Slashdot Mirror
Solar Panels Reach $1 a Watt
ZosX writes "An article over at Popular Mechanics announces that, for the first time, solar cells have been manufactured for the much sought-after figure of $1/Watt. They also talk about a new study of the cost of the particular raw materials used in different manufacturing processes. The conclusion is that the company that just achieved the $1/W milestone, using cadmium telluride technology, may not prove to be the long-term winner capable of meeting demand when it rises into the terawatt range."
I'm not sure what my peak load is at home, but at $1/Watt I imagine I could generate all my own electricity for less than $10,000. Assuming my roof has sufficient room for it, that's really awesome. My current electric bill is around $65/mo. which means that in 153 months this would be paying for itself, or about 12 years. Of course, figuring in things like maintenance, repairs, and so forth makes this harder to gauge, but that's pretty good. Now the consumer electronics industry just needs to convert everything over to run on DC and I'm all set. How soon can I put in an order?
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Here's something for you, that I didn't realize: apparently it costs MORE to install and set up a set of solar panels on your home than it does to manufacture them. It made me think, "wow, I'm going to install those myself for half the price!" but attaching stuff like that to the power grid is probably not a DIY project. And it isn't just a day labor job either. It's going to take a trained electrician, at $30-$60 an hour putting that stuff in.
So, their goal is to get the cost of manufacturing down to about 60-70 cents a watt, and the cost of installation down to $1 a watt. I didn't realize the hidden cost of installation was so high.
Qxe4
Volume production will outstrip the world Tellurium supply in the near future so this isn't going to be a cost effective technology for long.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
You have to be an Anonymous Coward to propose a system for Energy Destruction on /.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
Not only is Tellurium extremely rare, Cadmium Telluride is toxic and I wouldn't want to work in a factory that handles the stuff. (although rendered harmless when build into solar cells). There is nothing to celebrate here. As long as we are not able to create energy (or most other high tech) without using up the rarest of earth's elements at an alarming pace, this is a dead end.
20cents per kWh, one kilowatt used for one hour, whereas this is $1 per watt of capacity, i.e $1 will allow you to generate 1watt, which will generate 1kWh in 1000hrs.
better insulation seriously reduces the need for airco or heating. investments in insulation are said to have a pyback time of 1 to 2 years. (this means 50% to 100% return of investment per year)
Yes, I'm left. You have a problem with that?
This site is news for nerds, no 'news for consumers'.
We are Turing O-Machines. The Oracle is out there.
What are the desert sands but another form of solar collector?
Well as long as they're using rare earth metals, they will never become available. Their supply is much too limited.
Cadmium may not be that expensive, and not that super-rare (though calling the supply abundant would be a stretch), there is barely any tellurium supply.
From the wikipedia page :
Tellurium is extremely rare, one of the nine rarest metallic elements on Earth. It is in the same chemical family as oxygen, sulfur, selenium, and polonium (the chalcogens).
And the reality is ... of all the atoms in the universe (and "more or less" on earth) you have the following relation, for every ton of gold in existence (on earth), there's about 100 grams of Tellurium available.
It's not expensive, because no-one's using it. But if you start mass-producing anything with tellurium in it that cheapness will disappear sooner than you can say "exhausted supply".
It would probably be a very good investment to buy (right now) a ton or so of tellurium and put in your basement. Perhaps a bit unorthodox an investment, but before 20 years pass it will be many times more valuable than gold or platinum. Right now it costs between $70 and $100 per pound. You can reasonably expect that to become at least several thousand within the next ten years.
For those who might take the parent seriously:
Global cooling would only follow if we just stored all of the energy collected by the panels. Assuming we used it, or otherwise released it, which we would probably have to, this would create an amount of thermal energy equal to the initial loss. In the end, only the local energy density on Earth has changed.
Generally, global warming/cooling effects will need to involve changing the rate at which energy enters or exits the Earth. For example, carbon dioxide emissions increase the energy retention, while increased cloud cover can decrease energy entry.
The reason why $1 per watt is important, which isn't mentioned in the summary, is not just that it's a nice round number, but the capital cost of electricity for most major industrialized nations averages about a buck a watt. Some more, some less, depends on the cost of land and the economic conditions when the plants were built, technology level, pollution controls, etc, but your local electrical power company happily pays about a buck a watt to build a traditional non-solar plant.
Solar only works half the day, but probably much lower maintenance, slower depreciation, and no fuel costs at all.
So, it now costs "about the same" to build a 1 GW coal, a 1 GW natgas, a 1 GW nuke, OR A 1 GW SOLAR ... Which brings solar into the corporate boardroom.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
None of the elements being discussed are rare earth elements (which are indeed all metals). Cadmium and tellurium are not, and neither are copper, indium, gallium or selenium. This is too bad actually, since despite their name none of the rare earths, except of course for promethium, is very rare.
