Breakthrough in solar photovoltaics 676
An anonymous reader writes "The Holy Grail of researchers in the field of solar photovoltaic (SPV) electricity is to generate it at a lower cost than that of grid electricity. The goal now seems to be within reach.
A Palo Alto (California ) start-up, named Nanosolar Inc., founded in 2002, claims that it has developed a commercial scale technology that can deliver solar electricity at 5 cents per kilowatt-hour. " As always, take these claims with a dose of salt the size of the Hope Diamond.
Per Square _inch_? (Score:5, Insightful)
Something seems fishy about this. Isn't the amount of sunlight hitting the earth only about a KW per sq. M?
Two lousy links for nanosolar (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Per Square _inch_? (Score:1, Insightful)
Let the fun begin! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Cost ? (Score:2, Insightful)
From the article:
Sound like something you want to carry around?
Seriously, solar power is ridiculously overrated. The energy density of sunlight at the earth's surface is simply too low to be practical. Way too much real estate would have to be used to make any realistic amounts of power, and at those scales, upkeep becomes prohibitively expensive.
Solar power stations belong in space, where the collection grids can be as big as you like, damage from inclement weather would be eliminated (although damage from micrometeroids would have to be addressed), and the sunlight is unfiltered by atmosphere. Solar power on a planetary surface simply makes no sense.
Can't tell from the web site (Score:3, Insightful)
The article is reasonably well written, though I'm not used to getting major engineering announcements from The Hindu. (Presumably an Indian paper is reporting on events in Palo Alto because of the number of Indians working on the project.) Maybe they just botched the rewrite of the press release. Odd that I can't find the original press release on the web site, though. Fishy, as you say. Maybe they're better solar engineers than they are web site managers.
The energy industry is not a meritocracy (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Per Square _inch_? (Score:3, Insightful)
This is either the biggest breakthrough in our modern age, or complete bullshit. Im inclined to belive its bullshit :)
Re:Cost ? (Score:4, Insightful)
It would have to be much cheaper I would think.
Re:Doesn't look like a scam... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Cost ? (Score:3, Insightful)
But I somehow wonder if power plants in the midwest would really just close up and start buying their power from the west coast.
Actually, it's just the reverse, thanks to Enron and California's refusal to build new power plants.
It's all about funding (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Cost ? (Score:5, Insightful)
I see this all the time. Please tell me why an alternative energy source has to be able to replace 100% of electricity to be viable? No, solar can't do it all. Neither can wind. Or hydro. Or geothermal. Or biofuel. Or nuclear. Or coal for that matter. But if we can get solar, wind, hydro, geothermal, nuclear and biofuel to each pick up 5% or 10% of our energy needs then there is a 25% to 50% reduction in fossil fuel consumption.
Every single
...without infrastructure costs... (Score:3, Insightful)
Solar power at your house for 5 cents/kwh is a lot cheaper than 3.5 cents/kwh a hundred miles away (which ends up being about three times that to the customer).
Re:Cost ? (Score:2, Insightful)
All we need for transmission is a solar cell that will produce power at 10KV AC or higher. Or an efficient way to invert from low voltage DC to transmission voltage, while maintaining phase synchronization with the grid.
'per square inch' is an error in the *article* (Score:2, Insightful)
Slashdot needs Science Editors (Score:4, Insightful)
Some basic math (Score:5, Insightful)
There are 1550 square inches in 1 square meter. Even if there was (optimistic) 6 KW/sq meter of sunlight hitting the Earth, you'd only have 3.9 watts per square inch.
So their claim of over 100+ Watts per square inch is obviously an error. I don't think they'd even claim that since it doesn't even come close.
They also claim that their panels are 12% efficient, so a more realistic figure would be 1 KW of sunlight per square meter, equalling about
Re:Cost ? (Score:2, Insightful)
Um....bad idea...even assuming we could keep these things working in a heaving ocean, full of corrosive brine, through the tides and storms, not to mention the ocasional (not-so-occasional these days) hurricane, those 'wasteful oceans' contain the algae that manufacture most of the planet's O2.
No sunlight=no algae=no O2=very bad day.
Re:Cost ? (Score:3, Insightful)
Good luck while using your laptop with TFT screen while sitting outside in bright sun light, while squeezing a mirror between your legs in order to direct the sunlight to the back side of the screen...
Where is the best place for photovoltaics? (Score:1, Insightful)
Then we can replace the asphalt in road surfaces with this material. Roads take up a huge amount of land surface in inhabited areas and they are always facing direct sunlight. They go where the people are, which is where the electricity is needed.
