PV Solar now cheaper than Nuclear

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/27/business/global/27iht-renuke.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&sq=solar nuclear&st=cse&scp=1

NY Times Article compares Solar PV cost to Nuclear- Solar comes out ahead. As such, an individual who installs lower-cost thin film panels himself (eliminating labor costs) would come out even further ahead. And unlike Nuclear- an individual homeowner can actually install their own solar system and generate their own solar electricity...

Now, we just need a good way to store our solar-energy for nights, and weeks of overcast.

At home, one could go for a night, or even a day, on a LEAF-sized battery pack ... IF we cut back on our "blackout" uses.

With Solar, we would need to change how and when we use our electricity. Night would become the new "peak" (very expensive) usage time.

Being able to NOT power non-vital circuits (outdoor lighting, etc.), and then not using optional loads (laundry, A/C, car charging, cooking, etc.) at night (or on overcast days) ... would probably help a lot.

Lots of distributed local generation (and storage) would change the needs for huge power transmission lines.

Power, like water, will become a scarce resource, and lifestyles will need to adapt ... or die.

lne937s said:

As such, an individual who installs lower-cost thin film panels himself (eliminating labor costs) would come out even further ahead. And unlike Nuclear- an individual homeowner can actually install their own solar system and generate their own solar electricity...

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That is only because an individual homeowner is using the grid as a battery. Solar by itself can't be a baseload generator - that is why we need nuclear. Unfortunately, the industry is pushing old gen 3 technology instead of investing in gen4.

Solar by day, thermal by night?

Wow, that would seem to require really huge hot-spots ... unless we drastically change how we over-use energy at night. Many night uses are just there because the energy is considered "cheap".

No real need to light up the moon, I suspect. Pump water uphill during the day, not at night, ... etc.

Near Albany NY, they are building a huge plant to store electrical energy in many rotating flywheels.

But, instead of storing "black" electrons at night, we would store "green" e's during the day.

My panels just got turned on yesterday....yeah....meter spinning backwards this morning when I got up to head to work...so fun to see that.




Gavin

evnow said:

lne937s said:

As such, an individual who installs lower-cost thin film panels himself (eliminating labor costs) would come out even further ahead. And unlike Nuclear- an individual homeowner can actually install their own solar system and generate their own solar electricity...

Click to expand...

That is only because an individual homeowner is using the grid as a battery. Solar by itself can't be a baseload generator - that is why we need nuclear. Unfortunately, the industry is pushing old gen 3 technology instead of investing in gen4.

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However, as Solar tends to offset peak power consumption, you can produce up to 15-25% (depending on location) of the nations electricity with no need for storage. Considering that the majority of energy in this country is to generate or remove heat, thermal energy storage (insulated water tanks connected to heat pumps) can expand that further. Electric vehicle charging can expand it further still....

Nuclear has consumed (according to the article) 96%+ of all government subsidies used for Nuclear, Solar, and Wind, yet makes up around 20% of US electricity generation. Although we do need to find some way to generate base load energy and Nuclear is a good option- it may not be the best immediate use of government incentives. Nuclear is expensive and hard to scale down. We can make a bigger difference right now, on a national, local, and individual level by investing to get solar PV panels from ~1% of the US grid to the 15%+ that would not require any form of energy storage.

Yes, 15% would be a great start, with very little other changes required.

The, why stop at 15%?
Solar generation of 90% of the present daytime load would make a radical change in usage patterns.

Conventional generation changes, increasing storage, and decreasing night and "overcast" (grey-out) usage would also be needed.

We need a good, thoughtful study of how we can change our usage patterns to reduce the need for "grey" energy.

Why doesn't somebody make a solar panel with water-coils attached?

That would cool the panels (for better efficiency) and pre-heat water for the house or building (hot water and heating systems).

lne937s said:

We can make a bigger difference right now, on a national, local, and individual level by investing to get solar PV panels from ~1% of the US grid to the 15%+ that would not require any form of energy storage.

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We need to do everything - starting now. It is already too late, in some sense.

All coal power plants should be shutdown by 2030 (see my sig) - if we are serious about the planet (no proof of that whatsoever, though). Only we to do that is nuclear.

Gavin said:

My panels just got turned on yesterday....yeah....meter spinning backwards this morning when I got up to head to work...so fun to see that.



Gavin

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Congratulations, Gavin!!

