Why is the solar power still so expansive?

Question

Why is the solar power still so expansive?

Answer 1

Solar Power – Development in new technology making it economically competitive:

We all know that solar power is excellently exciting. Just lay down a sheet or a panel exposing sun and every day, for the life of the device, you get free power. There are no fuel costs, no running or maintenance cost. It is a renewable resource, meaning no end of raw material. Therefore, we do not have to worry about the sun ever going away. Although the sun may disappear behind a few clouds for a few minutes, disappear completely at night, or for hours during the winter, we can always expect it to come back in full force. Apart, solar power is non-polluting. Unlike oil, solar power does not emit any greenhouse gases or carcinogens into the air. Solar power is good for the environment and make our atmosphere clean. Solar power is silent powered also, i.e., no noise pollution.  

There are so many advantages of solar power that it is amazing that it is not yet more common. Perhaps the main reason for this is that at the onset, solar power can be expensive. Unfortunately, the size of the initial investment keeps the cost of solar generated power higher than the cost of coal. At this juncture it is worth noting that, if you take into account the environmental costs of burning coal, solar power is already slightly more economically sound. But we're not taxing carbon (yet) so we've got to make solar power cheaper. Of course, solar cells are not cheap. However, technology for this is improving, and it will continue to improve as the cost of other forms of power increase. There are few of the finest examples that are working to bring solar power to grid parity. Some of these useful technologies are briefed below:

1. The most expensive part of a traditional photovoltaic array is the silicon wafers. To solve this cost problem (and also the problem of the environmentally wasteful process of creating the silicon crystals) several people are concentrating the sunlight thousands of times onto an extremely small solar panel. They decrease the amount of solar material needed by thousands of times, and produce just as much power.

Technologies collectively known as concentrating photovoltaic are starting to enjoy their day in the sun, thanks to advances in solar cells, which absorb light and convert it into electricity, and the mirror- or lens-based concentrator systems that focus light on them. The technology could soon make solar power as cheap as electricity from the grid. The idea of concentrating sunlight to reduce the size of solar cells - and therefore to cut costs -has been around for decades. The result is solar power that is nearly as cheap (if not as cheap) as coal.

The thinking behind concentrated solar power is simple. Because energy from the sun, although abundant, is diffuse, generating one gigawatt of power (the size of a typical utility-scale plant) using traditional photovoltaic requires a four-square-mile area of silicon. A concentrator system would replace most of the silicon with plastic or glass lenses or metal reflectors, requiring only as much semiconductor material as it would take to cover an area of much smaller in size. Moreover, because of decrease in the amount of semiconductor needed makes it affordable to use much more efficient types of solar cells. The total footprint of such plant, including the reflectors or lenses, would be only two to two-and-a-half square miles.

The big problem of this technology is very hot piece of silicon. You have to keep the silicon cool, even with sunlight magnified 2000 times on it. Otherwise the silicon will melt, and it's all over. Scientists are working prototypes already and are hoping to go commercial in the coming years.

2. Another solution to the problem of limited and expensive crystalline silicon is to just not use it. This is why there are so many solar startups right now working on solar technology using non-crystalline silicon or other thin-film solutions. Many have already broken out of the lab and into manufacturing. One of the leading technologies, not using expensive crystalline silicon is ‘Nano-solar’ prints. Nano-solar prints it's mixture of several elements in precise proportions onto a metal film. The production is fast, simple and cheap, at least for now. Some fear that shortages in indium will bring a halt to nano-solar's cheap printing days. Though scientists make some efficiency sacrifices when compared to crystalline silicon, they are so much cheaper to produce that they might soon even beat coal in cost per watt.

The advantages of ‘Nano-solar’ prints are, they are super cheap, ultra-adaptable solar panels that can be printed on the side of pretty much anything, promising solar power anywhere you want it. At the present condition, they still slide under coal's $2.1-a-watt energy cost, though they're not mass produced at the scale needed to bring it to the 30-cents-a-watt level.

3. While the first two options provide the most efficient path to solar electricity, but converting photons directly into electrons, a less efficient, though simpler, option might turn out to be the real cost-effective. Simply by focusing hundreds or even thousands of mirrors onto a single point, scientists are hoping to create the kind of heat necessary to run a coal fired power plant, but without use of coal. The heat would boil water which would then be used to turn turbines. In other words, it is nothing but, concentrated thermal solar power, which concentrates the heat from the sun to power turbines or sterling engines.

The advantage of such a system is converting the existing steam turbines being produced for traditional power plants, and the rest of the technology just involves shiny objects and concrete. The problems however, are these things too hot to handle. The material holding the boiler has to be able to withstand the extreme heat that these installations can produce. That kind of material, that won't melt or degrade under such extreme heat, can be quite expensive.

Answer 2

Growing silicon crystals is expensive.  Sunlight is diffuse and has a low energy density, so it takes a LARGE solar panel to capture anything worth using as electricity.

Plants are efficient in capturing solar energy.  Whatever you can grow in your garden, eat, and burn as fuel, is what solar energy is all about.  It is not much, and beets are not exactly great dining.

Any questions?

Answer 3

Two reasons.

