at 435 Euro,
2.7 $e.
uoted text -
I've seen one solar company that uses a few KW of PV on the roof of the store, and the owner also has a few KW on his roof at home. It's good advertisement, and they probably get a nice discount. I didn't ask.
-Bill
Netherlands,
competitive in my country.
Euro,
Obviously depends where you live, but in the Mediterranean nations payback is well within the lifetime of the panels, especially if the electricity being generated is priced at domestic grid rates.
-- Dirk http://www.transcendence.me.uk/ - Transcendence UK http://www.blogtalkradio.com/onetribe - Occult Talk Show
Netherlands,
competitive in my country.
Euro,
Of course you can harness rain and mud by growing vegetables. ;)
Cheers
Phil Hobbs
(From Vancouver, which is as rainy as Holland but not nearly as flat.)
-- Dr Philip C D Hobbs Principal ElectroOptical Innovations 55 Orchard Rd Briarcliff Manor NY 10510 845-480-2058 email: hobbs (atsign) electrooptical (period) net http://electrooptical.net
cells:
Netherlands,
using
competitive in my country.
435 Euro,Sign up for all those free trade mags, and catalogs, and burn them.
John
435 Euro,
At least the big ones (over 1 MW) are usually solar thermal (heliostats, parabolic reflectors) not PV modules for some "strange" reason.
PVs are economical, if you can sell all your PV production at a generously subsidized feed in tariff to the net and buy back your consumption at the grid rates (often 1/4 of the feed in tariff).
Of course, you have to be careful not to sell PV solar power at night to the net :-).
In order to be truly economical, the PV price per Watt must drop by one order of magnitude to survive without subsidies.
One should not assume that current subsidized prices will last forever, with current economical crisis, there are talks in some countries to cut back the number of new projects that are allowed into the generous subsidizes system.
By the time PV is economical, China will own the entire industry.
-- Dirk http://www.transcendence.me.uk/ - Transcendence UK http://www.blogtalkradio.com/onetribe - Occult Talk Show
435 Euro,
They are already economical for domestic users in places like S Italy, Cyprus, Malta etc without subsidy.
The breakeven has always been stated at $1/W ie prices must halve
-- Dirk http://www.transcendence.me.uk/ - Transcendence UK http://www.blogtalkradio.com/onetribe - Occult Talk Show
435 Euro,
Isolated islands like Cyprus and Malta have to produce their electricity in small low efficiency coal and especially oil powered power stations that have to rely of foreign import of fuels. With increasing use of air conditioning, the production capacity must be capable of handling these peaks.
In a small grid, you have to build quite a lot of reserve capacity in order to survive a failure in the largest production unit.
It is no wonder, that the electricity price in those islands is high and hence PV is economical, if the real production costs are charged during the peak hours.
I do not understand how this would apply to Sicily, which is connected to the Continental Europe grid and hence would also get electricity produced by cheaper nuclear and hydroelectric power plants. The peak demand can partially be handled with hydroelectric plants.
Be careful when reading such claims.
Those $1/W prices are usually stated for the peak power production. Unfortunately solar or wind does not produce the nominal power for
365x24, but only 20-35 % of that. Thus 1$/W peak is 3-5 $/W sustained.A tracking PV panel might slightly increase the annual production, but when a tracking unit is used, the cost for peak watt will be increased.
Local PV can currently make sense in hot areas with few clouds to drive local air conditioners, since the electricity production and demand will match quite well. But why generate electricity with low efficiency and then drive compressors rather than using vacuum solar thermal collectors and drive absorbtion chillers (with medium efficiency) to cool the house ?
60
re
ees
eWhen it's economic depends on your local price of electricity, the amount of sun you get, whether you use batteries (expensive), or just use the grid at night (much cheaper), etc.
I posted a QuickBASIC program that figures it out
At $2 / watt for panels, no batteries, sunbelt USA location, and vanilla assumptions, I get break-even in about 16 years, and a 25-year
2.64% annual return.-- Cheers, James Arthur
435 Euro, $
Depends where such a power station is sited (the 1$/W has been for power stations, not domestic)
European domestic power prices
-- Dirk http://www.transcendence.me.uk/ - Transcendence UK http://www.blogtalkradio.com/onetribe - Occult Talk Show
The most economical use is to displace a proportion (
Last year I wondered that too. Short answer: the high efficiency of compressor-type a/c units more than compensates for the low efficiency of PV. So it was when I added it up, anyway.
-- Cheers, James Arthur
Are you talking about big tracking (DESERTEC style) solar thermal power plants in Sahara or something else ?
No doubt a solar thermal power station in Arizona or Saudi-Arabia might be quite useful.
But outside these places, does the deployment make any sense ?
Domestic PV is sunny climates makes the most sense of all.
-- Dirk http://www.transcendence.me.uk/ - Transcendence UK http://www.blogtalkradio.com/onetribe - Occult Talk Show
Already partially up and running....
...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, CTO | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona 85048 Skype: Contacts Only | |
| Voice:(480)460-2350 Fax: Available upon request | Brass Rat |
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I can see November from my house :-)
Actually, the efficiency of PV increases with falling temperatures. Meaning snowy hills are much better than the mediteranean.
The single cell output voltage drop is something like -2 mV/K from some nominal 600 mV output voltage, so if going from hot desert to cold mountains, the system efficiency might increase from 10 % to 12 % or 13 %, no big deal.
Instead use the heat directly in applications, in which electricity is not absolutely needed.
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