Super cheap solar
Nanosolar, a new solar energy company started with money from Google’s founders, has finally delivered on its promise to produce solar energy for less than $1 per watt. Technology announced several years ago, that avoids using expensive silicon and instead prints a semiconductor ink onto a thin film, has just started rolling off the production line. The first commercial panel is staying on display at Nanosolar HQ, but you can bid for the second one on e-bay! It will be a while before you can pick this technology up in the shops, but it looks like solar might have crossed over into being able to compete with other forms of renewable energy. Yay!
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December 21st, 2007 at 1:57 pm
? energy is measured in joules not watts! what does $1 per watt mean?
December 21st, 2007 at 2:49 pm
Watts are a measure of power, not energy. Power is a more convenient term for use within the electricity industry, as it doesn’t have the time element within it to confuse the issue. It is derived when voltage is multiplied by amperage, but doesn’t specify for how long. It’s a snapshot in time. 1 watt is equal to one joule per second, so they are very much related.
1 joule = 0.000 277 777 8 watthour
Currently, solar panels are going for roughly US$4.83 per watt, so any technology that is selling for US$1.00 per watt is a real bargain.
The joule is also a very small unit. Even the watt is small, that’s why your power bill is sold to you in kilowatthours. (kWh) The nameplate rating of a device tells you its power, not how much work it is doing or energy it is using because we don’t know how long you’ll use it. Same with the solar panel. We cannot tell you how much energy the panel will produce because we don’t know the solar input over time. Having the watt rating allows us to calculate that easily once we know the level of solar insolation over time. Can you tell that I’m a technical geek? I’ll shut up now.
December 21st, 2007 at 3:01 pm
thanks for the info, but talking about a price per watt is still meaningless because, as you say, they don’t know how long it’s being used. is that a dollar per watt per week, a dollar per watt per month, a dollar per watt over lifetime usage?
in short, watt do they mean by it?
December 21st, 2007 at 3:06 pm
No, it’s just the nameplate rating. An 80 watt solar panel will now cost US$80.00 to buy instead of US$370.40. Either panel will produce the exact same amount of power in the same sunlight conditions, but the price of the actual energy produced will be significantly different.
December 21st, 2007 at 3:19 pm
If I put both solar panels on my roof, and for arguments sake they both produced 10,000 kilowatthours (36,000,000,000 joules) of energy in exactly one year and then both units failed, I would say that the the cheaper panel produced it’s energy for $10 per kilowatthour and the dear on at $48.3 per kilowatthour. Now of course these prices are fictitious and the panels would last at least twenty years so the price per kilowatt hour, particularly for our new, cheaper thin film solar panel would come closer to the NZ$0.20 cents you are paying for your electricity now.
Even as I typed this I continually used the words power and energy interchangeably, which in fact they are not. So it’s no easier for the uninitiated!
December 21st, 2007 at 3:21 pm
well o.k. but how does the sale price help without knowing how long it’ll last? it’d be worth paying 3 times the price for one which will last 4 times longer. i would have thought converting all such cost factors to produce an expected lifetime cost per kilowatt hour would be more meaningful
December 21st, 2007 at 3:31 pm
True, but in fact the wattage rating is based on a uniform 1,000 watts of sunlight per square metre hitting the panel at a perpendicular angle at 25 degrees celsius with an expected panel life (industry standard) of 20 years, so in fact we can compare apples to apples. There are fish hooks in this standard as it has changed over the years, but in general panels of the same rough age are comparable directly from their rating.
Calculating a lifetime cost per kWh would require knowing how much sun will fall in exactly the spot where the panel will be, then using this uniform rating to compare different products/panels. Thus, it’s a useful rating, as that’s what changes between installations.
December 21st, 2007 at 3:36 pm
OK, here’s my go at the figures.
12 hours of sun * 365 days per year * 1w => 4.38 kWh/year
$1 / 4.38 kWh/year => $0.22/kWh
So if it lasts a year in a sunny climate, it’s close to being price-competitive with commercial power.
December 21st, 2007 at 3:51 pm
jc2 - Without really checking your math I know that it’s not right, because solar photovoltaic energy is not really price competitive at all at the moment, anywhere in the world, unless you have a huge installation or are up against expensive diesel only situations like remote islands, where the power can cost as much as NZ$0.40 cents per kWh, like on Stewart Island at the moment. However, this thin film technology is about 80% cheaper, or so they claim, so we may well get into serious competitive conditions when these things start rolling out of the factory. I have to run, but I’ll check back tomorrow. In the meantime, go to:
http://kyocerasolar.cleanpowerestimator.com/default.aspx
and use the calculator with a zip code of 21403 to calculate a solar system for Annapolis, Maryland. You’ll see that even with state subsidy money and US dollars to pay for it, it is not yet economic. (This is not an endorsement of Kyocera Solar products, just an example of one of the many calculators out there.) I used that one for a university paper. If you are hard core, download the latest RETScreen software from:
http://www.retscreen.net/ang/home.php
This is a serious geek tool and it’s free. They may have added NZ insolation data in this latest version out last week, I haven’t downloaded it yet. You can design and cost analyse to your heart’s content. Happy geeking!
