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Domain: dmsolar.com

Stories and comments across the archive that link to dmsolar.com.

Comments · 8

  1. Completely, Totally, Wrong by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1 · on People Living in the Hottest Places on the Planet Are the Least Likely To Have Air Conditioners (qz.com)

    A 10m x 10m room x 2m ceiling requires 12KW to cool it. I made the numbers easy to simulate an entire house and give 100sq meters of panel.

    No. You have made a serious calculation error. That's 12KW of heat moved, not 12KW of electricity. The amount of electricity required will depend on the efficiency of the air conditioner. Its much, much less. I have a high-efficiency 6KW ductless AC from Mitsubishi, it consumes 1.6KW of electricity max in order to provide 6KW of cooling. So, two of those units would do the job of cooling your 10x10x2m room at just 3.2KW of energy.

    Furthermore, that calculator you used is intended only for calculating peak cooling requirements to keep the house at 72 degrees, I forget the exact technical number, but its like 96 percentile as in it only has to run at maximum cooling 4% of the hours in one year. The other 96% of the time is at various levels less than maximum. So maybe, on peak days, they keep the house at 80 degrees instead of 72 degrees and save a bunch too. Also, that calculator itself is way over-simplified, it doesn't even ask what location, so it has no idea whether your in miami or fargo, which matters a whole lot.

    There is a lot more going on here, but your own crazy ass numbers should have triggered the laugh test and lead you to ask what mistake are you making that would produce results that are so patently absurd as a $35K solar installation just to cool a 1000sqft house.

    FWIW, in the US solar costs are dominated by labor. Panels are really cheap, like 65cents/watt. In the 3rd world labor is going to be dirt cheap. So, I am going to SWAG a 6KW system at $5K for the panels, inverters, etc and $1K for labor. If you are grid-tie, that is it, total $6K. But, if you have to go with a battery, that's going to double the cost so $12K. But that's not only enough power to cool the entire house on peak days, but run everything else too.

  2. Re:Solar is great by Burz · · Score: 1 · on Bosch Finds Solar Business Unprofitable, Exits

    They are heading below $2/watt before credits as we speak. I can even find a 5kw system for below that.

  3. Cheap Solar by Eightbitgnosis · · Score: 4, Informative · on Study Suggests Generating Capacity of Wind Farms At Large Scales Overestimated

    http://news.discovery.com/tech/alternative-power-sources/solar-power-to-beat-coal-prices-in-new-mexico-130205.htm

    The cheap clean energy is here, and it's getting cheaper. The price of solar is falling fast.

    http://www.dmsolar.com/solar-module-1141.html

    If you're looking to invest more than $50 on LED light bulbs then today's solar is very cheap these days. Here is a retailer that sells some residential panels for only 0.79 per watt. Solar will only continue from here to become even cheaper

  4. Re:"Grid Parity" ... on sunny days only by Eightbitgnosis · · Score: 1 · on Solar Panels For Every Home?

    $17K for a 3 Kilowatt system? Those are very old prices. Here's a 5.75 Kilowatt system advertised at only $9300

    http://www.dmsolar.com/spbuy5grwien.html

  5. Here are the fabeled solar panels spoken of by Eightbitgnosis · · Score: 1 · on Solar Panels For Every Home?

    http://www.dmsolar.com/solar-module-1141.html

  6. Re:We will get solar when there's a profit. by Eightbitgnosis · · Score: 1 · on Existing Solar Tech Could Power Entire US, Says NREL

    I like these prices better, http://www.dmsolar.com/

  7. Re:Why ground installation? by Spazztastic · · Score: 3, Informative · on Florida To Build Solar-Powered City

    How long is the lifetime of a plant like this

    It depends on what they use. If they cheap out, it could be less than 10 years. If they go with the good stuff, 25 to 30 years. Here's a list of the solar cell types.

  8. Re:Consumer offerings? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0 · on Silicon Valley Startup Prints $1/watt Solar Panels

    A mistake many people make is to compare the cost of alternative home power to the centralized power plant costs. A 600 Mega Watt coal fired power plant costs around 600M$-800M$ to build and produces power (at recent coal prices of $30/ton) for about 3.0 to 3.5 cents per KW/Hr but they sell it to you with taxes and transmition losses and surcharges and profit added. In central Florida, Florida Power and Light charged me 9.15 cents per KW/Hr for the first 1000KWHr, and about 12 cents above that.
    Compare: a home PV system in this area, we get 5.7 effective full power hours of sun daily. On a 2KW peak system your getting ~11KWHrs a day. 365 days x 11KWHr x .12$/KWHr = $481/yr or around $40/month savings on your electric bill max if you use all of it yourself as opposed to selling any back to FP&L at 3.7 cents/KW. To break even the cost of the entire system must be less than $7000,(a loan of $7000 at 6% for 30yrs is $40/month or $480/yr). Current costs for a 2KW grid tied (no batteries = much cheaper) system will run you +12k$ installed (ie: http://www.dmsolar.com/2000w-solar-gridtie-sy.html).
    Solar panels run over half of the total hardware costs call it ~$6K of the $9.8K in the example above. $6K/2KW= ~$3/W . If thin film can sell for $1.5/W it would knock ~$3K off of the total price.
    Would you pay $54/month for a system that drops $40/month off your electric bill, gives you emergency power, keeps the air a little cleaner, reduces the money we send overseas for fuel or military, provides local jobs, ect ?
    I've ignored the effects of tax incentives or rebates which vary from place to place and over time, but they could bring the price down below break even.