solar power now at £1/W

[Simon]

Over the last few years I've been keeping a keen eye on solar panel prices. I bought my first at £3/W and my last about a year ago at £2/W, and now almost as expected prices are at around £1/W. And why are governments still piling as much money as before into home schemes ? why are people still chanting about the costs. Roll on next year....

[Rerouter]

its because people are still generally very short sighted in plans, unless your well established with no debt, you generally are placing some risk on anything that takes over 1 year to break even

at 1 pound per watt, your talking 1000 pounds per KW, at at average power costs, and ~8 hours of usable sunlight, that still takes 3-4 years to pay for itself (excluding feed-in tarrifs)
the other issue is, during the middle of the day, average joe's power draw is a fridge or 2 and a hot water system if not on a timer, plus a sum of under 100W standby from other things, so its mostly just being fed into the grid,

if he does store it, there is the additional cost of batteries, and replacing and maintaining those batteries over the years, plus the inverter, which cost quite a bit

on top of all of this, you still have the issue of the panels requiring more power to make than they generate in 5-10 years, these are why they still arent all that popular and booming on larger scales, though with the whole carbon pricing thing over here, it may just force peoples hands into installing them

the other often overlooked issue it, when everyones systems are trying to feed into the system, it pulls the line voltage up to the maximum of the specification, midday i commonly see it fringing on 254-260V, which none of the cheap chinese crap thats made for us 220V and resold here appreciate, with the input capacitors being the biggest downfal in almost all the chargers i have to deal with, and input diodes on some aswell (370V AC peaks easily exceeding 400V on spikes)

[Simon]

This thing about the panels costing more power to make than they generate is something no one has ever actually bothered to fully demonstrate. The last claim was in the lifetime of the panel (25+ years), naturally that claim was never backed up when I challenged it.

Yes I know that pure panel price is not the driving factor but it is the perceived driving factor by most laymen. I have noticed in the past that if you look panel prices up on ebay and then look at the sellers own website the price on the same panels doubles.......

[G7PSK]

The best form of solar energy power is what we have going on all around us at the moment. All the straw from the fields is being baled up and carted of for storage on a nearby disused airfield, it then goes to feed two straw burning power stations one in Thetford the other at Sutton Bridge out put is in mega watts.

[Simon]

The best form of solar energy power is what we have going on all around us at the moment. All the straw from the fields is being baled up and carted of for storage on a nearby disused airfield, it then goes to feed two straw burning power stations one in Thetford the other at Sutton Bridge out put is in mega watts.

Thats an interesting concept and with the state of my shed roof it will have straw growing on it soon  I was actually contemplating a a generator fueled by waste wood.

[bullet308]

How do the economics of photovoltaic work out in the UK? Comparing where I live (sunny, miserably hot South Carolina) with Germany (which has decided to walk away from nuclear power and who at least imagine they can replace that with renewables, and tends towards the cold and cloudy), I wonder how the UK fits in.

Seems to me that the peak power demand here is driven by the summertime demands of air conditioning (which we are NOT giving up), and summer is when we get the most sun (and we get a good bit year-round, though not like Arizona), so that kinda works out, whereas German power demands are probably more driven by heating requirements in winter, when they have, oh, just about no sun at all.

The UK is not so cold, and perhaps a bit less cloudy year-round than Germany is in winter. Does the math work out, even at £1/W?

One think I know is that, as a general rule, the further away from the equator you get, the fewer your options become, and that climate and latitude make a big difference in how these various options work economicaly.

[SeanB]

Germany is still mostly nuclear, but the German politicians have offshored them to the French, so they do not appear in the local pool, which is what is shown and bragged about while the fact that the local generation is much less than peak demand is conveniently forgotten.

[grumpydoc]

I confess that I've never really understood photovoltaic's popularity, and in the UK I tend to think of it as totally barmy.

I'd be interested to know what the technical limitations to building some solar furnace powered generating stations in parts of the world with reliable sunshine actually are (never looked into it but it feels plausible to me).

[Simon]

Yes we also conveniently forget that we as do all neighboring countries buy nuclear power off the french, must be that they have beter electrons  . I'm not making a point about location just the technology price. We get some sun here. With 90W worth of panels Iwas pumping 40W into the grid at peak, when you consider that that is 90W on the equator (standard panel rating) it is pretty good. I think as the cost of electric goes up people will start to think more about solar. But I don't agree with the extortionate feed in tariffs ! as usual it is a case of the rich getting richer and poor people subsidizing them.

[grumpydoc]

Yes we also conveniently forget that we as do all neighboring countries buy nuclear power off the french

I don't understand why we aren't building more nuclear here to be honest.

[SeanB]

Mostly NIMBY who want the benefits but the units to be made from fairy droppings and unicorn horn shavings, and to be out of sight and fit in a small box.

Would not mind at all living next to a nuclear power plant, right on the fence, and next to the cooling pond - free hot water. The French do a nice co generation thing of having nuclear heated greenhouses.

[madires]

Germany is still mostly nuclear, but the German politicians have offshored them to the French, so they do not appear in the local pool, which is what is shown and bragged about while the fact that the local generation is much less than peak demand is conveniently forgotten.

Actually German power plants are still exporting power. IIRC it was something like 17 or 19 TWh last year. Some time ago there was nearly a power shortage (several nuclear plants were offline) but since it was around midday solar power was able to compensate that.

The big challenge for the EU is to build a large power grid supporting the transfer of power all over the EU. Current grids are mostly build for local power distribution of old school power plants and can't transfer larger dynamic input from wind parks and so on additionally.

