CA: Million solar roofs achievable by 2018, officials say

Bakersfield Californian ^ | 12/13/04 | Don Thompson - AP

[homeywhite]

If you are hooked to the grid and sell ALL the electric energy you produce to the local utility, would that eliminate the need for batteries? If this eliminated the battery waste issue, the question would become, are you generating enough power to produce a net return on your investment. Don't know enough about the cost of these programs to make any kind of guess. I sort of stumbled into a solar panel situation when a neighbor gave me 13 4 by 8 copper solar heating panels. Haven't had them installed yet. They don't generate electricity but reportedly produce lots of hot water.

[DoughtyOne]

Hetty, I didn't advocate tearing housing down to the foundation. That's something you folks did by choice.

Right now people spend hundreds of dollars per month for energy to run their homes. Whether we can convert some of that money to achieve 75% or even 25%, it makes more sense to me to increase individual self-reliance rather than build many new large public utility plants.

Creating a massive market for home generation will do what? It will serve to expand the options, and to reduce the costs.

If I would spend between $2,400 and $4,800 to purchase energy this year, why should I object to spending a portion of it on materials to generate a portion of my electricity? You start watching hundreds of thousands of homeowners moving in this direction and a whole new eceonomy would be driven by it.

Let's take a worst case scenario and agree that I would only achieve 25% self-relience. Imagine the load a 25% drop in grid demands would mean for the state. Over the years as that 25% became 35, 45, 75%, we'd be alleviating the problems of massive blackouts and the NIMBY reaction to plans for new power plants. It would essentially take the energy debate away from the idiot leftists.

I don't pretend to have all the answers on this one, but I am convinced this is the direction we should be considering.

Instead of poping up and saying we can't do this, it would be far better for us to start thinking about how we can do this. We can do anything if we put our minds to it, and so far all we're doing is saying, "We can't." Yes, we can. It won't happen overnight, but it's a worthwhile goal.

[DoughtyOne]

Thanks for the comments.

I don't believe there is one viable energy source going to supply all our needs at this time. I do believe some solar, some wind and some creative steam generation units would go a long way toward reducing dependency on the public utilities.

We've become so accustomed to connecting to the grid and turning on the switch, that we've abandoned alternative power creation. As a result we're about one or two critical strikes away from massive power outages due to terrorism.

There are a number of reasons for us to move in this direction.

[Boot Hill]

8	“Solar panels work. I've got them on my boat, they are very nice.”

Where your connection to the grid is not existent or problematical, solar cells can offer a practical solution. However, when used as a supplement or replacement to the grid, there is simply no rational economic way to justify solar cells...

The Inefficiencies of Solar Power
(Based upon a flat horizontal PV array located at
the average continental U.S. latitude of 38º.)

ref.	source	loss (%)	power (per m2)
1.	Solar flux	-	1,368 W
2.	Atmospheric losses	45	752 W
3.	Night times losses	50	376 W
4.	Solar angle losses	50	188 W
5.	Cell conversion losses	88	22.6 W
6.	DC®AC inverter losses	10	20.3 W
7.	Net efficiency		1.49%
8.	Net energy per day		0.49 kWh
9.	Value of energy per day		4.3 ¢
10.	Solar panel cost per m2		$530
11.	Payback period		33 years

Notes:

1.	Measured just outside the earth's atmosphere.
2.	Loss = atmos. absorp. + atmos. reflect. + cloud absorp. + cloud reflect. See also: 1,   2,   3,
3.	Necessary for calculating average daily value of energy production.
4.	Line 4 equals 4.5kWh per day. Compare to map of U.S. Average Daily Solar Radiation.
5.	Includes spec'd de-rating for cell temperature and irradiance level.
6.	5kW modular, synchronous, grid-tie inverter.
7.	Line 6 divided by line 1.
8.	Line 6 times 86,400 and divided by 3.6E6.
9.	Computed from 2004 DOE stats for average U.S. residential consumer price.
10.	Shell SQ175-PC solar panel, $699, 1.32m2 area.
11.	Exclusive of installation, inverter, interest, etc.

Real World Performance...
Shell Solar offered a peak at real-world performance in their document:   Solar Electric System Case Study. This document reports on the performance of a roof top residential installation in sunny Southern California. The array consists of 32 Shell Solar SP75 solar panels.

The report states that the total projected system electrical output per year is 3650 kWh. According to the spec sheet for the SP75, each panel is 0.63m² in size or 20.24m² for all 32 panels. That works out to an average power production of 20.6 W/m². Compare that to the value of 20.3 W/m² quoted in line 6 of the above table.

At the current price for the SP75, an array of 32 panels would cost $11,168. At current California residential retail utility prices, 3650 kWh of electrical energy, is worth $432. That places the payback (breakeven) period at 26 years. In other words, you won't begin to "reap the benefits of cheap, inexhaustible, solar power" for over a quarter century! Moreover, when the cost of installation, inverter, wiring, building permits and interest are figured in, that payback period will be at least twice as long.

Many owners of residential roof top installations report much lower costs than those described above. The explanation is that government sponsored, and taxpayer funded, solar power rebate and incentive programs are used to cover up the real costs of massively inefficient and over-priced solar power.

--Boot Hill