Building Your Own Solar Panel In the Garage 235
jeroen8 writes "A Dutch guy was able to build his own solar panel in his garage using materials that were a third as expensive as the mass produced solar panels currently available on the European market. He bought his solar cells on eBay and used them to create his own panel. His output price is only 1.20 Euro per Watt Peak (Wp). This makes you wonder if we are paying too much for mass-produced solar panels, which should, in theory, be a lot less expensive than something you create in your garage."
Are these _new_ panels? (Score:4, Insightful)
Cells are NEW but also STOLEN (Score:5, Insightful)
Getting an 'uncounted' batch of 'mixed quality' just screams 'stolen'.. and then the price itself is also cheaper then the raw manufacturing
But they are 'new', extracting Cells from used panels is not cost effective as commercial panels are laminated and string soldered which is very hard to take apart without breaking most of the cells.
Also, when you buy good quality Solar Panels you usually get around 25 years of warranty and the knowledge that they have been throughly safety tested (and designed) so that they won't burn down your house when one cell short circuits or your getting a bit more sun then imagined. I would think that's worth something by itself.
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Screwed up moderating, posting to fix.
Re:Cells are NEW but also STOLEN (Score:5, Informative)
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That's what they get for giving mod points to someone named "i'm lost"!
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This wouldn't be necessary if there were an 'ignore this post' tag for this purpose.
And the 'ignore this post' tag wouldn't be necessary if it were possible to undo mods.
-t.
Re:Cells are NEW but also STOLEN (Score:4, Insightful)
"Getting an 'uncounted' batch of 'mixed quality' just screams 'stolen'"
Not necessarily, "In October 2008 I bought my first 100 cells via Ebay.", "...I found another seller on Ebay who had the same cells ... But these were slightly damaged."
The first set, could have been someone who bought them, to use as a weekend project sort of thing, but never got around to it, gave up, or moved, "the wife wants these things out of the garage, now!"... the second, being "slightly damaged" may have come from the reverse, a building that was torn down, or upgraded to newer/larger cells, or even something like those various solar car races, they did good, got a sponsor, ditched the clumsy setup they were using, or as someone else pointed out, factory rejects, or possibly damaged in shipping, thus having no warranty, can no longer be sold in a typical commercial way...
Re:Cells are NEW but also STOLEN (Score:5, Insightful)
But in both those cases they're second hand, rejects, or both. So the hysterical "OMG we're being ripped off 3x" in the summary is bullshit.
Re:Cells are NEW but also STOLEN (Score:4, Insightful)
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I am fairly (95%) certain that the parent AC knows they're stolen, as he's the one that stole them! ;
But they are 'new', extracting Cells from used panels is not cost effective as commercial panels are laminated and string soldered which is very hard to take apart without breaking most of the cells
You would be surprised what a nerd can do with utter junk. When I was a teenager I would take used transistor radios that cost $10 new and turn thsm into guitar fuzzboxes for a heifty profit; the music store sold
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Anything that generates a fair amount of power is a potential fire risk without well designed and maintained circuits. A bad bit of soldering will cause sparking, uneven power generation between cells risks current reversal (which capacitors and batteries love) without well thought out circuit design.
There are many ways a bad solar panel setup could start a fire, especially if you're dealing with potentially damaged cells that have been removed by someone who knows little about circuitry.
Your 'label critisi
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You are talking crap. Instead of embarrassing yourself further, why don't you stop spouting rubbish and spend 60 seconds looking up what voltage solar panels actually generate, then consider what p.d. you need to get these scary sparks you are fabricating.
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That was my thoughts exactly, he/she got modded insightful for wank.
Re:Cells are NEW but also STOLEN (Score:5, Insightful)
an electrical spark is pretty useless for starting a fire without ample combustible gas, or surface area.
I'd be more concerned about my circuit working than catching fire in such a case.
This is not to say one shouldn't be careful. But this burning down the house business is a quite an exaggeration. You'd have to have a helluva a short!
Re:Cells are NEW but also STOLEN (Score:4, Funny)
"This burning down the house business is a quite an exaggeration."
I agree. "Speaking in Tongues" is an overrated album: not the Talking Heads' best. I liked "Fear of Music" and "Remain in Light" much better.
