Solar panel efficency

Solar airco -- sidesteps the need for lots of electricity to drive compressors to make cold air. A forgotten technology? Sorta like how they made ice before electricity, in the steam age.

Grant.

--
http://bugs.id.au/

I presume you mean something sorbtion based along the lines of this German website (in English on this page)

I can't recall ever seeing one of these in the UK, but we hardly ever have more than a half dozen days a year when aircon would be essential.

It is an affliction of high rise glass office buildings that they need it because they were built like greenhouses with no opening windows. Shops containing lots of electrical goods tend to need aircon too.

Regards, Martin Brown

Its not even remotely close. Not by a country mile.

Present costs are $3.50 per peak panel watt.

0.25 per peak panel watt is required for net energy displacing renewibility or sustainability.

At present, not one net watthour of pv energy has EVER been produced. The panels remain gasoline destroying net energy sinks.

Absolute proof of this is that not one utility anyplace anytime is routinely using pv for peaking that is completely independent of subsidies, tax breaks, R&D effort, or other money grubbing scams.

The utterly bogus papers that claim otherwise treat subsidies as assets, rather than their much larger "iceberg" liabilities.

Detailed analysis at

Related topics at

--
Many thanks,

Don Lancaster                          voice phone: (928)428-4073
Synergetics   3860 West First Street   Box 809 Thatcher, AZ 85552
rss: http://www.tinaja.com/whtnu.xml   email: don@tinaja.com

Please visit my GURU's LAIR web site at http://www.tinaja.com

Possibly they mean adsorbtion chillers. A classic engineering rathole.

--
Many thanks,

Don Lancaster                          voice phone: (928)428-4073
Synergetics   3860 West First Street   Box 809 Thatcher, AZ 85552
rss: http://www.tinaja.com/whtnu.xml   email: don@tinaja.com

Please visit my GURU's LAIR web site at http://www.tinaja.com

These claims are utterly bogus as they treat subsidies as assets, rather than as much larger "iceberg" liabilities. The key issue is addressed at

So do I. Including the few remaining honest pioneers that have all the arrows in their backs. And when you get them drunk enough or stoned enough, they freely admit they are stealing federal and state dollars just like everybody else does.

--
Many thanks,

Don Lancaster                          voice phone: (928)428-4073
Synergetics   3860 West First Street   Box 809 Thatcher, AZ 85552
rss: http://www.tinaja.com/whtnu.xml   email: don@tinaja.com

Please visit my GURU's LAIR web site at http://www.tinaja.com

one: (928)428-4073

Well that's nice. Now if you can just give me a couple other references, not written by you, I will be a believer.

Here's another one you don't want to read.

"Energy payback time and energy returned on energy invested

The energy payback time is the time required to produce an amount of energy as great as what was consumed during production. The energy payback time is determined from a life cycle analysis of energy. The energy needed to produce solar panels is paid back in the first few years of use.[79]

Another key indicator of environmental performance, tightly related to the energy payback time, is the ratio of electricity generated divided by the energy required to build and maintain the equipment. This ratio is called the energy returned on energy invested (EROEI). This should not be confused with the economic return on investment, which varies according to local energy prices, subsidies available and metering techniques.

Life-cycle analyses show that the energy intensity of typical solar photovoltaic technologies is rapidly evolving. In 2000 the energy payback time was estimated as 8 to 11 years,[80] but more recent studies suggest that technological progress has reduced this to 1.5 to

3.5 years for crystalline silicon PV systems.[74]

Thin film technologies now have energy pay-back times in the range of

1-1.5 years (S.Europe).[74] With lifetimes of such systems of at least 30 years[citation needed], the EROEI is in the range of 10 to 30. They thus generate enough energy over their lifetimes to reproduce themselves many times (6-31 reproductions, the EROEI is a bit lower) depending on what type of material, balance of system (or BOS), and the geographic location of the system.[81] "

-Bill

Hey Frithiof, long time no see!

Welcome back.

-- Cheers, James Arthur

I don't really see the link. Certainly PV cells are an uneconomic source of electricity. They also produce power when it suits them (daytime, sunlight) rather than when it's required, which makes then unsuitable for peaking (or much else, indeed, without expensive resource consuming batteries).

But that does not in itself mean that they're necessarily energy sinks, though I'm not arguing that they're not.

Sylvia.

If you compare the upfront cost with their lifetime energy reception, you'd probably find that they never break even. Good for some portable applications or remote locations, but not much else.

You really need to be careful in your choice of terminology when discussing this.

In place where grid power is available, PV cells never repay the financial cost of their manufacture. That is, absent subsidies, you cannot sell the energy they generate for enough money to justify the expenditure of the money invested in them.

Whether they return all the energy used to make them is a different question.

Sylvia.

Junk science.

