Solar Articles

[eaglesight333]

I have come across a few different articles regarding solar panels and instead of making seperate threads, I will just put them all together.

Solar Surge Is The First Apple Licensed Solar Charging Case For The iPhone and iPod Touch - Solar surge - Gizmodo

How Many Solar Panels Would It Take to Power The Entire World? - Power - Gizmodo

Google: We're Going into the Solar Mirror Business - News and Analysis by PC Magazine

Half Century Old Ford Assembly Plant to Become One of the Nation's Largest Renewable Energy Manufacturing Facilities : TreeHugger

Good News! Nanosolar Reaches Solar Cell Efficiency of 16.4% and Starts Mass Production : TreeHugger

Finally, this last article may not be true, as per the follow up article.
Forget Silicon, This Teenager's Solar Panel Uses Human Hair as a Conductor - Human hair solar panel - Gizmodo

18 Years Old Teenager From Nepal Makes Cheap Solar Panels with Human Hair (Maybe...) : TreeHugger

[radioprius1]

I keep hearing about all these advances in solar panel technology, making them so much more efficient (needing less to generate the same amounts of kWh), or making them so much cheaper. But I never see these making it to any stores.

Make it so I can generate all my electricity for a $5,000 investment and you got me sold. $30,000 is just way too much.

[Shawn Clark]

Originally Posted by radioprius1

I keep hearing about all these advances in solar panel technology, making them so much more efficient (needing less to generate the same amounts of kWh), or making them so much cheaper. But I never see these making it to any stores.

Make it so I can generate all my electricity for a $5,000 investment and you got me sold. $30,000 is just way too much.

I agree. That's the problem I've seen with PV for the past several years. The installed cost of a home system is in the $30,000 range for something that would produce about 7,000 kwh/year. Even at 12 cents/kwh and ignoring financing cost it would take nearly 36 years to break even. With financing costs it loses more money every year, rather than making more.

Realistically, the cost needs to be down in the sub $10k range (including inverter and installation costs) to make PV solar viable. The price point is obvious but the industry isn't even close to it yet.

[drees]

I'm in the late planning stages of my solar system. It's going to cost me around $13k (I hope, still not quite finalized!) for a ~3.2kW (DC) system or about $4/watt. After tax credits cost will be about half.

It helps that I'm going to be doing the install myself with my brother and his friend (both of them work or used to work in the solar industry) and that I'm able to get near wholesale prices because of their connections. But even if I was going to have it professionally installed, prices are around $6/watt installed now which is really very good once you consider installation. Just look at the Solar Energy Group Discounts with 1BOG communities site - if they're running a program in your area you can get a great price.

Panel prices have really been going down in the past 9 months. At the beginning of the year the cheapest panels were wholesale around $3/watt. Now they're close to $2/watt. And they're still getting cheaper.

With Spain and Germany having run out of funds for their feed-in-tariff programs along with the economy being down, there's a bit of a glut in solar panels right now which is seriously driving down panel prices.

Now if only inverter prices and installation prices would do the same thing! Once you can get solar down to $2/watt installed solar will really start taking off, but at current prices the panels themselves are now less than half the cost of an install.

[hill]

Originally Posted by radioprius1

I keep hearing about all these advances in solar panel technology, making them so much more efficient (needing less to generate the same amounts of kWh), or making them so much cheaper. But I never see these making it to any stores.

Make it so I can generate all my electricity for a $5,000 investment and you got me sold. $30,000 is just way too much.

complaints about pv cost are off topic ... but since we're here ... you ought to check out nanosolar as they've finally gotten around to making deliveries


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