Solar Power

[Meuge]

Originally posted by: JS80

Originally posted by: Meuge

Originally posted by: JS80
Anyone ever wonder what the repair and maintenence costs associated with solar panels are?

They are metallopolymers. Anything that damages them would likely also damage regular roofing. Obviously if you get 1-inch hail frequently, they're probably not the best idea, but otherwise the only maintenance cost is having to wash your roof a couple of times a year.

I'm thinking more than the panels itself. Like the converter or something. Short circuit? I'm a noob.

The panels produce DC current. One needs to install an inverter and some other misc. electrical equipment to get 110V AC out of a solar array. But this equipment doesn't involve moving parts, and is really low-maintenance.

 

[CSMR]

Originally posted by: MeugeI'd like to hear some input on the issue, with regards to solar power as a whole, as well as the concept of government-subsidized solar power in particular.

I don't know the costs of this. Spending on research is more important, but encouraging public awareness of solar and good-will towards it may have a certain minor importance.

 

[themusgrat]

It sounds like a great idea. It would make the most sense in places like Texas, Arizona, etc. Places with low population and lots of sun year round. Even so, I'll see how much it would save me in Tennessee. BTW, Meuge, could you post those links here also, so we could see them?

 

[Whoozyerdaddy]

Every time I go to Hawaii I'm amazed at the number of homes that have panels on their roofs. It's incredible. A smaller house there can have a $0 electric bill at the end of the month.

I don't see many solar panels up here. In the winter when you need the most electricity there isn't much sun. In the summer when we have 20 hours of sun we don't use that much electricity. Catch-22 I guess.

I've always thought that if I ever moved to Hawaii I'd have solar panels on my house and a small wind turbine (assuming I'm on the windward side).

 

[BrownTown]

15-20 cents per kWh, if electricity costs that muc where you live then the government around there must be completely inept.

3000 megawatts ~ 3 VERY large nuclear power plants. The build/operation costs of 3 nuclear plants is actually likely to be more than that.

no, all the reactors i've seen put out around 1000 or more megawatts, and many nuke plants have 2 or sometimes even more reactors. So there are nuke plants that can produce 3000 MW by themselves, and i'd say 2 average plants are more then enough to reach 3000 MW. I know near where i live TVA has 3 plants that produce 5700 MW, so thats 2 MW per plant, or basically 3 normal nuke plants generating twice the power of what you say 3 VERY large plants should produce.

 

[Meuge]

Originally posted by: themusgrat
It sounds like a great idea. It would make the most sense in places like Texas, Arizona, etc. Places with low population and lots of sun year round. Even so, I'll see how much it would save me in Tennessee. BTW, Meuge, could you post those links here also, so we could see them?

I was going to do that anyway. But I priced the panels a few months ago... so I am not sure if they're still in my browser cache.

 

[Meuge]

Originally posted by: BrownTown
15-20 cents per kWh, if electricity costs that muc where you live then the government around there must be completely inept.

3000 megawatts ~ 3 VERY large nuclear power plants. The build/operation costs of 3 nuclear plants is actually likely to be more than that.

no, all the reactors i've seen put out around 1000 or more megawatts, and many nuke plants have 2 or sometimes even more reactors. So there are nuke plants that can produce 3000 MW by themselves, and i'd say 2 average plants are more then enough to reach 3000 MW. I know near where i live TVA has 3 plants that produce 5700 MW, so thats 2 MW per plant, or basically 3 normal nuke plants generating twice the power of what you say 3 VERY large plants should produce.

In NYC electricity starts at 0.18/kWh - it's not that the gov't is inept, it's that there is so much demand. I wouldn't be surprised if NYC alone consumed as much electricty as, say, Arizona.

 

[BrownTown]

heh, i guess that just shows you why nuke plants are better, down here where we use nuke power its 6 cents

 

[Meuge]

Originally posted by: BrownTown
heh, i guess that just shows you why nuke plants are better, down here where we use nuke power its 6 cents

You missed the point.

 

[Zorba]

Originally posted by: BrownTown
heh, i guess that just shows you why nuke plants are better, down here where we use nuke power its 6 cents

You do know that NYC gets its power from a large nuke plant and hydro-power from Niegra Falls, right?

Your hatred towards solar power amazes me. Solar power can have quite a niche market with home owners and companies to help reduce peak power consumption. I agree that anyone that thinks solar power plants will ever produce 100% of the US's power is out of their mind too.

 

[silverpig]

Originally posted by: Meuge
With the cost of solar panels declining, and the efficiency approaching 40-50%, installing solar panels on your roof seems less and less like a hippie fantasy, and more like a valid option for reducing your electrical bill... something that is likely to attract more people than the concept of cleaning up the environment.

Recently, California unveiled a plan to subsidize installation of solar panels on rooftops of over 1 million houses, with the proposed target of generating about 3 gigawatts of electricity (or the equivalent of 3 large nuclear power plants). This plan would cost the taxpayers about 50c/month in additional charges on their electricity bill.