In a sense this research is all too little, too late. It should have been done thirty years ago when the Arabs invaded Israel on the holiest day of the Jewish calander, and cut off America's oil supplies. At that time, America couldn't respond to the seizure of the oil supplies because it had just been defeated in the incredibly stupid and wasteful Vietnam war. They basically had to surrender to the Arabs on the terms that they demanded through their front organization OPEC.
Actually it is the Arabs who should have been investing hundreds of billions of dollars in alternative energy research. Their primary vision is the defense of Islam, and no one in the West would hesitate to allow the destruction of Islam and its holy places if it were a choice between Islam and oil. By investing hundred of billions in energy studies, they could have developed technology and infrastructure by now that would have removed the necessity for having Westerners occupy militarily the Gulf oil fields and the holy cities that are in the area. But they chose to instead just buy jets and expensive automobiles and then just toss them away like used tissues.
Eventually it will be small companies like this one who develop the technology to move out of the oil era. And it will be done first in remote and unnoticed places where the Western media pays no attention. The situation will someday reach the point where the bankrupt 'superpowers' who believe that they are are in control of the world's destiny become only entertainment for people in places who have developed their economies outside of the oil-military power matrix run by the Arabs and the Americans.
alternative energies (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not as much a question of *IF* it helps when their is alternative energy available, but rather the amount it can replace - at least, when you are diosmantling (as happens in my country) nuclear powerplants that provide about 60% of the total power. This was due thanks to the pressure of the greens. No-one seemed to have wondered at that time, where that energy should come from in the future - apart from some nonsensical crap about windmills and the lot.
Ofcourse, it's plainly obvious that those won't do by a long stretch, so then it DOES become important to know how much it can replace. Solar can't do it, not even a tenth of the required energy. Neither can wind. Or hydro. Or geothermal. Or biofuel. And all taken together, they STILL wouldn't replace more then half of what is needed today, let alone in 5 years, when nuclear powerplants are shut down.
In fact, from your entire list, only two CAN have a reasonable chance of providing enough energy now and in the future; and those are nuclear and/or coal.
I think that's what ppl mean, when they say alternative energies are not real options as yet. Sure, anything that helps is welcome, but in any realistic viepoint, ALL of the above mentionned energysources - apart from nuclear and fossile fuels - even combined together will NOT be make more then a drop in the ever power-hungry ocean, at least in large parts of the western world.
I think the only real solution is fusion. But untill that because viable, the use of coal will rise, alternative energies will remain largely a fringe activity (at least on large scale demand) and closing down nuclear reactions without providing real alternatives remain political idiocies without equal in a socio-economic sense.
Re:Cost ? (Score:2, Insightful)
That's not a problem... just use the southwestern US to build up the technology, and after it's deployed we should see an acceleration in research and tech breakthroughs which will make it feasible in greater and greater parts of the world.
Re:Cost ? (Score:5, Insightful)
So, yes we do not know the lifetime of a solar panel because there doesn't appear to be data for end of life failure of solar panels. That is an important distinction because there have likely been failures of solar panels, but end of life failure would see a lot of panels of the same installation time failing near the same time.
Re:Cost ? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Do not question this source (Score:2, Insightful)
Is CNN also the same kind of "unimpeachable" news source?
'Monkey man' fears rampant in New Delhi [cnn.com]
Reward offered for 'Monkey Man' capture [cnn.com]
The best part of the whole story is how much the monkey man looks like Evil Knievel.
Re:Exciting.. Where Do I Sign? (Score:3, Insightful)
First of all, that 69 kwh/month has to be wrong. Nobody uses that little electricity.
If it is correct, my $25,000 solar system will produce 69 kwh of electricity in 4 sunny days, so no, you don't need $75k worth of equipment. For 69 kwh/month, about $2k worth of equipment at the most.
Re:Is single-sourcing all of our energy desirable? (Score:5, Insightful)
Secondly, cost effectiveness is not just what the power company can do. Remember my power company puts out a little pie chart telling me how much my electricity costs and why.
35% generation
3% Transmission
62% Distribution
If we build solar cells in our own homes at our own costs, we negate the transmission and distribution costs. All we need to do is generate enough to cover our homes/office buildings etc and we have a 65% automatic head start on the power company. Lets build our own infrastructure shall we?
Re:Cost ? (Score:4, Insightful)
A 10x reduction in cost would be great but there is still the problem of roof space. An increase in power density would make this a no-brainer and somewhere, there's a group who said they can get 50% efficiency out of their solar tech and are working on effective manufacturing techniques. THAT will be the bubble bursting move IMO. If it happens.
LoB
You lie, your feet stink, and dont love jesus. (Score:3, Insightful)
The patent for NiMH batteries is held by ECD Ovonics, which is owned by Texaco and Mobil.
