Posted on 03/03/2009 3:18:16 PM PST by Flavius
Thin-film solar cell manufacturer First Solar yesterday announced it has broken the $1 (70p) per watt cost barrier that is widely accepted as the point at which solar panels become cost competitive with fossil fuels.
The company said that during the fourth quarter of last year, the manufacturing cost for its solar modules stood at 98 cents per watt, taking it below the $1 per watt mark for the first time.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessgreen.com ...
So, $60.00 /light bulb? Great.
I think a more important number would be watts generated/square foot. How much panel is needed to light that bulb??
Okaaaay! So the solar industry will no longer need credits from the taxpayer. Right?
No that's not what it means.
It’s a milestone. And it is a good breakthrough....
Sure, it’s not the 85+% (probably about 95-98) that would make it a feasible system... but it’s a step in getting the cost down. (Those are the two main costs of PV-energy, the manufacture, and the inefficiency of light to electricity we currently have.)
Now, solar to heat (like the solar water-heater/preheater systems), THAT is a good-efficiency system for places like TX, NM, and AZ.)
How are they doing on that “watts on a cloudy day” milestone?
how about....more nuclear plants?
Geothermal out west is the real ticket. The ground out west is mostly hot due to a huge caldera near Yellowstone. If it ever blows again we are mega screwed.
Run pipes under ground, run water through them, get steam, steam turn turbine like a nuke plant. Supposedly they can also use a gas instead of watere that works better.
Why not? Wouldn’t you need $60 worth of panel to generate the 60 watts necessary to light that bulb? Or are these magic watts? /Vinny
Newer photovoltaic cells collect energy from the moon. They’re that sensitive.
Isn’t this the company Al Gore has bet the farm on as an investor?
Exactly, If they have been able to reduce cost to the point where the technology is competitive, without government subsidies then they should be aplauded. Conservatives have nothing against the pursuit of alternative energy sources, we simply believe in free market approaches for doing so.
Yes that’s right but you’re forgetting that that $60 would light that bulb for four hours a day (per an earlier post) almost every day for its 30-year lifetime.
That’s 60W x 4 hours/day x 365 days/year x 30 years x 1 KW per 1000 Watt-hours = 2628 kWH provided for $60 = 2.3 cents per kWH.
Go ahead and double that price for the other hardware in the system, and double it again for installation, and you’re at 9.2c/kWH — very comparable to 10c/kWH out of the wall.
There are a dozen variables that jiggle that up or down of course but you can see that that’s a very good cost indeed.
uh huh. you won’t get the same results in Alaska or Buffalo that you get in FRresno or Tempe. Saying that this is the cost per is not going to work, different places will have different amounts of sun.
how much $ per watt if its cloudy?
I think 30 years is very optimistic.
OK, it’s not perfect yet; not by a long shot. I still support this research, though. And most all of the other energy research areas: oil extraction improvement, wind, geothermal, fast breeder reactors, oil sand and shale, coal gassification, etc.
I support this research not because it brings us closer to the day when we can all hold hands and dance around in the flowers singing Kumbaya. I support this research so that perhaps one day we need not be dependent on our enemies for our energy needs. So that maybe the next time some muslims fly planes into our buildings, we can nuke their home countries, and the home countries of their supporters, without cutting our own throats. I live for that day.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.