Free Solar Power Is Hoax

The Albuquerque Journal ^ | January 15, 2009 | James P. O'Loughlin, Placitas Engineer

[CedarDave]

The article “N.M. Solar Energy Plan Expanded,” about the state Public Regulation Commission's promotion of grid-tied photovoltaic (PV) power generation states that ... invest[ment] in PV installations will have “free” electricity.

I evaluated such an installation for our house using Public Service Company of New Mexico PV information on its Web site. I checked the results against more sophisticated resources and found the PNM results to be in good agreement.

For my house, a PV system's cost is about $10,000 per kw, or for our case about $40,000.

... Based on a 20-year life and 6 percent cost of money, this comes to a monthly cost of $286.57. The monthly cost for the same amount of energy from PNM service is $42.75 — where is the “free” electricity?

There is an insurmountable fact of nature that forces photovoltaic to be several times more expensive than conventional power generation: The sun doesn't shine for 24 hours a day. This requires that a PV generation installation must have a power rating that is about six times higher than a continuously running conventional installation for the same energy output.

~~snip~~

The cliché about investing in research and development to decrease the cost of panels and make PV power generation competitive is an unachievable myth that is fanatically pursued by the government and other groups having various and peculiar reasons.

When reality is not acceptable, the government can fix it with political alchemy. Through the influence of pressure groups and lobbyists, state and federal governments decree that photovoltaic power generation must be implemented. To fix the inherently expensive PV power generation problem, governments provide tax credits, incentives and other forms of subsidy to cover up the excessive cost.

This does not reduce the actual cost; it just transfers it to the general taxpayer or ratepayer.

[OneWingedShark]

>BTW, I did do the economic analysis on my 2008 Mercury Mariner Hybrid. [snip] it gets 21 MPG
>during the winter and 25 MPG in the summer. Fall and Spring bump it to 27 MPG. EPA now claims 28 MPG
>combined/29 city/27 highway. The EPA estimate is less than honest. This is my last hybrid.

Wow... I have an old 1983 Oldsmobile Regency 98, it’s Diesel and gets better fuel mileage. (And it’s not even a ‘native’ diesel engine, Oldsmobile just retrofitted their 350 engines to diesel.)

[OneWingedShark]

Oh, come on... solar is GREAT for heating/pre-heating the water. (Especially out here in NM).

And as others have said, these things need to be thought of during construction. (There’s a building in Phoenix that cut cooling costs by having it’s roof extend a little extra to provide a hat-like bill to block out the noon-time sun.)

[Myrddin]

My dad had the Olds Toronado diesel. It had an enormous hood. I think it was a reworked 455 cu in to diesel. It worked pretty well. Front wheel drive as well. He purchased it after I got married, so I have no idea of the economics issues.