December 21st, 2007 at 3:58 pm
I’ve been following Nanosolar all year, and had early high hopes of this innovative firm. There are in fact a bunch of starters - a good wiki exists at PESWiki.
Andrew, your average household (and not holding back/conserving etc) needs somewhere between 8-12 kilowatt-hours (those are the ‘units’ on your power bill) per year. Insolation (sun’s incoming power) is around 1300 watts per square metre at Lat 43 (Christchurch). Sounds like that’s plenty, eh?
But you have to figure in at least 4 losses:
1 - sun don’t shine all the time and there are clouds
2 - efficiency of panels - none get much above 15% and it could be much worse
3 - conversion losses (panels generate DC which has to be inverted to AC)
4 - wiring and connection losses. Panels generate low voltages/high currents which are more prone to pure wiring resistance issues, plus if there’s a grid tie….
But after all that, cheap solar panels are a rilly cool thing, because they hold out the promise that your house can become a net exporter of electricity, and can use the power grid as a battery.
For that to happen, the crucial thing is the ‘feed-in tarrif’ - what the power company will pay you for your power exported to them. And that’s another whole story.
A useful commercial site is What Power Crisis?.
Plus the satisfaction of being energy independent…..priceless.
December 21st, 2007 at 5:44 pm
Good stuff. I would love to put solar water heating in my home now. What puts me off is the cost, which puts it down the priority list.
December 21st, 2007 at 7:49 pm
waymad…you say 8-12 kW hours per year. Do you mean per day?
December 21st, 2007 at 8:19 pm
it seems to me that some patience is needed..pretty soon solar energy will be cheap and you really cant put a price $$$$on protecting the environment
December 21st, 2007 at 8:24 pm
Hey waymad, I followed your link re ‘early high hopes’. Very good, I like your blog.
Can’t say I agree with your views on global warming, but I share your desire for the Wrightspeed. Awesome!
My workshop is currently running on PV panels and 12v batteries, but it has been an expensive exercise. I just can’t wait for the nanosolar offerings to become available.
December 21st, 2007 at 8:48 pm
Oops. 8-12,000 kwh/year for an estimate of per-houseghold power usage. Slurp of the fingers back there. Thx, greengeek. I started to train as an engineer - perhaps it shows….then I found the Impressionists.
December 21st, 2007 at 8:52 pm
Impressionists? Aah yes, as ABBA once sang: “Monet, Monet, Monet…”
December 21st, 2007 at 11:45 pm
waymad, How much of that 12,000 kwh/year is for space heating? How much of 1300 watts per square metre will a pv panel convert to “waste” heat? Enough to make Nanosolar panels a viable alternative to a corrugated iron roof?
December 22nd, 2007 at 5:01 am
What’s different about Nansolar’s technology is that it does not make use of silicon crystals, which is how 90% of the world’s solar energy is currently produced. Instead, Nanosolar and others such as San Jose-based Miasole are using a copper alloy that also absorbs light and creates electricity.
Nanosolar’s head of technology Chris Eberspacher says its method of putting the alloy on a thin plastic film “overcomes the complexity, high cost, and yield and scalability limitations associated with vacuum-based processesâ€? and “allows us to produce cells very inexpensively and assemble them into panels that are comparable in efficiency to that of high-volume silicon based PV panels.”
Werner Dumanski, Nanosolar’s head of manufacturing, says the company’s printing process makes the fully-loaded cell cost — including materials, consumables, energy, labor, facility, and capital – “less than the depreciation expense that vacuum thin-film companies have to pay for the equipment that produces their cells.” The size and cost of the facility was not released; however, Dumanski says the cost would be much less than the estimated $1 billion it would cost to develop a similar-capacity factory using conventional solar technology.
According to Clean Edge, a business research firm based in Oakland, global solar markets reached $11.2 billion in 2005, up 55% from 2004. By comparison, Global wind markets reached $11.8 million in 2005, up 47% from 2004, while the market for biofuels hit $15.7 billion globally in 2005, up about 15% from 2004, according to Clean Edge. By 2015, Clean Edge models show solar photovoltaics (including modules, system components, and installation) growing to $51.1 billion, wind power expanding to $48.5 billion and biofuels growing to $52.5 million.
The world’s largest existing solar factories are in Japan, run by Sharp and Kyocera. At full capacity, Nanosolar’s new plant wouldn’t move the US ahead of Japan, but it would push it ahead of the current No. 2 solar producer, Europe.
December 22nd, 2007 at 8:41 am
If solar panels - today - cost $4.83 per watt, then no company in it’s right mind is going to sell panels at $1/watt. Perhaps $4/watt, or $3.50/watt.
I’m unconvinced that PV power is going to make much of a dent even at a buck a watt in NZ; if there were the appetite than solar hot water heating would be installed far more widely, as it’s better value and more usable than PV.
All of which is a pity, since NZ has fierce sunlight; a couple of years ago I measured my (grey) garden hose, just lying in the grass on a sunny day it absorbed 1KW of solar energy; free energy that is just there for the collecting.
December 23rd, 2007 at 12:20 am
dbuckley, I seem to recall that some chap did the very same thing a hundred years ago. Think his name was Ford.
