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

[Kelly Anderson]

On Fri, Jul 1, 2011 at 3:52 AM, Eugen Leitl <eugen at leitl.org> wrote:
> On Thu, Jun 30, 2011 at 12:57:11PM -0600, Kelly Anderson wrote:
>> I hate to disagree with you twice in one day Jeff...
>>
>> But NanoSolar has been in production with a continuous printing
>> process for a couple of years now. The high cost of solar
>> photovoltaics really isn't so much about the panels themselves, but
>> all the equipment to store and distribute the electricity thus
>
> You can safely ignore storage for another 15-20 years.

Maybe you can, but I gots ta buy some battries soon!! This summer!!

> Distribution is a semi-solved problem.

Semi. And not at all at my house (which is an unusual case, granted).

>> generated. The cost of batteries, inverters, and so forth swamps the
>
> No batteries for next 15-20 years. When people are talking
> about grid parity, they're comparing turnkey systems. All
> costs factored in.

Depends on their politics what numbers people use.

>> cost of the panels themselves in small scale applications (like MY
>> house). Nanosolar proposes to solve this problem by creating
>> neighborhood sized installations covering a few acres and serving a
>> few hundred homes. This gets the required economies of scale for the
>> parts of the system that are not the panels themselves.
>
> 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
each home adds tens of thousands of dollars to the price of homes. We
can't sell the homes we have now here in the US.

>> 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?

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

Nanosolar is selling most of their panels these days to facilities in
Germany. In a way, this is fair. Germany subsidizes the development of
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
expenditure, but it's nice to see some money flowing each way. :-)

-Kelly