First, because solar panels are expensive.   There is a limit to how cheaply you can grown silicon crystals, put them into panels, and ship them to where you need them.   Why don't cars cost $100 each?   Why don't computers cost $1?   There is simply a minimum cost to produce this technology.

Now there are some interesting technologies on the horizon that may reduce that cost of production.   Thin film solar, for example, will likely cut the cost of solar power dramatically.   But it is not quite fully commericalized yet.

Second, it is expensive because we compare it to other ways of producing electricity, like coal.   Coal is very very cheap.  So in comparison, solar seems very expensive.    Ground beef is an expensive food if you compare it to pasta.  But compared to lobster, its quite cheap.

Once our energy costs increase, as they certainly will, then solar energy will seem less and less expensive.

Good question.

Answer 4

It requires large amounts of silicon (or some other semiconductor) that have to be very pure.

It also doesn't obey Moore's law like other semi-conductors so the price doesn't come down as quickly as the price/performance of computer chips.

Then there's the energy storage you'd need if you want it to be reliable and that adds a lot of cost (we don't really have a good means of doing that which pretty much forces wind and solar to be useless for running a country).

Answer 5

When new technology is presented to the market it has cost components that come from producing the item, and components that are derived from the cost of reasearch and development, and of course set up cost to begin manufacturing.

Then we have a big risk of obsolescence factor... someone is likely ot come along with a new technology that is so much better or so much cheaper, that we will never recover all our start up costs.

Well, it appears that solar power developers have not even allowed enough for that obsolescence factor. Already there is on the  market and soon to be on the market technologies that will cut the cost by a factor of at leat 6.  So it appears that most early developers will have lost money by getting into this game.

There is a reasonable question whether earlier developers might have been better to defer collecting their development costs, to avoid attracting competition. In theory, this might have been valid if the new technologies had come along with just a bit lower cost. But the newest technologies are  so much cheaper that I can not see any way we should expect to ever recoup development costs for the older technology.

Right now, NanoSolar is the low cost leader. and the rest are just selling what they have because NanoSolar does not have capacity to take the business. They had sole out all capacity to Germany for at least a year before the first product came off the line.

Americans did not get in line to buy early enough.

Answer 6

Expansive it's not....

Expensive it is.

Answer 7

It's expensive, but coming down.

2 years ago, we were quoted $27,000 to install a 2.5 kW array, then would get back about $7,000, for a net cost of $20,000.

Our neighbor's brother just got an array, 4 kW, professionally installed less than a week ago.  His net cost was $20,000 but he's expecting $8,000 in rebates, so a projected net cost of $12,000.

Prices definitely seem to be coming down.

Answer 8

I think its not very expensive. because it requires only one time cost unlike electricity bills which we have to pay every month.  

Answer 9

Solar Power is expansive because it is a long time energy source that doesn't have to be renewed.....

Answer 10

If technology like photo voltaic cells etc., are involved, solar power is expensive.  If it is used with simple solutions like my following solution, it is the cheapest and green to the core. Have a look, adopt it at home and tell your friends/relatives/community and save the world. You be the innovator to suit your needs.

U-SEE – We can save the World

SOLAR ENERGY is green, clean and freely available infinite energy for about 200 days in a year.  But many of us misuse electricity for LIGHTING the interiors of homes/business places though  solar energy is available just across our windows and doors. Burning bulbs during day time is a criminal waste of costly electricity; bulbs also contribute CO2 and global warming.

Save energy- switch off bulbs, reduce CO2 - adopt World Bank honored  Project U-SEE (Unlimited Saving of Electrical Energy)

SAVINGS:-one bulb/tube light of 40 volts burning for 6 hours, consumes 8 units in a month. If 100,000 people can switch off, we can save 800,000 units of electricity in a month and in six months, we can save 4,800,000 units. and also thousands of tons of CO2 emission can be saved.

Do not live in darkness. U-SEE is a simple solution for a global problem of scarcity.  

IMPLEMENTATION:  locate a spot where maximum hours of sunshine will be available; keep a plastic chair, a pillow, a few pieces of waste thermostat or cardboard pieces and a mirror measuring 1' X 2' readu; open one window, keep the chair in the sun shining area, place pillow on it and the mirror on the pillow. Keep adjusting the angle of the mirror till such time that the deflected sun shine gets inside your home through the window and hits the white ceiling and fine tune the same. YOUR ROOM IS BEAUTIFULLY LIT UP WITH NATURAL LIGHT FROM THE CEILING.

BENEFITS:  savings in terms of investment to generate 800,000 units:  fossil fuel, coal or water, investment on machineries, transmission, labor and how much CO2 can be reduced.  These savings have Nth value.

Certificate of Honor awarded by World Bank to U-SEE (Unlimited Saving of Electrical Energy) # 585 of IDM 2007

http://dmblog.worldbank.org/mirrors-can-...

FAQs? mail [e-mail] [phone] / 9845950440

Answer 11

They do cost a lot, but they will pay for themselves in time and save you money. Think of them like buying a car. My system cost about $18K, it will pay for itself in savings in about 6 years then I'll have free electricity for many years to come.