December 23rd, 2007 at 1:55 am
I don’t think you are doing the calculation right JC2. I’ll probably put my foot in it, but here is my go…
The panel cost is $1 per Watt. It’s life expectancy is 20 years. This can be translated roughly as having to replace 5% of the panels every year. The current cost of money is about 9%. Therefore the cost of the panel per year is 5% + 9% = 14%, i.e. 14 cents. These are American dollars and cents. Convert to NZ gives closer to 19 cents. (These are rough calculations.)
The sun shines around 2000 hours per year, more or less in various places. A good part of this time, the sun is shining at a large angle to the collector, and in summer, it will shine on the back of the collector some of the time (early morning and late evening). Throw in a factor of 2 to allow for these times and the reduced output when the sun is at an angle, and we get an average of around 1000 hours of 1 Watt, i.e. 1kiloWatt-Hour generated per year. This gives a price of 19 cents per kiloWatt-Hour, whether you use it or not.
The catch is that this is the cost of the bare panel. It does not cover the cost of the frame that is needed to mount it - more or less depending on what is already there. (I’d guess that mounting on a building during construction will be cheaper than retro-fitting a panel or mounting a panel on bare ground.)
It also omits the cost of the DC to AC conversion equipment and the connection to the grid. In some cases, these costs don’t apply. For example, if a site uses continuously more DC power than the panel produces, all the power can be used without any conversions, or with just DC to DC voltage conversions (which are cheaper than DC to AC). Examples would be powering radio repeater sites, which have back up batteries. Also would be anywhere using an Uninterruptable Power Supply (UPS) such as data processing centres.
The $1/Watt achievement is good news, but solar power is still more expensive than most of the alternatives for most applications at most sites…
Trevor.
December 23rd, 2007 at 3:03 am
Trevor29, I’m not even going to try to work out the cost. But I would suggest that the energy output can be much greater than the electricity output. It has already been mentioned that PVs convert less than one-fifth of the available solar energy into electricity. I don’t know how much of the sun’s energy is converted into heat and how much of this heat is radiated from the rear of the panel. The fact that off-the-shelf units are insulated suggests that a significant amount of heat is generated. Using PVs as a roofing material on typical New Zealand rooves would allow the heat to be captured and utilised in at least two ways.
If air is able to flow into a cavity behind the panels from ceiling vents and ducted through a central concrete wall and floors to floor vents you should get the same thermosyphon effect that you get in a water-tube boiler.
In summer it may be possible to vent the air using the chimney effect. The thermal mass of the concrete would provide a degree of cooling to the air being drawn in through the ducting to replace the air being pumped out by the PV roof heating.
The reduced demand for electric space heating or HVAC, or co-generation output, would then determine your cost per kiloWatt-Hour.
The concept is simply, the execution may not be. I’m a systems analyst not an engineer (or accountant).
December 23rd, 2007 at 10:38 am
I think that if these panels really do cost $1 per Watt, then they are cost effective in many places.
I live in Melbourne. I use 6 kWh per day of electricity for a house of four (not including water heating; it would be silly to heat water with PV electricity). To maintain this usage requires some vigilance, but no discomfort.
If the sun shone 24 hours at maximum strength, I would only need 250 W of panels to meet my electricity usage. Of course, it is night half the time, the sun is not directly overhead except near noon, and there are inconveniences such as clouds. Let us assume I only get the equivalent of 2.4 hours of full strength sun during a day … I actually think it might be more than this, but we’ll be conservative. This means I would have to install 2.5 kW of panels. Of course, I am either going to need some form of electricity storage, or hook up to the grid to cover night time, cloudy days etc. I’ll assume I hook up to the grid (you can do this here in Melbourne), and sell the surplus power I have during the middle of the day.
The cost will be $2500 for the panels. Lets assume that the frame, connecting to the grid etc is costly, and brings the total installation cost to $10000.
I currently pay 20.36c per kWh (incl. GST) for renewable electricity from newly installed generation sources (check http://www.greenelectricitywatch.org.au/ if you doubt my figures). Over 25 years, this amounts to 6*0.2036*365*25 = $11 147, or roughly the cost of my solar installation.
OK, I will still have to purchase electricity at night if I am connected to the grid, instead of having storage, and as I am sure some people will point out, I could have put my $10000 in the bank and got interest instead of installing solar electricity. Some of the night time purchases of electricity will be covered by selling surplus electricity during the day, but unless I sell my power for the same price as I buy it from the grid, this won’t cover the purchases I need to make.
So, overall, PV will still be more expensive, but not that much.
December 23rd, 2007 at 10:51 am
I have a friend in Tonga who did a similar calculation for conventional PV there (not the new Nanosolar technology). He worked out that the solar installation would pay for itself in about 8 years, because electricity is generated by diesel generators, and is expensive.
December 23rd, 2007 at 11:48 am
why should expected panel life be an industry standard? surely part of competing & bringing costs down & achieving new technology might involve improving life spans.
“Calculating a lifetime cost per kWh would require knowing how much sun will fall in exactly the spot where the panel will be,”
i shouldn’t think so… life span would be directly related to usage, brighter sun & higher output would reduce life span… in short the life span would be better measured in kilowatt.hours rather than years, a life span in years is only a rough average based on combining lifespan in kilowat.hours with estimated average sunlight & output. pointless to take lifespan in years & add estimate of sunlight to compute backwards to lifespan in kilowatt.hours… that is the raw data which was already used in arriving at the less useful & less precise but more quoted figure of lifespan in years.
