Electronic Product Design

Do you think solar power is a feasible energy alternative?

No. It has its place in specialized applications, but it is not likely to be a general solution to any energy issue of any magnitude. The cells are not the issue. The issue is storage.

Photovoltaic Systems, PV Systems,

Whenever we make a high dollar purchase, we always ask ourselves this question. Does this make sense? This is a long term investment. This is an investment that will be saving money!

We know that buying a new car in most cases is a poor investment. But we need them. The average American will purchase 2 brand new cars in a 15 year period of time. If your car purchases averaged 20K, you would have lost 20% of your investment the minute you drove it off the lot. This would be a loss of $8000 between the 2 cars. The minute you turn on your Photovoltaic system for electricity, you are saving money. In addition, what is your car worth in 10 years? Your Photovoltaic system is worth every dollar it saves you in that particular year. (This depends on your system size and weather conditions) Maintenance is low and power produced annually is constant. A car needs gas and oil to run. This is a costly expense. A photovoltaic system needs sun, this is free!

In America, we have many incentives, the average payback time at around a 43 degrees, in NY state is around 14 years. I buy a home, I live there for the next 30 years, did I make a great investment? Yes I did!! Only if the incentives allow me to.

Lets say you own a small business, if we use x-amount of power, we might be charged a peak demand. This is a costly line item on your electric bill. A photovoltaic system might allow you to lower that peak demand charge.

Over all, unless you are receiving incentives, it does not make sense to purchase a PV system for your house because you will replace the roof before the system pays itself back. That is why this industry needs the incentives!

Paul From Albany NY

Feasible alterenative? Until the price comes down - no. Solar panels just get stolen. When they become ubiquitous, then maybe (catch 22!). Until then, for niche markets only.

I believe it may be booster out big time. By using some kind of transformers arrangements and capacitors with diodes and all these electronics gadgets connected you'll have build up a lot of juice for the output, definetly. The idea will be like an stepup system in order to increase the output juice for whatever the purposes are. Absolutly, you have the knowledge. HeeeHaaHii!!!!!!!!!

Crank it Up,

MC

Photovoltaic energy production does have a tremendous future. It is already being adopted on a utility scale in may areas of the world; it is also being used on a "micro" scale to provide electrical energy to run pumps and computers in more technologically challenged areas.

I believe that not enough priority put to maximizing the amount of energy produced per unit of collection area. and that is why I believe that cost effective solar concentrating systems will be the optimal solution.

I don't understand why the "storage issue" continues to be put forth in response to the effectivity of solar PV. They are separate problems, and a lot of effort is being put into developing more efficeient storage. This "shortcoming" will become critical when the amount of PV energy that can be created is greater than the amount being used at the same time ... we are nowhere near that point today. The thing I don't know is how long it takes for a PV cell to generate as much energy that it took to build the cell, but when this point is reached the cell is providing a benefit in terms of creating energy which is free of environmental consequences ... How does one put a price on energy produced in this way?

Well said, Guest! I agree completely. I too have wondered about the excessive skepticism towards photo-voltaics. Part of the doubt probably comes from the feeling that such an elegant benign sustainable energy technology is "too good to be true". And even among technically oriented folks, there seems to persist the notion that photo-voltaic cell can never pay themselves off (i.e., that they fail before producing enough energy to pay for their manufacturing cost), but while this is true for traditional crystalline silicon cells, it will soon beome apparent that this problem does not apply to some of the newer approaches (e.g., dye-sensitized titanium dioxide cells). Hopefully the public and politicians can be brough up to speed on recent developments so that PV research can get more support.

In my opinion, solar energy is still a very expensive technology. Its initial costs cannot be covered by implementing it and using it free. I think its still a loss. Other energies are still inexpensive no matter how much you have to pay on daily basis after the installation. Solar idea can be an optimistic choice at small scale for example glowing a bulb or running a single PC.

A lot of researches are in place in forming inexpensive and more efficient solar cells. Lets see!. I hope there is lot more to do in this field. Solar Energy Trackers are in market to gain maximum energy throughout the day. Convex lenses implemented on the cells at a specific distance can increase the efficiency and power at lesser time. There is nothing impossible in this world. Storage is also an issue but not so dangerous like the solar cell.

Adeel Barki

Dated: 01/29/2009

Yes! I think with the new Nano technology and cheaper Materials, and other ways to produce solar cells like: (Thermo, Photo, Storage-Capacitance, ect..) When this happens for the consumer, The Solar-Cell would not only be more powerful but cheaper to buy. I believe there should be some type of cost cutting technology for the ave. consumer that is or will be available soon. Russ....

For those who have been following the progress of photovoltaics since the era of Dr. Joseph Lindmeyer's development of crystalline silicone PVs for NASA in the late 50's and 60's (and founder of Solarex, the first company to run its facility off PVs of their own creation), the promise of low cost photovoltaics has been a constant and yet unattainable theme in the industry. Currently a 3.5 kW PV system in the United States cost around $30,000. This can provide only about one-third of the electricity consumed by the average American household. The promise of low cost amorphous (thin film) PVs has also not been realized. So while optimism for low cost solutions continues to prevail, as long as the petroleum companies own most of the PV companies and have influence over maintaining the artificial shortage of crystalline silicone, the cost will remain well above what the average family can afford. While the PV business worldwide is a nearly 30% annual growth industry, wealthy businesses account for most of that 30%. Since the late 60's the PV industry has been talking about reaching a $1/watt threshold where PVs can be competitive with power plant electricity. Yet today's costs in some of the most efficient systems run about $4/watt. Even virtually all of the new technologies, including nano-photovoltaics, titanium dioxide, and others are still way too expensive. The one most likely to reach parity with conventional electricity is the "painted" ink PVs currently under development. But when will we see it in the marketplace?