How's that low carbon firework business coming on then

At the moment we are really really low carbon !!!



Cheers

Cris

Solar panels are insanely expensive and stupidly inefficient. They also break and from what I've read, can be a PITA to recycle. Maybe in 10-20 years time.

My situation here is unusual compared to the typical Gringo scenario, because my actual consumption is so low. (I used 160 kWh last month, with two powerful computers, a 22 cubic foot refrigerator/freezer, and air conditioning. Anybody [except for John Bjorgen! ] wanna compare?) My usage is more like that of a typical Mexican family than it is like a typical Gringo household here that will use three, five times (or more) than what I use, going well into the DAC rate. And believe me, that DAC rate will "...encourage people to be eco-friendly..."

There are lots of homes here with solar panels on the roof, not because the owners are trying to benefit the ecology, but because they are trying to benefit their own economies. Taking a hypothetical example, someone with a swimming pool, a large house and extensive use of A/C, a big set of 24 solar panels would drop their annual electric bill from $3261 down to $157 dollars. That would pay for the solar installation in seven years. A no brainer, right? Everyone should do it.

Well, yes and no. It would benefit that hypothetical rich Gringo, but he is using more electricity every month than his Mexican neighbor two streets down the hill uses in nearly a year. That Mexican is already getting his electricity for $157 a year. Even a much more modest solar installation that would cut his electric bill down to $75 a year (the minimum fee to stay connected) would cost him nearly a year's gross salary.

So, yes, the Government does encourage eco-friendliness, disguised as fiscal advantage. If you don't conserve, you pay for it. And FWIW, while it is the Government that "encourages" the eco-friendliness, it is not the Government that pays for it. It is the people on the DAC rate who pay a cost per kWh that is considerably higher than the cost of production who subsidize the low-income, low-usage clients.

Ironically, if every DAC client went solar, there would be less electricity consumed nationwide--a Good Thing. But... due to economy of scale that would likely increase the unit cost of production and without the DAC money to subsidize the low-usage clients, their cost for electricity would rise substantially (more than double). This, I think, would be a Bad Thing.

Go figure.

tanstaafl.

Isn't that what they were saying 10-20 years ago?

And honestly, not much has changed. Lots of new "breakthroughs" to read about every now and then, but good luck finding those commercialized.

That's because the physics of solar radiation haven't changed. The often-quoted power density figure of solar energy (1367 W/m^2) that gets everyone so excited is for the *entire* electromagnetic spectrum, while devices to convert this radiation to electricity work over a relatively small spectrum, thus capturing only a small fraction of the area under the power vs. frequency curve. Oh, and don't forget you only get COS(latitude) of that radiation to begin with -- half up here in Minneapolis. Running a toaster in Minneapolis on solar cells takes quite a large area, even on a sunny day. It's not ever going to replace coal.

Says the skeptic who's still powered by coal. Meanwhile some of us have no electric bill .

EDIT: Yeah it doesn't work everywhere, but the sad thing is that millions of people live where it would work fabulously and don't bother to take advantage of it simply because of the higher up-front cost.

Efficiency wouldn't be as significant an issue if the price were substantially lower. Which brings us back to some of those many breakthroughs, some of which only slightly increase efficiency, but promise dramatically lower costs. Still waiting for it.

For now it's Nuclear, Hydro and Natural Gas around here.

My personal feeling on Solar that it will never pay a massive part in grid electricity, but my recent experiments with site specific use have certainly proved cost effective and reasonably efficient for low voltage use, even in the UK.

To me it seems a little bit daft that in such hot countries that more people are not encouraged to fit solar on their roof as part of their energy consumption, what ever the efficiency of the panels is. Once installed the panels could be swapped in 10-20 years time and they have run their life.

The UK has had an interesting solar scheme backed by government for the past few years. My neighbour has had "free" solar panels installed, and even in our dodgy climate has seen his electricity bill fall quite a bit.

Cheers

Cris

Around here "free" solar panels are everywhere. In fact you get paid to have them installed and keep them installed. The catch is that you don't own them until after about 20 years. Basically the companies providing them are renting your roof. They provide power back to the utility and cut you a cheque every month for some dollar amount - I don't know how it's calculated. And I'm not sure how these companies make money with this.

The drawback is that your roof's warranty is pretty much out the window and that you're going to have a very hard time replacing the shingles under the panels when needed. New construction around here have been installing roofs that won't last longer than 10 years or so.

I note the use of passive voice ("...people are not encouraged...") and that is the root of the problem.