I'd like to hear some input on the issue, with regards to solar power as a whole, as well as the concept of government-subsidized solar power in particular.

50%? I'm looking into some scientific solar panels for a project and we're finding space-grade cells are at a max of 34%... and those are bloody expensive. Got a link? It'd be useful to us.

 

[Meuge]

Originally posted by: silverpig

Originally posted by: Meuge
With the cost of solar panels declining, and the efficiency approaching 40-50%, installing solar panels on your roof seems less and less like a hippie fantasy, and more like a valid option for reducing your electrical bill... something that is likely to attract more people than the concept of cleaning up the environment.

Recently, California unveiled a plan to subsidize installation of solar panels on rooftops of over 1 million houses, with the proposed target of generating about 3 gigawatts of electricity (or the equivalent of 3 large nuclear power plants). This plan would cost the taxpayers about 50c/month in additional charges on their electricity bill.

I'd like to hear some input on the issue, with regards to solar power as a whole, as well as the concept of government-subsidized solar power in particular.

50%? I'm looking into some scientific solar panels for a project and we're finding space-grade cells are at a max of 34%... and those are bloody expensive. Got a link? It'd be useful to us.

Someone told me. As you can see from one of my first posts I personally was looking into 25-30% panels.

 

[Zorba]

Pros to solar power:

1) In most states maximum power output of a solar panel is likely to corraspond quite well with peak engery demand, which would save companies (that get charged for electricity based on time of day) a lot of money. Because peaking power is the most expensive form of electricity to produce, reducing the amount of peak would save utilities a ton of money, which would filter down to savings per kW-hr.

2) If you do a simple first law analysis of solar powers, you would see that it would reduce your overall cooling load. Because a large about of a building's cooling load is due to solar radiation, if you have a solar panel that is 25% efficient, it effectively reduce your solar heat gains by 25%. So not only would you be spending less on electricity you would be using less of it. This would also have the effect of reducing peak loads.

Pros to government subsidizing:

1) By getting people to buy the things, the companies that produce them will be able to invest much more money into research, thus making cheaper, more efficient panels.

Yes there are many cons to solar energy and they will never produce significant amounts of transportable electricity (ie energy produced by the utilities), but they could effectively reduce the overall demand for electricity.

 

[Zorba]

Originally posted by: silverpig

Originally posted by: Meuge
With the cost of solar panels declining, and the efficiency approaching 40-50%, installing solar panels on your roof seems less and less like a hippie fantasy, and more like a valid option for reducing your electrical bill... something that is likely to attract more people than the concept of cleaning up the environment.

Recently, California unveiled a plan to subsidize installation of solar panels on rooftops of over 1 million houses, with the proposed target of generating about 3 gigawatts of electricity (or the equivalent of 3 large nuclear power plants). This plan would cost the taxpayers about 50c/month in additional charges on their electricity bill.

I'd like to hear some input on the issue, with regards to solar power as a whole, as well as the concept of government-subsidized solar power in particular.

50%? I'm looking into some scientific solar panels for a project and we're finding space-grade cells are at a max of 34%... and those are bloody expensive. Got a link? It'd be useful to us.

When I visited Texas A&M last year, they told me that the next generation of panels would be close to 50%. I've never seen it myself, but they were doing a decent about of research into panels, so it might be true .

 

[wirelessenabled]

Originally posted by: BrownTown
i wonder what it costs to produce 3000 megawatts of power using solar panels. Probably alot more then it costs to run a couple of nuke units. So far I have seen no type of solar panel which produces energy cost effectively.

Of course keep in mind that the nuke units are not paying their full economic cost due to government subsidies for liability insurance, fuel, fuel reprocessing, spent fuel disposal, security, etc., etc., etc. Same for fossil fuel units regarding pollution disposal etc.

 

[wirelessenabled]

Originally posted by: Meuge

Originally posted by: BrownTown
15-20 cents per kWh, if electricity costs that muc where you live then the government around there must be completely inept.

3000 megawatts ~ 3 VERY large nuclear power plants. The build/operation costs of 3 nuclear plants is actually likely to be more than that.

no, all the reactors i've seen put out around 1000 or more megawatts, and many nuke plants have 2 or sometimes even more reactors. So there are nuke plants that can produce 3000 MW by themselves, and i'd say 2 average plants are more then enough to reach 3000 MW. I know near where i live TVA has 3 plants that produce 5700 MW, so thats 2 MW per plant, or basically 3 normal nuke plants generating twice the power of what you say 3 VERY large plants should produce.

In NYC electricity starts at 0.18/kWh - it's not that the gov't is inept, it's that there is so much demand. I wouldn't be surprised if NYC alone consumed as much electricty as, say, Arizona.

Well one would hope since Arizona had 5,939,292 people in 2005. NYC had more than 8 million residents.

