Climate Policy

[kandrathe]

Not sure what you mean by being spot on.

Yes, and your continuing to ignore the actual costs while focusing on the wet dreams of some early solar adopters. They have no proof of their savings, nor of the lifespan or maintenance costs of their systems.

You made the assumptions, and also the errors in calculation. Not me.

So you keep saying, and yet do little proving.

Allright, let's take a look at this more realistic example.

Yes!

The Sharp solar panel costs $648.00 and has a capacity of 130 Watt. That's about $5/W, quite different from the $2/W you assumed, btw. Earlier you mentioned that the usual costs of power are $0.12 per kWh. That seems a lot less as the number mentioned in the article you gave, but let's take it for granted. At full capacity a single solar panel produces 130 Watt, so it would take 1000/130 = 7.7 hours of full capacity to produce 1 kWh.

Well, it depends on two other factors. The strength of the sun at that time, and the efficiency of the panel in converting that solar radiation into power. 130 is the maximum capacity, not the operating level. If you happened to get 200 watts of sun it would give you 130, but if you are getting 65 watts of sun it only gives you 65.

The solar panel costs $650, which is the same as the price of 650/0.12 = 5417 kWh. If it took 7.7 hours to produce 1 kWh, it would take 7.7*5417 = 41711 hours to 'produce' the price of the panel. To completely earn back our investments and start getting the energy for nothing after 20 years, we'd need 41711/(20*365) = 5.7 hours of sunshine per day. That's assuming 0% output for the rest of the day.

What is .12? Is that the cost of power from the energy company? 7.7 is probably wrong from what I wrote above. Also, assuming that calculation is correct, that would be 5.7 hours of sunshine on every one of the 365 days over 20 years. I think we'd die of thirst and crop failure.

That's why those reports you mention still conclude it is a profitable solution.

They hope it is profitable, but they do not know yet. Some other points on those studies; California is a better place to use solar, its cooler on the coast where the people live, they need less heat year around, and they get really good sun most every day after the marine layer burns off.