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The cost of “Doing Solar”
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Rating: 44 user(s) have rated this article
Posted by: admin,
on 8/26/2007,
in category "Solar energy articles"
Views: this article has been read 550 times
Location: Los Angeles, CA, United States
Abstract: Solar solutions have been around for many years but have not become much more economical. We will look at some reason why this is.
Here is the bottom line; short of splitting an atom (nuclear reactor based energy) all energy ultimately originates from the sun. Renewable solar energy does not “cost anything” it is free and plentiful (see article). What costs money is capturing it; a lot of money! And, according to
SolarBuzz, over that last two years the price has been going up! According to them the December 2001 prices were a little less than $5.40 per watt and now are at about $4.70 a watt. As a point of reference LCD flat panel PC monitors were making their debut about then to the tune of $2,000 which can today be picked up for about $200, a tenth the price! Why the discrepancy? The answer is obvious; how many homes have purchased solar panels in the last year compared to the homes with a plat panel monitor. Almost no one would consider buying a computer without a LCD and no one would consider buying solar with their house. A little looking around at pricing on the web will tell you why no one seriously considers solar for their home. A solar system large enough to provide the majority of the energy consumed by the average household will cost between $100,000 and $150,000!According to the
EIA the average cost of electricity in the US was 8.81 cents per kWh, with places like California approaching 12 cents. Since the average consumption of kWh is 8,900 the average annual cost per household is roughly $785. It is evident that a $30,000- $100,000 solar unit with a 25 year life expectancy is absurd.Government incentives to cut 25% - 30% of that cost are a meaningless politicizing of the issue. Our leaders in Washington need to get beyond “saving face” with token gestures and begin to look at how we can produce solar panels in the 10 to 100s of thousands. We need to “flood the market" with solar panels. We have done it for LCDs and they are not going to help our environment one bit.Medium power (175 Watt) panels now sell for about $800 on the internet. We have got to see 400 Watt panels in the $500 range to make solar energy viable for the homeowner. With a requirement of 12 panels
(see article) and another $3,000 in regulators, batteries, installation, etc. solar systems would start showing up everywhere. We need for our government to drive this economy of scale. Without it solar will forever be a niche market.
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