Cost has always been one of solar’s biggest problems. Traditional solar cells require silicon, and silicon is an expensive commodity (exacerbated currently by a global silicon shortage). What’s more, says Peter Harrop, chairman of electronics consulting firm IDTechEx, “it has to be put on glass, so it’s heavy, dangerous, expensive to ship and expensive to install because it has to be mounted.” And up to 70 percent of the silicon gets wasted in the manufacturing process. That means even the cheapest solar panels cost about $3 per watt of energy they go on to produce. To compete with coal, that figure has to shrink to just $1 per watt.
Nanosolar’s cells use no silicon, and the company’s manufacturing process allows it to create cells that are as efficient as most commercial cells for as little as 30 cents a watt. “You’re talking about printing rolls of the stuff—printing it on the roofs of 18-wheeler trailers, printing it on garages, printing it wherever you want it,” says Dan Kammen, founding director of the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory at the University of California at Berkeley. “It really is quite a big deal in terms of altering the way we think about solar and in inherently altering the economics of solar.”
http://www.popsci.com/popsci/flat/bown/2007/green/item_59.html
Rear Vision looks at the history of solar technology in Australia. Why is Australia now lagging behind other nations like China and Germany? Features discussion from Robin Batterham and a number of Australian solar experts.
RN Rear Vision - 11November2007 - Solar energy in Australia
Another interesting report from Catalyst. This time looking at the potential for microgeneration in Australia.
Catalyst: Microgeneration - ABC TV Science
The German PV industry is booming, employing over 54,000 people and it is largely based on Australian technology developed at UNSW. Once again it seems like a case of missed opportunity for the renewables industry in Australia.
Its the stupid country - Opinion - theage.com.au
Interesting article in the Oil Drum today:
“Silicon is the 2nd most abundant element in Earth’s crust (27.7% by weight). By all rights we should be able to make as many silicon PV cells as we want; we should be able to cover the planet with them.
The reality is different and more strange. Silicon PV production began as an offshoot of the semiconductor industry. The chip industry started with circular wafers made into single crystals by dipping a slowly turning crystal into a molten bath of silicon and drawing it out incrementally; the continuous turning created a rough cylinder consisting of a single crystal, which was sliced into wafers. Single crystals create the most efficient cells, but this is a slow and expensive process. Far from covering a planet, it remains far outside the typical household budget to completely cover even the house’s roof.
New processes are changing this. Polycrystalline and amorphous silicon films are much cheaper than large single crystals, in both money and energy. But until recently the PV industry has been too small to be worth its own supply of silicon, so it has survived on the surplus from the semiconductor industry. This surplus had a way of disappearing when electronics were hot, squeezing out the PV industry. But this may be about to change in a very big way, and the consequences may be earth-shaking.”
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3047#more
PVWATTS is an online tool for calculating energy produced by a grid connected PV system. It can be used to calculate energy output for various locations around the world including Melbourne.
I have heard some vastly different estimates of the payback time for various micro generation technologies. I am currently reading Heat by George Monbiot and he claims the financial payback time for domestic PV is 35 years. This in the UK where the government subsidies are different and the average solar radiation is less than Australia. The source for this claim is an article in Energy Policy (RMIT access only). This same paper claims a 14 year payback for micro cogeneration systems.
Monbiot is extremely critical of micro wind turbines, claiming that they will cause more problems than they solve and would only be capable of generating 5% of a household’s electricity requirements.
Last night we heard from Bill Proudfoot who claimed a payback time for PV’s of 15 years. I don’t remember if he mentioned a payback time for micro cogen systems.
In terms of energy payback I have heard figures of 2.5 years for PV. But i have also heard people claim that they never payback the energy they consume in production.
Does anyone have some more reliable figures relating to energy and financial payback times?
From Radio National’s science show:
Jeremy Leggett is CEO of the company Solar Century in London and author of the book Half Gone, about peak oil. In this forum Dr. Leggett shows how we may just survive global warming and the end of fossils fuels by embracing solar technology and other alternatives. He also talks of SolarAid, a venture in Africa and South America aimed at bringing affordable and clean technology to the poor. SolarAid, based on solar lanterns costing a mere $6 each, is led by Leggett with Cate Blanchett as patron.
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/scienceshow/stories/2007/2030157.htm
Using a novel technology that adds multiple innovations to a very high-performance crystalline silicon solar cell platform, a consortium led by the University of Delaware has achieved a record-breaking combined solar cell efficiency of 42.8 percent from sunlight at standard terrestrial conditions.
That number is a significant advance from the current record of 40.7 percent announced in December and demonstrates an important milestone on the path to the 50 percent efficiency goal set by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).
Hey guys this company is located in Adelaide…. they manufacture solar panels which they claim to have 30% efficiency …. just have a look… good opportunity if anybody wants to do business in it as they are looking for franchisees
http://www.greenandgoldenergy.com.au/
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