Peter, you're certainly barking up the right tree with thin-film or amorphous solar products in a hot climate, although I have no direct experience with the First Solar products. Amorphous silicon PV in general suffers about half the temperature fade of crystalline PV products. This often makes them a better choice in hot climates. On the flip side of that coin, thin-film products are often a poor choice in cold climates because they enjoy about half the cold temp boost of crystalline.
Because thin-film products generally deliver about half as many watts per square foot, they require more surface area...probably not a worry in the desert. But mounting hardware cost IS a big problem. You need really cheap, fast mounting hardware to compete with crystalline products, especially now that PV prices are so low. I urge you to look very carefully at what mounting is going to cost. The nitch for thin film has been squeezed to near invisibility by current pricing for crystalline PV. Sharp just recently rolled out a new thin-film module line intended for large-scale projects. We're having a tough time finding any mounting/wiring solution that offers any advantage over standard poly-crystalline PV. Cheers, Doug Pratt DC Power Systems -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Peter Parrish Sent: Saturday, February 20, 2010 4:49 PM To: 'RE-wrenches' Subject: [RE-wrenches] Best Choice for PV in hot climates Since most of our business is in the LA basin, we don't often have to consider optimizing a PV system design in high temperature regions. We are looking at a fairly big (100-200 kW) commercial ground mount in the El Centro / Calexico area (ZIP 92231). The avg high in July is 107 deg F with record highs in the 122 deg F range. Record low is 18 deg F. I have some anecdotal information that thin film modules (e.g. First Solar) provide the greatest bang for the buck kWh/yr/P, where P=installed cost per kW. Are their any independent studies out there to support this? - Peter Peter T. Parrish, Ph.D., President California Solar Engineering, Inc. 820 Cynthia Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90065 CA Lic. 854779, NABCEP Cert. 031806-26 [email protected] Ph 323-258-8883, Mobile 323-839-6108, Fax 323-258-8885 _______________________________________________ List sponsored by Home Power magazine List Address: [email protected] Options & settings: http://lists.re-wrenches.org/options.cgi/re-wrenches-re-wrenches.org List-Archive: http://lists.re-wrenches.org/pipermail/re-wrenches-re-wrenches.org List rules & etiquette: www.re-wrenches.org/etiquette.htm Check out participant bios: www.members.re-wrenches.org _______________________________________________ List sponsored by Home Power magazine List Address: [email protected] Options & settings: http://lists.re-wrenches.org/options.cgi/re-wrenches-re-wrenches.org List-Archive: http://lists.re-wrenches.org/pipermail/re-wrenches-re-wrenches.org List rules & etiquette: www.re-wrenches.org/etiquette.htm Check out participant bios: www.members.re-wrenches.org