Re:Cells are NEW but also STOLEN (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem isn't so much just one single cell, but a whole series of panels that when combined result in some fairly significant current.
The grandparent post here about concern with the circuit design is completely valid here and deserves much more consideration when trying to design something proper for connecting to a household power supply as opposed to something you might design for a simply hobby experiment for running a consumer electronic device.
I am assuming here that setting up an installation for a home is going to involve hundreds if not thousands of cells. Each one by themselves is trivial, but the point is to try and connect all of them together into a combined power supply. This is a similar issue to amateur electricians who put together an amazing Christmas light display without thinking about things like current draw on the outlet designed for ordinary consumer appliances. Sure, a single strand of lights is trivial, but the 40 or so that you have put together makes it a significant power issue.
Even something so mundane as if you are connecting the circuits in series or in parallel (or in various combinations of that) make a huge difference in the design. I certainly see somebody being able to wire together cells of this nature where the voltage potential is in the thousands of volts if done improperly, or forgetting to use the proper wire gauge for something that can carry the current load necessary at that point in the circuit. Burning down the house is hardly an exaggeration if you really think this through.
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And what causes amps? Volts.
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Then howcome Apple recalled all those batteries for those Powerbooks [theinquirer.net]? Don't own one myself, but I'm going out on a limb and say that the voltage involved is on the order of 5-6V, same as my Thinkpad.
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I suppose a the transformer to hook to your home wiring could be a problem, but not the panels themselves.
There are many ways a bad solar panel setup could start a fire...
Such as...?
Re:Cells are NEW but also STOLEN (Score:5, Informative)
Including the Simi Valley fire, there have been four incidences of fires in California linked to solar panels, Kateley said. One was caused by a homeowner-installed panel, she noted. 'It does happen' ...
"It's a rare occasion, but like any kind of electricity there are going to be instances where it does happen," Dowd said.
Yes it's rare, but that doesn't mean it can't happen if either the solar panel was made or installed improperly. I'm not quite sure how you were modded Insightful when you're clearly an idiot.
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Welcome to Slashdot!
Re:Cells are NEW but also STOLEN (Score:4, Informative)
Well a photovoltaic cell is like diode, if it (for some reason) isn't generating electricity then the electricity of the other cells will attempt to flow through it in reverse, causing the cell to heat up in spots (not evenly). The heat build up can be enough to shatter glass (due to uneven thermal expansion and the stress it causes within the glass) but could certainly also set something flammable ablaze.
That's why commercial panels usually have some additional diodes to redirect (at least part) of the current in such a case. This builder didn't mention anything like that so i would expect he didn't have such precaution hence i believe the expressed worry is justified.
Also, for reference, you can expect 1000 Watt / Square meter in direct sunlight, at 15% efficiency that's still 150 Watt. That's certainly enough power to cause a fire.
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Why should anyone believe you when you can't even get your units right? (You're off by a unit of time, not to mention that the amount of energy released by an atomic weapon varies by about two orders of magnitude.)
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I give you four in the first article result (Score:2)
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That's a wicked cool hack (hacking donuts!). I can't read the voltmeter at the end. How much power is that (maybe 1cm^2) cell putting out?
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It looks like the meter is topping out at around 40 microamps. I don't know the voltage, so I can't tell you the power.
Re:Are these _new_ panels? (Score:5, Insightful)
I came here to say something along these lines. Just because someone got a good deal on eBay and so his project ended up being cheaper than a mass produced panel doesn't mean that one can mass produce panels cheaply just by buying everything on eBay to solder in your garage.
Either this guy got stuff that "fell off the back of a truck," or got lucky and paid less than what they were worth to a distressed seller. There's no good reason to believe that his experience is reproducible on any large scale. There was no innovative manufacturing process here.
Now, if he'd figured out how to make the actual cells in his garage for cheaper than we can in a proper fab, that'd be a big breakthrough, particularly if he didn't run afoul of the local environmental authorities while doing so. Alas, making solar cells generally involves such fun things as arsenic or selenium and such, not to mention industrial solvents for etching, and those aren't the friendliest chemicals to play with.
--Joe
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On a second reading I admit I'm wrong .. just that in this city if it's not locked up it's considered to be free-gratis too.
