Dell, Lenovo Adding Solar Option for PCs 184
An anonymous reader writes "Lenovo just announced a solar power option for PCs, and Dell is about to do the same, according to Advanced Energy Group. But the solar hardware weights 86 pounds and costs $1,300! Lenovo officials admit they had to do this to reach the 75% mark to gain EPEAT Gold status; Dell couldn't be reached for comment. Hopefully the technology will get smaller and more affordable."
Batteries Included (Score:5, Interesting)
A real winner would be mobile phones whose cases all recharge off solar (or just ambient light, even indoors). That kind of mass market could drive down the price:performance curve, open up the tech to all our powered devices. And make the "solar look" popular that even people who buy on nothing but fashion (most people) would start saving power with all these accessories.
Yep. (Score:2, Interesting)
And so begins the rush.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Ok everyone, I feel a hearty round of kumbaya coming on.... **ducks the vegetables**
Once again copying Apple (Score:5, Interesting)
Pics here [sinanco.com].
Someone told me that one of the *old* powerbooks has a replacable top panel in which there was some sort of official apple solar panel option. I did some googling but couldn't find any evidence of that.
Is it possible to be green and stupid? (Score:3, Interesting)
If you really want to save the planet take that $1300 and use it for a down payment on a ground source heat pump for your home.
What i would like to see is Bike powered setups (Score:3, Interesting)
Division of labour (Score:1, Interesting)
Allright, I'll bite (Score:2, Interesting)
Pics here [sinanco.com].
Someone told me that one of the *old* powerbooks has a replacable top panel in which there was some sort of official apple solar panel option. I did some googling but couldn't find any evidence of that.
To summarize: Hubris.
Yese, someone made something similar a decade ago. Are you saying that this Lenovo thinks this is so wildly succesful they'd better get into the market?
Logically speaking, when the 2007 version weighs in at almost 50 kg and does not even completely power the kit, I think it's more to do with the tech being immature rather than being first to market. I can also market completely half-assed stuff, but then my company would also die and leave my domain for the sharks [wildwestweb.com].
Re:What is that i hear? (Score:3, Interesting)
Consumer-grade panels are less than 20% efficient, an average PC with an average monitor and some gadgets attached use about 150W, at ~12h/day, this is about 1.5kWh/day. There is usable sunlight less than 8h/day so the solar array needs to provide at least 600W during that period under worst-case lighting conditions to enable fully off-the-grid operation and this requires at least five square meters of said consumer-grade panels. With much of the usage occuring outside usable illumination hours, the battery needs to store about 1kWh. At this point, you have to take your pick between an inexpensive 40kg set of SLA batteries, a more expensive 30kg NiMH set or a very expensive and potentially spontaneously-combusting 20kg lithium-polymer one.
The weight is a function of battery technology, the size is a function of solar panel efficiency. All are improving in many ways but these technological advancements are incremental, slow and expensive. For the time being, I would settle for replacing the 7.2Ah batteries in my BX1000 UPS by external 100Ah ones (~2kWh reserve), strapping an alternator to a stationary exercise bicycle and pedal for a while every couple of hours... much less expensive, more portable (try packing and re-deploying a 1kW array) and available nearly whenever/wherever I am.
Because the cost per watt of solar energy is currently pretty high, solar makes little sense as anything other than a statement. When solar panels will be available under $100/kW in the ~20% efficient grades, solar will become much more interesting - at least for people who live close enough to the equator to be spared crazy frosty winter ice storms.
check your maps for a better idea... (Score:5, Interesting)
I've been into alternative energy since the 60s (you??) when I first worked with my dad and we built from scratch some solar heating for our swimming pool (added a month decent swimming both spring and fall for only a couple hundred bucks and some labor), and since that time as a hobbiest and also it was my business for a few years (might be again possibly, the interest has picked up a lot this past year with all the energy cost increases), by actually "doing* stuff with it, everything from solar thermal space heating and solar water heating for household use to making biofuel ethanol and methane, working on superinsulated structures (several of those, best dollars you can spend is more insulation and better windows), etc. etc, along with solar PV and wind. I am fully aware of the pluses and minuses of this or that technique and what stuff costs, etc. This isn't theoretical casual web board commentary from me, it is hands on experience. I don't write code, so I don't comment about that a whole lot, but with alternative energy I can speak from some significant experience. I don't claim to be the expert's expert, because I am not, but I do have a lot of hands on with this stuff and try to keep up with the industry in general terms. And it worked just swell with that laptop, and it also ran a reading light and a small TV and a radio at the same time during the evenings, it wasn't stupid at all, it "just worked" for relatively cheap money, and it has been long paid off and the same rig still works fine, even that original single battery that is going on ten years old now works fine, and the larger battery bank is 8 years old now and works fine.
nope (Score:2, Interesting)
Now don't get me wrong, I am a huge proponent of "going green", living with a light footprint, being responsible, not dicking over the environment, etc, and have been my entire life, but I've just been in this to long to not notice the cons that can get associated with it, and "carbon credits" and "carbon trading" are at the very top of the list.
That was fast! (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Trees clean up pollution...how exactly? (Score:3, Interesting)
The point I was attempting to make, "would you rather sell a nickle twenty times, or a dollar just once?" is an attempt to illustrate why, exactly, it is that profit margins are so high on low-volume electronics -- or anything else of low volume, for that matter.
Yeah, sure, they could drop the price and sell a lot more of the photovoltaic kits.
But they're not trying to sell PV kits, per se, but they are instead just trying to make money. Maximizing profit is what corporations exist to do. Selling more stuff doesn't always mean earning more profit, but it always means more work.
If they figure the proper markup (ie, the point at which profit is maximized) is 2x retail, that's their problem, isn't it?
If you think you can sell it cheaper, at such miniscule volumes as these things are likely to move at, then please feel free to do so. Else, please STFU.
HTH. HAND.
I prefer the biofuel version (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:What is that i hear? (Score:3, Interesting)
Dunno for your original comment... it kind of made it seem like improving battery/solar cell technology was trivial. If you look at progress curves, battery energy density and solar cell efficiency have not been doubling every 18 months... the progress is more on the scale of single-digit percentile points each year between major breakthroughs, trailing a very long way behind display and chip technologies. Power-conversion technology has been there for years, we need batteries and solar panels to catch up.
If Moore's "law" started applying to battery energy density and solar cell efficiency tomorrow, most of our energy problems would solve themselves over the next three years!