Silicon Valley Startup Prints $1/watt Solar Panels 519
GWBasic writes "A Silicon Valley start-up called Nanosolar has shipped its first solar panels — priced at $1 a watt. That's the price at which solar energy gets cheaper than coal. While other companies have been focusing their efforts on increasing the efficiency of solar panels, Nanosolar took a different approach. It focused on manufacturing. 'The company [has developed] a process to print solar cells made out of CIGS, or copper indium gallium selenide, a combination of elements that many companies are pursuing as an alternative to silicon.'" The outfit also happens to be backed by Google, a fact that's getting some attention at tech media sites.
Hopefully this will just be the start... (Score:5, Interesting)
Too bad they're already sold out for the first 18 months of production, because at those prices, you could make a typical house solar for about $1500-2000 for the panels, plus another few grand for installation and hookup. At that price, it makes a lot of sense.
Re:Consumer offerings? (Score:5, Interesting)
This is huge news. Punch $0.99 a watt into the calculator [daughtersoftiresias.org], and even good chunks of Alaska become economical for installations.
Cost per watt is based on what time frame? (Score:2, Interesting)
When companies report that their solar solution costs $X a watt, is this figure a steady watt/hour figure (e.g 1000W = 1kw/h) during which time the sun is shining on the pannels, or watts generated per hour of direct sunlight, 8 hrs of direct sunlight, every odd Tuesday, what? I always assumed it's a steady watt/hour figure but in this case $1000 would give you 1KWH while they were running, which gives you (assuming you have a battery storage solution) a production of 180KW/H a month (assuming 6hrs of "good" sunlight a day for 30 days.) If this is the case then sign me up, I'll break even in less than a year with my current evil power hungry mode of life. But the question is.... is this the case?
Now back to cooking that turducken (damn electric ovens)
Re:What's in your stocking? (Score:5, Interesting)
This makes me think once again that the 20th century was an abberation.
Before the 20th century if you wanted to know what time it was you pulled a clock out of your pocket. In the 20th century you looked at the clock on your wrist. After the 20th century you pulled your phone out of your pocket.
Before the 20th century musicians made their money by performing. During the 20th century many musicians made their money by recording music. After the advent of the internet musicians will once again make their money by performing and use their recordings as advertising (as everybody but the RIAA bands do now).
Before the 20th century there were few wires. During the 20th century wires were everywhere - strung from poles, on your phone, TV, computer eqiopment, everything that used electrity. After the 20th century everything is wireless.
-mcgrew
Re:Yahoo! (Score:5, Interesting)
Consumer use? (Score:3, Interesting)
So it may be one of those scenarios where you would have to cover your entire roof, as well as those of your two nearest neighbors, to generate enough power for a single house. In other words, they may be intending this for use in solar farms out in rural areas, where real-estate is not a concern.
Dan East
Honda (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Units Please! What's the cost per watt hour (Score:3, Interesting)
However, I've seen energy payback quoted anywhere from 1-3 years for conventional silicon photo-voltaic solar panels including the glass and metal packaging. As they are supposed to have a life > 20 years I'm not sure your second statement is correct. Do you have a source ?
Re:Hopefully this will just be the start... (Score:2, Interesting)
As soon as I can I'm going to because I'm sick of the high electric bills in the summer. I can do nothing about it because you have to run your air conditioner when it's 115 degrees outside. I'm very energy conscious but I still end up using over 3000 kW-Hours during the worst months. I'm not a greeny either, I just don't like the cost. I long for the day when I don't have to worry about this anymore and I can run whatever appliances I want, whenever I want. As it is now I try to run my vacuum cleaner and laundry on weekend only when the power rate is lower. I would very much like to do things on my schedule and not the power company schedule.
For me solar is about freedom and convenience. I don't give a rip about the environment because I don't think man could destroy it even if he tried. The doomsday people have been wrong for decades, but the earth just keeps on healing itself no matter what the going wisdom is at the time.
Re:What's in your stocking? (Score:3, Interesting)
There's only three problems with solar power installations: the cost of solar cells, the cost of inverters, and the cost of storage batteries.
Solar cells without storage batteries is only helpful for things that you only need to run during peak daylight hours--or if you live in an area that doesn't have enough power capability for peak-load use times (such as California, with its regular rolling blackouts in certain areas during the summer).
The huge costs of residential whole-house solar setups makes them economically unattractive to most people where utility power is an available option... the only places in the US they're popular (or even common) is where there are big government subsidies available.... such as in California. Outside of areas with such subsidies, solar system contractors won't claim that a suburban house system will save money, because overall,,, -it won't.
It's my understanding that in most cases, a windmill will give a greater return of electricity for its cost than a solar panel will--but there again is a problem. The main factor of a windmill is how high it can be mounted, and 25 feet off the ground doesn't get you much in terms of wind speed. They don't really start cooking until they're mounted 150 or 200 feet off the ground, and I don't know that's something I'd care to see suburbia even attempt.
~
Re:Consumer offerings? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Consumer offerings? (Score:3, Interesting)
I am running the numbers.
Coal is .08$ a kWh.
So for $1000, that buys 1 kW of photovoltaic cells.
If the cells are run for 12,500 hours at full capacity, the price is equal to coal. Past 12,500 hours of full capacity, that's cheaper than coal.
That's 521 days of 24/7 sunlight, for almost two years. Rather unlikely on earth.
The Google tells me [I]A 1 kilowatt peak Solar System will generate around 1600 kilowatt hours per year in a sunny climate and about 750 kilowatt hours per year in a cloudy climate[/I]. Which means that we need to run the system for 7.8 years before we see it being cheaper than coal (double that in cloudy climates). And this assumes that the system still operates at full efficiency for the duration of those years.
This is not counting the related infrastructure needed for photovoltaic -- battery arrays, voltage converters, etc.
I'm doubting the numbers.