this post was submitted on 02 Mar 2026
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So low-tens of watts per 2m^2 panel. So like 1/20-1/25 output compared to solar.
The theoretical maximum would be whatever kinetic energy actually hits the panel.
If a 2mm diameter raindrop has a mass of 0.034 g and has a terminal velocity of 9 m/s, the total kinetic energy is 0.00275 joules per raindrop.
The threshold for what is considered heavy rain is about .75 cm of rain per hour, so for our square centimeter panel we'd be talking about .75ml of rain per hour, or 22 of those average sized rain drops per hour. That's only .06 joules per square cm, over an hour. That's 0.000016 watts.
2 square meters is 20,000 square cm, so that's .33 watts on the 2 square meter panel. Not significant enough, even on heavy rain.
This is correct, although it should be noted that the power generation side of this is just a kind of cool incidental thing. The main purpose of the coating is to protect the solar cells
Where did solars output start?
First Gen Hydrogenated amorphous silicon had a similarly low output, but around the same time cadmium telluride was at 160w/2m^2 and gallium arsenide was at 450w/2m^2 (in outer space).
Also idk if it's fair to compare this Gen of piezoelectric generation to first Gen PV, since piezo has been around for a while
That was going to be my next question.
Do we have anyone that's looked at energy production lifecycles like that?
And thank you for the response.
Not sure if anyone has studied it across different energy sources, but you might have better luck searching "generational improvements" or "efficiency over time" instead of energy production lifecycle. That sounds more like how much energy would be expected to be produced over the lifetime of the product.