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"Old glass": they're talking about taking the old glass, not the new glass. Usually the renovators have to pay to dump the old glass, or just spend time carting it to the trash. It's not stealing if you ask.
Once again... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Once again... (Score:5, Insightful)
The folks at http://fieldlines.com/ [fieldlines.com] have been doing this for years. The bigger problems are the sealing of the cells and the fact that since these are most likely rejects the cells might nog give their rated power.
The article summary is dead wrong in suggesting that this is somehow proof that solar cells could be produced cheaper, these cells have probably been hijacked on the way to the recycler.
'making' a solar panel in your garage does not start off with buying solar cells and hooking them up, it starts with sand.
Re:Once again... (Score:5, Informative)
You could not make silicon in your garage. At least, not in any reasonable garage. The reduction of quartz by carbon only takes place at over 1800K. Then you have a pool of molten silicon full of crap, which you now have to purify to 99.9999% purity for it to be ready to dope and use. This is also not easy.
I think what the guy has done is reasonably impressive given the inherent limitations.
Re:Once again... (Score:5, Funny)
That's why I use unreasonable garages.
I wish I could mod that +6 funny (Score:2)
TSIA
Discovery Channel Presents... (Score:2)
Jesse James, as you've never seen him before! Can he reduce quartz, purify silicon, eliminate Global Warming, and Save the Planet!?
Be Sure to watch UNREASONABLE GARAGE.
Re:Once again... (Score:5, Insightful)
Money Per Watt (Score:4, Insightful)
Power density costs money, but is it necessary? Maybe his panels do get only 25% the watts per square meter as an expensive panel. But they get something like 3x the watts per dollar. To get the same wattage, you do need 4x the area with his cheap panels. But since solar power in the Netherlands is about 100W:m^2 [wordpress.com] average across the year, a 1KW home gets in 10m^2 sunlight its consumption (before cell inefficiency, and using inefficient storage/retrieval HW). If he's actually getting 62W:m^2, he needs 16.2m^2. If that gets averaged by day/night, and is close to the average daylight (he posted 2 days before the equinox), and accounts for weather, then maybe he needs 200m^2 (that's 5% averaged annual efficiency). That's only 14x14m, about the size of a home that consumes 1KW.
When roof space costs more than these cheap cells save, they're worth the higher cost. Or if the generated power can be sold back to the grid, then the higher density can be worth the higher cost (especially over time). But sometimes, cheap low density can be worth it. Which is why dye sensitized and other cheap, (relatively) inefficient generating materials are interesting. If they can generate power long enough to pay for themselves (including their lifecycle energy cost), they can make "hay" while the Sun shines, even as we make more dense cells become cheaper.
Re:Once again... (Score:5, Informative)
Exactly Home Power had an article on how to do exactly what this guy did over 4 years ago.
Some random guy does it in a garage and blogs about it and all of a sudden it's news.
Guess what, the best deal I found is actually Harbor Freight. They have Solar array kits for very low price, lower than me buying reject cells and building a panel. http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=90599 [harborfreight.com] 45W for $199US is cheap. I have 3 of those kits on my garage that supplies all my lighting and power needs out there including the garage door opener. (No I am not using their inverter/charger I'm using a real one)
yes that includes me counting my labor as free.
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Which inverter/charger do you use?
Also, your time is ALWAYS worth something, it can be quantified. Sometimes evaluating the worth of your time can yield some surprising values. For example, building your solar solution was worth more than doing nothing; already you have made a value decision. Of course, if a stripper were to perform in your driveway, you would have stopped working on the solar panel. therefore, well, you get the idea of evaluating worth of personal time spent doing something.
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If you enjoy what you're doing then "your free labor" is a bargain to you. Bowling is physical work that some people get paid for but I don't see anyone complaining that when they go bowling their labor is free, they'll actually PAY to do this labor.
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I went oversize. a pair of Cotec 1500's and a smaller 300 for just the lighting and smaller loads I'm going to upgrade by adding 2 more of the kits and a seconds bank of batteries. also upgrade the lighting to 12V CFL to increase efficiency. you dont want a single monster as you will have a 50% efficency drop if you run a 40W load on a 3000 watt inverter, you will actually use 80-90 watts of power like that. you need to be at the 50% or higher for an inverter.
