Folding Forum

For those interested in solar energy, a news item about cheap solar power (but there's a 12 month waiting list for the products!) - see http://www.enn.com/business/article/28057

The website is interesting, but the information is still very strongly a sales pitch, not detailed information.

e.g.- How many Watts/M-Sq? It may be half the price of conventional panels, but it it takes 10x the area to collect the power I need that may not be reasonable.

The Solar Cube Appliance was mentioned on the previous forum and it also looks promising. Higher cost cells but fewer of them running at higher efficiently. With reparable modules they overcome several of the advantages touted by "$1/Watt" folks. This simply means that there are more good ideas still being commercialized and if you're looking for a company to invest in, do your homework carefully.

If the solar idea doesnt cut it, you could always try one of these.

http://www.nextenergynews.com/news1/nex ... 2.17b.html

My skeptical mind tells me it looks to good to be true.

v00d00 wrote:If the solar idea doesnt cut it, you could always try one of these.

http://www.nextenergynews.com/news1/nex ... 2.17b.html

How long until I can get the Mr. Fusion sized one. I have this DeLorean I'm trying to restore....

There's a local company here called PlugPower that makes fuel cells for home use. Takes natural gas and turns it into electricity (and hydrogen for hydrogen powered vehicles) for your home. Pretty cool, and probably a bit more realistic, at least in the near term.

I've got a 7.2 KW array on my roof that's working quite nicely. The $1/watt will be nice when it comes out but when you have crazy California power rates of $0.13/kWh with over baseline charges that drive incremental power costs up to $0.30/kWh or more, Solar even at the current $5/watt can make economic sense not to mention the other benefits and possible rebates. You have to analyze for your own situation, but solar is making more sense everyday for residential power generation in areas with high utility rates. Time of Use meters combined with solar make it an even better investment. If you have $0.04/kWh power yje economics aren't ther yet, but you might do solar for other reasons.

ElectricVehicle wrote:I've got a 7.2 KW array on my roof that's working quite nicely. The $1/watt will be nice when it comes out but when you have crazy California power rates of $0.13/kWh with over baseline charges that drive incremental power costs up to $0.30/kWh or more, Solar even at the current $5/watt can make economic sense not too mention the other benefits and possible rebates. You have to analyze for your own situation, but solar is making more sense everyday for residential power generation in areas with high utility rates. Time of Use meters combined with solar make it an even better investment. If you have $0.04/kWh power yje economics aren't ther yet, but you might do solar for other reasons.

Old- timers remember the '70s Arab oil embargo, and the flurry of interest in alternative power technologies which began at that time.
None of the promises of power "too cheap to meter" or "energy independence" have materialized, but the costs of small- scale generation are slowly creeping towards being worthwhile.
The tech side of the equation hasn't really advanced to the point of making alternate power viable, but market pricing certainly has been closing the gap. One way or another, individual ownership of solar/wind/whatever power production will eventually become cost effective... barring political intervention in market pricing, or various forms of protection for the big players.

There's substantial steady progress on the cost of solar technology coming down. The price per watt of panels is going down a few percent every year while inflation keeps going up. The cost of inverters to convert the DC from the panels into synchronized AC for connection to back feed the power grid has come down quite a bit over the last 20 years and continues to edge downward.

There are other factors that can make solar very attractive. If you add a battery bank you can power your house when the grid goes down. Unfortunately grid power reliability will likely get worse in the future rather than better. The batteries do come at an additional cost, requiring more expensive inverters, the cost of the batteries and often a slight reduction in power output from the array if an MPPT (Maximum Power Point Tracker) is not part of the system since the batteries force the DC system to run at the optimal voltage for battery charging, not the optimal voltage for maximum power production.

It's all what you want, what you want to breathe, what works for you and your finances. Run the numbers yourself and make your own decision.

There are probably close to a dozen start up technologies working on reducing the cost of solar cells by 50% or more. Some of them look quite feasible so hopefully at least one of them will succeed in the next 5 years. Even if they don't solar will continue to get gradually cheaper while electricity rates go up and concerns over global warming and other toxic emissions from other types of power generation increase. So the picture for solar is better every year.

One thing that kind of cracks me up is that if someone remodels their kitchen, buys an SUV, large minivan or sports car, their decision isn't subject to economic analysis of how good an investment it is in most cases. Yet a purchase, which in my mind, has much greater value, Solar power for cleaner air and a more sustainable planet is subject to intense economic scrutiny. It's amazing how complacent as a society we are of oil company subsidies etc. So again, do what works for you!

