Powering The Future

"Unfortunately, that's not a "common" enemy"

The common enemy is ignorance both benign and orchestrated, both as to the causes, effects and solutions for AGW, as well as alternative technologies.

To all those that say alternatives are years out, or won't work, or are too expensive or, or, or,,, I say, consider what not moving away from profligate energy will cost, and then tell me how expensive it is. Come look at my house and life style and find that you don't have to go back to the stone age to live reasonably energy efficiently.

We must fight ignorance by furthering our argument with facts.

 

I wouldn't say all of them, but we are steadily getting closer. Once PV panel prices are no longer the most expensive single component, that will increase pressure to reduce inverter, misc-hardware (racking, etc) and labor costs.

That said - for many people PV (even without rebates) can be a cost effective solution. Many people pay more than $0.30/kWh and at those prices, that is more expensive than PV at $6/watt installed. Get the total price down to $3/watt installed and things become very interesting. With rebates that's where prices are near now and if you live in an area with expensive electricity (here in CA rates vary between appx $0.12-$0.45 depending on your utility and how much electricity you use) it's a no brainer.

Inverters are one of the least expensive components of a PV system these days.

Inverters cost about $0.50-$1/watt
Panels are about $3-4/watt
Racking/misc hardware is about $0.50-$1/watt
Labor is about $1-2/watt

So at the low end you can get a system installed for $5/watt, high end $8/watt (matches icarus' numbers nicely from earlier!).

Last year that may have been true when the market flattened out, but PV installs for 2010 worldwide are again at record levels (projected to be double last year!) and prices are still dropping.

Right now you can buy UL listed panels online for under $2/watt from sunelec.com - and they have had some thin-film panels for $1.20/watt!

 

Saw a bumper sticker that says it all:

Solar Energy
No War Required[/FONT][/B]

Once we add in the TRUE costs of fossil fuels, solar starts to look cheap.

I am a big fan of nuclear energy, as long as it is 93 million miles away, the ultimate NIMBY.

 

Just as a point of reference, this is one of my favorite sites. I am ordering some stuff for my toyhauler from them, and have been talking to them about a system for my house(still waiting on some financing, and of course HOA issues ).

The cheaper systems they have include panels from China, that actually have a pretty good reputation from what I have been able to find.

Solar Panels from Wholesale Solar Renewable Energy

This is the system I want, still trying to figure out how to fit it on my house.

9,680 watt Trina Solar Grid Tie Solar Power System with Sunnyboy Inverter

 

Might I suggest, that in an attempt to avoid "ready, fire, aim" with it's resultant consequences, you work backwards, not from the system you want, but from the system that you need.

Start with some reasonable load calculations, and some reasonable solar calculations (PV Watts for example). The work with a competent, experienced installer who understands the variances in your local.

In my experience, people get bitten by the "sexy PV bug" and don't look at the nuances, and the result is systems that are in essence square pegs in round holes.

All that said, every dollar spent in conservation will save ~$10 in pv costs.

 

I have. That system will provide 80% of my current average usage. I estimate I have another 25% improvement I can make in usage reduction before I hit the cost wall, convenience or comfort wall.

Realistically the system I will probably end up with is a smaller one due to the cost of installing the larger one on the roof of my house and the lack of efficiency due to the shape of my roof and direction of the slopes.

Also I have been getting some "informal" feedback from the neighborhood and the HOA fight to put up than many panels may not be worth it.

I'm waiting for a return call from a local guy. If I can I'd rather buy local even if it costs me more up front.

Next house I start from scratch. :rockon:

 

There are grants being issued (in part) for LED replacement as part of the stimulus. Philadelphia is using one, along with funding from the utility, to replace all traffic lights with LED. The city is also studying LED streetlights. If the city had to foot all of the money, it would payback in ~6 years ($6 mil cost, estimated $1 mil/yr energy savings).

Of course, a bunch of dummies in the comments on the news stories were worried that LEDs wouldn't melt snow off of the lights, causing chaos in the winter. They didn't notice that red lights are already LEDs, and did just fine when we got 51" of snow in February...

 

If I'm not mistaken, CA passed a law that states that ordinances and HOA rules cannot increase the cost nor reduce the effectiveness of a proposed solar array by more than something like 10%. That happened maybe 2-3 years ago, I think.

 

That's a nice ROI. Any idea how many megawatts it takes to run the city's traffic lights before and after the LED switch?

Tools.

 

You're right - they can only request that you modify design to where it either increases cost by 20% OR reduces output by 20% as originally designed and proposed.

California Condo & HOA Law: Solar Energy - What Are The Trade-Offs? What Do You Need to Know?

 

there it is. I remember reading about that over at Renewable Energy Access quite a while ago. Glad to hear that it wasn't repealed. I wonder if other solar friendly states have adopted similar measures.

 

There are actually a number of things the state will do to help out these days. Next door neighbor wanted to pull out all the grass in front and put in xeriscaping. HOA threw a fit(actually just two people but they run the HOA and noone but me will stand up to them). She started looking around for information on the subject since we are in a major drought effected area and found out the DA would actually step in and fight for her if the HOA put up a fight.

They lost there house and moved to Florida so I never got to see how that would have worked out, but the state and many local DA offices have offered help in these fights.

I'm sure I can win the fight and get the solar up, I'd rather be sitting in front of my brewery watching the Wort boil though.

 

AWESOME. [Right click - Send to home email] :rockon:

 

One fact overlooked in many of these discussions is that at some point we need to remove power generation from the "for profit" business model and once again consider it a "public utility".

Say at some point a local/regional electric utility could get 70% of its power from renewables 60% of the time. That utility would still need
100% non-renewable capacity for the 20% to 40% of the time when the sun/wind were not generating. What "for profit" business plan will support investment in full capacity that is rarely needed?

 

Investment into innovation and modernization has less to do with the profit aspect and more to do with the competition. Why innovate if you don't have to? Why reinvest if you don't have to? Establishing competition is more beneficial than profit or non-profit.

IMHO an ideal situation, for certain things, would be a non-profit environment with clear standards and reasonable regulation and competition. In most of these discussion the non-profit argument always seems to go back to giving the power to the government. That might work if the government had the interest of the people ahead of politics, but in this country that is not the case.

Just like Health Care, I like the co-op model where the users are the owners and profit and politics do not control.