I have a huge Xantrex charger capable of 500
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Why does someone always have to point that out in every single thread about DIY projects?
Yes, we all know that "DIY" means spending time on the project. And yes, we all know that our time has value (I would even argue we each have a far more limited supply of time than (potentially) of money).
But in the real world, with a realistic exchange of time for money (I don't work for AIG, dontchaknow), I can afford to spend 30 hours turning $2,000 worth of supplies
Re:Once again... (Score:4, Insightful)
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Yes true. Get an incompetent person to do it and then you'll have to pay again for the expert to do it (and more to undo the mess the first one made).
I don't see WTF 3 am has to do with anything.
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My hourly rate minus taxes vs. the chinese kid who assembles these things, plus taxes.
I'd rather work an hour of overtime here and there, enjoy my time off and pay for the solar panels.
Used vs. New (Score:5, Funny)
I don't think it's that uncommon for used goods to cost less than new goods.
Dutch Man Buys Rejects Saves Money? (Score:5, Funny)
Wow you mean to tell me if I buy factory defect products that carry no warranty on ebay I can save money!? I never knew! It seems as if the Dutch have found the secret to inexpensive solar power: Factories should ONLY produce bent and dent cells!
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Hey, I can do better than that. I can "build" my own solar panels for just the cost of a crowbar and a ladder by ripping them off my neighbor's roof and then soldering new wires to them.
Lame article. Wake me when someone actually makes their own solar cells [scitoys.com] at the $/W of a commercial unit.
Re:Dutch Man Buys Rejects Saves Money? (Score:5, Funny)
Perhaps the Dutch should stick to wind power.
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Factories should ONLY produce bent and dent cells!
Actually your little jest is not entirely wrong. Most silicium manufacturing is geared towards making electronic components, and as such need something like 99.9999% purity which is very expensive.
But solar cells work fine with only 99.9% pure Si, which is a lot cheaper to produce but unfortunately not being done very much yet. There was actually a /. article about this about a year ago.
Built it in his garage? (Score:5, Funny)
I would've built it outside, but to each his own.
Re:Built it in his garage? (Score:5, Funny)
Nah. It's too hot and sunny outside. It's much cooler in the garage.
Re:Built it in his garage? (Score:5, Interesting)
I would've built it outside, but to each his own.
They're solar panels. Outside means you're soldering a live circuit.
This is actually a potential hazard for installers when putting in certain PV panels which produce high voltage (~90vdc).
Re:Built it in his garage? (Score:5, Funny)
*whooosh*.
Re:Built it in his garage? (Score:5, Funny)
-1 offtopic!!!
We're talking about solar power not wind power! Some people...
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Then those installers are idiots.
Ever hear of covering things? Last time I watched a bunch of pros install a solar array, every panel had a black cover bag over a piece of kraft paper that was taped to the face. anyone installing them uncovered in the daylight is not properly trained.
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Assuming you're using an ungrounded soldering iron tip (I sure do!) and assuming the "ON" switch for your panel is in the "OFF" position, there's no complete circuit, whether or not you are soldering on it. (unless you fumble the soldering iron anyway) Now I'd expect some sort of spark when throwing the main switch (internally IN the switch where it belongs) or perhaps a bit of a snap if your idea of a master switch on such a thing is one final large quick disconnect plug. (the thing you were soldering ont
The solar cells _were_ mass produced. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The solar cells _were_ mass produced. (Score:4, Interesting)
I can't think of too many things I CAN'T assemble in my garrage for significantly cheaper than buying a complete unit. Computers, car repair, kitchen cabinets, pretty much anything that can be purchased as a set of parts is cheaper than buying an assembled unit. Why?
- No labor included in price
- No warranty included in price
- Individual parts sold seperately are usually overstock or minor "defects"
- Many parts sold online are parts no longer actively being produced
- Assembled systems are stoced only for sale, parts are stocked for multiple reasons, meaning more efficient warehousing...
- typically, no middle man. the vendor you buy a widget from is usually the 3rd or 4th company in line, parts can be acquired direct or through a flooring company, eliminating at least 1 tier of markup.