That isn't going to happen. Although the myth that solar panels never pay back their energy investment is widespread. They may never pay back the cost to make, install and use them over their lifetime, but that is an entirely different matter. And the economics is shifting as someone demonstrated there appear to be panels on the market now at $2/W.

You can't always trust Wiki but there is also stuff in the peer reviewed literature that refute his bogus claim (which to be fair might once have been true decades ago when solar cells were *much* thicker).

See Richards & Watt (2007)

Regards, Martin Brown

Depends if you want to sell the energy. In S Europe, without subsidies, domestic PV electricity is already comparable to domestic grid cost.

--
Dirk

http://www.transcendence.me.uk/ - Transcendence UK
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/onetribe - Occult Talk Show

Worth keeping an eye on this price tracking site:

"As of May 2010, there are now 440 solar module prices below $4.00 per watt (?3.00 per watt) or 31.5% of the total survey. This compares with

426 price points below $4.00 per watt (?2.92 per watt) in April.

The lowest retail price for a multi-crystalline silicon solar module is $1.74 per watt (?1.31 per watt) from a US retailer. The lowest retail price for a mono-crystalline silicon module is also $2.07 per watt (?1.55 per watt), from a German retailer.

Note, however, that "not all models are equal." In other words, brand, technical attributes and certifications do matter.

The lowest thin film module price is at $1.50 per watt (?1.12 per watt) from a United States-based retailer. As a general rule, it is typical to expect thin film modules to be at a price discount to crystalline silicon (for like module powers). This thin film price is represented by a 60 watt module.

Note, once again, that these prices are based upon the purchase of a single solar module and prices are exclusive of sales taxes. Information on volume discounts, factory gate and PV system pricing is available as part of our consultancy services."

--
Dirk

http://www.transcendence.me.uk/ - Transcendence UK
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/onetribe - Occult Talk Show

The overwhelming vast majority of pv cell users are happy as a clam paying over FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS PER KILOWATT HOUR for their electricity. pv is well suited and an excellent match to this market.

Calculators, of course.

--
Many thanks,

Don Lancaster                          voice phone: (928)428-4073
Synergetics   3860 West First Street   Box 809 Thatcher, AZ 85552
rss: http://www.tinaja.com/whtnu.xml   email: don@tinaja.com

Please visit my GURU's LAIR web site at http://www.tinaja.com

Returning manufacturing energy is a straw man and utterly irrevelent.

The TOTAL INSTALLED cost of ownership can be based on each current dime equaling a kilowatt hour of conventional energy destruction.

If the panel generates two cents worth of electricity a day while amortizing three, you have a gasoline destroying net energy sink. Which is why ZERO utilities are using them for peaking independent of tax credits and similar money grubbing scams.

Net return on energy for total fully burdened investment is all that counts. To date, the panels clearly remain a gasoline destroying net energy sink and are not in any manner renewable or sustainable. At present and at best, they miss by a factor of nearly fourteen.

--
Many thanks,

Don Lancaster                          voice phone: (928)428-4073
Synergetics   3860 West First Street   Box 809 Thatcher, AZ 85552
rss: http://www.tinaja.com/whtnu.xml   email: don@tinaja.com

Please visit my GURU's LAIR web site at http://www.tinaja.com

Highly questionable.

If that were the case, the utilities would immediately switch to pv for their peaking power. Did not and will not happen till costs drop dramatically.

--
Many thanks,

Don Lancaster                          voice phone: (928)428-4073
Synergetics   3860 West First Street   Box 809 Thatcher, AZ 85552
rss: http://www.tinaja.com/whtnu.xml   email: don@tinaja.com

Please visit my GURU's LAIR web site at http://www.tinaja.com

You've got to add the mounting stuff, the labor to hack up your walls and wire it up, the dc/ac inverter, some control electronics, the cost to remove and replace it when it makes your roof leak, the cost to remove and dispose of all that junk when it quits working.

A small lithium battery would power a calculator for 20 or 30 years and work better in dim light. A polysilicon solar cell is probably very cheap, cheaper than a lithium battery maybe.

Lithium batteries run in the roughly $300 to $1000 per KWH range.

John

What part of "grid parity" escaped you? It means that the electricity cost from PV for a domestic user is the same (or cheaper) than buying it retail over the grid from a conventional utility.

--
Dirk

http://www.transcendence.me.uk/ - Transcendence UK
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/onetribe - Occult Talk Show

Without subsidies?

I also wonder whether solar panels will have the actual lifetimes needed to meet their payback calculations. And what extra maintanance costs will be like. I sure don't want one of them on my roof.

Don's point could well be:

Since there is significant economy of scale for a solar PV installation, a utility-sized one must make power cheaper than a rooftop installation. So if the rooftop is break-even, a big installation would be better. So why aren't utilities eager to put up big solar arrays?

John