SolarCity Says It Has Produced the World's Highest Efficiency Solar Panel

Lucas123 writes: SolarCity, one of the country's leading solar panel makers and installers, today said it has been able to create a product that has a 22.04% efficiency rating, topping its closest competitor SunPower, by about one percent. While the percentages may appear small, SolarCity said the new panels, which will go into pilot production later this month, will produce 30% to 40% more energy with the same footprint as its current panels, and they will cost no more to make.

Comments

will they "cost no more to" buy?

[turkeydance]

inquiring minds.....

Re:will they "cost no more to" buy?

[ShanghaiBill]

Who on earth would buy batteries for a solar panel installation? Just buy a grid tie inverter and pray your area has net metering and that's IT.

Net metering is not available everywhere, and some places are scaling back. Hawaii has some of the highest electricity prices in the world (42c / kwh). So many people are installing solar, that there is a glut of electricity during the day, and the electricity company gets whipsawed at 7pm when the solar fades but the ACs are still on. Residential battery systems that could soak up even 20% of production, would shift demand by a couple hours and solve the problem.

And no, solar panels ARE NOT cheap. If you think they are, then give me your sources.

RTFA. It says that panels are now 65c/w. If you get a quote you will find that the installation costs and infrastructure are going to more than double that. The biggest cost is no longer the panels themselves.

Re:will they "cost no more to" buy?

[Anonymous Coward]

In Australia we have higher electricity prices and they recently "reduced" the price by quadrupling the daily grid connection fee. They are really on the attack against solar and battery storage, leaks are showing they are wanting to charge a historic grid exit fee (so you pay thousands to disconnect from the grid). We will very likely be the first country in the world to experience the shift from centralized to distributed power and our major energy companies are fighting it strongly.

We were one of the first to have solar reach grid parity, we have the number 1 spot in the world for solar, we have a large number of coal plants that are mothballed and the energy companies are simply waiting for the government to give handouts so they can avoid the millions it costs to decommision them. Tesla recently announced we will be getting their powerwall early, we are getting Enphase's AC battery system first. All because we are very close (or at) grid parity for renewable + battery storage today, something we thankfully have our government recognising now after the ousting of our "coal is good for humanity and wind turbines are an eyesore" 4th Prime Minister in 5 years (5 leaders in 5 years baby! Stable democracy at work!)

Re:will they "cost no more to" buy?

[rtb61]

The cost of complete solar systems panels and batteries is offset by the capital value they add to the property, so unlike renting a power connection and burning capital as energy, it gives the home owner something to sell. So the cost of a complete system has less impact due to the retained capital value of the system (developing branding of complete systems will have a major impact in this ie powered by Tesla or say Toyota vs a cobbled together system), pretty much no different to the air-conditioning or cooking appliances they would power.

The more this comes into practice the more rapid the shift to DC only appliances in the home this not only reducing the cost of those appliances but also the solar power system. Likely it will be cheaper to drop the mains connection than pay a connection fee and for the additional components of a home power system to allow AC into and out of the system, keeping in mind the less power the mains power system supplies and can be charged for, the higher the rental cost for that connection to the power station (interesting problems for medium and high density dwellings versus homes). Gas as energy for cooking and heating has even worse future outcomes (except for power generation due to the polluting nature of coal ie coal dies first, then oil and then gas).

The demand for energy will continue to grow as more accessible energy allows the conservation of other resources (cheap nature water sources versus desalinated water) and more effective recycling (better recovery of resources from waste).

Disrupting these logically changes are the psychopaths of capitalism trying to squeeze blood out of all of us in order to further enrich themselves and damn the long term consequences, attempting to extend the profitability of the fossil fuel resources they own for as long as possible before dumping those investments on pension funds.

Re:will they "cost no more to" buy?

[Solandri]

Gas as energy for cooking and heating has even worse future outcomes (except for power generation due to the polluting nature of coal ie coal dies first, then oil and then gas).

Have you even done any calculations for how much energy is consumed by cooking and heating? My home has a gas stove, gas water heater, and gas heater. During summer my consumption is about 7 therms, which is equivalent to about 205 kWh (my bill is about $15). During winter it's about 10x that.

Using a solar constant of 800 Watts and 22% efficiency panels, 1 square meter of panels will generate 176 Watts peak. Multiply by the average (fixed) PV solar capacity factor for the U.S. of 0.145 and 1 square meter of panels will generate 25.52 Watts on average. Multiply by 730 hours/month and you get 18.63 kWh per month from 1 m^2 of panels.

In other words, just to cover my cooking and water heating needs in summer, I'd need 11 m^2 of solar panels. During winter, I'd need 10x that, or 110 m^2 of solar panels, or about 150 m^2 after factoring in batteries with a combined charge/discharge efficiency of 0.7-0.75. Unlike cooking and showering, I mostly want the house to be heated when the sun isn't up.

We have a long, long way to go before PV solar has any hope of replacing gas for heating.

Labor cost to install remains the biggest issue...

[FlyHelicopters]

In my area, the cost of the panels is no longer the primary issue.

I can purchase a 10kw system online including all the panels, cables, inverter, etc. for about $17K.

http://www.wholesalesolar.com/...

That system has 32 panels, the "smart" inverter, racking, disconnect, etc.

The trick is installing it. The lowest total installed price for that system that I've been able to find is $35K. That strikes me as nuts.

I've contacted multiple companies, I've had 2 of them quote me systems after looking at my roof.

Making the panels a bit more efficient won't cut the price by enough to matter until the install cost comes down. Maybe I should start a solar panel install company. :)

Cost? Life?

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Manufacturing cost is same, they claim.

The new panels produce 30% to 40% more power over the current models, but they cost the same to manufacture -- about .55 cents per watt, according to Bass. The panels, which are 1.61 meters or 1.81 meters in size, depending on the model, will have a capacity of 355 watts each.

. Curiously they don't claim it would cost the same to the users. May be a little profit taking, nothing wrong with that, they need some motivation and some returns to attract investments. Anyway they have competition, they are not the sole manufacturer of some life saving drug or something. Market will rein in the profits at the optimal level. And may be transportation and installation might be a little more expensive? Don't know, but encouraged the cost of manufacturing is same.

No mention of life of the panels.

Re:Labor cost to install remains the biggest issue

[silas_moeckel]

Hint you have to use a certified (by the solar panel manufacture aka the last guys that touched it) to get the fed tax credits.

Like most federal tax credits incentives etc it's pork for a corp interest. All you should need is the signoff from the electrical inspector maybe have them do a quick power output test and sign some paperwork. Instead the value of that work gets marked up the same as the tax breaks.