I'm totally with you Bob. Keeping paying utility bills now while waiting for solar to get incrementally better doesn't make much sense when solar works now.
Z On Monday, September 21, 2015, Robert Bruninga via EV <[email protected]> wrote: > We are over 60 years out on the learning curve for silicon cells and the > costs have fallen over 99%. > The high efficiency cells in the lab and used in space (35%) will NEVER > reach the consumer. Have not and never will. > > These high efficiency cells have been around for decades. Every year they > add a % or so. And the space industry is willing to spend 500 times more > per cell than for a silicon cell, because their $100M missions need the > power and so spending $1M to get twice the power of the satellite is worth > it. Cost is no obstruction. > > BUT! And here is the deal. When next year's +1% cells come out of the > lab, > then those big spenders immediately move all their billions over to the new > cells, and last year's 35% cells have *zero* market. And since ast year's > 35% cells still cost 500 times more than silicon cells and little demand, > there is no way they will ever get down on the learning curve to approach > home solar (500 times cheaper). It will ALWAYS be this way. > > That’s because in space, it costs hundreds of millions of dollars just to > "install" the panels (get them into space) compared to any terrestrial > application where it is only a few hours labor. So the 500 to one cost > difference will never go away. > > So the person that is "waiting for" higher efficiency cells will die in the > dark and will never get there. Even the 220W panels that cost me $500 five > years ago and only cost $175 now, would have been of no value for me to > wait. Because the $500 panels of 5 years ago have already produced more > electricity than the difference in cost. > > So that is one thing about solar. If you have a roof, and sun on it and > will live there for a long time, every utility bill you pay from now on is > just throwing away money for nothing. When you could be having free > electricity for life. > > http://aprs.org/solar-now.html > > Bob, WB4APR > > -----Original Message----- > Sent: Monday, September 21, 2015 12:23 AM > Subject: Re: [EVDL] EVLN: Perovskite solar cells may power electric cars > > Unfortunately the only useful bit of information is missing: > how much efficiency is expected in future with this technology? > At this moment the efficiency of just over 12% is underwhelming, because > mass produced cheap silicon PV easily reaches 15% and in labs there have > been versions that go to the 30% range. > The issue with recharging on the car itself is the limited area requires an > order of magnitude better efficiency than existing silicon PV to be > practical as main energy source. > Which means that the efficiency must be well above 50% at low mass-produced > prices, in order to make on-car PV practical. > Since the article does not mention the expected limit of efficiency or even > the next steps, it does not help but to give me a feeling that this is a > "different but not better" alternative to the same problem as silicon PV. I > may be wrong. In fact, I hope I am. > _______________________________________________ > UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub > http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org > Read EVAngel's EV News at http://evdl.org/evln/ > Please discuss EV drag racing at NEDRA ( > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA) > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://lists.evdl.org/private.cgi/ev-evdl.org/attachments/20150921/147c3602/attachment.htm> _______________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org Read EVAngel's EV News at http://evdl.org/evln/ Please discuss EV drag racing at NEDRA (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA)