 

[Dissipate]

Originally posted by: Meuge

I'd like to hear some input on the issue, with regards to solar power as a whole, as well as the concept of government-subsidized solar power in particular.

They should give people a tax break, not a subsidy.

 

[Meuge]

Originally posted by: Dissipate

Originally posted by: Meuge

I'd like to hear some input on the issue, with regards to solar power as a whole, as well as the concept of government-subsidized solar power in particular.

They should give people a tax break, not a subsidy.

A tax break is still a subsidy... it leaves less money in the federal coffers. Let's not forget where the money comes from.

Plus, if you'd read the thread from the beginning you would have seen that my suggestion would be to give homeowners the ability to deduct the installation of the panels from their property taxes.

 

[Rainsford]

I think solar power has huge potential, especially as more research is put into the materials that go into the panels. Solar power collection is really just starting out, despite having been around for a while, we're really only starting to jump in with both feet. While doing it at the individual building level is fine, I wonder about doing large scale "solar power plants". I suppose there isn't a whole lot of difference, but large scale could take advantage of better locations (suppose your house is surrounded by tall trees) and better technology. And given the ability to transfer power all over the place, we could really take advantage of geographic areas that have a lot of sunshine all year round.

 

[zephyrprime]

Some of the figures being bandied about are way too high. I did a quick search on the web and it seem like solar panels are still at only abouyt 18% efficiency.

http://www.jetro.go.jp/en/market/trend/topic/2004_11_mtv.html
http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/biztech/04/14/better.photovoltaics.ap/

18% is an improvment over what it was 10 years about but the technology still has a long way to go before it hit 50%. Nanotech may help but it's just not here yet. I think polymer solar panels hold more promise. They have horrible efficiency but they should be relatively cheap to make.

 

[Dissipate]

Originally posted by: Meuge

Originally posted by: Dissipate

Originally posted by: Meuge

I'd like to hear some input on the issue, with regards to solar power as a whole, as well as the concept of government-subsidized solar power in particular.

They should give people a tax break, not a subsidy.

A tax break is still a subsidy... it leaves less money in the federal coffers. Let's not forget where the money comes from.

Plus, if you'd read the thread from the beginning you would have seen that my suggestion would be to give homeowners the ability to deduct the installation of the panels from their property taxes.

Less money in the 'federal coffers' equates to a subsidy? That must be some universe you are living in. :roll:

Under that logic, all the money you keep is a 'subsidy.'

A tax break is where you get to keep your own money, a subsidy is where the government takes someone else's money and gives it to you. Big difference.

 

[Paratus]

I just thought I would add my two sense here.

Solar power as a primary power source sucks. I know this as I operate the largest solar arrays ever flown in space (ISS)

The main problems are storage and pointing. Even with advanced nickel hydrogen batteries we only have about 3-5 hours of power if power generation fails. Plus power falls off with the cosine with the angle to the sun so as your pointing gets worse so does your power. That plus hardware limitations means that while I can generate 60 KW I can only use about 24 to power users loads. The rest is used to recharge the batteries or is lost due to inefficiencies.


That being said mounting solar panels to houses is the perfect way to add solar power to this nations power grid.

I'd lov to see some govt tax breaks to that effect.

 

[Dissipate]

Originally posted by: Rainsford
I think solar power has huge potential, especially as more research is put into the materials that go into the panels. Solar power collection is really just starting out, despite having been around for a while, we're really only starting to jump in with both feet. While doing it at the individual building level is fine, I wonder about doing large scale "solar power plants". I suppose there isn't a whole lot of difference, but large scale could take advantage of better locations (suppose your house is surrounded by tall trees) and better technology. And given the ability to transfer power all over the place, we could really take advantage of geographic areas that have a lot of sunshine all year round.

I believe the large scale solar power plants use parabolic mirrors that focus the sun's rays which creates a a lot of heat which powers a steam generator. Hence, no solar panels.

 

[charrison]

Originally posted by: Dissipate

Originally posted by: Rainsford
I think solar power has huge potential, especially as more research is put into the materials that go into the panels. Solar power collection is really just starting out, despite having been around for a while, we're really only starting to jump in with both feet. While doing it at the individual building level is fine, I wonder about doing large scale "solar power plants". I suppose there isn't a whole lot of difference, but large scale could take advantage of better locations (suppose your house is surrounded by tall trees) and better technology. And given the ability to transfer power all over the place, we could really take advantage of geographic areas that have a lot of sunshine all year round.

I believe the large scale solar power plants use parabolic mirrors that focus the sun's rays which creates a a lot of heat which powers a steam generator. Hence, no solar panels.

Actually they have both.

 

[charrison]

linkage

More on solar panel shortage. It is being driven by goverment subsidy all over the world and for the first time is using more silicon that semiconductors. That being said I think solar is going to take off in the within the next decade, with or without goverment subsidy.