[ExI] Inkjet printing could change the face of solar energy industry

[Eugen Leitl]

On Fri, Jul 01, 2011 at 11:24:42AM -0600, Kelly Anderson wrote:

> > Make building-integrated part of building code. That will keep
> > you up to your ears in work and solar growth maxed out for the
> > next 20 years.
> 
> But it is an inefficient approach. Having inverters and batteries at

Inverters. No batteries. There are MWh class flow batteries
being developed, but not yet.

> each home adds tens of thousands of dollars to the price of homes. We

Inverters *are* getting cheaper. Plus, with DC you don't need 
inverters. Forget batteries for the next 15 years. Yes, not
you, but nigh-everybody else. 

> can't sell the homes we have now here in the US.

Nothing whatesover to do with solar photovoltaics. US is a
developing country in regards to photovoltaics or energy-efficiency
for that matter. Even if attitudes would change (doubtful) it would
take a decade or two for them to get up to speed.
 
> >> I would get really excited if someone figured out how to make
> >> inverters cheaper, or batteries. Working on the panels themselves is a
> >
> > There are panel-integrated inverters.
> 
> Still, the lowered costs that you are discussing have nothing to do
> with lowering the cost of those panels. Right?

The panels are getting cheaper. The inverters are getting
cheaper. People live in houses, so you could just as well
make houses produce their own power and export some.
See 
http://www.transparency.eex.com/en/Statutory%20Publication%20Requirements%20of%20the%20Transmission%20System%20Operators
what the fat tail adds up to (above omits the smallest
installations, so it's actually more dramatic than this).
 
> >> yawner.
> >>
> >> Here's the thing. If solar panels were absolutely 100% FREE, it
> >> wouldn't come close to solving the problem. More than half of the
> >> current costs are in the batteries and inverters.
> >
> > If panels were free, solar PV would be cheaper than dirty coal,
> > and you wouldn't be able to get panels at all because they
> > would be even more sold out (try buying CdTe or CIGS panels)
> > than now.
> 
> It would be in large installations. It would NOT be in the short term

If panels are free, I'd be getting a few GW of my own.

> in individual house installations. That's my point. Solar is high

Most installations are in invididual houses. Unless you live in a
renewable-disadvantaged country like the US.

> capital up front, and that is it's weakness when people are mostly
> living from paycheck to paycheck and already up to their eyeballs in
> debt.

How did these people get to afford the houses they live in in 
the first place? Oh, wait, they didn't. They got suckered in 
by the bubble. Guess what, the bubble is not global. It might
have hit US, Spain and Canada, and a few other places. But world-wide,
it's an anomaly.
 
> Nanosolar is selling most of their panels these days to facilities in
> Germany. In a way, this is fair. Germany subsidizes the development of

I know, I've tried to buy some, and you can't get any as end user.
Same thing with Fist Solar. It will take a while until the overheated
market cools off enough that availability and prices are adequate.

> solar energy, while we in the US subsidize Germany's security through
> military spending. I doubt they are on the same order of magnitude of

Dog knows the failing empire is doing everything to piss off the entire
world and get a half million of Manhattanites fried to a crisp by a nuke, 
but I don't know what this autoexsanguination has to do anything with 
anything else than people endorsing instituionalized insanity, bless 
their black little hearts. W0Of.

> expenditure, but it's nice to see some money flowing each way. :-)

-- 
Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
______________________________________________________________
ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org
8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A  7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE