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Elon Musk's Solar City Is Ramping Up Solar Panel Production
MarkWhittington writes: Elon Musk is well known as a private space flight entrepreneur, thanks to his space launch company SpaceX. He is also a purveyor of high end electric cars manufactured by his other company, Tesla Motors. But many people do not know that Musk has a third business, Solar City, which is a manufacturer of solar panels. On Tuesday that company announced a major play to increase the output of solar panels suitable for home solar units. Solar City has acquired a company called Silevo, which is said to have a line of solar panels that have demonstrated high electricity output and low cost. Silevo claims that its panels have achieved a 22 percent efficiency and are well on their way to achieving 24 percent efficiency. It suggests that 10 cents per watt is saved for every point of efficiency gained. Solar City, using the technology it has acquired from Silevo, intends to build a manufacturing plant in upstate New York with a one gigawatt per year capacity. This will only be the beginning as it intends to build future manufacturing plants with orders of magnitude capacity. The goal appears to be for the company to become the biggest manufacturer of solar panels in the world.
This might be a great thing for the future. I have no idea what the timeframe would be, but this could spark the eventual cutting off from the grid, or at least using the grid as a backup. . .
I always wonder: can the solar power race be hindered by the sustainability of producing solar panels? I mean: how much silicon is there available?
Why Silevo didn't aim to be biggest? If their panels are so good and cheap, then why not just keep selling them? Why sell company that is making profit and will most likely grow? Fast cash grab, or those panels aren't so special after all? And why not just use some cheap 16% China panels in higher volume? Sure there is limited real estate on house for panels, so you might not get all your need covered by solar, but with unstable weather you wouldn't anyway.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon
"Over 90% of the Earth's crust is composed of silicate minerals..."
I don't think Silicon is the problem here. Most (if not all) solar panels depend on other rare earth materials that may be in short supply tho.
Is that even possible?
10 cents per watt is saved for every point of efficiency gained
What does that mean ?
My electricity cost of approx. € 0.25 / kwh
How do I save 10 cents per watt ? Or are they talking about the re-purchase price of the panel ?
Once I heard that solar panels output more energy in their service lifespan than it takes to manufacture them. Is that true? Then there is no reason to not make as many as possible. It's an epic win on the engineering/physical science level.
Musk really has the vision and guts to push us in these areas that have languished for years (private space travel, electric cars, and now domestic electric power generation), and seems to be making them working concerns. If he gets even one past the tipping point, it's a lifelong career's worth of accomplishment. He may get the hat trick! Maybe we should pay attention to his alternative to the California high speed rail project...
The sun is the BEST source of power there is. It powers all life on this planet.
The problem is not the power source, it's how to store it. Plants do that pretty well, our problem is we're inneficient at extracting that power to produce electricty.
Luckily we're highly efficient at extracting it to produce body heat.
"one gigawatt per year", really?
you may have night but the World +12 hours has day.
For many people, the limit on the size of their solar array is the size of their roof. If you want to offset your full usage, you may need higher-capacity panels than the standard 250W base panels. There are a number of higher-efficiency panels available, but the cost per Watt is higher. They probably don't cost much more to manufacture, so the more efficient panels have a higher profit margin.
Also, you have to keep improving your technology or you're out of the business when the cheap panels get to be as efficient than what you're producing.
I don't know, battteries? FSM knows I need a lot of power at night when all my lights are off and I'm sleeping.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
" It's the worst source of power there is"
Funny, virtually all energy sources are based on it. Wind energy is simply temperature differentials in the atmosphere created by the sun, hydroelectric is only possible because the sun heated oceans evaporate and the resulting rainfall can be harnessed, even fossil fuels are the remnants of ancient plants (which use sunlight) compressed into a energy source over millions of years by heat & pressure. The only thing we need to make it a viable energy sources is come up with a cheap, high density storage medium and refine our ways of capturing it (solar panels of course have issues). At a minimum solar thermal use should be expanded (hot water preheating, supplemental furnace, industrial, etc)
The total quantity of solar cells produced in a year can produce 1 gigawatt at its peak efficiency. Is that more clear?
Haven't we all watched enough James Bond and Super Man films to know that Elon Musks true goal is to build a Giant Robot and/or Start WW3?
What is the rare earth content of some of our solar systems planets/asteroids? Creating a sustainable launch industry could be part of a long term plan at getting at sources of rare earth minerals necessary for long term battery/solar production. Most of these elements are more precious than gold, so with reduced launch costs and ever increasing demand for them extraterrestrial mining for them could be economically viable in the near term.
