Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Let me just say, I am quite the lover of "solar" and other technologies. I have been researching the current status of solar technology for many years. This supposed "new breakthrough" is really nothing new. They have been printing solar cells for at least the last six years.
Regardless, the cost of solar cells is only a small part of the cost of installing solar on say, your house.
For instance, to install solar panels on your roof into a "grid-tie" inverter. You are looking at somewhere around ~$4 per watt. The cost of the solar panel itself is only about ~$1 per watt. Another $1-2 per watt is in the grid-tie inverter and all the wiring. And the last $1+ is in permitting and installation(it has to be done by a licensed electrician).
Even if the solar panels were free, the cost of solar would still be too high to be practical in most of the country.
And if you want to go "off the grid"(IE get completely away from the electric companies). You can pretty much double that "cost per watt" for installing the solar systems. Batteries are very expensive.
The sun only shines part of the day, the wind doesn't always blow. The only way to really get away from fossil fuels, would be to have much cheaper batteries.
"Industrial hemp, the non-psychoactive cousin of marijuana, can play a role in manufacturing super-powerful supercapacitors for energy storage at a cost that's far cheaper than graphene, researchers report. The hemp-based technology took center stage Tuesday at the American Chemical Society's national meeting in San Francisco. A team led by David Mitlin, an engineering professor at Clarkson University, heated up hemp fibers to create carbon nanosheets that can be used as electrodes for supercapacitors. Compared with graphene, the hemp-derived carbon is "a little bit better, but it's 1,000 times cheaper," Mitlin told NBC News."
Unfortunately hemp cannot be grown legally in the US, and I don't know if it can be imported from Canada where it is legally grown....
Status:
"Apparently the worst poster on CD"
(set 28 days ago)
27,647 posts, read 16,133,597 times
Reputation: 19067
i would think warren would have a tizzy if these were offered to consumers.. they (special interest money) would create even more hoops for you to jump through to utilize this.. but we can hope..
Let me just say, I am quite the lover of "solar" and other technologies. I have been researching the current status of solar technology for many years. This supposed "new breakthrough" is really nothing new. They have been printing solar cells for at least the last six years.
Regardless, the cost of solar cells is only a small part of the cost of installing solar on say, your house.
For instance, to install solar panels on your roof into a "grid-tie" inverter. You are looking at somewhere around ~$4 per watt. The cost of the solar panel itself is only about ~$1 per watt. Another $1-2 per watt is in the grid-tie inverter and all the wiring. And the last $1+ is in permitting and installation(it has to be done by a licensed electrician).
Even if the solar panels were free, the cost of solar would still be too high to be practical in most of the country.
And if you want to go "off the grid"(IE get completely away from the electric companies). You can pretty much double that "cost per watt" for installing the solar systems. Batteries are very expensive.
The sun only shines part of the day, the wind doesn't always blow. The only way to really get away from fossil fuels, would be to have much cheaper batteries.
Yes they have been printing small solar cells...The breakthrough is concerning the size of them....
Installed costs of existing solar cells fell 27% in the first three months of this year alone, compared with the corresponding quarter last year, shows an RTCC analysis.
Costs for all installations, regardless of size, averaged some $3.3 per watt installed this year to date, across 40 installations. An average roof-top installation of around 4 kW at $3.3 per watt would cost $13,200 using existing solar panels.
I've been planning an "electric bicycle" project lately. The battery I want to get would give me about 1 WH of battery for ~40 cents(that is very cheap btw). It is a lifepo4, and I assume it has around ~2,000 discharge cycles @ 80% DOD.
The average home uses around 1,000 KWH of electricity a month. Which is about 33 KWH per day. That means you would need something like a 6 KWH system at minimum. If you drop those numbers into the solar bank calculator, and use ~80% DOD(since it is lifepo4). Then you would need a ~65 KWH battery pack. Though you might want to get more than that depending on latitude, regional weather, and the possibility for "additional short-term needs".