Tellurium is fairly common for an element of its atomic weight in the Universe. On Earth it is quite rare, but instead of 1/10,000 as common as gold as you would have it, tellurium has about one fourth the abundance of gold in the Earth's crust. See this abundance table.
a,e,i,o,u and sometimes w and y (at be if of up cwm by)
There is an interesting link on Solar Thermal power at the bottom of the article. I think it is worth reading in relation to photovoltaic power options.
Solar Thermal
Blog Post on the articles.
Think Deeply.
It's not too much of a worry. Concentrating solar power costs have been falling quickly as well, and they require nothing more exotic than reflective surfaces and mineral oil.
Also from the Wikipedia page: "Recently, researchers have added an unusual twist - astrophysicists identify tellurium as the most abundant element in the universe with an atomic number over 40." Which disagrees with the thrust of your objections, but hey, it's Wikipedia. Who knows if it's thinking straight today. The tellurium page also says that cosmic abundance is far higher than terrestrial.
Another thing to keep in mind: one of the reasons so little tellurium is mined is because nobody has had much use for it before. Also, if tellurium becomes a limiting factor, we should be able to get more energy out of each ton by using concentrating reflectors.
As for the "put a ton in your basement" strategy, it may be sound. But Wikipedia advises that it is mildly toxic and should be handled with care.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
There is a lot going on in Thermal Solar right now as it has the greatest potential to meet base load power needs when coupled with molten salt storage.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
What do you mean - Promethium very rare? Wikipedia says: "It was calculated that the equilibrium mass of promethium in the earth's crust is about 560 g due to uranium fission and about 12 g due to the recently observed alpha decay of europium-151"
So, not only is there a pound of that stuff in the earth, but it is ALWAYS there. As soon as you take it away - BAM - another pound.
Wow, one pound on the whole Earth?
That's pretty much not existent.
Patents Drive Free Software as Hurricanes Drive Construction Industry
You are confusing something here. To produce 1 kW of power you need to produce 1000 Watts. 1kWh is measure of this 1 kW of power production running for one hour. Therefore 1 W will have to run 1000 hours to produce 1 kWh.
[A re-post of a comment from a few months ago] Guys -- you all seem to be neglecting the recent developments in solar financing. (Disclaimer -- I do work for SolarCity http://solarcity.com/ [solarcity.com] [solarcity.com], a leading installer of residential solar arrays in the SF Bay Area and beyond. We do use First Solar panels, in fact we're the only company using them for residential-scale projects in the US. I won't make a totally shameless plug here, I'm trying to be fair to the other good and clever solar companies out there. A rising tide lifts all boats!) By bringing in a 3rd party commercial owner via an Operating Lease or Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) structure, the customer can save money from solar on Day 1. The 3rd party (an investment fund, or perhaps the solar company themselves) owns the system and claim the full range of available incentives. Commercial owners can take accelerated depreciation on the system, and can utilize the full 30% federal tax credit , and they also get whatever state/local/utility incentives are available as per usual. The customer would have ZERO down-payment, and makes monthly payments over a period of ~15-18 years. There is no lien on the house. The tax investor receives a reasonable return on their investment over time, the installer makes reasonable margins on the installation, and the customers can save money from Day 1. Everybody wins! So to use the parent submitter's house as an example of what we can do -- For a $400/month average bill in Sunnyvale, CA, we might recommend a 7.7 kW DC system. Assuming the customer had decent credit (720 FICO), we would require no down payment, and then charge monthly lease payments of $216/mo, for 15 years. The monthly payments do go up at ~3-4% per year (we could alternatively have 0% escalation, but of course that would require a higher starting payment and so it's harder to show savings right away... there are many possible variations here. Also remember that local PG&E utility rates are increasing at >5% per year on average). With this 7.7kW system, they might expect their average monthly bill to go from $400 to $99 per month. Add the $216/month payment, and their new average monthly electricity cost is (216 + 99) = $315/month, for immediate savings of ~$85/mo!! [As a point of information, virtually all residential solar systems are grid-tied, so that when the panels are active during the daytime, the meter is often "spinning" backwards. This is how the utility-bill-savings part works.] The installers offering these plans usually include full service/maintenance for the life of the lease, including replacement of the DC/AC inverter if necessary. The customer is given the opportunity to purchase the system after years 6/10/15, or if they have to move or sell their house. The panels are warranted by the manufacturers to last 25+ years at 80-90%+ kWh output, so a long-term buy-and-hold strategy is solid. Or, if the customer looks around in 15 years and sees a better/cheaper technology, or just doesn't wish to renew or buy out), they are free to end the lease and we'll remove the panels at our cost. The customer who understands Net Present Value (NPV) calculations can easily demonstrate that this offers far superior savings compared to either a) doing nothing, or b) purchasing the system for cash. So before you all roll your eyes about solar being a poor investment with a many-year paybacks, please consider such alternative financing approaches.