[M. András]

uranium isotope fed bio plants? sorry i couldnt miss it. btw the solar panels and the necessary system cost soo much they are currently not worth the investment, but insted of building more fossil fueled power plants they should make the atomreactors more robust and stable, longer lasting, while in the valleys build giant wind turbines for the unpopulated deserts solar power plants atleast the damn land would be used for something useful but somehow you have to solve the problembs with sandstorms. 2 nuclear power plants failed since they were build for the first time 1 is chernobyl which was an accident or failed experiment hard to decide what was the cause of the failure itself too many opposite data on this, the other is the recent fukusima which was the fault of the idiots mostly who built a damn reactor near the ocean and to a territory which is famous for yearly storms. huge office buildings with glass surface and still using lights inside during daylight it would be better to use solar panels on the surface. same goes for the large factory buildings all the top of the buildings can be used for good, warehouses etc

[Simon]

Yes lots of office and factory solar real estate but most are too stupid to see it.

[SeanB]

Cost is a major thing. If there was a cheap solar panel available many will install it, and it would work here as we have so much sun. But of course there is a monopoly on power production...........

[T4P]

And the three-mile nuclear plant too no ?

[FenderBender]

For us yanks, that's approximately...$1.56920/W

 

[M. András]

yeah, those buisness modells slows the technological advancement. there could be even more efficient ways to produce and use power if it would be a billionare buisness for those who sell it arabian worlds would be starving without the need for oil. so on...

edit: ohh and almost forgot it, goverments could support innovation in this field but ohh god what am i talking about they are just puppets of the billionares why would they go against their masters.....

[Rufus]

at 1 pound per watt, your talking 1000 pounds per KW, at at average power costs, and ~8 hours of usable sunlight, that still takes 3-4 years to pay for itself

In the UK panels average about 9% of their rated output so at current UK mains electricity prices a 1kW panel will generate about £95 of electricity per year which makes it more than 10 years to break even on just these cheap panels (assuming they last that long and you keep them clean and mains electricity prices are stable).

That is why ridiculously huge subsidies were required to trigger a rush of companies installing panels for free and those with enough money to have them installed themselves. All at the expense of those without enough money who have the cost of these subsidies added to their energy bills. A disgusting state of affairs made much worse by the tossers who created the scheme and half of those installing panels thinking they should be admired for saving the planet with their pathetic eco gesturing while they should actually be despised for ripping off the poor.

[Simon]

at 1 pound per watt, your talking 1000 pounds per KW, at at average power costs, and ~8 hours of usable sunlight, that still takes 3-4 years to pay for itself

In the UK panels average about 9% of their rated output so at current UK mains electricity prices a 1kW panel will generate about £95 of electricity per year which makes it more than 10 years to break even on just these cheap panels (assuming they last that long and you keep them clean and mains electricity prices are stable).

You mean a 100W panel will output 9W ? you need to further qualify that or your spouting rubbish. As I already said I have 90W of panels and I'm pumping 30-40W into the grid, so what is the 9% exactly ?

Stable mains electricity prices ? which of the fantasy worlds do you live in ? Prices in the UK increase at an overly predictable rate !!! we will fast reach a point where panels will become ever more feasible, not for the cost of the panels but the cost of the electricity you have to buy in.......

[Rufus]

In the UK panels average about 9% of their rated output so at current UK mains electricity prices a 1kW panel will generate about £95 of electricity per year which makes it more than 10 years to break even on just these cheap panels (assuming they last that long and you keep them clean and mains electricity prices are stable).

You mean a 100W panel will output 9W ? you need to further qualify that or your spouting rubbish.

Averaged over a year the power output of a 100W panel is 9W as anyone with a clue and interest in solar panels should be painfully aware.

Stable mains electricity prices ? which of the fantasy worlds do you live in ? Prices in the UK increase at an overly predictable rate !!! we will fast reach a point where panels will become ever more feasible, not for the cost of the panels but the cost of the electricity you have to buy in.......

Panels will never become feasible in large volume because they produce electricity when we mostly don't need it and produce none when we often do need it. The same for wind and tidal schemes which don't involve lagoon storage, none will be more than bit players in any practical generation scheme.

A good deal of the price increases in the UK are due to political decisions to force consumers to buy energy from extremely uneconomic renewable generation. Who do you think is paying owners of domestic PV installations about 6 times the going rate for the energy they generate even when they use that energy themselves for free? Who do you think is paying for the mass (and massively uneconomic) installation of offshore wind generation? It is easy to make an uneconomic generation scheme economic by offering subsidies and crippling all the other schemes with surcharges. Consumers pay through the nose so a handful of technically illiterate politicians can preen their eco green saving the world credentials while China will continue to increase their CO2 emissions every year by more than the UK total. If everyone in the UK crawled into a cave and stayed there shivering it would delay the global warming effect of Chinas CO2 emissions by less than a year.

[KTP]

I may have this a bit wrong...too lazy to look up the original data but I recall that the carbon footprint from having a kid will surpass all of the eco saving the parent does over their entire lifetime.

So...$10,000 for solar panels which may or may not actually be helping net carbon reduction, or $10 for birth control?

If everyone who wanted kids would have just 2, and the rest of us get by with none, global warming would be a non-issue in 50 years.

[Stephen Hill]

Simon, can you post a link to a solar panel which is £1/W please? I've had a look around and can't find any...

[Simon]

Simon, can you post a link to a solar panel which is £1/W please? I've had a look around and can't find any...

go on eBay and search for solar panels, anything with a decent power like 80 W costs around 80 quid and same for other powers. Obviously if your after panels that are under 30 W you will have to pay more.

[M. András]

solar panels from ebay? my dear i bet those effiency around 1%  not the current top few years ago i read somewhere they made some panels which was a few 10% efficient. my policy on ebay is to only buy stuff from it what cant be fake, the rest prices are nice but thanks no and im not fan of cheap chinese stuffs which will fail soon without any warranty or detailed datasheet