“A good part of this time, the sun is shining at a large angle to the collector, and in summer, it will shine on the back of the collector some of the time (early morning and late evening).”
but it can be programmed to rotate to face the sun.
December 23rd, 2007 at 12:52 pm
Oops - that 20 year lifetime was for a different product. Nanotech has a 25 year warranty, which drops the cost down from 14% to 13% per annum. This means that the cost of money is over twice the cost of the unit over its lifetime.
The high interest rates are what makes many renewable energy projects not cost-effective for the average person or company at present. However rising energy prices may change this situation.
I am not sure what the cost of money is to the government though. I suspect the government is in a better position to fund long-term projects than individuals or companies - even SOEs.
Trevor.
December 23rd, 2007 at 12:56 pm
Andrew said “but it can be programmed to rotate to face the sun.”
Sure, but that adds costs and maintenance issues and reduces the amount of coverage for a given area of ground or roof. Most installations don’t bother and just add more panels with the money instead, using the KISS principle (Keep It Simple, Simon).
Trevor.
December 23rd, 2007 at 7:33 pm
There is another psychological aspect which can work in solar energy’s favour. You could probably persuade people to switch to solar, if their total power bill stayed the same. It may be that solar power is more expensive per kWh, but if people adopt energy efficiency measures at the same time, they may be able to keep their total bill similar.
I used this approach when I switched to “green” electricity, which costs about 1/3 more than coal generated electricity. At the same time I switched, I implemented as many energy saving things in the house as I could afford (mainly switching off appliances). I found I saved about 1/3 of my previous electricity usage, so my power bill remained essentially unchanged. Incidentally, I’m sure there would be a market for accredited “new” (as opposed to hydro built decades ago) green electricity in New Zealand … is any company considering this?
December 23rd, 2007 at 7:45 pm
Combining these Nanosolar panels with the newest power electronics systems and advanced electric motors could revolutionise manufacturing and give developing nations near the equator a huge competitive advantage.
The fact that they can be printed onto any reasonably flat surface means they could be used on Boeings first hybrid-electric airliner. Essentially this is Northrup’s original propellor driven flying wing with original engines replaced by superconducting electric motors. The electricity would be generated by gas turbines, which can be located to get the optimum weight distribution. And they could of course use any flamable gas, possibly even hydrogen or nanometals.
December 23rd, 2007 at 7:46 pm
Here’s the source of the info about the electric flying wing.
http://www.economist.com/printedition/displaystory.cfm?story_id=102027 90
December 24th, 2007 at 9:13 am
The bottom line is it doesn’t actually matter what the KWh cost of the power produced is, for there to be any substantive uptake in house or factory based distributive generation (which is where PV can make a difference) you need to persuade the customer to switch from on demand, pay as you go electricity costs to self-financed capital investment. For most residential households in NZ, thats not going to happen. Most folks today can save a third of their power bills by having solar hot water heating, which has a reasonable payback, but they can’t or won’t.
At a government policy level it frustrates me that there is endless capital available to build new power plants and new transmission systems, yet at best token support for initiatives like solar hot water that will reduce, postpone, or remove the need for more infrastructure. The government - once - had the foresight to build a national electricity infrastructure without direct cost to the consumer, but modern government lacks that will or foresight.
December 24th, 2007 at 10:39 am
This is bigger news than you think.
If you could buy 1KW panels today in NZ for $1000 US then the cost of a 3KW 240V power system including an hours worth of batteries and a controller/inverter is only $6000 NZ.
This is a lot but the solar calculator for my area (Waikato) says that it would produce about 7500 KWH per year. A cost 0f 80c for the first year. It would be down below the cost of retail electricity in four years, long before any of the gear would wear out.
The most important part of this is that four years ago this same setup cost over $20000 NZ. And was more difficult to do.
This is a price halving cycle of only two years.
A lot of big tech firms are working on these technologies now so this is not going to slow down.
So by Xmas 2011 a 3Kw solar setup will be $1500 and will pay for itself in a year. By then it will be a mainstream white goods item and will be easily installed on your roof and plugged into your power board.
What price shares in power utilities then!!!
If NZ had a proper feed-in tarif then the batteries wouldn’t be needed and thing is 20% cheaper.
December 26th, 2007 at 12:28 am
“A lot of big tech firms are working on these technologies now so this is not going to slow down.”
It can slow down and probably will. In general, there is a law of diminishing returns.
More importantly, while the cost of electronics continues to fall, the costs of transformers and some other power components isn’t falling at the same rate, so the cost of the controller/invertor isn’t going to fall as fast as the panel hopefully will. The biggest expense may well be the batteries, and these may not have the cycle lifetimes you hope. Battery prices aren’t going to be falling rapidly either, so I hope the feed-in tarif idea works.
Trevor.
December 26th, 2007 at 12:55 am
If you feed back to the grid, the batteries aren’t an issue. The transformer/inverter cost was not so impossible the last time I looked. As a one-time capital outlay it is a good chunk but even IT can come down significantly. Setting up the feed-in tariffs and improving the grid so that surpluses here feed deficits somewhere else… effectively… is important to making it work.
