Making solar power competitive with coal
February 24, 2012 | Source: Technology Review
This 25-micrometer-thick peel-off film of silicon, used to make solar cells, has a metal backing that keeps it from breaking (credit: Astrowatt)
By the end of the decade, U.S. manufacturers could make solar panels that are less than half as expensive as the ones they make now.
At 52 cents per watt, that would be cheap enough for solar power to compete with electricity from fossil fuels, according to a new study by MIT researchers in Energy & Environmental Science.
Assuming similar cost reductions for installation and equipment, solar power would cost six cents per kilowatt-hour in sunny areas of the U.S. — less than the 15 cents per kilowatt-hour average cost of electricity in the U.S. today.
Improvements would include an alternative to the wasteful process now used to make silicon wafers, methods of handling thin wafers to avoid breaking, installation cost-reduction, and improved light absorption, such as using nanostructured layers.
Comments (16)
by Scott Crader
Hey Woodstove guy, How about backup fpr solar with reclaimed biomass burned in small scale plants put in repurposed small factories in small towns and any where else that buildings are sitting idle . Same goes for Aquaponics. Look up Pyrolysis Doohickey in Popular science June 2010.I would like to see an X-Prize for the most effective/effiecent way to implement these types of concepts. Creates jobs,food,energy,uses existing idle infastructure and of course more tax revenue, in one package. Bottom up ideas like these when implemented can keep the little brains like me busy while the big brains save the developing world.
by Hartley
“Early stage technology” – doesn’t sound like something I would like my tax dollars subsidizing just yet. How many of these boondoggles have we already wasted billions on?
by melajara
Subsidizing makes perfect sense to start and ramp up a new technology. It’s like getting a loan for a long term investment paying off only in decades but without the risk.
This is a perfect match for the strategic government (opposed to a government securing a blind and narrow sighted “free” market, hence the current superiority of China economic growth model over U.S.A.).
Of course, there is a time where the subsidies have to dry up, IMHO we are almost at this critical point for photovoltaic.
by Spikosauropod
Energy production is not an either or proposition. When solar is cheaper than fossil fuels, it will be added to the power grid. When it is a lot cheaper than fossil fuels, it will replace them on the power grid.
There are other alternate energy sources being developed that may leave solar in their wake. They promise to be cheaper still and cause almost no pollution. When those arrive, they can be added to the power grid as well.
The market is a beautiful thing. Let it do its job. What we don’t want to do is force the implementation of an inefficient energy source. That is just bad management.
I think this is all very encouraging news. I won’t lose any sleep wondering who will win the nonexistent energy production war.
by Mark Uzick
When you say ‘competitive’ with fossil fuels, are you including the cost of power storage for use at night and periods of high electrical demand during daylight? I suspect not; but please feel free to relieve me of my suspicions.
Forgive me if I sound cynical, but I’m tired of all the half-truths and lies.
by Editor
Mark: good question. The writer (at Technology Review, http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/39771/, the original source of the post) says that power storage is not included in the cost comparison.
by Mark Uzick
Then the implication is that a solar installation would have to include a full fossil fuel generating capacity as a back up that would be running much of the time; shutting on and off as needed, thereby causing a huge increase in wear and maintenance costs as well as greatly increased pollution. The cost of the fossil fuel back up and the associated costs of frequent start ups should be added to the calculated costs of solar panels.
by Frank Stang
Wonderful-we have a coal reserve that could last for 300+ years, oil more than the middle east, natural gas enough to last a 150 years or more, and I can just imagine than some “enviro” or? will come up with a cockamamy idea after we are all green energy compliant that all of this natural wealth in the ground needs to be “cleaned up” becaue we can’t have it polluting anything of value that might be found there. Or worse yet they will come to the realization that solar pollutes. I think I will leave this for now and go relax next to my wood burner.
by Bill McClay
That’s all well and fine for you to cozy up next to your wood stove, but I hope you have no children or grandchildren because they will have to deal with your shortsighted approach to being a good conservator of the Earth’s resources. Besides the fact that the cheap to extract oil is gone and mining coal is highly toxic to the environment (ask the Chinese if you don’t believe this), a few hundred years is nothing in the big picture. Solar and all of its forms is sustainable for thousands or even millions of years in the future and when it becomes cheaper than even coal why would we ignore it and still burn it for heating or electricity generation? What about using it to make plastics or fertilizer or some other purpose that has no alternatives at the moment. Wake up for God’s sake and get your head out of that place where the sun don’t shine.
by Joe
I thought they said the same thing back in 2000.
As for subsidizing solar, we should, we subsidized nuclear energy, oil production, port development, the road way where most the oil is used, and the coal factories. @GamerFromJump I have some Enron stock i will trade you for the Solyndra stock.
by Spikosauropod
It seems to me that a better alternative would be to stop subsidizing anything. If we stopped all of our subsidizing and made matching cuts in taxes, we might finally make some headway on the budget and the economy.
by mjblake
Amen, brother. I don’t understand why any industry is subsidized. I do, however, favor X-prize-like scenarios that reward a company for achieving real-life usable results.
by randy
Can we get a source article for this information?
by Editor
Sorry, it’s http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/39771/. Added.
by GamerFromJump
At least they’re nodding toward solar needing to be COMPETITIVE, instead of simply saying “We’ll legislate and subsidize solar into winning lol”. Looking at you, Obama (*cough*Solyndra*cough*).
by Dirk Bruere
Of course, by the end of the decade Chinese manufactures would be making it for a quarter the price. Thats why US manufacturers are going bankrupt right now.