TIME Video: The Truth About Solar Power

“As the U.S. plots its energy strategy, what are the pros and cons? Solar energy is plentiful. But is it practical?”

http://www.time.com/time/video/player/0,32068,33575328001_1916895,00.html

Mass production could be the answer. Who or what can promote mass production? The sun is eternal, not oil.

:P

;-)

The x axis plots technologies by year and the y axis plots cumulative manufacturing by type of technology.
The type of technology is related to price.
The average price of solar is going to reflect the mix of the various technologies weighted by their market share and individual price.
There has been considerable progress in reducing the price per unit with the new technologies.
This shake-up should result in a significant alteration in the final mix that determines average price since:
...the older more expensive technologies will either go out of business or eliminate capital costs through bankruptcy;
...the manufacturing base for newer (less expensive) technologies continues to expand.

I think it is important to remember the new configuration pioneered by Solyndra also. I have trouble seeing how the savings in installation offered by their approach doesn't become the standard for mass deployment of both commercial and residential rooftop solar.

My take on it was along the lines of "sufficient volume to achieve manufacturing economies of scale." However her take on it was something like "sufficient volume to allow very low marginal profit." Which is related but not exactly the same thing.

At any rate, I'm interested in the question: what manufacturing volume is required to get close the asymptote? Understanding that this is technology dependent.

We've been talking about various holy grails of high volume at least since the 70s, back when PV panels were manufactured lovingly by the Keebler Elves wearing tie-die. I used to assume that "gigawatts per year" would be a huge volume easily sufficient, but clearly that isn't altogether sufficient.

http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/24/first-solar-claims-1-a-watt-industry-milestone/

Look at the gray key bottom left. Note the way market penetration is displayed and check out the relationships across the range of products.



ETA: I'd use 20% of total US generation as the "market" against which the percentage is judged.

Yes, I can read it; but just barely.

If it's print size, try zooming in. It enlarges just fine and is very legible for me.

3D graphs look cool, but often don’t communicate well. (Recently, my boss gave a presentation with gratuitous “3D” skyscraper graphs. He couldn’t read his own graphs, due to parallax. I suggested he lose the “3D” which he grudgingly did.)


In this case, the viewing angle hampers legibility even more.

A series of graphs (one for each device type) might be more legible.

I'd suggest overlaying unit price and volume graphs. It makes it easier to compare the two trends, i.e. “This line goes up, and that line goes down.”


However, I think the key to this whole thing is identifying what the “fixed costs” are. Several years back, as computer prices were falling, a colleague and I calculated what we thought the minimum possible price was at that time, based on component prices, labor costs, profit margins, etc. In time, the low-end market price approached that figure. (The low-end has since gone below our “minimum” figure, partly because component prices have dropped, and partly because manufacturing has moved overseas.)

As the cost of solar panels falls, the labor costs (for installation) become more and more significant.

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

Compared to coal, nuclear, etc., few source-to-current generating scenarios come even close.

No moving parts, no materials to handle, give me a break.

Another short video on Wind Power by Time.

http://www.time.com/time/video/player/0,32068,27456914001_1907002,00.html

Solar is good for doing small jobs or providing assistance to the major energy producers, but does absolutely nothing to help remove coal power plants. The is absolutely nothing wrong with using solar to assist the energy infrastructure we already have, but thinking it will become a major any producer any time in the near future is a BIG mistake. It just doesn't produce enough power, consistently enough, in enough places, to be more than a minor player in the grand scheme of things. One of the reasons oil producers are all behind solar cells is because they are absolutely NO threat to their business whatsoever.