Solar Power Much Cheaper to Produce Than Most Analysts Realize, Study Finds

[daveman]

5kw would not power a normal home. 5kw wouldn't even run the dishwasher and hot water heater at the same time.

I just paid my electric bill a week ago. Let me go retrieve it from the file.

<wallks over to filing cabinet>

Okay, so I averaged 17kw per day, which is a light month. July-August billing cycle it was 47kw per day. Since you have to have power for your highest use month, it looks like you need a system 10 times what you stated Old Rocks. $72,000 plus a 4,800 sq. ft grid.

P.S. looks like I pay about 9 cents a kw.

That's the problem with this crop of liberals. They are all talk and no action. They actually think policy should be set based on their theoretical version of how things are for other people. They never actually do it themselves, which is why they still have these views.

The sad part is that they now have one of their own in the White House and as it turns out his theoretical version doesn't bode well for the country. But Old Rocks doesn't care, he's so much smarter, better, and greener because he votes Democrat and lives his nasty polluting lifestyle.

Well, duh. It's not like he's going to give up his comforts. That's for the proles.

Right, Roxy?

 

[Dragon]

Does your per-watt figure include the cost of the half-billion dollars Obama flushed down the low-flow toilet on Solyndra?

It certainly includes any impact that this has on the current market price of solar panels.

By the way, this price is not net of government subsidies, either. In most states and w/r/t the federal program assuming the latter still exists, the subsidy is in the form of a tax credit, so you get it the April following shelling out for the solar system. I was just quoting the market price. Any subsidies would of course reduce the cost further, making it even more competitive.

Regarding net metering, most of that is just convenience not a way to make money. Your rooftoop solar system produces energy during the day while very little is being used and "sells" it to the electric utility. The utility doesn't pay you money for this, it just records a credit. You come home, turn on the lights, cook a meal, power up your computer, etc. and use electricity from the utility that you buy with your credit. At the end of the year, if you've produced more electricity than you've used, the utility sends you a check, but it pays only a fraction of what it charges.

It's possible to run a house off the grid on pure solar, but for that you need a storage battery and during times of major use you're feeding off the battery not directly from the solar panels. So net metering basically replaces the battery. The fact that the sun doesn't shine at night is a problem long since solved, so bringing it up as if it was still a problem is just being snarky to no real purpose.

2012 will be the year that solar power crosses over and becomes mainstream.

 

[saveliberty]

Not without major advances in efficiency. Also, I'm not sure the tax credits continue in 2012. What energy is there to store? If it generates only 5kw per day and a house uses 17kw or greater, you have nothing to store. All talk and no show.

 

[daveman]

Does your per-watt figure include the cost of the half-billion dollars Obama flushed down the low-flow toilet on Solyndra?

It certainly includes any impact that this has on the current market price of solar panels.

By the way, this price is not net of government subsidies, either. In most states and w/r/t the federal program assuming the latter still exists, the subsidy is in the form of a tax credit, so you get it the April following shelling out for the solar system. I was just quoting the market price. Any subsidies would of course reduce the cost further, making it even more competitive.

Regarding net metering, most of that is just convenience not a way to make money. Your rooftoop solar system produces energy during the day while very little is being used and "sells" it to the electric utility. The utility doesn't pay you money for this, it just records a credit. You come home, turn on the lights, cook a meal, power up your computer, etc. and use electricity from the utility that you buy with your credit. At the end of the year, if you've produced more electricity than you've used, the utility sends you a check, but it pays only a fraction of what it charges.

It's possible to run a house off the grid on pure solar, but for that you need a storage battery and during times of major use you're feeding off the battery not directly from the solar panels. So net metering basically replaces the battery. The fact that the sun doesn't shine at night is a problem long since solved, so bringing it up as if it was still a problem is just being snarky to no real purpose.

2012 will be the year that solar power crosses over and becomes mainstream.

Doubtful.

 

[Dragon]

I just paid my electric bill a week ago. Let me go retrieve it from the file.

<wallks over to filing cabinet>

Okay, so I averaged 17kw per day, which is a light month.

That doesn't make any sense unless you mean KWh per day rather than KW. A watt is a measure of electricity intensity of use at a given moment, not over time. Your electric bill is usually in KWh.