This IS a pretty big thing…. if we take advantage of it.
BJ
December 26th, 2007 at 11:05 pm
samiuela You are also assuming that your main power electricity will stay at the current price for the next 25 years, which is unlikely. And it is more than likely that batteries will take just as big a leap into nanotech as solar panels.
December 26th, 2007 at 11:39 pm
ekstatek said:
“And it is more than likely that batteries will take just as big a leap into nanotech as solar panels.”
I doubt this. Solar panels work on area, so nanotech can increase the reactive area for a given amount of material. Batteries work on bulk reactants. Nanotech can increase the power rating of a battery, but doesn’t offer the same opportunities for increasing the energy storage for a given amount of reactant material, and therefore doesn’t offer the same cost reduction opportunities.
Trevor.
December 27th, 2007 at 12:05 am
Trevor,
Nano tech has the potential to dramaticly increase surface area through the creation of nanotubes or nanobuckey-balls. I don’t know if the will alter the amount of energy that can be stored in batteries but it definitely offers the potential for batteries to adopt the fast charge/discharge capabilities of capacitors.
This is not my area of expertise so I am basing this judgement on the dramatic change that happens to metal oxidation when metals are reduced to nanoparticles. Because of the huge surface to mass ratio oxidation happens so quickly that an enormous amount of heat is given off. Additionally the nanometals have the properties of a liquid and thus can be used as a fuel source for internal combustion engines and jet engines. Currently there are no commercial sized facilities for producing nanometals so they are bit too expensive to be an immediate replacement for carbon fuels.
December 27th, 2007 at 10:47 am
Kevyn
Batteries for solar power storage don’t need fast charge capabilities since the charge rate is limited by the solar panel power rating. They don’t need fast discharge capabilities either since the discharge rate is limited by the power rating of the invertor. They do need high energy storage. I’m not saying nanotech won’t help improve the energy storage of a battery, but I am saying that there is limited scope for nanotech to give an improvement in energy storage, simply because batteries need a certain amount of reagent for a given amount of energy stored.
I see nanotech being useful for batteries for vehicles, and for improving the cycle efficiencies of batteries, i.e. reducing the charge and discharge cycle losses.
Trevor.
December 27th, 2007 at 12:51 pm
I think someone has already pointed out that the biggest deterrent to solar electricity is the initial outlay, even if the cost per kWh is comparable over the life of the panels.
Personally, I don’t have $10000 to spend on panels, and furthermore, I live in a rental house. If I owned my own house, but did not have a spare $10000, I would ensure I purchased renewable electricity (I know that you can’t distinguish electricity in the grid by generation source, but you still can purchase from companies which have renewable electricity generation). Then, I would start saving for a solar water heater, since these are better value for money in terms of reducing greenhouse emissions.
December 27th, 2007 at 1:48 pm
Lots of comments on solar water heaters. One problem…. our climate isn’t friendly to it.
http://www.healthandlifestyle.co.nz/solarpanels/
Among my previous lives I have been a Naval Officer, as in going to the sea in ships, and I know that the phrase “Rust never sleeps” is not an empty threat.
Just saying be careful…. all is not Roses in this garden.
respectfully
BJ
December 27th, 2007 at 1:50 pm
Kevyn (sorry about the delay): the 12,000 kwh/year (from my own house) has a very limited amount of space heating. No heat pump, either. Traditional log burner for winter warmth.
Two points to make (good thread, this).
This stuff can be made as peel-and-stick, so can be applied as cladding or window film just as easily as roofs - see SolarSave, for example. Everyone thinks ‘roof’ but on commercial and industrial sites, cladding is actually more relevant.
The real point being missed is that, to the extent that a house can be a net exporter of electricity to the grid, then new centralised generation can be avoided altogether. Home-centric power constitutes distributed or decentralised generation. That being the case, power companies’ business model would change dramatically: instead of stumping up for a decade’s worth of RMA to-and-fro, plus the then-inflated cost of actually building a dam/lots of windmills/boiler-and-turbine deal And threading that all up to the grid, they can finance homeowners into this type of set-up, start installing house-based generation tomorrow, and recover the cost via traditional power charges.
So the real crunches to face are:
- what the feed-in tariff rate is.
- getting tradies (roofers, sparkies etc) skilled up to do this stuff
- securing supply of PV - agencies, distributors etc
- getting consistent, portable regulations as to quality of power, approved grid-tie gear etc
And as other commenters have pointed out, all the other technology is there now: grid-tie inverters, localised storage (if you are a real survivalist), and so on. What’s been missing is a sufficiently cheap power source.
Nanosolar are far from the only CIGS-based thin-film producer: Miasole and Heliovolt are also in the game. Once production really ramps up, competition will see to prices. I can’t wait.
December 27th, 2007 at 2:58 pm
trevor29: nanotech has a bright future in batteries, too. Have a look at A123 Systems to see what this can lead to.
And also note the mechanism of commercialisation here:
- have a cash-cow business (cordless tools batteries - Mk I) to fund the rest
- fine-tune a limited product line (the HEV and PHEV batteries - Mk II)
- lock in a market for this next stage’s production (the GM Chevy Volt deal)
- and thus build a platform for Mk III and get ready to spin the wheel again.