The question a thinking individual might ask is why are oil companies interested in developing better, more efficient batteries when it would mean less oil being consumed to keep them charged. The answer is simply this - oil companies dont' care about oil. Oil is just a highly profitable commodity. What oil companies care about is energy.
The vast majority of research being conducted into renewable and environmentally safe energy sources is being conducted by the oil companies, not by governments. The biggest advances in materials sciences are coming out of universities that are getting loads of cash from oil companies. And the biggest conservation and reclaimation efforts are being done by oil companies.
Please, please...stop swallowing the anti-capitalist rhetoric you're being spoonfed, do some research, and think for yourself.
Re:Doesn't look like a scam... (Score:3, Insightful)
It seems they're printing solar cells on plastic film "cheaply". This may not be too durable, but if it's cheap enough there could be lots of uses for it.
Cost of oil (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:theory vs practicality (Score:5, Insightful)
We're talking about less than 1/2 of 1% of the total ocean area. Did anybody consider what would happen before we altered 25% or more of the total land area, or before we started harvesting 90% of the population of various ocean species? Why the sudden interest in side effects?
If the worst case global warming scenarios are correct and a lot of glaciers melt, the size of the oceans will be altered by much more than 0.5% anyway.
Here's my viewpoint: If you put collectors up over 0.5% of the ocean, you create side effects with that order of magnitude. If you release CO2, it continually accumulates in the atmosphere, and it hasn't been determined if natural processes will remove it in any reasonable amount of time. Some scientists predict that its level will double over pre-existing levels; that's a 100% increase in an important climactic variable. The side effects from our current activities will likely to be much greater than anything that would happen with solar collectors.
Will it not become a burden to the sea-routes and a danger to ships?
That's why it's good modern technology has brought us GPS, radar and RFID.
Who would be legally responsable? What if they are layed in international waters?
Some treaties would probably have to be created. Since they would involve something constructive, they would have a more positive tone than the proscriptive Kyoto treaty, and people would be more willing to participate. (We'll see if anybody actually abides by the Kyoto treaty when push comes to shove, or if it's all just talk.)
What is the cost of maintainance? How many will get wrecked by storms? Will it be economical viable?
Those are good questions. There are similar questions about fossil fuels, like would it be economically viable to dig thousands of wells from floating ocean platforms miles into the earth's crust. People did the hard work to find out, and the answer was yes. If people had given up just because the questions existed, we wouldn't have any energy supply today.
You mention wind power and wave power a lot. I agree that they won't ever add up to a large fraction of total energy supply, and that's because there is a limited supply of windy land area and shorelines. Solar collectors don't need to have that limitation. I'm all for fusion power too, but IMO its technical feasibility is currently even more questionable than my "crazy" proposal.
Another "Breakthrough" (Score:2, Insightful)
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/0
Ok I didn't RTFA, but it sounds the exact same. I am getting a bit jaded with all these "Anouncements", which I am learning are nothing more than advertisments, PR, and bs.
This seems to follow the video card buisness model where you make a paper card and you never see it.
Much like like the vaunted PS3 and the CELL processor... Can I buy one? No. I will believe it when I see it otherwise its all so much marketing bullshit.
No doubt whatever company released this information wants to go public or the researchers are trying to get money or whatever.
Nano mumbo jumbo paint saves the world! Weee!
When someone acutally produces it, and someone acutally buys it, and someone else actually applies it and see how it functions in the real world, then I will get excited.
Yes but ... (Score:1, Insightful)
These panels, on the other hand, are quite different. Until we have some history of them installed under actual field conditions, we can only guess at the lifespan.
Re:Cost ? (Score:3, Insightful)
Meanwhile, just prior to the California energy crisis, the geniuses there decided to only partially regulate the industry. If I remember this correctly, they fixed the wholesale price while letting the retail price fluctuate. As more private enterprises attempt to sell power (and thus drive the price down) they are unable to pay the fixed wholesale price. They shut down, and at that point, with fewer producers, voila, an energy shortage.
What Enron did after that is sell power to Cali at exorbitant costs. But you know what, that's called a free market -- exactly what the whole deregulation movement worships but has yet to achieve in a manner that actually works. This has played out across the country; at least some locales have the sense to not force deregulation/privatization of a public utility.
Re:Cost ? (Score:4, Insightful)
IMHO, It was California Legislators who prevented private companies from building power plants, and it was California Legislators, that enabled Enron and other trading groups owned by California Legislators who raped California Ratepayers/Taxpayers.
Ever notice no-one ever explored who was behind the energy trading companies?
