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Tuesday, October 02, 2007 Display Technology Promises Cheaper SolarContinued from page 1 By Kevin Bullis
Applied Materials' entry into the market could help push solar toward prices competitive with electricity from conventional sources distributed over the electricity grid. In just the next few years, says Hunter, solar modules made with Applied equipment could produce electricity at a cost similar to the price of electricity in some parts of the United States--15 to 20 cents per kilowatt hour. "There's significant potential for reducing costs," acknowledges Branz. But he says that Applied Materials' customers will face stiff competition from other technologies. "Amorphous silicon's efficiencies have to get higher if it's going to compete in a big way," he says. Indeed, solar cells using amorphous silicon generate less electricity per square meter, hence take up far more room, than solar cells based on crystalline silicon, which are two to three times more efficient. What's more, in the next couple of years, more production capacity for crystalline silicon will be coming online, cutting into the current cost advantage for amorphous silicon. Applied Materials will also face competition from up-and-coming alternatives to silicon, including thin-film solar cells made with more-exotic semiconductors, such as those that use a combination of copper, indium, gallium, and selenium. These, like thin-film silicon, use very little active material and could be produced cheaply, but they have the added advantage of having higher efficiency than thin-film silicon. |
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A Price Drop for Solar Panels
05/01/2008
Comments
nekote on 10/02/2007 at 8:52 AM
115
Page 2: "In just the next few years, says Hunter, solar modules made with Applied equipment could produce electricity at a cost similar to the price of electricity in some parts of the United States--15 to 20 cents per kilowatt hour."
"next few years"
"cost similar"
"some parts of US"
"15 to 20 ¢/KWH"
I certainly hope it comes to fruition.
But, same old, same old - in a few years and still not really competitive pricing / cost.
:(
Kevin Bullis on 10/02/2007 at 3:20 PM
Nanotechnology and Materials Science Editor
39
mhiraoka on 10/05/2007 at 6:40 PM
1
eak on 10/03/2007 at 6:46 PM
8
(a) High retail electricity rates
(e.g. California and Japan, maybe Germany)
(b) Rebates (e.g. California, maybe Germany)
(c) Time of Use (TOU) net metering available
(e.g. California, probably others)
(d) High insolation (e.g. California, but definitely not Germany)
For non-TOU, my PG&E (California) rates start at $0.126/kWh, but there are 5 tiers based on daily usage, so the rates go up from there. That may sound high, but Californians pay about the same as others on average because they used only 6,732 kWh per capita (2003 data), whereas the U.S. average was 11,997 kWh per capita. So $0.126/kWh is like $0.071/kWh is other parts of the country.
For PV, TOU makes a big difference: from solar noon to six I pay/receive $0.294/kWh and other times I pay/receive $0.087/kWh. Since noon to six is great for PV, the meter is essentially always running backward at $0.294. It generally only runs forward at the $0.087 rate. That 3.4 difference makes an enormous difference in PV break-even calculations, which I wouldn't expect to find in the cited article. Here one needs about half as much PV as ones own usage to drive your bill to zero. Adding all the California pieces, PV is cost-effective. One can take out a home equity loan to install a system, and have the monthly payments be less than your monthly electric bill (this is the right way to think about it: years to break-even is a bad way).
These rates sound bad for PG&E, but they aren't. Peaking power plants cost quite a bit to run, and PV is generating strongly when peaking power plants would otherwise be turning on (e.g. maximum AC load).
The point of the above is that $0.294 is a much more favorable rate for PV than $0.126 or $0.08 (I think the national average is around $0.08 or $0.09).
nekote on 10/07/2007 at 8:50 AM
115
A very lovely explanation for the ignorant, like me, why / where such pricing could make sense, at least from an individuals financial point of view!
Thanks for a clear explanation without any vitriol!
Does that make PV the most net cost effective thing for a homeowner to borrow money for?
Or is some sort of super-insulation (or other choices), first, an even better initial investment (reduced AC / heating load) ?
killian on 10/09/2007 at 10:23 PM
54
That's an excellent question. I believe your intuition is correct: investments in things like insulation have greater payoff, but I don't have the data to cite. I remember reading that energy efficiency improvements are like generating electricity at $0.02/kWh: nothing else even comes close, but I don't have a specific reference for you.
phoenix on 10/02/2007 at 10:10 AM
98
urian1975 on 10/02/2007 at 5:27 PM
16
DougDante on 10/04/2007 at 11:00 PM
2
From:
http://www.squidoo.com/nerdanomics#module3921558
The amazing things are the numbers. One line can produce 50-75MWatts of electricity. Most US Nuclear Power Plants run at around or under 1200 MW.
If, starting in 2008, these guys have one line producing 50MW, and double the lines each subsequent year, they'll be making 1 Nuclear Power plant equivalent (1200MW) of PV every year in 2013 (requires 24 lines - they'd have 32). The US nuclear industry probably won't be able to work through the red tape of and bring another reactor online in that time frame.
And they're just one PV company among many. It seems that we're on the cusp of a solar revolution.
TimG on 10/07/2007 at 10:29 PM
8
So, I only need to know three things about a PV system. First, what is the bottom-line, installed cost. Second, how often will it have to be serviced and how much will that be? Last, how long will the system last? These things will tell me whether I can amortize the cost by reducing or eliminating my electric bill.
Tim G...
mwsmike02 on 10/12/2007 at 12:46 PM
1
Someone needs to find a contractor.
What happened to the joint venture
between MIT and Rice on solar driven
nano engines that can be infused in
paint and sprayed on?