Now, that said, it's obvious that some parts, especially commonly replaced wear parts, are highly profitable. Some items actually cost more to build from parts. In the case of solar panels, a lot of the components aside from the cells are very common items that can be found for deep discounts. (Wires, boarder metal, backing, etc). If the cells are readily availible, it;s not terribly complicated to assemble.
What I'd like to see is:
1: How does his home made panel compare to one manufactured with the same cells
2: How many more cells/panels did he need to get full coverage (100% aggregate 24 hour power) vs professional panels, and does a typical roof have enough room to handle that?
2: Over 15-20 years, what will he expect in maintanance and repair costs that would normally have been warantied
3: Over 20 years, what's the actual difference in cost (factoring in comparative performance)
4: What tax valuation was he granted and how much did his home value increase due the adding home made panels vs produced panels?
5: How many house did he put into this?
6: was he able to roll the cost under a mortgage of equity loan like I could do with a local reseller?
Just saving the cash up front, even if you considder the labor a non-issue (or even rewarding), does not mean this is a good idea. It actually has to show 20 year savings as well. He may have saved on the panel cost, but he can't save on the electrical panels, the inverters, and the other components required to make solar panels actually work. I'd like to know how that factored into his cost. Did he also hire an electrician or has he a certified electrical contractor that could wire his own house (most of us are NOT, and would incurr substantial installation fees).
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Also the part about a registered electrician is a very good point - as with connecting deep-cycle 12v batteries up to form a battery pack for an electric vehicle, it's very possible to rapidly get into lethal voltage territory with just a few off-the-shelf parts. If you're dealin
You too can build things cheap. (Score:2)
Yeah, it's easy to build things cheap when you get the components cheap.
Not Proof New Cells Are Overpriced (Score:5, Insightful)
The author bought damaged solar cells from eBay, selected the good ones, then soldered those together. Then he jury-rigged his own waterproof casing and electrical connections. Used goods are cheaper but that does not mean new ones are over-priced.
Let us know how long his cells last outside before insinuating all the solar cell producers in the world are selling overpriced gear.
Re:Not Proof New Cells Are Overpriced (Score:4, Interesting)
Paying one third of retail for parts is typical... (Score:5, Insightful)
...but you've only paid for the parts, not the labor or the engineering or the rent etc.
The point that the packaging of solar panels is expensive is not lost on me. There's a local firm (Tucson) making thin-film cells which ought to be packaged as plastic-laminated roof shingles to keep the final cost down.
But I admire his fortitude in building a panel. I have a stack of cells in my workshop that I don't see how I'll ever turn into a panel, since it requires lots of glass and care and sticky tape.
DIY, and in 3 years, Do It Again (Score:5, Informative)
Panels today have a usable lifespan of over 25 years.
They have the proper connectors, and the appropriate gauge wire. They can handle 50mph hailstones and 90mph wind, and they're all UL listed. They're warranteed, usually for 20+ years. Some are hybrid (sandwiching amorphous Si and crystalline Si), which gather more light and produces more power per sq foot, something that can't currently be made in the garage.
Purchased panels also cost about 3x the price of doing it yourself (maybe $4-6 /watt). However, I would strongly bet that the overall cost of ownership will be higher for DIY folks, who can't compete with the quality of fully-assembled panels. They will have to make their own mountable panels, and doing that right will not be cheap. They will have to be able to handle high winds and weather, too. And the UL listing will also mean that you can be grid-tied, since the utility companies won't allow you to connect non-UL-listed generating stations to the grid.
Some cool things you can do with DIY panels is get exactly the shape you want. You can also add more bypass diodes to handle partial shading better. One of the biggest issues with PV panels is the significant drop in output with only minor amounts of shade.... A single leaf stuck over part of a cell can reduce the panel's output by 25%. But if you DIY, you can put many more bypass diodes into it, causing a much smaller fraction lost. You can even mount it on some sort of heat sink or antifreeze-filled copper plating to get better performance (PV cells work better when cool.)
It's a cool project. But if you're trying to save money over the long term, DIY is probably not the way to go.
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You can even mount it on some sort of heat sink or antifreeze-filled copper plating to get better performance (PV cells work better when cool.)
If you're going to the trouble of doing that, it makes sense to transfer that heat to the hot water system. Say a pre-heating system on the hot water cylinder input, for example.
