Interesting that the article said this..."And if coupled with economies of scale, the cost of generating solar-energy could go down to 1 yuan (0.14 dollars) per kilowatt hour..." Its funny because right now in my house here in N. California, I pay 9.35 cents per kilowatt hour (for the first 700 kilowatts) which is about 50% of what the chinese are HOPING to get their solar down to. Hmmm. The plant that we get our power from is a combo of wind, solar, hydro, and natural gas and the hydro is run during peak hours. So its nice that I am paying alot less than chinese solar and even when they get teh cost of generating the solar down to 14 cents the retail price to the people will be more than that. I dont think they will ever get off their coal addiction. Dont they have that yangzee river there? That thing floods every year, why dont they put up a couple of mega hydro plants and get some cheap energy that they dont have to F around with.
Interesting.... Nuclear........ .417 cents per kwh fuel costs Less than 1/2 cent per kwh fuel costs Duke Power..... US http://www.duke-energy.com/newsarchives/2000/Jul/2000072401.html Obviously solar has a long way to go.....can't even get cheap in China..... Article... China vs US 8 vs 10 ................................................... 2010 expectations comps.... http://maoxian.com/archive/the-pric...7/04/11/costs-of-solar-to-match-coal-by-2010/
Interesting link! I knew the Chinese were heavily into solar but didn't realize the extent of it. I've got to take my hat off to the communists - they do a MUCH more intelligent job of governing in general than the almost complete incompetence we see in Washington. The is potentially exciting because I was thought thin film solar was going to be the only way out of the Carbon-Based Dark Ages. However, now it looks like the Chinese may blow the lid off with std polysilicon photovoltaics, right? The we could speculate that there will be a 2nd phase where thin film solar comes into play and is on our rooftops, walls and so on. The reason I say that - and I know just enough to be dangerous - is that thin film uses different materials in general. For example here is what wikipedia says: "The materials based on CuInSe2 that are of interest for photovoltaic applications include several elements from groups I, III and VI in the periodic table. These semiconductors are especially attractive for thin film solar cell application because of their high optical absorption coefficients and versatile optical and electrical characteristics which can in principle be manipulated and tuned for a specific need in a given device. CIS is an abbreviation for general chalcopyrite films of copper indium selenide (CuInSe2), CIGS mentioned below is a variation of CIS. CIS films (no Ga) achieved greater than 14% efficiency.[27] However, manufacturing costs of CIS solar cells at present are high when compared with amorphous silicon solar cells but continuing work is leading to more cost-effective production processes. The first large-scale production of CIS modules was started in 2006 in Germany by Wuerth Solar. When gallium is substituted for some of the indium in CIS, the material is sometimes called CIGS , or copper indium/gallium diselenide, a solid mixture of the semiconductors CuInSe2 and CuGaSe2, often abbreviated by the chemical formula CuInxGa(1-x)Se2. Unlike the conventional silicon based solar cell, which can be modelled as a simple p-n junction (see under semiconductor), these cells are best described by a more complex heterojunction model. The best efficiency of a thin-film solar cell as of March 2008 was 19.9% with CIGS absorber layer.[28] Higher efficiencies (around 30%) can be obtained by using optics to concentrate the incident light. The use of gallium increases the optical bandgap of the CIGS layer as compared to pure CIS, thus increasing the open-circuit voltage..."
I would like to know what frame of reference is being used for the per KWh estimate for the chinese solar panels. Solar panels are, after all, a one time expense where the costs are absorbed up front and amortized through potential savings over the useful life of the panel. So is the $.14/kWh estimate for the whole life, or for the first year, or second year? Without knowing this, that number is completely meaningless.
I would like to know what frame of reference is being used for the per KWh estimate for the chinese solar panels. Solar panels are, after all, a one time expense where the costs are absorbed up front and amortized through potential savings over the useful life of the panel. So is the $.14/kWh estimate for the whole life, or for the first year, or second year? Without knowing this, that number is completely meaningless. ................................................... This is so true.... When you start doing a little research.....loose numbers are all over the place..... Just takes more ground work to get good information.... Just from a common sense point of view....it would seem that huge projects such as nuclear would have a long long payback time....even though the day to day seems low..... Will look into this further..... Standardized valuation terms should be based on a proper time frame vs expected service of the product..... But here again the danger in this of course is the change in variable fuel costs.... Just ask any Latin country who has a lot of oil based electricity....... The intriquing part of wind and solar is that there is no future variable cost with regards to their required fuel.....The only major cost consideration is the hard asset itself.... Although....security and other issues do have a very high value that is not usually accounted for on a proformer basis....This is definitely a huge value.... Ideally .....the energy source would be at home...and there would no longer be any depot, securing, or distribution risk.... Seems to me this also has a very high value that the prospective depot players do not want in the equation.... Would you not feel better knowing that all you needed for energy was at home? How much is this worth to you....etc....