If you did mean KWh, then we need to translate that into wattage in order to make a meaningful comparison. Or we could do it from the other direction. Per kw of output, a rooftop solar system will generate 8-10 KWh per day. (That's having it run during 8-10 hours of full sunlight of course.) So in order to match your low winter use, you would need about a 2 KW solar system. If you wanted to completely meet your high-end use in the summer, you'd need more like a 4-5 KW system, but that might not be a great idea; you could use net metering with a system based around your average use rather than peak use. So you could probably do fine with a 3 KW system, which according to the figures I posted earlier you could get for $4,500 or so in components, installing it yourself. Given a 20-year lifespan for your solar panels, that comes to about 200,000 KWh for that price, or a bit over two cents per KWh.

 

[saveliberty]

I just paid my electric bill a week ago. Let me go retrieve it from the file.

<wallks over to filing cabinet>

Okay, so I averaged 17kw per day, which is a light month.

That doesn't make any sense unless you mean KWh per day rather than KW. A watt is a measure of electricity intensity of use at a given moment, not over time. Your electric bill is usually in KWh.

If you did mean KWh, then we need to translate that into wattage in order to make a meaningful comparison. Or we could do it from the other direction. Per kw of output, a rooftop solar system will generate 8-10 KWh per day. (That's having it run during 8-10 hours of full sunlight of course.) So in order to match your low winter use, you would need about a 2 KW solar system. If you wanted to completely meet your high-end use in the summer, you'd need more like a 4-5 KW system, but that might not be a great idea; you could use net metering with a system based around your average use rather than peak use. So you could probably do fine with a 3 KW system, which according to the figures I posted earlier you could get for $4,500 or so in components, installing it yourself. Given a 20-year lifespan for your solar panels, that comes to about 200,000 KWh for that price, or a bit over two cents per KWh.

Most people don't get full sunlight, so that is a myth. Still, at your figures you can't generate enough power. When I looked at all the graphs indepth, solar or wind could not generate more than 10% of my needs. The cost was prohibitive, because in real life, it cost over 10 cents a KWh.

 

[Dragon]

Most people don't get full sunlight, so that is a myth.

I don't know where you live. There are places where solar efficiency is reduced, but I doubt there is any place in the U.S. that the main three decentralized renewable forms of energy (solar, wind, and biofuel) are all no-gos. (There are five main types of renewable energy, those three plus geothermal and hydroelectric, but those last two don't lend themselves to a decentralized approach.) In any case, solar works find on cloudy and rainy days and in northern latitudes. There may be a slight reduction in efficiency but not as much as you might suppose.

Still, at your figures you can't generate enough power.

Of course you can. It's just a matter of installing enough capacity. If you're using net metering, you don't even need to generate as much power as your peak use at any one moment, although if you're trying to go off the grid then you do. By the figures you presented, a 3 KW system, or 4 at the most, should cover everything. For each KW of capacity above what I posted, add $1,250 to the price of components.

When I looked at all the graphs indepth, solar or wind could not generate more than 10% of my needs. The cost was prohibitive, because in real life, it cost over 10 cents a KWh.

I cannot make any sense out of your first sentence. There is simply no way, given the electricity consumption you presented earlier, that a rooftop solar system could not meet that. You are hardly an energy hog. The average household uses 12,000 KWh per capita per year, which is almost 33 per day per person.

As for the cost, the figures I presented were for a self-installed system where you pay only for the components; naturally if you want someone else to install it the price will go up considerably. But even at that, it's come down a lot just over the last few months.

 

[saveliberty]

Most people don't get full sunlight, so that is a myth.

I don't know where you live. There are places where solar efficiency is reduced, but I doubt there is any place in the U.S. that the main three decentralized renewable forms of energy (solar, wind, and biofuel) are all no-gos. (There are five main types of renewable energy, those three plus geothermal and hydroelectric, but those last two don't lend themselves to a decentralized approach.) In any case, solar works find on cloudy and rainy days and in northern latitudes. There may be a slight reduction in efficiency but not as much as you might suppose.

Still, at your figures you can't generate enough power.