Just who is it that is supposed to encourage these people?

The electric company? They're in the business of selling electricity, not buying it.

The solar panel manufacturers? Why would they want to sell their products at a loss?

The government? Here in Mexico, the government IS the power company.

Where I live, solar seems like a marvelous idea, until it's time to pay for it. Solar is expensive, particularly in relative terms. There is no way that the majority of people here can put two year's gross income on their roof when many of them can barely put tortillas y frijoles on the table every day.

From the point of view of benefiting the ecology and reducing consumption, CFE (the Mexican power company) does indeed encourage low usage through their punitive rates for high consumption - something I am in favor of. (The punitive rates, that is, not the high consumption )

tanstaafl.

And when that runs out, most states can start burning asphalt. I'm sure there's a lobby group somewhere that can make it happen.

Ultimately, government (or their captive power company) can do a whole lot to change incentives around through surcharges, punitive rates, incentives, and whatnot. In the U.S., there are various tax breaks if you install solar. A buddy of mine in Napa has rates comparable to what you've described in Mexico, where if your electrical usage goes over a threshold, your price goes up. With his new solar system, when he's selling power back to the grid, that number offsets his usage from the grid and keeps him out of the punitive rates.

I'm intrigued by the companies who "rent your roof" and give you some money back. That's attractive for a lot of reasons, not least that you don't have to put any money up front. You don't see much of this happening in Houston, even though we get lots of sunlight. I figure our problem is that the "deregulated" Texas electrical market, where you buy power from any one of hundreds of companies who buy power wholesale and virtually sell it back to you for a profit. There's a separate company who "delivers" the power, but you're not directly their customer. In this universe, it's quite complicated to sort out how you might sell power back. To whom? For what price? Do I have to buy power at the retail price and sell it at the wholesale spot-market price? Can I sell my power to somebody different from whom I buy it?

Dan, Ontario is also de-regulated in the same way. Most people stick with their local municipal provider.

They can't sell it without getting it from somewhere. That doesn't mean that installing a distributed power generation system is cost effective for them, but if it's cost effective for anyone, it would be for them, due to the fact that a large program would reduce the cost of hardware through economies of scale.

That's not very long. Round here roofs tend to be made of slate, the same stuff that Wales is largely made of. Wales has been left outdoors in some truly appalling weather conditions for a lot more than 10 years and hasn't failed yet.

Sounds like you could save a lot of money on shingles by giving them a protective covering of solar panels.

Peter

Exactly. The government could simply change the construction code to require a small number of grid-tied panels on all new construction. This would especially make sense in places like Arizona and Nevada where they get 300+ sunny days a year and electrical usage due to A/C usage spikes at roughly the same time that peak power output is attained through the panels. Win-win-win.

Hawaii already requires solar water heaters on all new construction. São Paulo has required it since 2008. If the government is really serious about decreasing dependence on foreign oil, that's one way to cut a lot of usage, especially in the southwest.

Too funny. Thanks Peter.

I'm going to guess that had Wales still had ample tree cover 100 years ago that most of it's housing with have ended up with wooden shingles too. People use what is cheap in their local area to roof their houses. Or at least the used to, before modern transport arrived.

Which also leads to oddities in some places, like Dorset, where you have houses roofed with substantial bits of stone that threatens to fall through the inadequate wooden sub structure at any moment

It's totally a job for government, a change in the building codes would do it (as suggested above), then the costs would slowly come down, and in time actually become cost effective.

I think seat belts are a great example of this, it's a no briner, they are a great idea, but people didn't just automatically adopt them. It took legislation and each car coming with them fitted from new. Over time we don't even think of it.

I don't think it makes sense everywhere, the UK for example is not a great place for Solar, but in counties like Mexico the government would actually do themselves a favour, they wouldn't need so many power stations ???

Cheers

Cris

You forgot the wink smiley on that line.

Fixed.

Getting back to the original post, there's a company called Cree which manufactures LED modules for precisely this application. They announced these modules over a year ago and now, they appear to be "available" as ALT Asteria V6 bulbs, in several different color temperatures and light spread angles. There's one German vendor who has it for EUR 45 or thereabouts. I can't find an American reseller, making me wonder just how much these things are actually on the market, ready for sale.

This week's "efficiency record" for solar cells:

http://www.engadget.com/2012/08/20/ibm-a...ar-power-cells/

11.1 % using "common" materials instead of silicon (which is the common and more efficient variety of photovoltaic cell).