Dang, I had the same idea... now the price is gonna shoot up overnight as all the slashdotters rush to fill their basements with tellurium!
Actually, a little googling came up with this tidbit of info:
http://seekingalpha.com/article/55959-the-tellurium-supernova
Looks like the price already did its little "massive production price increase"... partially due to its use in solar panels by First Solar, starting in 2005. (surprise!)
Interestingly, tellurium is most commonly produced as a by-product of electro-refining gold and copper. From the article I linked, we discover that "Annual global tellurium production is about 170 tons to 200 tons, based on various different estimates." Combine this with the use of approximately 8 grams per panel (also in the article), and we discover that the most massive solar panel production was using... almost 4% of the annual production. The following year, that dropped to 1.6%. Tellurium is also used in recordable optical media and electronics (it appears it is used to dope silicon to make it electrically conductive), to name just a few other uses. It would appear that its primary use is as an alloying agent in iron and steel to improve machinability.
While tellurium is likely to increase in value slightly over the next decade or so, this is not the makings of a "gold rush". To be quite honest, this isn't even really news, considering that First Solar has been using tellurium in their solar panels for 4 years now.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
"So, not only is there a pound of that stuff in the earth, but it is ALWAYS there. As soon as you take it away - BAM - another pound."
What you are implying is that promethium is the result of a process subject to equilibrium processes. Radioactive decay is not an equilibrium process.
I have no idea the natural abundance of promethium, but if you take away a pound of promethium, there is no "BAM - another pound".
Solar panels will have different outputs depending on the weather and latitude where they are installed. Quoting the price per watt under idealized conditions isn't propaganda, it provides a reasonable basis for comparison.
Though if some salesman comes to your house and quotes the price per watt, you should probably get all reactionary (unless he is comparing two different systems).
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
The current lowest price per PV watt is $3.89. Anything anywhere as cheap as $1:W would revolutionize the current photovoltaic solar industry, which is already just becoming a good priced alternative to getting power from the "city grid".
--
make install -not war
I voraciously read all that, and I don't own anything Apple, or buy that many games, etc.
The fact that they sell the technology doesn't mean that the technology is not interesting per se.
We are Turing O-Machines. The Oracle is out there.
I have decided, for the purposes of acquiring tellurium, that there should really be more of it available on the Earth. I have updated the Wikipedia article to reflect this. Hopefully this update gets pushed to the Earth so we can get some cheap solar panels.
He must have been thinking of his girlfriend's ass when he said "BAM-another pound."
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
Wow, one pound on the whole Earth?
That's pretty much not existent.
It doesn't matter if you can make juice at a buck a watt if your panels are made of unobtainium.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
I get the feeling he was being clever...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prometheus
Tellurium is extremely rare, one of the nine rarest metallic elements on Earth. It is in the same chemical family as oxygen, sulfur, selenium, and polonium (the chalcogens).
In a previous life I worked as a Metallurgist for a copper refinery. One project I worked on was refining / recovery of Tellurium from our anode slimes. From a technical point of view it wasn't difficult to recover. I was able to easily get > 99.96% purity in the lab.
At the time we had around 10 Tonnes / year of Tellurium in our slimes. Considering that the total world production is < 40 Tonnes, that was significant.
Even at > $100,000 / tonne, it just wasn't worth our while to go to the trouble of recovering it.
In the end we sold our slimes 'raw' and took the price hit for the impurities (included Copper and Tellurium)
It's not expensive, because no-one's using it. But if you start mass-producing anything with tellurium in it that cheapness will disappear sooner than you can say "exhausted supply".
It would probably be a very good investment to buy (right now) a ton or so of tellurium and put in your basement. Perhaps a bit unorthodox an investment, but before 20 years pass it will be many times more valuable than gold or platinum. Right now it costs between $70 and $100 per pound. You can reasonably expect that to become at least several thousand within the next ten years.
That price is still > $200,000 / Tonne
If the demand (and then price) really do go up, many of the refineries (or the precious metals companies that purchase their slimes) may be induced to actually recover their Tellurium, thus increasing supply.
NB. The major use of Tellurium is currently as a free machining agent in steel (it makes it easier to drill / machine)
Ever stop to think
..and as soon as it's synthesized, it surrenders.
AT&ROFLMAO