Thanks!!

Can't wait to get an EV and then be able to know it truly has NO TAILPIPE...if people try and talk about a "long" tailpipe I will just point to my roof

Gavin

We need a sticker that is something like "This car uses only Green e's".

Green E's Only ... GEO

Solar Energy Powered ... SEP

Solar Energy Only ... SEO

or some such?

My license is going to be one of these I think:

SolPowr

SolPwer

SOuLAR

or if I can get away with it

FUOPEC

saw that at ABG and liked it

I wanted something that said Run by Sun but can't do it well at 7 spaces

somebody recommended the x like in 2x4, but to me it looks like Run times Sun

RUNxSUN

Gavin

but I kinda like the whole Sol thing...I live in New Mexico, so Sol for Sun is coolish...and it goes well with the whole Soul thing too...yep I'm Irish and Scottish and white as a ghost, but I did go to Malcolm X Elementary School...so I have just a touch of soul in me somewhere

Gavin said:

My panels just got turned on yesterday....yeah....meter spinning backwards this morning when I got up to head to work...so fun to see that.




Gavin

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Congratulations! I had mine installed at the end of last year. Loved looking at the meter going backwards, unfortunately they have since upgraded my meter to a “smart meter” and the digital readout is not nearly as fun. Now I just enjoy looking at my electricity bill, or lack thereof!

SOL RUN
SOL PWR ... not bad
(I assume one character can be a space, right?)

SOLAR E
E TRAIN
SUN RUN ... not bad!

It's great to see the costs for PV beginning to fall and cross below the costs for more traditional energy sources. In the future I'm sure we'll see more and more PV integrated into new home construction and the costs wrapped into the mortgage. Personally, I'm a more of a proponent of geothermal energy versus nuclear.

We are still considering a PV system. I have a small experimental system I use to charge cordless tools, etc. However, over the last couple of years we have dramatically reduced our gas & electricity consumption by simply focusing on efficiency. We installed a whole house fan which cut the A/C usage way back, CFL in all the lights we regularly use, we had a tankless water heater installed, and we use an aluminum clothes rack instead of the drier for towels and sheets. By doing these small things we have reduced our household energy consumption by 50% versus the average home of our size in our area. It's really simple and doesn't impact your lifestyle much at all.

What tankless water heater do you suggest (Make and Model)?
Thanks, Gary

garygid said:

What tankless water heater do you suggest (Make and Model)?
Thanks, Gary

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Ours is a couple of years old, so you'll need to research what the latest and greatest are. Ours is a Rinnai 2532. I actually left it to the plumber to pick the brand and install our tankless water heater. We had an emergency, our original water heaters tank broke and water was leaking in our garage. We were so lucky in that we had no water damage. The water streamed across the garage floor, under the garage door, and onto the driveway. Right then and there I decided on tankless, the efficiency was a bonus.

garygid said:

What tankless water heater do you suggest (Make and Model)?
Thanks, Gary

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In the meantime Gary, if you have an electric water heater, I recommend a timer called "The Little Gray Box" by Intermatic (WH). It's only around $60 at Lowe's, but you can save that and much more in no time! It is easy to install too. The two of us only have it on for ONE hour a day and it makes plenty of hot water in that time for showers, etc. If you need or want to take a bath, then we just override the timer for an extra hour. Your electric hot water heater uses the second most energy next to a heat pump or a/c.

leaffan said:

In the meantime Gary, if you have an electric water heater, I recommend a timer called "The Little Gray Box" by Intermatic (WH). It's only around $60 at Lowe's, but you can save that and much more in no time! It is easy to install too. The two of us only have it on for ONE hour a day and it makes plenty of hot water in that time for showers, etc. If you need or want to take a bath, then we just override the timer for an extra hour. Your electric hot water heater uses the second most energy next to a heat pump or a/c.

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Man - I'll second that! I don't have a timer but have an electric water heater - and the circuit breaker panel is outside the master bedroom. The heater comes on in the morning before showers and is turned off once it recovers. There's enough hot water thru the rest of the day - and it really takes a bite out of the electric bill!

evnow said:

We need to do everything - starting now. It is already too late, in some sense.

All coal power plants should be shutdown by 2030 (see my sig) - if we are serious about the planet (no proof of that whatsoever, though). Only we to do that is nuclear.

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AMEN, brother!