Matt Ferrell: Like I said, the line is drawn in different places. I have YouTuber friends. They don't care about where that clickbait line is drawn.
Sean Ferrell: And they'll say whatever they need to say.
Matt Ferrell: It's like, whatever. It's like, I mean, they're not lying. They will not. They didn't, full stop, will not lie. But they don't care how much people think it's clickbait or not. If you click that video and you watch the video, that's all they care about, right? So it's like, you may hate that it's clickbait, but you watched it. So. So that's their kind of view. I don't have that hardcore view. I do have a line I don't want to kind of cross, but it's my. Where I draw my line is different from where somebody else draws their line. So there's that creative like you brought up. There's a creative kind of like point of view and almost an ethics behind what you do and why you do it.
Sean Ferrell: Wanted to lean now into the conversation that was taking place in the comments around the panels themselves. There was some interesting speculation on your part around why are they called zebra crossing. Harvey jumps into the comments to say zebra crossing is the phrase used to describe pedestrian crosswalks in many English speaking places outside the US because of the black and white pattern of the stripes where the asphalt makes the black. The sintering pattern resembles the stripes in such crosswalks, which appears to be the basis for the term that uses the phrase. I'm curious, where was the research that you were talking about? Where they developed that technology? Where was that done?
Matt Ferrell: In the research paper they talk about zebra striping with no context, explanation or context.
Sean Ferrell: Right.
Matt Ferrell: I find that frustrating. It was like they mentioned it. It's like, what do you mean by this? There was no supporting images in the research paper. It was just like, thanks guys, you're making an assumption. I think this assumption is correct that Harvey's bringing up.
Sean Ferrell: It probably is.
Matt Ferrell: It was not a US research team. I can't remember if it was.
Sean Ferrell: That's what I was wondering if it was a U.S.
Matt Ferrell: It was either European or it was Singapore or Taiwan. Can't remember which region it was in. But it was not America. So it makes perfect sense why this may have been it.
Sean Ferrell: So yes, I'm always interested in. Scientists name things and sometimes they don't reveal why they've named a thing. And very often it's very cute. I like the idea of people being like, well, it kind of looks like a crosswalk, so we'll name it a zebra pattern. It's just like is the zebra? Is the terminology of that just used globally in a way that it's not used in the US and maybe they don't even know why. Maybe it's just, oh, you talk about zebra ing when it's stripes just because.
Matt Ferrell: Yeah, exactly.
Sean Ferrell: This came up for me recently in a video I watched about the Martian lander. And I mean, this tapped all the buttons for me regarding like lonely robots, sad robots, Wall-E. The Martian lander has rolled around on Mars and collected rock samples. And it picks some of the rock samples up and it tests them by shooting ultraviolet rays at them and then drops them. And other samples, it actually takes and holds onto them and keeps them in its body with the expectation that someday we'll go up and get them. We talk about, like, how sad and lonely is that this little robot rolling around with a bunch of rocks inside its stomach saying, like, maybe someday somebody will want these. I'm just like, oh my God, that robot.
Matt Ferrell: Wall-E.
Sean Ferrell: But the lander has two arms, two cameras on it that are used in its detection of materials. And this came up because of recent headlines from NASA, which were basically, they found what may be evidence of life on Mars in what would have been a riverbed. They have found specks of material that statistically are more likely to have come from the breakdown of organic matter than from any other source, like just meteorite strike or something like that. It's basically chemical compounds that leave a pre fossil imprint on stone. And that staining is what they found. And it is tiny, tiny little flecks. So it's literally like less than a millimeter. But the scientists are like, statistically, when you see this, it means something organic broke down, not that some other inorganic source left it. So that is there. We think we found life or signs of life. But there are these two tools that the lander has that are named Sherlock and Watson. And I obviously knew exactly what they were referring to, But I loved the idea that the scientists built this thing. And they named the one that is the wide angle broadband lens is Watson, and the one that is narrowly focused and highly intensive is Sherlock. And strangely, Sherlock is broken. And I thought, wow, even when it comes to being a part of a lunar lander, Sherlock's got some problems. So apparently what it is is these small motor gyros that allow for minor movements of that camera are broken. So they've been using it by using the large motor of the arm itself to adjust its angle, which makes it a lot harder, obviously, because then you're like, you got to turn the entire body and you got to turn this arm a little bit. And you're like, we're still not the right angle. The little, the microscopic gears aren't working.
So I'm like, why give these NASA scientists like they will figure out how to do a thing when it's just like, well, okay, we're millions of miles.
Matt Ferrell: Yeah, they're going to science the shit out of this.
Sean Ferrell: Yeah, it really feels like that. So, yeah, if there are any scientists out there, I think what Matt and I are saying is in the future, you write that paper, you're saying like, oh, we found this, and it compares to this little micron. And we compare these two microns, and we decided that one of them is this instead of that. And so we named it Jerry. Tell us why you named it Jerry.
Matt Ferrell: Tell us.
Sean Ferrell: Yes, just drop us a hint.
Matt Ferrell: Tell us a story.