Cost avoidance (Score:3, Insightful)
You're probably mistaken about generator companies. There probably won't be all that many, unless they are maintaining the panels on the roofs of buildings and carports. If you put the generation right next to the points of use, you don't need any more transmission and distribution equipment and your capital costs go way, way down; the companies which sell power along with a contract to maintain a roof are going to beat the other guys, because they'll get their real-estate for free.
Note also that if the cost target can be hit (note that Nanosolar [nanosolar.com] doesn't have any recent press releases, so take carefully) the cost minimum for electricity will not be late at night, but in the mid-morning when the panels hit their full output but demand for e.g. A/C hasn't come up yet. Expect new markets to come out of the opportunities for arbitrage.
And as long as morning juice is cheap, why not charge your car [iags.org] and replace some motor fuel?
Re:alternative energies (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Cost ? (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, if you produce enough power (and consume less than you produce), the meter can spin backwards. The result is that the local electric grid benefits from your PV, and you get a credit toward your utility use. It's called net metering, and most states have laws in place which REQUIRE the local electric utility to implement it. They are, of course, allowed to set requirements for what kind of equipment you connect to the grid, and those requirements are, in some cases, sufficiently expensive that most people won't bother. Increasingly, companies which sell PV in your area also have the necessary forms to handle the net metering, and will set up you with contractors and equipment which meet the requirements.
Many utilities don't actually cut a check for what you supply. If you produce more power than you use during the day, but draw from the grid when the sun goes down (cheaper than buying batteries), the amount you supplied gets subtracted from the amount you used, and the net (hence the term, "net metering") is what you get billed for.
In some places, you can actually get a check if your annual balance ends up in your favor. In some places, it's "use it or lose it." No laws set up on that one.
While everyone on here whines about solar not being able to completely satisfy our energy needs, it doesn't have to. The part of the day when electricity is most in demand is usually the afternoon, during the summer. If a significant number of people add PV, and stay connected to the grid (using net metering), the PV will be supplying its peak output when there is peak demand. This could reduce the need to add another powerplant in the region. Of course, if enough people add PV to their rooftops, they could probably even shut off (or at least reduce the output from) a powerplant or two. Since most of these plants burn coal, any solar you add helps reduce the regional pollution (either because you are reducing your demand or because you are actively supplying).
Many people on here complain about the fact that PV manufacturing requires a great deal of energy, and some of the earlier panels never supplied as much energy as their manufacture consumed. That may have been true a couple decades ago, but modern manufacturing processes have cut the "manufacturing payback" to about 4-5 years. According to the company website, these new panels are more like 3 weeks.
Also, if they can get the price down to $1/watt (as opposed to the $3-4/watt currently common), that cuts the total payback time, significantly. In the midwest, last time I crunched the numbers, payback was on the order of 20 years (electricity is pretty cheap, and we don't get as much sun as the southwest). If their claims are accurate, these would pay off in 5-7 years. I think 4-5 years is the tipping point for most people.
Indeed - Solar thermal. (Score:4, Insightful)
Heating.
In hot areas... Cooling.
Neither of which require much electricity to accomplish. It's just easier and we're lazy and stupid.
My hot water tank has an 11kW element, the storage heaters in each room are 3kW each. I burn electricity to make heat.
On the other hand, solar thermal systems are far cheaper than photovoltaics, they're basically black pipes in a glass case. They are also far far more efficient, capturing around 80% of the energy incident on them.
They can produce decent amounts of heat even mid winter in the UK. Enough to heat up my hot water tank to scalding, a few more panels on the roof and I reckon a gas central heating boiler may not even be required. The result is a truly *huge* decrease in the amount of gas and electricity consumed in the home...
You still have a heating element in your water tank, and a gas boiler in your central heating but they spend most of their time inactive.
Big problem? Cost, even though thermal systems can be 80% efficient and are a small fraction of the cost of photovoltaics, the payback period is still 5-10 years.
Good intro:
http://www.galeforce.nireland.co.uk/solar
I call BS (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Cost ? (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course, that's speculative, but so is any equity investment, whether in rooftop solar technology or stock mutual funds or real estate.
Conflating cost and price (Score:2, Insightful)
But they speak of scaled-up commercial installations, and in that case you or the original author has confused cost and price.
Utilities generate for less than $0.05 / kWH. They generate for about $0.02-$0.03 depending on the technology and the organization's efficiency.
Then they transmit to your home. That adds more cost. Then they add a bit of profit and some taxes. In Minnesota, they sell us juice for between $0.07 and $0.10 / kWH.
It's great if they can indeed get scaled-up commercial installation costs down to $0.05, but they still need to cut the price in half to compete with directly with coal.