The sustainability of solar panels is tied to the end-user cost per kWh. Here's how I see it: every dollar spent at the consumer end is a dollar in non-renewable energy cost. Why? Every material in this world is free. What is not free is the energy it takes to extract, refine, and manufacture. And no matter how you slice it, that dollar is going to end up in energy - as fuel for an agricultural tractor, or as fuel to smelt ore, or as fuel to drive a boring machine to extract materials, or as fuel to power a ship, a plane, or a truck to deliver your raw and processed goods. Even the money you pay to Musk will get burned in jet fuel for his plane or yacht, or in his employees cars to get to work - even the ones who drive Teslas who recharge using oil, gas, or coal fired plants (which is the majority).
So look at your MSRP, and divide it through by the life of the panel and the average output. Until we break about 12c/watt we're just "storing" fossil fuel energy in batteries which only work when the sun is shining. It is getting closer. Right now a typical installation (complete, by a contractor, not DIY) is $7/watt for residential, and sunny places like LA get 5-5.5 hours/day, or 1800-1900h/year, with most panels warrantied for 20 years. That's 37000Wh life per panel watt, or 37kWh. At 8c/kWh, that $7 panel is worth $4.50 in energy. (note that the panel costs are down to the $2-3/W range, so they're positive on the panels, but negative on the system). That's not break even on small installed systems, but large systems are getting efficiencies greater than their cost to built. Hopefully it will trickle down, and more solar power will be used to assist manufacturing, which will tilt the balance in favor of solar even more.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
How will he ever comply with all of the onerous regulations that NY has for manufacturing facilities? Let's not even mention the hassle of dealing with unions..
Please please please, pretty please with a bow around it, do not build these plants in states voting for legislators who are hostile to climate science, hostile to green technology, hostile to EPA.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
I know it's in the original article, but one gigawatt per year??? Someone doesn't understand energy. That's a rate of growth of capacity, not a capacity. I'm guessing what was intended was "one gigawatt hour per year" which is a measure of energy produced in one year. Divide by the number of hours in a year and you have the average power output.
*this post bought to you by Anonymous Coal industry shill
well deserved if the efficiency is even 20 percent; however if not then yes it's just a free hummer
Ok, fess up, who missed the sarcasm?
Note: Poster lives in Newfoundland, and paid for gold plated connectors.
I've played around with a few ROI calculators and thus far it appears that I wouldn't break even for 17 years. That's a pretty lousy return on investment particularly if the cells only have a 20 year life. And the performance degrades over time. These calculators don't seem to take that into account.
The 4 posters above you.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
The above story references a 2006 Sandia world energy report.
http://www.sandia.gov/~jytsao/Solar%20FAQs.pdf
FAQ 15 says 10.6% of the world's energy came from photosynthesis,
but only 1.4% was sustainable.
Does that say 9.2% of the worlds energy comes from clear cutting forests?
That would seem a LOT worse than burning coal.
Hopefully, their threshold for 'sustainable' is too high.
But it seems like instituting sustainable agriculture might be a useful tool here.
SpaceX to get Musk to Mars.
Tesla to move him around on Mars.
Solar City to power everything on Mars.
Musk is sticking with his plans to retire on Mars and all his companies are helping him get there.
20% in 10 years? I'm a little skeptical about a lot of the claims for solar payback but this sounds a little low even to me. Most of what I've researched puts full payback at 8-10 years minus government incentives. I think with the attacks on coal resulting in higher prices it may move down to 5 year payback as energy prices go up. I think improvements in the next decade may make solar take off at long last.
Everyone loves a rich visionary. Well, maybe not everyone.
You can always move to China is you don't like moving away from coal, or its byproducts.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
Home solar installations are still not very cost effective. I installed one at home anyway because I thought it would be a neat thing to play with, but the payback estimates the vendor and government used to sell me on it were vastly aggressive, claiming a 3-5 year payback. So far it has been nearly 10 years and I've not yet made back 20% of the installation cost.
In any case, solar might become more viable as we move away from coal, which the EPA seems to want to force sooner rather than later.
I also question the "environmentalism" of solar given how utterly dirty and toxic the processes are for making the cells themselves.
This is an example of what Musk says "the lay of the land today, where there are indeed too many suppliers, most of whom are producing relatively low photonic efficiency solar cells at uncompelling costs"
So he's just betting that the case for solar gets better sometime soon so he's investing in a company that does solar stuff. He already knows that he will loose money in the short term. He's taking a risk with his money, I hope it pays off, but I don't think the chances are good.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
But when will Elon Musk build his Iron Man suit?
I'm looking at solar for my house, not just to lower/remove electric bills, but to also get some backup power as my house tends to be cut off from the grid at least a couple of times a year. I figure some solar, a small battery farm, and an inverter will see me through most such outages.
Personal opinion here, but after doing a LOT of research on these types of deals (company comes in and "leases" the solar equipment/installation to you, and it's paid over the lifetime of the equipment or a set year range like 15-20 years), I'd stay away.
It's a crappy site, but it lays out all the arguments against doing such a thing: http://solarleasedisadvantages...
