energy required to produce 100W photovolatic panel
energy required to produce 100W photovolatic panel
(OP)
In the 80's the ney say'ers claimd that it took more energy to produce a solar panel than they would produce over the panel's effective lifetime.
This argument was somewhat snuffed out when one now defunct manufacturer of amorph panels claimed that they produced the panels using solar panels alone.
This now defunct, bankrupt company, now dead, as for selling panels that rapidly degraded, poor, early amorph product. They were cheapest on the market at the time!.
Does anybody have good numbers for 2004? Is the solar still a pipe dream, we really need to figure something out before we drownd in our own waste.
Wind is good, especially when it blows. otherwise.....
This argument was somewhat snuffed out when one now defunct manufacturer of amorph panels claimed that they produced the panels using solar panels alone.
This now defunct, bankrupt company, now dead, as for selling panels that rapidly degraded, poor, early amorph product. They were cheapest on the market at the time!.
Does anybody have good numbers for 2004? Is the solar still a pipe dream, we really need to figure something out before we drownd in our own waste.
Wind is good, especially when it blows. otherwise.....





RE: energy required to produce 100W photovolatic panel
RE: energy required to produce 100W photovolatic panel
RE: energy required to produce 100W photovolatic panel
RE: energy required to produce 100W photovolatic panel
I took a camp off the grid years ago and operate on about 0.5KWH a day. A friend of mine is trying to figure out how to run his home on an emergency 10KW generator.
RE: energy required to produce 100W photovolatic panel
$0.10/KWH = $0.0001/WH.
Now (2$/W)/($0.0001/WH) = 40,000 Hours or 5000 8-hour days = 13.69 Years.
Almost 14 years to recover the energy expended from manufacturing the panel!, Panel expected life, ~25 Years, so eleven years of energy payback optimistically.
California PV rebate, looks like another slick way of exporting the polution to another place. Might as well long haul the power from Wyoming or another state.
RE: energy required to produce 100W photovolatic panel
TTFN
RE: energy required to produce 100W photovolatic panel
Now $4.00 per watt Say, 1$ profit, 1$ labor, 1$ materials, and 1$ commercial cost of energy, that I will say has a mark-up of 25%.
But the delivered power to the user of AC will have a net efficiency of %85.
Therefore, $1* 0.75= $0.75 of energy required to produce the panels. I wish someone would actually know what the percentage is
Now the payback is 13.69 *0.075/2/0.85 = 6.03 years of 8-hour solar days. (maybe possible with a solar tracker). or 6*8/5 = 9.6 years of 5 hour solar days @ nameplate.
The panels never seem to actually get nameplate Watts, as the rated voltage is usually to high to be actually be usefull for battery charging, unless your voltage drop in your cables is excessive, in my opinion.
Therefore payback is 25/10 =250% over the usefull lifetime of the panels, barring catostophic events of various sort.
250% over 25 years? is that good enough for an investor? Lets set 250%/25=10% per year energy return, non compounding, except that commercial power is probably going to increase over time. Really not bad, relative to the stock market.
I am not a solar advocate, but I have lived using alternative energy for 17 years, solar +wind. The batteries, well maintained is not that bis of a deal, only 2 sets in this period.
PS. no phone either, this is over a 5KHZ wide UHF phone line extender & PS I only have this $#%#%*** spanish spell checker, sorry/
RE: energy required to produce 100W photovolatic panel
An Epitaxial Reactor for doping 300mm silicon wafers uses 411 quartz lamps rated 500W each in a batch cycle of approximately 3 minutes for each dopant on each wafer. I do not know how many dopant layers are necessary for solar cells, nor how many cells can be made from a 300mm wafer.
Additional energy costs would be silicon mining, ore transport, crushing, processing, crystal growth, crystal machining, wafer cutting, robotic handling, polishing, power cell cutting, handling again, assembly, more handling etc. etc. etc., and add the facility maintenance costs of the fabs to do all of this as well.
Bottom line, you make a good point. There is no free lunch.
"Venditori de oleum-vipera non vigere excordis populi"
RE: energy required to produce 100W photovolatic panel
RE: energy required to produce 100W photovolatic panel
Don't get me wrong, I am a big proponent of solar for both your reasons and for the fact that it will (hopefully someday) specifically target a large segment of energy consumption at the point where it is needed, Air Conditioning. Since it works best when in full sun, and that is what causes us to want air conditioning, it makes perfect sense to me to utilize solar power for that. I only responded to the OPs issue because I hear many quasi-environmentalists spout uninformed blather about how solar power is so "clean" when in fact it is not as clean as they think it is when these other issues are taken into account. And just to make it clear, the VAST majority f electricity produced in the world still comes from fossil fuels.
"Venditori de oleum-vipera non vigere excordis populi"
RE: energy required to produce 100W photovolatic panel
So, in terms of offsetting other sources of electrical power, payback would take quite a while.
RE: energy required to produce 100W photovolatic panel
RE: energy required to produce 100W photovolatic panel
RE: energy required to produce 100W photovolatic panel
RE: energy required to produce 100W photovolatic panel
Happy belated earth day never the less??
cheeze anybody?
RE: energy required to produce 100W photovolatic panel
http://www.abduct.com/features/f37.htm