Capitol Hill Blue Forums Science and Technology Computers & Technology Low Cost Solar Panels

New low cost solar panels ready for mass production. Now if we manufacture these panels here in the US and export them instead of DU and mercenaries we'd be more welcomed by the rest of the world as we once were.

Joe

We only export 2 things.

We give them Liberty, or we give them Death. (Well, the Death we give them in either case.)


Giving them anything else would be Charity. Charity is Nanny-State collectivism which steals the rightful property of hard working Americans.

At $2/Watt everybody who wants a home system would go for enough capacity to insure they never have a negative balance on their yearly net-metering. That means they would often be dumping excess power into the grid. The effects of that are so beneficial that the government or the power companies (or both) might even want to offer homeowners an incentive to install more capacity than they need. Perhaps a tax deduction for the value of the excess power they "give" to the grid.

Most states that require their power companies to support net-metering do not require them to pay the homeowner for any excess power delivered into the grid, so that would be pure gravy for the power companies. Especially because that power would come on sunny summer afternoons when the demand is the highest, their variable-rate customers pay the most, and the power companies have to pay high rates to import power or to run peakers.

You have got to be kidding. Does anyone really think that this will be a solution for any Americans other than the rich? This technology will be taxed to death to save the corporate asses of the energy companies!

If you believe that this corporate government will allow Americans to produce their own energy, think again! I can't believe they would allow this to happen at all!

What I could believe, is that selected corporations will be allowed to mount these devices to their rooftops allowing those corporations to save on their energy bills. They would probably even receive tax breaks for doing so.

So, while the average American consumer would be taxed to death, the average American corporation will be given tax breaks to use this technology.

Wow! Have I been reading too much fiction lately? Where's that tinfoil hat smiley again?

My next-door neighbors installed such a system (but at more like $4/Watt) on their roof. It powers everything in their house, including their pool pump and HVAC. Excess power goes into the grid and runs their electric meter backwards. Their total electric bill last year was for less than $20.

So yes, I know that people will install such systems for their own households because many thousands of households have already been doing just that for several years now. The main roadblock at this point is the cost. At $4/Watt the payback period is in the 5-10 year range, depending on your local electric rates. At $2/Watt the choice becomes a no-brainer! Several states and the federal government offer rebates and tax deductions to offset the initial cost. There are even companies that will finance the installation so the consumer pays little more than they would have paid in electric bills over the term of the loan. Once the payback point is reached, the homeowner gets essentially free power for the 25+ year lifetime of the PV panels.

If they can really get it down to $2/Watt, they will capture 100% of the market and they will be able to put a PV system on every roof in America, as well as exporting billions of dollars worth of them to the rest of the world.

If you want to profit from Solar Energy, then you should follow your Uncle and invest some of your money where he already did.

DOE Invests $168 Million in 13 Industry-Led Solar Energy Projects

I like ENER as a GARP in this sector.

Cadmium Telluride is composed of two toxic elements, and even the rather insoluble compound has some interesting toxic properties.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadmium_telluride

This compound will not degrade into non-toxic breakdown products, though stuck on glass what could go wrong?

TAT

TAT,

Life is toxic and inevitably fatal. US manufacturing and environmental regulations would make any health/environmental risks negligible. However, Made In China is another story in light of lunch boxes, toys, and doggie treats (I don't even what to know what they feed the pigs and shrimp that they export).

If there's a genuine energy crisis, then the US should do something to address it. Actually, they should have begun to do something 30 yrs ago, but better late than never.

Joe

Joe: about 30 years ago programs were started to make the US more energy independent. They were killed by President Reagan not long after he took office.

This does not involve workers wearing filter masks spraying CdTe like paint! The application of the Cadmium Telluride to the glass has to be done in a high vacuum, by vapor deposition. The $2/Watt breakthrough is because they have come up with a continuous process that is all performed by machinery inside the high vacuum part of the assembly line. That area has to be ultraclean, so human entry necessitates a lot of expensive downtime to flush out the dead skin flakes, hairs, dust, etc. At the point in the process where human workers have any contact with the solar panels, the CdTe will be sealed between laminated glass layers.

I'm not saying a panel would never get broken, but I bet working in this factory will be much less dangerous than working in an integrated circuit fabrication facility, and these panels will be a lot less dangerous than common fluorescent light tubes.

One interesting thing about CdTe not mentioned much: It may be a lot cheaper than silicon, but it is also less efficient. For most homeowners, having a larger array of panels on the roof will not matter but for some applications silicon and other even more efficient exotic materials will still be desirable because of size limitations.