[ExI] solar is looking better all the time: was RE: Efficiency of wind power

Emlyn emlynoregan at gmail.com
Mon Apr 18 14:33:13 UTC 2011


On 18 April 2011 21:35, Eugen Leitl <eugen at leitl.org> wrote:
> On Sun, Apr 17, 2011 at 10:04:22PM -0600, Kelly Anderson wrote:
>
>> > I pointed out the reason why Moore scales that way
>> > and why solar doesn't. USD/Wp is subject to world demand, USD/Wp
>> > installed is a lot higher, since inverters don't follow the same
>> > price curve, installation costs are basically constant, and grid
>> > upgrade costs are also nothing like that.
>>
>> Agreed. Nanosolar takes the position that solar installations should
>> not be per house, but per neighborhood or small city, thus reducing
>> the per household cost of the inverters. I disagree that installation
>
> Inverters are still power electronics, and inverters don't upgrade
> the grid so it can deal with multiple, variable points of power
> injection. It is the grid that is keeping us down at the moment.
> Alternatively, large scale electrochemical energy storage, which
> allows to keep the power local so the grid needs less capacity.

The grid is a centralising, industrial age technology, solar isn't.
Surely we'll see solar uptake largely in a decentralised setting
(householders, business), with the grid eventually reforming into
something useful in that context, but some time after.

Meanwhile, for storage, isn't it more likely we'll see super/ultra
caps than conventional batteries?

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Emlyn

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