If I was trying to power a "typical home", I would probably get around a ~80 KWH battery pack. That means 80,000 x 40 cents = $32,000 in batteries. Another $6,000 in solar panels. And then another $1-2k in an inverter and wiring(though I could do the installation myself).
Meaning $40,000 "upfront". The 2,000 cycles might last me 10 years. The solar panels should last 25-30 years(though they both lose some capacity over time, so you might want to oversize the system even more).
My electricity costs are about ~10 cents per KWH. So that ~1,000 KWH is about ~$100 a month. In ten years that would be $100 x 120 months = $12,000. Which means I would lose ~$28,000, plus financing costs or investment opportunity costs(and that assumes nothing breaks in that time-frame, like the inverter).
Most battery banks are "lead-acid" batteries(since weight isn't an issue for a home). But I don't really see the long-term cost savings for it. A typical lead-acid setup lasts about 1/4th as long as lifepo4, but is more than 1/4th the cost.
Regardless, the point is, fossil fuels are going nowhere until battery tech gets significantly better. We need batteries, or battery equivalents(IE "potential energy", like pumping water to the top of a hill).
Yes they have been printing small solar cells...The breakthrough is concerning the size of them....
Installed costs of existing solar cells fell 27% in the first three months of this year alone, compared with the corresponding quarter last year, shows an RTCC analysis.
Costs for all installations, regardless of size, averaged some $3.3 per watt installed this year to date, across 40 installations. An average roof-top installation of around 4 kW at $3.3 per watt would cost $13,200 using existing solar panels.
I am a bit confused on some of their numbers. Why exactly did the cost per watt fall by such a large amount? I have been tracking the cost of solar-related items for a long time. I have not seen a significant reduction in costs of solar equipment(if there has been any reduction at all). Is it possible that the installed cost also rolls in "tax credits" and other subsidies. Are there more government subsidies this year than previous years?
Also, this report was only based on a total of "40" installations. Compared with 3,244 installations from last year. I don't know if 40 installations is enough to give a "usable average" number.
I probably wouldn't jump to conclusions that $3.3 is a "good number".
Regardless, solar panels are still a relatively small percentage of the cost of solar. A large, efficient, reliable grid-tie inverter can be $3,000 or more. I'm not really convinced it is ever possible to get to $1 a watt without heavy government subsidies. Even if the solar panels were free, the installation costs, framing, and wiring will be significantly more than $1 a watt.
The NREL data show 240,433 records, providing the most comprehensive database worldwide of solar power costs. Not all the installation data provide cost details. After removing for these, there are some 215,407 records, which were used in this analysis.
I love cleantechnica and treehugger as much as anyone. But they have had articles about "groundbreaking battery" tech like every other week for the last six years(that is when I started reading about battery tech). Back then I was reading about ultracapacitors, such as EESTOR. Which all of them seem to be megafailures. I read all about nanobatteries as well. Let me just say, nano anything is invariably an expensive failure.
In the last six years, I have seen absolutely no improvements in "commercial" battery technology. In fact, you could even say that we stepped backwards somewhat. A123 went bankrupt, as well as the majority of alternative energy companies after the government bailout money(IE American recovery and reinvestment act) ran out.
If I was a betting man, I would say that there won't have been any improvements in battery technology by 2020. In fact, I would actually be surprised if there were any commercially viable improvements by 2030.
It isn't that they aren't making breakthroughs. Its just that the breakthroughs are just too expensive.
It reminds me of one of my favorite daily show videos.
I thought the last break thru was batteries from dirt. I am 64 and have seen these discoveries come and go and few ever make it to practical production. Solar panel themselves were such but it seems they are going out of business quickly even tho subsidized heavily. Still no one alternate source creating even 1% of energy needs much less in case of crude oil the 13k other essential products it does. Discoveries are always nice but seldom end up being seen by that generation if at all.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