Of course you can. It's just a matter of installing enough capacity. If you're using net metering, you don't even need to generate as much power as your peak use at any one moment, although if you're trying to go off the grid then you do. By the figures you presented, a 3 KW system, or 4 at the most, should cover everything. For each KW of capacity above what I posted, add $1,250 to the price of components.

When I looked at all the graphs indepth, solar or wind could not generate more than 10% of my needs. The cost was prohibitive, because in real life, it cost over 10 cents a KWh.

I cannot make any sense out of your first sentence. There is simply no way, given the electricity consumption you presented earlier, that a rooftop solar system could not meet that. You are hardly an energy hog. The average household uses 12,000 KWh per capita per year, which is almost 33 per day per person.

As for the cost, the figures I presented were for a self-installed system where you pay only for the components; naturally if you want someone else to install it the price will go up considerably. But even at that, it's come down a lot just over the last few months.

You are living in a theoretical world. Take wind power for example. Oh they tell you about great power generation. Then when you actually look at the graphs whowing production at different wind seeds, it falls apart. You need an average speed of 28 mph to generate most of the power they claim. Problem is, we have a 12 mph average speed here. It makes meaningful production a no go. I did my research and not just listen to the talking points.

 

[Dragon]

You are living in a theoretical world. Take wind power for example. Oh they tell you about great power generation. Then when you actually look at the graphs whowing production at different wind seeds, it falls apart. You need an average speed of 28 mph to generate most of the power they claim. Problem is, we have a 12 mph average speed here. It makes meaningful production a no go. I did my research and not just listen to the talking points.

You are quite mistaken about me. I research this stuff for a living (well, part of my living).

The really good wind speed I usually see for good wind power is 20 mph, but that's referring to winds some 50 meters above the ground, not at ground level. Not every place is suitable for wind power even so; I won't say anything about your location because I don't even know where it is. A better measure than wind speed is "wind power density."

Here's a partial chart of locations for wind power in the U.S.: United States Wind Energy Resource Map

In my own location, if I still owned a home I would go solar rather than wind. You might be in the same situation.

 

[saveliberty]

You are living in a theoretical world. Take wind power for example. Oh they tell you about great power generation. Then when you actually look at the graphs whowing production at different wind seeds, it falls apart. You need an average speed of 28 mph to generate most of the power they claim. Problem is, we have a 12 mph average speed here. It makes meaningful production a no go. I did my research and not just listen to the talking points.

You are quite mistaken about me. I research this stuff for a living (well, part of my living).

The really good wind speed I usually see for good wind power is 20 mph, but that's referring to winds some 50 meters above the ground, not at ground level. Not every place is suitable for wind power even so; I won't say anything about your location because I don't even know where it is. A better measure than wind speed is "wind power density."

Here's a partial chart of locations for wind power in the U.S.: United States Wind Energy Resource Map

In my own location, if I still owned a home I would go solar rather than wind. You might be in the same situation.

Ah, research is mostly theory. I used the USGS site that allows you to find your wind speeds by zip code. The charts I found for the product I researched, showed 28 mph as the speed at which their product produced the advertised power.

I live on a tree lined street with a small lot. It is also in southern Michigan with long stretches of heavy overcast in the winter. Neither is viable as a large supplier of my electric needs or cost effective.

 

[Old Rocks]

OK. I can see where you have a problem. Possibly this is the only year round system that you can use to defray your energy costs.

AOL Search

For summer, you can use a passive rooftop solar water heater. I have four panels on a low slope north facing roof that can heat a 16 by 24 swimming pool to a warmer than comfortable temperature on a sunny March weekend in Portland, Oregon.

But where I intend to retire, there are about 300 sunshine days a year. And the wind is quite strong in the winter cold winter months. So both solar and wind are excellent investments. And both will be grid tied.

 

[zonly1]

If we listened to conservatives, we would be rubbing two sticks together to start a fire. They only have faith in mysticism and none in science.

I've listen to leftnutters and they would like to put us back into the stone age, horse drawn carriage, etc. As far as enhancing your iq, just cont to have your IQ play hand ball against the curb.

 

[Dragon]

The stuff I've been looking into lately as part of my job involves making your own solar panels using bulk solar cells bought at a discount and basic electrical materials. Time consuming but not difficult. It saves at least 50% of the cost of solar panels, further reducing the cost.