December 27th, 2007 at 3:37 pm
BJ, An alternative type of solar water heater was designed at Canterbury University 25 years ago. It doesn’t suffer from the problems identified at the link you provided. The company is small enough for the professor to personally certify every installation. Currently Thermocell has approved installers on the mainland but not on any of the islands.
http://www.thermocell.co.nz/index.html
December 27th, 2007 at 9:59 pm
waymad said:
“nanotech has a bright future in batteries, too.”
Yes, because it can lead to smaller batteries with higher power densities and higher energy densities and better efficiency. However this doesn’t automatically mean large cost savings for storing solar energy over night or for longer periods. The smaller sizes will give some cost savings but nothing particularly dramatic, and for this application power and energy densities and weight aren’t a major factor. Great for electric cars though.
Trevor.
December 27th, 2007 at 10:37 pm
Trevor,
You might be the chap that can answer this question. If I built a house with integrated solar panels with 12 volt halogen light fittings euipped with LED lamps would I save enough money from eliminating all the transformers that are needed for halogen lamps to pay for a deep cycle battey to power the LEDs?
I think I have worked out a cheap way to create a thermosyphon effect to capture the waste heat from PVs used as the roofing material and to inexpensively store this in the floors and internal walls for nighttime use. Involves a concrete slab floor and a slab to ridgeline concrete block divider wall in a two story home.
December 28th, 2007 at 12:06 am
Hi Kevyn,
sorry I don’t work in the electronics supply industry, although I am an electronic engineer.
Off the top of my head, I’d guess that the cost of each LED lamp is on par or more than the cost of a halogen bulb + transformer, so you wouldn’t be saving any money.
I assume that these LED lamps will work on DC, but it would pay to check before buying too many of them. LEDs themselves work on DC but I don’t know if these LED lamps have any electronics built in. Certainly there are automotive LED bulbs that take 12 Volt or 24 Volt DC.
Trevor
December 28th, 2007 at 5:01 am
Trevor,
Thanks for the reply. I think this would be a viable option for a bach or caravan. All of the rechargeable necessities of modern life such as cellphones and laptops can be run from car lighter plugs. There is a huge variety of 24v appliances designed for truck sleeper cabs.
My original idea won’t save any money at the installation stage but it would save money over time. Although I’m not sure if it is legal to have a dedicated 12v circuit in a house. And it wouldn’t do the resale value any favors in the foreseeable future.
But the penny has dropped on where my original idea can be simplified to make LED MR16s significantly more competitive with halogen MR16s. When renovating or building choosing halogen fittings with LED lamps allows as many as ten transformers to be replaced with a single units designed for LED MR16s. This offsets much of the higher capital cost of the LED lamps. The ultra long life of LEDs means there really isn’t a problem with future owners replacing blown “bulbs” with the wrong type.
December 28th, 2007 at 8:53 pm
waymad said:
“…to the extent that a house can be a net exporter of electricity to the grid, then new centralised generation can be avoided altogether.”
Not unless you are happy sitting in the dark!
Whether it uses wind or solar PV panels, a house can be an exporter only when the conditions are favourable. Even with batteries, a house will need to import electricity when there is a prolonged period of adverse conditions, such as a week of cold, cloudy winter weather. Since these conditions will affect an entire region, where is that electricity going to come from? It needs to be from a source of despatchable generation, such as hydro, geothermal, gas or coal. However more distributed generation reduces the periods that such generation is needed, allowing the water/geothermal heat/gas/coal to be conserved for later. The generation model will swing, but not in quite the way suggested. Instead there will be more use of hydro for peak power rather than base load power, so we may see more generation capacity installed at existing hydro power stations. I’m guessing that we will also see more use of geothermal power running in load following mode, i.e. only generating perhaps 60-80% of the time rather than > 95%, but with more geothermal plant installed so that it can generate more power during that 60-80%.
Trevor.
December 29th, 2007 at 1:05 am
Trevor & waymad,
As it is waymad’s answer to my question that contained the statement ““…to the extent that a house can be a net exporter of electricity to the grid, then new centralised generation can be avoided altogether.â€?, may I take the liberty of stepping into this debate?
Assuming the answer is yes, I would like to go back to my original point that the waste heat resulting from the inefficiencies of pv’s can be captured, circulated within the building and be stored in the buiding mass for release in the cool of the evening. A simple example of substituting solar for electricity using an existing storage medium. Similar to adding solar collectors to an existing A-grade cylinder.
To be a nett exporter of electricity a homeowner would need to do more than just add pv’s and micro-wind. They would need to address all of the well known inefficiencies in the way we currently use electricity in our homes.
None of this makes the grid redundant but if enough enough homeowners make these changes then the need for additional generating capacity can be obviated.
Trevor, the situation you have identified is the focus of researchers at the Center for Power Electronics Systems.
http://www.cpes.vt.edu/
Two simple examples of how electronics are being used to revolutionise electricity distribution systems:
http://www.usna.edu/EE/ee331/Handouts/Electric_Drive.pdf
and
http://www.fischerpanda.de/doc/eng/products/9193AD2A4004F70AC1256E6900 70AEB8
December 29th, 2007 at 12:33 pm
Interesting links Kevyn, but I don’t see anything there that would avoid the need for more despatchable power generation to keep the home lights burning at 6pm on a cold, dark, still winter’s evening when all the PV panels in New Zealand will be generating zero power.
