

Start-Up sells solar panels that are cheaper than coal power - iamelgringo
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/18/technology/18solar.html?ex=1355634000&en=891b0679962cf9d0&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

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drubio
They will make solar cheaper than coal , and manufacture in San Jose ?! WOW,
but its still manufacturing the actual infrastructure and not the
operational(daily) costs of placing it on the grid.

I saw an article on wave power a few weeks ago which breaks down the structure
as follows: _Coal (3 cents) kilowatt hour_ Natural gas (4 to 5 cents) kilowatt
hour. _Wave (5 to 8 cents) [long-term goal] for kilowatt hour._ Offshore wind
turbines (15 cents) kilowatt hour. * Solar (18 or more cents, depending on the
circumstances.) kilowatt hour.

Producing at lesser than 3 cents seems astonishing, considering this last
article pegs solar at 18 cents/kwhr, not to mention the leasing and
operational costs of having manufacturing in the U.S

Here is the original article on Wave power, which is set to go live in
California by 2012 [http://www.news.com/Wave-power-to-go-commercial-in-
Californi...](http://www.news.com/Wave-power-to-go-commercial-in-
California/2100-13840_3-6223220.html)

The N.Y times article cites "the first solar panel manufacturer to be able to
profitably sell solar panels for less than $1 a watt. With a $1-per-watt
panel," he said, "it is possible to build $2-per-watt systems."

According to the Energy Department cites: 'building a new coal plant costs
about $2.1 a watt, plus the cost of fuel and emissions, he said.

Its interesting how they play with numbers, the N.Y times numbers on solar are
for building plants, the other source on news.com is for kw/hour indicating
operational costs for putting it on the grid.

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kingnothing
The company in Germany that is buying the first run of panels for their
megawatt solar power station gets my kudos for using their landfill for a good
purpose after it's full. I'd like to see more companies use innovative
thinking like that to find a use for otherwise worthless land.

~~~
eru
It's not so unusually to re-use full land fills here in Germany.

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kingnothing
What else are they used for?

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eru
Here in Magdeburg one land fill was made part of a park for the federal garden
exhibition (Bundesgartenschau) in '99.

They covered it of course.

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eru
[http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=de&geocode=&t...](http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=de&geocode=&time=&date=&ttype=&q=magdeburg+buga&ie=UTF8&ll=52.136952,11.676085&spn=0.009259,0.020084&t=h&z=16&om=1)

The strang 'snake' on the west flank is a shute that you can use with skids.

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DaniFong
Wow. Great find - if this is true this would be wonderful for the world.

I hope that the costs targets remain stable. These are projections, after all.

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Alex3917
Don't forget also that after the US implements a cap & trade system the value
to the consumer will increase. The next attempt is going to be spring 2008,
but if that doesn't pass it might get pushed off until 2009. But every single
climate bill is based around the cap & trade system, and it's clear that one
of them is going to pass very soon, if not in six months then in a year and
six months, but soon.

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davidw
Weird that they put the factory in San Jose. I can see not outsourcing to
China or similar faraway locales but I imagine you could save a lot just by
moving it out of the bay area.

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Retric
In many ways this is a beta production run so having high quality staff
working closely with the design team is more important than labor costs. Right
now they are more focused on moving product than lowering labor costs. After
the bugs are worked out they will probably move to some distant location but
for now it's cheaper to manufacture this stuff in the US. Anyway, "it had
orders for its first 18 months of manufacturing capacity." so they are
probably going to keep the plant running for a while even after opening
production facilities in other countries.

~~~
pchristensen
I agree with the high quality staff issue (it's still Silicon Valley and some
people remember how to do high-tech manufacturing) but I think they also
wanted to be close to potential customers (rich companies that use tons of
power and are flush with cash). Not to make deliveries to customers easier,
but to make it easier for people to visit them and say "ooh, solar cell
factory!". Plus their VCs probably didn't want to drive to Sacramento

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mynameishere
Why do they keep saying things like "$1-per-watt"? What does that mean? $1 per
1-watt maximum power production? $1 per 1-watt/hour maximum or estimated
output?

A power plant has a MW rating, like this:

[http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/nuclear/page/at_a_glance/reacto...](http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/nuclear/page/at_a_glance/reactors/beavervalley.html)

About 810 MW/reactor. If they are rating a cell at 1-watt maximum output, it
is probably dishonest unless they are accounting for clouds and nighttime,
etc. What is the cost of infrastructure to maintain energy at night? Are
millions of flywheels or batteries cheaper than a power plant?

It's weird how the NYT will spend 9 pages on baloney, but only give something
like this a tiny article.

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ph0rque
In order to compare apples to apples, electric power analysts use the
(maximum, I assume; or maybe average) cost per unit of power that can be
produced from a given technology. This lets analysts not have to account for
the operational efficiencies of the powerplant, solar cell, etc.

As far as cloudy days/nighttime, most of the energy use occurs in the
afternoon and early evening, when everybody comes home and turns on their
stoves, washing/drying machines, TV's, etc. This corresponds to the average
peak solar production. So these solar cells would, if they find widespread
use, get rid of the need for "peakers", which are peak generating units, and
are the most expensive in terms of the cost of energy produced.

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daniel-cussen
Sounds way, way too good to be true. This would be like saying you found a way
to make nuclear fusion work.

~~~
qaexl
That's a very interesting reaction. I find it interesting that a lot of people
get suspicious over a 'good thing'. Part of the culture, I guess.

I've been hearing about Google investing into alternative energy projects,
including Nanosolar _and_ a (non-torrodial) fusion group that was formerly
funded by the government. I've been hearing these rumors for the past two
years or so. I heard about the Nanosolar bit right when Google was building
all those datacenters, including the one in Washington (or Oregon?) near that
huge power plant. I had also heard that Sergey Brin, Larry Page, and Page's
brother, Carl Page funded Nanosolar. You know, right after the Google IPO and
Carl Page sold his company to Yahoo. (Though they supposedly invested a few
years before the payday, so ... ).

All of this is hearsay, of course.
<http://www.treehugger.com/files/2005/06/google_founders.php>

Here's the bottom line. Nanosolar has hungry customers beating down their
door. Like the NYTimes article says, why should they be making a big media
fuss right now? Why do they need to prove to the world about those figures? It
actually reminds me pre-IPO Google.com. "Come see for yourself."