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Worrying about a 25 year warranty seems a bit daft when in a few years we can expect a panel a fraction of the size to
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That's the general hardware upgrade cycle problem that we see everywhere, given the current speed at which technology moves. No matter when you buy, you know that a couple years later you could've gotten way more for your money. Eventually you've gotta just take the plunge. Today I could buy an 52" LCD television for a few hundred bucks less than I spent on a comparable quality 46" set eighteen months ago. Such is life.
The people taking the plunge now are helping to drive the demand and fund the improvement
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But aren't we all just better off waiting 5 years, or ten years and paying the same amount of money for 10 times the power production
No. You don't know that this level of cost reduction is possible. And you don't enjoy the benefits (such as they are) of solar cells while you are waiting.
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No, he could have a point.
I remember ten years ago reading an article somewhere about large-scale computing problems. One piece of advice they gave: if you have a problem that will take ten years to solve on today's hardware, wait two years to buy the computers. Then it would only take seven years to solve.
Cost per installed watt of solar has been dropping by about half every six years, pretty much since photovoltaics were invented. If you take those numbers as law, then yeah, over the life of the syste
soldering together the panels wouldnt be hard (Score:3, Interesting)
Price vs. Efficiency? (Score:3, Informative)
Boys, you all forget one thing (Score:4, Funny)
The story is about the Europe where governments subsidise the solar panel use by giving enormous tax cuts to the buyers of solar panels and even going as far as providing 0-interest credits.
This insane amount of state intervention spawns corruption in the production and supply of the solar panels, which explains such high prices.
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Sorry, of course the US would never subsidise alternative energy sources [typepad.com]. It's only evil socialist Europe that does that.
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This insane amount of state intervention spawns corruption in the production and supply of the solar panels, which explains such high prices.
[citation needed]
Really, I know that "state intervention == inefficient" is a popular meme in the US of A, but is there any scientific proof of your assumption?
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It's an unreflected-upon article of faith, which explains why it is so popular among the Republican party. Half the Republicans believe in Jesus and the free-market (both on faith). The other half look down their noses at those who believe in Jesus on faith, and instead channel all their irrational and love towards the free market.
Of course, while a belief in the s
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The story is about the Europe
Did you mean "teh 3urope"?
I built mine in the kitchen (Score:2)
Here's mine without any attention paid to weatherproofing. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYIQQgXWmu0 [youtube.com]
And I just delivered two to high school in Africa for their science class last week.
Video on the way.
"Three times less expensive?" (Score:2, Funny)
Not a fair comparison (Score:5, Insightful)
The summary is bad.
1. He bought damaged solar cells from a one-time vendor. There isn't a supply of them for anyone to make. They might have been stolen, they might have been a shipping write-off, whatever. They aren't new solar cells.
2. He scrounged materials, like glass, for free. Manufacturers can't do that. Most people don't have that opportunity.
3. He used wire that he "happened to have" (quoting the article). He bought it at some point, or found it. Again, not something you or I could normally do.
And so forth. Comparing the cost of doing something this way to buying a new cell is invalid and misleading. The summary is bad. And the Slashdot editors are responsible for validating and endorsing the summary, suggesting that they were asleep at the wheel.
Sheesh, can't we get some decent editing here? Has the entire field of news reporting gone to the dogs?
Reflective Glass (Score:2)
Re:Reflective Glass (Score:4, Insightful)
Right, he complained about the cost of the glass the panel manufacturer's use, then he uses cheap window glass pulled out of a trash heap. It's not tempered. It's not anti-reflective. It's not matched to the absorption spectrum of the cells...
There's nothing to see here. Let me know when someone figures out how to make the cells, cheap, in their garage workshop.
Buys Solar Cells? (Score:3, Insightful)
So he really didn't build anything, he assembled something. Come back when he actually builds the cells too.THAT would be news worthy.
