Solar energy at US$1 per watt

[Syndyre]

A Silicon Valley start-up called Nanosolar shipped its first solar panels -- priced at $1 a watt. That's the price at which solar energy gets cheaper than coal. Curious that this story is not on every front page (http://www.solveclimate.com/blog/20071219/1-watt-itunes-solar-energy-has-arrived)

Seems like quite a breakthrough, could be more viable than generators for SA.

[Alan]

Seems like quite a breakthrough, could be more viable than generators for SA.

Yeah anything to get away from Eishkom

[Syndyre]

Yeah anything to get away from Eishkom

Exactly. :D Advantage of this is you can run it all day anyway, not just when the power's out.

[Fudzy]

And you can power a kettle and a low-energy bulb for half a day ... if you're lucky.

[sox63]

How many of the panels would one need to run a house?

And what are we paying now per watt for electricity?

[Fudzy]

IIRC, a kWh is about 0.50c, depending on where you stay.

[sox63]

IIRC, a kWh is about 0.50c, depending on where you stay.

Is that american cents or South African?

Coz if it is SA then it is about 0.0005 cents per watt. Or is my math off?

[Fudzy]

Zar0.50 :)

[mancombseepgood]

Question is.. how many kWh does a panel push out per day / year.... that's where you get to understand the true cost / saving

[Fudzy]

Very little, like 1 kWh a day.

[Koos Custodiet]

>Very little, like 1 kWh a day.

*coff*

Go read up on what a kWh is...

[Fudzy]

>Very little, like 1 kWh a day.

*coff*

Go read up on what a kWh is...

I know it's a unit used to measure energy consumption???


Typical solar panels have an average efficiency of 12%, with the best commercially available panels at 20%. Thus, a photovoltaic installation in the southern latitudes of Europe or the United States may expect to produce 1 kWh/m²/day. A typical "150 watt" solar panel is about a square meter in size. Such a panel may be expected to produce 1 kWh every day, on average, after taking into account the weather and the latitude.

[Koos Custodiet]

A kilowatt hour is one kilowatt for one hour.

Something that supplies one kilowatt, if left on all day, will supply 24 kilowatt hours.

The writer of the Wiki is either confused or trying to make things sound better than they are, probably the latter. It's like saying your car can drive 200 kilometers per hour in a day, if what is actually the case is that you can reach somewhere 200km away if you drive all day... if that makes sense.

[qDot]

Zar0.50 :)

gosh that is expensive, where do you live ?

I live in Sunninghill my bill states R0.2748 per kilowatt hour.

it would be quite interesting to find out what various metro charge per kilowatt hour.

[Syndyre]

gosh that is expensive, where do you live ?

I live in Sunninghill my bill states R0.2748 per kilowatt hour.

it would be quite interesting to find out what various metro charge per kilowatt hour.

In Grahamstown I pay R0.50/unit but not sure how much a unit is? :confused:

[kaspaas]

A unit of electricity is a kWh.

A solar panel delivering 1 w at less than a US$0.5 - or about ZAR 3.50 is cheap. It will deliver (if the sun is ok) 1 kWh in 1000 hours - which is around 125 days of 8 hours of sunshine.

For R3 500 one could have a kW unit charging your batteries (which would be enourmous!) for the night. 1 kW is more than enough to run your PC, TV, HiFi - all except your heating and cooling devices in a normal middle class household - provided people do some scheduling at peak hours.

[arf9999]

It looks like everyone is confused by the claims.

Nanosolar is claiming that you will pay $1 for every Watt that the panel produces. That's a pretty big deal. Thus for $1000 you can get a solar panel array that can produce 1kW. Compared to the current technology in solar panels, where you'd need to pay around US$790 for a 160W panel, or around $5 per Watt.

In addition, the nanosolar panels are thinner, lighter and easier to produce. It looks like the main problem that they have is production capacity.


edit: Just for clarity (kilo)Watt = Power, (kilo)Watt hour = Energy.

[BCO]

As a rule-of-thumb each so-called peak-Watt (Wp) of solar panel power can deliver around 3.5 watt-hours of energy per day. This can be more in summer and in certain areas ( e.g. Kalahari desert), but less at say the coast. ( and during bad weather spells!)

Therefore a 40Watt solar panel would supply about 40 x 3.5 = 140 Watt-hours per day.

A 40 Watt nanosolar panel would thus cost about $40 and would be able to produce 140 Watt-hours daily, that's enough to run a laptop for about 2 hours or run 10 energy saver light bulbs for an hour each day. Pretty cost effective considering you'd only pay the $40 once off.

[HavocXphere]

Wow. Amazing stuff.:cool:

The important part is the way they are manufactured, not those random kWh and dollar amounts you guys are throwing around:


The company produces its PowerSheet solar cells with printing-press-style machines


No silicon involved.
Manufacturing cost is about 10% of current panels.
Printed onto rolls of aluminum.

Link (http://www.popsci.com/popsci/flat/bown/2007/green/item_59.html)

The magnitude of the breakthrough can be clearly seen on this table (http://www.nanosolar.com/economic.htm).

[Highflyer_GP]

Seems like quite a breakthrough, could be more viable than generators for SA.

Well with the kind of whether we've been having in Jhb, it's hard to tell that it's even summer :(

[Syndyre]

Wow. Amazing stuff.:cool:

The important part is the way they are manufactured, not those random kWh and dollar amounts you guys are throwing around:




No silicon involved.
Manufacturing cost is about 10% of current panels.
Printed onto rolls of aluminum.