When and if any of the several schemes to produce $1/watt photovoltaics materialize, there will have to be an incredible ramp-up in production facilities to meet demand, and high prices for the panels will be the norm until production capacity meets that demand.
Solar arrays generate power during the hours of peak demand, and arrays located within areas which are at/near grid capacity can negate the construction of more power lines feeding those areas. For that reason, utilities will be the major purchasers, initially, of cheap photo- voltaics.
There may be future schemes where utilities target incentives for individual ownership of solar installs within specific areas of the grid, but don't look for that scenario to become widespread.

Utilities must supply clean reliable power all the time under all circumstances, and that's an expensive proposition.
Many small- scale power producers have discovered that their excess power generation is purchased by the utilities, if at all, at fractions of a cent/KWH, as the utilities only pay for "deferred costs"- what the utilities account as the cost of their own production/watt via large generating facilities.
I know one family which owns a Berkey wind generator which they only run a few days/month. They don't want to wear out their expensive machine to produce essentially free power for the local utility. For them, the windgen will never pay for itself.

There is a huge political component regarding electric power production/pricing, and none of the major players act from any altruistic motive, and that statement includes government at all levels. Some areas still do not have such basic incentives as net- metering in place, as certain utilities have maintained their right to remain the sole producers/retailers of electric power.

Electric Vehicle wrote:It's amazing how complacent as a society we are of oil company subsidies etc.

Which entity finds, purchases, produces, refines, transports and markets a gallon of gasoline- the oil company, or government?
Which entity makes more money from that gallon of gasoline- the oil company, or the government?

ElectricVehicle wrote:It's amazing how complacent as a society we are of oil company subsidies etc.

It's amazing how complacent we are as a socienty to allow our education system to fail our society so much as to cause a large part of our society to be ignorant that oil subsidies even exist. If not, I think there would be less complacency about those subsidies.

alancabler wrote:Which entity makes more money from that gallon of gasoline- the oil company, or the government?

"makes money" = More revenue, or more profit? The taxes on retail gasoline are large. The current average in the US (per state, including federal taxes) is 60 cents/gal.*

*http://www.api.org/aboutoilgas/gasoline ... -Rates.pdf

7im wrote:The taxes on retail gasoline are large. The current average in the US (per state, including federal taxes) is 60 cents/gal.

Heh, completely OT, but 60 cents/gal is not "large" Not when you consider I have to pay $5.31/gal* in tax for my gas over here.

*Converted from figures here: http://www.petrolprices.com/fuel-tax.html

uncle_fungus wrote:

7im wrote:The taxes on retail gasoline are large. The current average in the US (per state, including federal taxes) is 60 cents/gal.

Heh, completely OT, but 60 cents/gal is not "large" Not when you consider I have to pay $5.31/gal* in tax for my gas over here.

*Converted from figures here: http://www.petrolprices.com/fuel-tax.html

Well,, it's too much when you consider the original intent of the taxes. Fuel taxes were intended to pay for highway infrastructure expansion and maintenance, but the taxes have long since been earmarked into oblivion and our roads and bridges are falling apart while the whole transportation construction game is rife with waste and corruption- which no one ever does anything about- which is also true with everything else the gov't does... our legislators are far more concerned with using our tax base as a giant re-election slush fund than they are about doing the right thing for our nation... Don't get me started!

You guys really have it expensive over there. In Norway we have 90% waterpower, and you can count the fossil fuel plants with your hands. This year the kW/h prices have been at bottom $0.025 and at the highest $0,036. Amazing, huh? With these prices and renewable energy I have no conscience running F@H except the fact the energy I use could be exported to minimize coal-load. If I was supplied by non-renewable energy I would definitely not run F@H.

I wonder if Home Depot has an extension cord long enough to reach Norway?

Mobius0412 wrote:I wonder if Home Depot has an extension cord long enough to reach Norway?

You could at least reach Quebec. We get power from dams in a proportion of 95% with the rest being windmills and just 1 nuclear generator. Like Ahavi said, I don't have a problem running my farm and wasting electricity since the only damage is my wallet (we're talking about 30-40$ top to run my farm, being offset in the winter by free heating).