About the only technology that would avoid the need for more despatchable power generation is energy saving technology which is applicable at this time (peak demand), such as using LEDs in traffic lights, more efficient home and street lighting, improvements in the efficiencies of heat pumps and other appliances, etc. The first link you gave http://www.cpes.vt.edu/ has research that will hopefully lead to more efficient appliances (including heat pumps), but this is long term stuff.
Trevor.
December 29th, 2007 at 1:11 pm
Trevor,
Your second paragraph is the point I was trying to make. To avoid the need for more despatchable power generation we need to reduce existing demand as well as adding distributed renewable energy systems.
The important thing anout the CPES research is it’s ultimate goal of replacing electro-mechanical control systems in the transmission grid with electronic controls. They see this as the key to managing the complex load/supply fluctuations. They just seem to be working towards that goal from a very oblique angle.
Of course the NZ electricity situaton is different from the northern hemisphere countries. We only have to eliminate a small amount of non-renewable capacity and face the reality of more dry years in the southern hydro catchments. Other countries need to replace a significant proportion of their current generating capacity. The large land masses also tend to have more stable weather conditions than we do, in both time and space. All those sorts of factors mean the traditional grid needs to be redesigned and upgraded with faster more sensitive control systems.
December 31st, 2007 at 5:25 pm
While the aim of not having to build more coal or gas powered generating stations is worthwhile, we will need more despatchable generation to meet our other goals. Much of our energy needs are currently met by coal or gas used on site, for process heat, steam generation, heating and hot water, in industries, hospitals, schools and homes. We need to cut back our use of coal and gas for these purposes as well as for electricity generation, so we need to harness other sources of energy. Solar PV panels are one alternative. For hot water and space heating, solar heating panels can meet some of our needs. Biomass can also meet some of our needs. However to make serious inroads on our use of fossil fuels, we need to harness renewable energy sources that work at night and in winter, such as wind, wave and tidal. All of these are intermittant, not despatchable, so we need to consider substitutes for our coal and gas despatchable generation and here is where extra hydro and geothermal generating capacity comes in. Note that this is peak generating capacity, not average generating capacity, so I am referring to despatchable generating power (MegaWatts) rather than energy (GigaWatt-Hours). Existing hydro and geothermal resources can be used to meet this need for more renewable despatchable generation but it requires adding more plant. It doesn’t require building more dams.
We will also need to increase our despatchable and intermittant generation further if electric cars take off (including plug-in hybrid vehicles).
Improved energy efficiency will help, but realistically might keep pace with our increasing population. I can’t see it being enough to overcome the fact that about 1/3 of our annual electricity generation is from fossil fuels.
Using biomass instead of coal or natural gas at our existing generating stations (and in some industries) would also help.
Trevor.
January 1st, 2008 at 12:43 am
Congratulations on the news about Nanosolar.
All the comments were of great interest also. Concerning the discussions on prices, I agree with those who think that PV solar electricity offers many other economic advantages, such as new industrial/commercial development possibilities, employment opportunities, etc. When comparing solar electricity with centralised electricity production, the investment in the past of public money in the infrastructure and grid should also be considered. For example, it seems ridiculous and unjust to have to pay for a meter when a client feeds his home produced electricity back into the grid. How much does a company producing centralised electricity pay to those who maintain the power lines? The price of being linked up to the grid is not cheap and should be included in the price of centrally produced electricity when comparing it to solar electricity; similarly, when someone produces his home solar electricity, there should not be any administrative first installation fee to connect his equipment into the grid.
Concerning Nanosolar panels, if their price, technical characteristics and life expectancy conform to their annoucement, we should invest in companies producing Indium, considering the amount of Indium on earth (6′000 tons ?). As 1 ton of Indium can produce 25MW of Couper-Indium-Selenium PV panel, their price will increase together with that of Indium.
However, let us hope that the Nanosolar know-how and their possible industrial success will contribute to the development of research in this field and will find, in the long term, alternatives to the CIS technology.
January 1st, 2008 at 11:52 pm
Auckland and Fiordland could probably generate all the electricity they’ll ever need for using (Lord) Kelvin’s Thunderstorm aka Kelvin’s water-drop electrostatic generator.
http://www.newphys.se/fnysik/3_1/kelvin/index.html
January 2nd, 2008 at 11:44 am
Kevyn, you would be aware that Kelvin’s Thunderstorm generates DC rather than AC power? Both Auckland and Fiordland are a bit far from the DC link between Benmore and Hayward and that link runs on the dry side of the Southern Alps.
By the way, happy new year rather than “April fool”. (While Kelvin’s Thunderstorm can generate high voltages, it can’t generate the high currents and therefore the power needed - well for Auckland anyway. I don’t see Fiordland using much power
Trevor.
January 2nd, 2008 at 3:11 pm
Trevor, I suspect if you made a really big one it would just be a really good lightning generator. Sounds like the perfect solution for Auckland
I’m sure some clever-clogs can come up with an electronic control system to make it commercially viable.