We aren't far from the time when all new houses will be built with a rooftop solar and/or wind system as much a standard feature as good insulation. The really cool thing is that solar lends itself so well to a decentralized approach. You CAN use it to generate power in a huge plant connected to the grid and no doubt we will do that, but by putting systems on rooftops you weaken the grip of the utility companies, which is a good thing. (We all like freedom here, right? Of course we do!)

Another interesting development comes from China. It seems that in the aftermath of all the problems with American solar companies filing complaints about Chinese product dumping, China has adopted a policy that aims to increase domestic solar consumption to 50% of the country's total production over the next few years. This is long-term good news for the environment, as China is potentially the worst polluter of all, so any greening of the country as it industrializes is to be encouraged.

Along with rising Chinese wages, it's good on the economic front, too.

 

[saveliberty]

Here's an intersting development too:

SAGINAW, Mich.&#8212; The chief executive of a California-based solar power company says a lack of market demand and costs to operate its Saginaw plant led to its decision to relocate to the northern part of Michigan's Lower Peninsula.

The Saginaw News reports (GlobalWatt CEO: We're not investing $17.7 million into Saginaw plant because of slowing solar industry | MLive.com) Friday that GlobalWatt Inc. CEO Sanjeev Chitre held a news conference in Saginaw County's Kochville Township to discuss cancelling plans to stay and grow in the area.

Chitre says San Jose-based GlobalWatt would have paid $35,000 a month for the Saginaw location. It has moved equipment to a renewable energy product maker in Copemish, about 25 miles southwest of Traverse City.

He called it a "manufacturing partnership."

Chitre says GlobalWatt hasn't received taxpayer money and could return to Saginaw if the market grows and prices stabilize for solar panels.

Solar firm CEO: Saginaw plant cost too much - chicagotribune.com

 

[usmcstinger]

Why why have so many green energy companies gone broke?
Why are Chevy Volts not selling?
Spain tried to create a green driven economy. It lead to a horrific economic failure.
While having full knowledge of Spain's fiasco, why did Obama still try to implement a green energy driven economy?

If Obama had instead used natural gas as a bridge fuel, gasoline and foreign oil prices would not have had an impact on our economy. In addition, many jobs would have been created.

 

[Old Rocks]

Residential Solar Industry Growth | Solar Panels - Green Power

A recent white paper published by SunRun discusses residential solar industry growth and includes projections for the future of solar energy.

Over the past year, the number of people with jobs in the solar industry doubled to over 100,000 in 2010. Further increase in solar jobs will continue into 2011, with a projected rise of an additional 26%. In short, the solar industry is creating employment opportunities faster than the overall economy in the United States. Residential solar demand is responsible in large part for the increase in the number of solar jobs.

With more homeowners installing solar panels, demand rises for both solar products and qualified installers. In turn, the more solar industry jobs there are, the more people are available to serve the very consumers that are wishing to go solar. Its a positive &#8220;vicious circle.&#8221; As described in the SunRun white paper on residential solar industry growth:

 

[Old Rocks]

Save Liberty, for your information. A 5 kw system means that a high noon, the system will put out 5 kw. Over the course of a summer day, it will put out as much as 30 kwh. In the winter, much less. A 5 kw systme will handle most people's needs. You really need to do more research before you make really dumb comments.

 

[uscitizen]

I just cannot believe how many on the right automatically are against any alternative energy sources.
Damned luddites.

But the same person will praise any tech improvement in fossil powered vehicles

 

[asterism]

Save Liberty, for your information. A 5 kw system means that a high noon, the system will put out 5 kw. Over the course of a summer day, it will put out as much as 30 kwh. In the winter, much less. A 5 kw systme will handle most people's needs. You really need to do more research before you make really dumb comments.

What?

A 5kw system will handle most people's needs? Are you high? Break this down for me. How will a 5kw system power a whole house air conditioner, a refrigerator, a stove, and a dryer?

 

[asterism]

I just cannot believe how many on the right automatically are against any alternative energy sources.
Damned luddites.

But the same person will praise any tech improvement in fossil powered vehicles

I'm not against them at all. Find me one, I've looked.