Sean Ferrell: Tell us a story. We're there for the story as much as we are for the science. So let us in on the secret. There was also some conversation about whether or not these bifacial panels are in fact the future of panels. And I have my thoughts about this, but Aerowhiskers jumped in and I'm not going to read the entirety of Aerowhiskers comment. I do suggest people take a look at the entire comment. I found it really interesting. They jump in saying at the beginning just my two cents as someone who does PV energy modeling professionally while bifacial technology is cool, the biggest factor that limits bifacial production is backside radiance. There are some tricks to try to maximize it, but ultimately PV system design is centered around maximizing frontside irradiance first and foremost, as arguably it should be. They then go on into greater details regarding like the reasons for the lack of reflectivity, ending with I do think it's really cool that these new modules have a bifaciality factor over 90%. To have a module that functions almost the same back and front side is new and quite exciting, but I don't really see it impacting industry wide bifacial gains more than a few percent because again the issue isn't really the backside performance, it's the fact that the the backside is by definition always in the shade and never getting direct beam radiance. So it becomes, it goes back I think to what you talk about in the video. Is this a technology where the benefit comes from when you can do this cheaper? Is it really, does it once again trip over the okay, science is going to science and the science is like well, improvements and is it really that much better? And no, we don't know if it is. Arrow points out in their comments they have seen people take bifacial panels and mount them right against a roof because the panel itself was simply cheaper.
It didn't matter that it was bifacial to anybody. So they're like it doesn't matter that it's bifacial. It was cheaper than the monofacial. So so we're putting it down as if it's monofacial. Are we losing something? Not really because it was cheaper. So does this become a standard where if you can build something cheaper that is bifacial, do we just end up with bifacial that people use for monofacial and not worry about it. Is it really that much worse or is somebody going to say we decided to move away from bifacial because all people were doing was using it as monofacial? I don't know that producers are going to say that if people are buying the thing. So is this just dollars and cents winning again?
Matt Ferrell: Yeah, monofacial is not going anywhere. But the whole point of the video and the reason why I do think this is changing everything is because it's that TOPCON technology which is much cheaper to produce bifacial panels than like the heterojunction HJT cells. So it's like you end up making bifacial panels that are cheaper and just as effective as the more expensive type. It's still going to be more expensive than a monofacial. But then that's where you look at the dollars and cents of how much power is this entire system as a bifacial system outputting over the course of a year versus a monofacial system. And how much did it cost to install? And then you can do the calculations by how much per kilowatt hour did that solar energy cost over the system over the course of five years, 10 years, 20 years. And you can very quickly just in a spreadsheet come up with the number of like, okay, my failure makes way more sense. Yeah, it may only increase our power output by 10% but when you factor that over five years or 10 years, it's gobs of extra money or energy that you'll get over time that's going to really be meaningful. So it comes down to the money. It always comes back down to the money. There's a related to this and I push back on Errol Whiskers a little bit is there's a YouTube channel. I've been loving watching his name. It's projects with Everyday Dave. He is doing God's work. He's got a ground mounted solar array facing south at a 30 degree angle and he lives in Ohio. And part of that ground mounted array is are bifacial panels and the other half are monofacial. And then he's got two little setups of just two panels mounted vertically. So he's got bifacial panels facing east west and then he's got another set of two panels facing north south and I think it's on the east west.
He has one bifacial panel facing this way and the other one facing the other way because there is a back of the panel. So he basically has the back and the front on both sides, if that makes sense. They're swapped. So he's. And he's been leaving this up there. And he's got two years of data now. And so I'd watch one of his most recent videos where he was going through the numbers of like, what works well and what works doesn't well. And he came up with this. It's like, this is where it's counterintuitive, Sean, because the north south panels in Ohio are the most, like in the middle of winter, were outperforming the 30 degree facing south panels. They were outperforming the east west panels. It was like he. It was like, so counterintuitive. But then the middle of summer, those panels don't do great. And it's all because of where's the sun in the sky. And so he's basically trying to figure out what's the best way to use monofacial and how reflective snow is on the ground. Correct. And what he's finding is, and this is what I've been seeing in a lot of my videos, is mounting vertical. Vertical bifacial panels is crazy pants. Awesome. And so it's like he was basically finding that if you put those panels, I think it's east west. No, east west was the worst. But east west is like consistent all year. And so it's like, it may not produce the overall amount of power over the course of a year, but if you're. If your needs are, I want to guarantee that I'm always going to get at least 10 kilowatts of power out of this system and all that kind of stuff, no matter what time of year it is. You could mount vertical panels in this east west orientation. Or if you're looking for something that achieves this goal, you can mount them in the north south. And this is where it's like, it's counterintuitive.
And it depends on where you are in the world, what your needs are will determine which panel you use. And that's where it all comes back to. Also money. So I think it's huge news that these TOPCON panels could potentially reduce the costs. And then you could start mounting these things as fences. They're perfect for agrivoltaics because you can mount them between rows in your fields and they take up virtually no room because they're vertical. If you live in an area with snow, that's the other thing he's been finding. It's like snow can't collect on them because they're vertical. They're vertical right so, and then on top of that, you get the sun reflecting off of the white snow hitting the back of the panel in a way that it normally wouldn't. And so in the middle of winter, these panels are like gangbusters for what they're producing. Where my panels on my roof might be producing nothing because they're covered in snow. And so it's, it's cool stuff, Sean. I really geek out on this stuff. But watch his channel projects with Dave.
It's really worth watching.
Sean Ferrell: It's a good recommendation. Thank you everybody for taking the time to leave those comments that got this conversation going. As you can tell, they do spur on the conversation that we have here on this podcast. So keep those comments coming. And in that vein, jump into the comments right now and let us know what you thought about this episode. We look forward to taking a look at what you had to say. Don't forget, if you want to support the podcast, leaving a comment, liking, subscribing, sharing with your friends, all those are great, easy ways for you to support the podcast. And if you want to support us more directly, you can click the join button on YouTube. You can also go to StilltBD.fm, click the Become a supporter button there. That also allows you to throw coins at our heads. We appreciate the welts. And then we get down to heavy, heavy business. Talking about snow angels. No snow panels. No solar panels in the snow. That's what we were talking about. I knew I'd get there eventually. Thank you so much, everybody for taking the time to watch or listen. We'll talk to you next time.