January 2nd, 2008 at 11:51 pm
Don’t expect to be able to sell surplus power generated by PV panels during off-peak time at the same price as you pay for power during peak demand periods after sunset on winter evenings. New Zealand’s generating environment is significantly different to that of most countries in that our fossil-fueled plants don’t need to run all the time. When PV panels are generating surplus electricity, the chances are good that the fossil fuel plants won’t be running, so the cost of generating power is relatively low. Who would pay a high price for extra power that isn’t really needed?
Trevor.
January 3rd, 2008 at 12:55 am
I assume it would be used the same way the use off-peak power now in some places, to pump the water back up into the dams for later usage.
January 3rd, 2008 at 1:56 am
ekstatek said:
“I assume it would be used the same way they use off-peak power now in some places, to pump the water back up into the dams for later usage.”
I’m not aware of anywhere in New Zealand where this is being done. I do know that there are times when water has to be spilled or wind turbines need to be shut down because there is more intermittant generation and must-run generation (e.g. to maintain minimum water flows) than demand.
Using off-peak power to pump water up has an efficiency trade-off, so the value of the off-peak power (per kiloWatt-hour) is less than the value of the peak power gained by letting the water flow back down again. The same applies to any electricity storage scheme, just the efficiency percentages vary.
Trevor.
January 4th, 2008 at 1:22 am
As you say sometimes the dams do spill off excess water, however this is probably more likely when there is a high amount of rainfall in the country and not during the peak of summer when solar panels would be working to peak efficiency.
Just because its not done in New Zealand doesn’t mean wouldn’t be a good thing to do when solar power does supply more power to the grid.
Wiki says it would be able 70% to 85% efficient which is a significant lose but better than nothing. Alternately it excess solar power could be turned into hydrogen.
January 4th, 2008 at 4:07 am
Here is an interesting proposal for storing solar energy to generate peak electricity. From a company with revenues of $US5bn last year who are convinced it’s will be profitable in today’s energy climate.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119924708042261755.html?mod=hpp
January 4th, 2008 at 10:36 am
Good link Kevyn. Unfortunately a solar collector won’t be all that effective in the land of the long white cloud, but it could be part of the answer to Australia’s electricity generation needs.
Trevor.
January 4th, 2008 at 10:46 am
The dams do spill off water, but sometimes this is not because the lakes are full. Instead it is because they need to meet minimum water flow requirements and the generation from that water flow isn’t needed. Typically this is during summer nights when the wind is blowing but demand is very low.
Generation of hydrogen from excess electricity isn’t that far fetched. The efficiency of the generation process is getting up to 78% (if I recall correctly), although there are greater losses converting hydrogen back to electricity. What many people don’t know is that New Zealand already has at least two sites where hydrogen is already being generated - from natural gas (methane). One is the Petrochem plant in Taranaki which uses the hydrogen for ammonia production. The other is the oil refinery. I can see the day when it would make sense to install electroysis equipment at either or both of these sites. However right now it may make more sense to use excess electricity for heating at sites that currently use natural gas or coal, simply because the additional equipment would be cheaper to install and run than an electrolysis plant.
Trevor.
January 5th, 2008 at 4:39 am
Trevor, Quietly, I think we should all keep an eye on the newswires from Dubai. They seem to have the right combination of physical and financial resources and long term vision.
Twenty years from now I wouldn’t be surprised if they converted their oil pipelines to Europe to carry Europe’s sewerage to the middle east where the water would be extracted by solar evaporation. The resulting sludge would be biodigesed to extract the methane and the remaining sludge would be sprayed on the desert fringes to provide a moist fertile base to revegetate and stop the deserts from spreading. The water evaporated from the sewerage would be electrolysed using solar power. The hydrogen would then be transported to Europe in the current natural gas pipelines.
OPEC woud change it’s name to HyPEC.
January 8th, 2008 at 12:14 am
I think you mean that they would change their name to OHEC, pronounced O-Heck!
Trevor.
January 8th, 2008 at 12:32 am
Or, during the transition phase, when they are selling both petroleum and hydrogen they could simply replace Petroleum with Fuel. I’ll leave the acronym to the imagination.
January 20th, 2008 at 1:06 am
It appears they have already made a great advance in battery storage with nano, 10 times the storage http://www.physorg.com/news117212815.html and what with everyone running air conditioners with global warming there will be very little chance in wasted energy with solar power.
January 20th, 2008 at 3:09 am
The same source reveals that the inventor of the Super Soaker water gun has invented a solar generator that can exceed 60% effidiency.
http://www.physorg.com/news119107136.html
August 3rd, 2008 at 12:01 pm
The ‘item’has been removed by E Bay. WHY ? has it been purchased or what?
August 3rd, 2008 at 12:04 pm
Sorry I didn’t notice the date. My Mistake. It’s my time warp that’s in error. Doh !!!!!
August 3rd, 2008 at 12:07 pm
bigblukiwi - Lol! I forget the reason it was pulled, but it made sense to me at the time. I seem to recall that it was pulled by the manufacturer, not Ebay itself. anyway, as you say, it’s in the time warp now. Let’s just hope they relly do get the price down to $1 per Watt, and soon!