I have found that the cost and quality of solar deployments can vary tremendously. For example, I can buy panels at 75 cents per watt. However, if I go for a kit, that cost jumps up significantly. If I let a "solar installer" do it, that might bump costs up a good amount too.
I have found that solar can be used in increments, so a starting investment can be relatively small. For example, having a 15 amp circuit or two in a house that runs off of batteries is a good way to keep the parasitic devices that draw a 10-20 watts, but draw that 24/7, off the electric bill. It doesn't sound like much, but the watts used by the little devices (battery chargers for example) can add up. If one buys a high quality pure sine wave inverter, it also prolongs the life of devices on that line as well because they don't eat power transients or surges/sags that might come from the utility company. In fact, one's computer might be able to be put on one of these circuits, so a UPS wouldn't be needed, barring a direct lightning strike.
As part of a new house, I see solar as a "why not" as opposed to a "why bother" item. With a PV cut switch so that a fire causes the panels to automatically disconnect, safety issues are mitigated. Plus, with hybrid grid systems, it can be used for feeding the grid, providing UPS power, or both.
I think the key is how the solar install is packaged and sold. There is a wide price range and wide quality range [1]. I'm hoping as companies get more experience with this that install quality becomes more consistent and improves overall.
[1]: One thing often neglected or skimped on in solar installs is wire thickness. Too skinny wires between the charge controller and batteries, and the batteries will never be completely charged.
Wall Street is supporting the Solar Industry...
If space isn't a concern, why do I care about the efficiency of the panel? If a 10% efficient panel costs $100 per square meter, and a 20% efficient panel costs $250 per square meter, you can bet I'm buying the 10% one...
As if I had one...
but someone is going to be the intel/microsoft of solar panels, it's only a matter of time. Elon Musk is obviously a capable businessman. It would not surprise me to see solar city succeed.
Personally, the main thing holding me back is deflation. If they keep getting cheaper, my payoff might be sooner if I wait a couple years to get them. But then the subsidies may well decrease, so maybe not...
Just dropping in to say that anyone who names a company after a pinball game has my vote.
Plus I loved that machine.
https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
Holy shit. I pay $1000 a year and that are the crazy german prices
Handwaved away? On that issue I disagree with you. Such costs are routinely considered when a company goes though the decision cycle of "should we build a new plant?
Fossil fuel plants are not required to pay for or clean up substantial amounts of pollution they generate. They dump vast quantities of CO2 and other pollutants, both gaseous and particulate, and never are required to pay for the full impact they have. Sure, there are some emissions controls and cleanup they are required to consider but they do not and never have been required to pay for the full cost of their pollution. Good luck getting them to pay to "clean up" their toxic byproducts too. This is called an externality.
Right now, if one considers the TCO of solar, they come up way short of other options.
Hard to compete with a competitor that not only doesn't have to pay the full cost of their pollution but gets (unnecessary) subsidies to generate said pollution.
Environmentally they fail too, but you have to open up your aperture to the total life cycle of the system to be totally fair.
I'll discuss the total life cycle of solar if you account for all the externalities of coal and natural gas and oil. I think if you do that you'll find that the cost of solar isn't nearly as different as you think it is.
Lol what a bunch a BS.
I installed a 3350kW system on my house 3 years ago. 62% of it was paid by incentives and tax refunds. The price of the house immediately went up $20,000, or about 2.5 times the money I actually paid.
I made instant money without doing anything.
Oh and did I mention that my electric bill is negative?
3350W or 3.350kW obviously.
Whenever there's even a tangential mention of electricity production / consumption, I know there will be a furious sub-thread about units!
/Grabs popcorn.
My 2 year old system is on track to pay itself off (no government incentives) in 3 years. I was paying 50c/kwh. At 10c/kwh it would take ~16-18 years assuming rates stay at 10c/kwh through 2030.
Now he is upsetting another huge industry with trillion dollars in assets, the electric utility companies. And the technique he is using requires someone with great credibility to raise incredible sums of money. Solar never threatened utilities before because, the system cost was high, and individual home owners had to do some complex breakeven analysis, raise funds and take some risk. But Solar City is zero risk to the home owners, perfect distributed competitor to the utilities, plans to make electricity using zero cost fuel (sunlight). The entire cost is cost of servicing debt. Interest rates are lowest in known memory.
The technology and the business model will make it immaterial who the prime-movers are backing it. But the speed at which change happens depends on a charisma and credibility of players like Musk. The utility companies would not hesitate to find scandals, astro turf to create fake scandals, engage in character assassination etc to bring him down personally. So he should be careful with his dealings.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Will he buy into the Solar Roadways concept?
Hell if I had to pay 50 cents per Kwh I'd have to go solar now for sure. Actually I'd probably go homeless. Jeez!
Actually, the moon is even better - it powers all life on this planet too !!!
There are vast amounts of kinetic energy available in tides that we've barely considered tapping into.