This Has Been Done Before (Score:2)
This project has been done before but this one is a good read for those that have the skills, time & patience.
http://www.instructables.com/id/Build_a_60_Watt_Solar_Panel/
It can be much cheaper to build this panel yourself over buying one from a regular solar panel manufacturer as you will not be paying them for the labor or markup on materials. This noted, it will also take quite a bit of your time to put one together. But the flip side is that you can then brag about this accomplishment and the relati
Re:Three times less expensive? (Score:4, Informative)
So if a production one costs 10 dollars, 3 time 10 is $30,
Then, because its less, we have to subtract his costs of $30 from the production cost of $10, it costs him minus 20 dollars to build each one?
You mean it was 1/3 the cost of a production unit.
There is no such thing as "3 times less" of anything.
So, you're saying that "3 times less" means you get "3 times" and then subtract it. By that logic, "3 times more" would mean you get "3 times" and then add it. So, "3 times more" than $10 would be $40.
This alone should be enough to make you realise that your usage of the terminology is idiosyncratic. In normal English, "3 times more" means you multiple by 3, and "3 times less" means you divide by 3. It is totally unambiguous. It may be colloquial English usage, but it is not incorrect.
Re:Three times less expensive? (Score:4, Informative)
Maybe you could try learning some English?
Yes it's a phase not liked by some people, but it's been used for hundreds of years and anyone who isn't being an idiot understands what it means.
Google actually has the Merriam-Webster's dictionary of English usage half page on it:
http://books.google.com/books?id=2yJusP0vrdgC&pg=PA908 [google.com]
They are slightly more polite than me, but you can feel the "those commentators are idiots" between the lines...
Re:Not cheaper (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Why cant we get em cheaper? (Score:4, Informative)
Or a lack of market, it's the same as any new(ish) product really, cars 120 years ago were expensive because they were all low-production, then mass manufacturing came in, prices dropped because they were suddenly everywhere, but the newest of the new was always 10x the price of the basic ones... computers, same thing 80 years ago, expensive as hell, because they were all custom, companies may have only made 3 of them a year, now they make thousands a year because there is a market for them, drives down the price, but the newest of the new is still 10x more than the basic...
You can go down to Radio Shack (if they still existed) and buy a bunch of little cells for a couple dollars, because they are everywhere, there's probably like 3 or 4 of them in your house right now, calculator, weatherproof radio, battery recharger, etc... you can buy those for like 50 cents a piece, but they are useless to power your house, you'd have to cover your entire roof, garage, and neighbours house with them for it to work.
Once the company (or people in general) realizes there is a market/use for them, they'll spend the time + money to establish a facility to build them in bulk, with 100 machines, instead of just the 3 machines they are using now, this demand drives down the prices of the materials they need to build them, which drives down the prices of mining the materials, they figure out better/quicker packaging, they establish stable shipping routes, etc etc etc... the faster it's going, the less force needed to keep it there, like pushing someone on a swing, first few pushes are hard, once they are swinging, you can keep them swinging with a pinky push...
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
And btw darkmeridian, there is no such word as 'jury'-rigged
Princeton University disagrees with you. [princeton.edu]
Language changes; the original phrase (now pretty much abhored by everyone) was "nigger-rigged", which was actually from the gear slave owners let slaves use; construction and repairs were haphazard, since it was "only" the slaves who would use it.
In WWII it was changed to "Jerry-rigged", also a slur as the Germans were known as "jerrys".
After the war was over "Jerry" in that context was meaningless, but juri
Re: (Score:2)
Except that the obviously related phrase "jury mast" predates not just the second, but also the first world war.
Re: (Score:2)
[citation needed]
Another, much higher estimation [climateprogress.org]: 8-11 cents per kWH for a nuclear plant built today, somewhat higher than the average cost.
Does your $0.05/kWH include the capital costs of the nuclear plant, or just the ongoing costs of running the plant? If we can ignore capital costs, suddenly solar and wind get very, very cheap.
Re: (Score:2)
Sure, but do you want one in your backyard? How about what to do with the waste? You are aware of the half life time period problems to storing spent nuclear fuel? Do you plan to be the one to re-encase the the waste once the concrete turns to powder in 10,000 years?
Nuclear is an irresponsible solution for a short term problem. You're better off throwing money into finding a solution to viable fusion power generation for long term energy needs, but for the short term and for those living in areas not suitab
Re: (Score:2)
Why did it take so long for someone (and an AC too) to make this point?
Cheap isn't the main value in DIY. It's the satisfaction of actually doing the project.