Link (http://www.popsci.com/popsci/flat/bown/2007/green/item_59.html)

The magnitude of the breakthrough can be clearly seen on this table (http://www.nanosolar.com/economic.htm).

Quite incredible, could be the beginning of a major breakthrough, at that price you could cover your whole roof in solar panels and probably get a ROI pretty quickly, especially considering it'd still work when Eskom load sheds you.

[bekdik]

Of course there's always the alternative: http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthread.php?t=98272

[Syndyre]

Of course there's always the alternative: http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthread.php?t=98272

Must say I'd rather have that. :D

[kaspaas]

If this works, and I believe it does, it presents a major opportunity to all South Africans.

Is there already a South African agent?

For a relative low cost, one can dump Eskom and the city council (Tshwane in my case) for most electricity requirements.

If the claims are true, one would be able to run all PC's in most offices from the sun. No more loadshedding headaches.

There is however a minor thingy I could not find:

How efficient is this system, how many square meters does one need for a single watt?

[Syndyre]

If this works, and I believe it does, it presents a major opportunity to all South Africans.

Is there already a South African agent?

For a relative low cost, one can dump Eskom and the city council (Tshwane in my case) for most electricity requirements.

If the claims are true, one would be able to run all PC's in most offices from the sun. No more loadshedding headaches.

There is however a minor thingy I could not find:

How efficient is this system, how many square meters does one need for a single watt?

I don't think there's an agent, it could be very profitable to be that agent though. Can't find any mention of efficiency, presumably it shouldn't be much worse than normal solar panels though.

[bwana]

Their mission: to deliver cost-efficient solar electricity. The Nanosolar company was founded in 2002 and is working to build the world’s largest solar cell factory in California and the world’s largest panel-assembly factory in Germany. They have successfully created a solar coating that is the most cost-efficient solar energy source ever. Their PowerSheet cells contrast the current solar technology systems by reducing the cost of production from $3 a watt to a mere 30 cents per watt. This makes, for the first time in history, solar power cheaper than burning coal. (http://www.celsias.com/2007/11/23/nanosolars-breakthrough-technology-solar-now-cheaper-than-coal/)So what do you think - how long until we can get these cells up and running here?

http://www.digg.com/environment/Solar_Power_Now_Cheaper_than_Coal

[hj2k_x]

If Eskom has anything to do with it, never. Sadly.

[ToxicBunny]

Personally I think if its cheap enough, there will be people in Eskom that push for people to get these kind of things installed, and of course if its cheap enough I'll gladly jump on the bandwagon to lessen my dependence on Eks-dom and their inability to provide a steady supply of electricity.

I think in some ways its going to become the norm in this country that the more affluent people will self-provide more of their basic necessities such as electricity and water.

[Syndyre]

So what do you think - how long until we can get these cells up and running here?

http://www.digg.com/environment/Solar_Power_Now_Cheaper_than_Coal


Sounds like the perfect solution for SA, only problem is what happens when there's not enough sun? Is solar suitable for base load generation? Saw an interesting comment on digg:



However, as with all renewables, you cannot have more than ~20% of the network from unreliable sources as they will destabilise the distribution grid. You still need nuclear power stations to supply the base electrical load and make up the spinning reserve to account for short term fluctuations in the electrical frequency.

Not sure if its true?


Personally I think if its cheap enough, there will be people in Eskom that push for people to get these kind of things installed, and of course if its cheap enough I'll gladly jump on the bandwagon to lessen my dependence on Eks-dom and their inability to provide a steady supply of electricity.

I think in some ways its going to become the norm in this country that the more affluent people will self-provide more of their basic necessities such as electricity and water.

Yeah I think it'll be more people putting up their own panels etc, which would lessen the load on the grid anyway so everybody wins. We already provide our own security, healthcare etc. so why not other services I guess.

[Valis]

Yeah, does this take into account the full cost to the environment re. manufacturing? What about the cost of the lead-acid batteries needed to store the power? Or the rectifiers and regulators? These things all take a lot of maintenance (believe me, I've done it). Photo-voltaic cells just have too large a carbon footprint to be worthwhile. Nuclear's the only way to go.

[Valis]

We already provide our own security, healthcare etc. so why not other services I guess.

At the risk of sounding pedantic, this is what I've been saying all along. We can provide our own services via the free-market much more economically and efficiently. Government is the enemy of the people. :sick:

[Syndyre]

At the risk of sounding pedantic, this is what I've been saying all along. We can provide our own services via the free-market much more economically and efficiently. Government is the enemy of the people. :sick:

Won't argue with you there. Problem is in most cases we pay taxes that are supposed to cover these services and then have to pay extra for something that actually works.

[arf9999]

merge??


http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthread.php?t=98316

[bwana]

merge??


http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthread.php?t=98316Theads merged - prices sure did drop in 6 days though :D

[mancombseepgood]

Won't argue with you there. Problem is in most cases we pay taxes that are supposed to cover these services and then have to pay extra for something that actually works.

Yeah, fight for lower taxes, but lets not trust the Gvt with our power.

[Syndyre]

Yeah, fight for lower taxes, but lets not trust the Gvt with our power.

We can't trust them with much it seems.

[arf9999]

Theads merged - prices sure did drop in 6 days though :D

:D