Thin-Film Solar Power To Be Sold For Less Than Coal Power!!! (Solar is Simply Cheaper, Cleaner)

[grahamhgreen]

According to a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) between El Paso Electric Company and First Solar, electricity will be sold from First Solar’s thin-film solar panels to El Paso Electric Company for 5.8 cents per kWh.....

The highly unusual thing about this is that the average residential retail cost of electricity in the United States is 11.4 cents per kWh, which is twice as much as the price at which this power plant will be producing electricity!

(The resulting $0.0579, or six cents, per kWh is less than half the average price of energy generated by new coal-fired power stations (12.8c/kWh) Read more: http://www.pv-magazine.com/news/details/beitrag/us--thin-film-solar-energy-sells-cheaper-than-coal-fired_100010043/#ixzz2Jx3NDAaO)

Also, the typical price of thin-film solar power is 16.3 cents per kWh, which is 2.8 times more.

Clean Technica (http://s.tt/1zjUZ)
Read more at http://cleantechnica.com/2013/02/03/thin-film-solar-power-to-be-sold-for-less-than-coal/#5XFl9uoaqTU9t98h.99

Let's stop subsidizing nuclear, coal, gas, and other non-renewables, which are EXPENSIVE, antiquated technologies from a bygone era.

[postulater]

1. In Texas.

[librechik]

12. Germany is the cloudiest country in Europe, and they use solar extensively

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/26/us-climate-germany-solar-idUSBRE84P0FI20120526

last year they produced with solar the equivalent of 20 nuclear power stations.

Texas and everywhere else here in the states would benefit from more investment in solar as well as other alternatives.

[postulater]

23. Thanks for reminding me of that.

I remember hearing about the German govt. investment in home solar electric.

The govt funds the purchase of the panel on your house, you pay back over ten years. The cool thing is that many places actually produce enough power to sell back to the grid. Those people actually make money by having the installation on their house.

Sure makes sense.

I'm hoping it comes along soon enough to make it worthwhile for my next car to be a plug-in electric or plug-in hybrid at least.

[Agnosticsherbet]

2. How efficient are these solar cells at night, with just moonlight.

That was a rhetorical question.

Solar Panels are going to be a big part of the future, but they don't operate 24 hours a day. Some other technology will be needed to handle hours when the sun is on the other side of the planet. If we are going to burn natural as or even coal at night, we need to subsidize research to make them clean as possible.

[bobalew]

3. Let's see....

We have Battery technology, How about Store & forward? How about using one's electric car as a part of that energy storage concept, on a mass basis? Please don't use that "Argument", anymore, we have many more technological solutions to that issue. And as Far as "Clean Coal" goes, there's no. such. Thing! Natural gas has a better chance of being clean, but there's just too much incentive on the Producer's part to cheat while drilling for it, and messing up the environment for profit's sake, which, by the way describes the whole coal industry in a nutshell( Take the tops off of mountains, trash the mountain valleys, and pollute for profit).

[green for victory]

4. storage tech invented in the '80s was praised by energy sec Bill Richardson in the 90's

"We're proud of Solar Two's success as it marks a significant milestone in the development of large-scale solar energy projects," said then U.S. Energy Secretary Bill Richardson.
"This technology has been successfully demonstrated and is ready for commercialization. From 1994 to 1999, the Solar Two project demonstrated the ability of solar molten salt technology to provide long-term, cost effective thermal energy storage for electricity generation.", Boeing

In 1995 Solar One was converted into Solar Two, by adding a second ring of 108 larger 95 m² (1,000 ft²) heliostats around the existing Solar One, totaling 1926 heliostats with a total area of 82,750 m² (891,000 ft²). This gave Solar Two the ability to produce 10 megawatts—enough to power an estimated 7,500 homes.[1] Solar Two used molten salt, a combination of 60% sodium nitrate and 40% potassium nitrate, as an energy storage medium instead of oil or water as with Solar One. This helped in energy storage during brief interruptions in sunlight due to clouds.[1]



The molten salt also allowed the energy to be stored in large tanks for future use such as night time—Solar Two had sufficient capacity to continue running for up to three hours after the sun had set.

>>>>>>>>>>anyone think it could have been improved over the last 20 years if the US wasn't prancing around the world like a teenager on prozac, bombing and invading anywhere it wants>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Solar Two was decommissioned in 1999, and was converted by the University of California, Davis, into an Air Cherenkov Telescope in 2001, measuring gamma rays hitting the atmosphere. Its name is now C.A.C.T.U.S..[2] Solar Two's 3 primary participants were Southern California Edison (SCE), the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP), and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Solar_Project

[Agnosticsherbet]

7. Yes, this is a good technology. They are building similar plants all across the southwest, one just

north of highway 15. How efficient are these in Alaska?

[NYC_SKP]

11. Concentrating solar wouldn't work in Alaska, but then you know that.

Photovoltaics, however, do.

And you know that, as well.

And energy storage schemes date back over 100 years and would be more widely implemented today if it wasn't for cheap dirty fossil fuel and human disregard for the environment.

I'll bet you also knew these things.

[kestrel91316]

27. Be nice. I'm pretty sure they DON'T teach those things

in shill school.

[NYC_SKP]

5. Storage schemes: Pumped hydro, compressed air, hydrogen generation.

All are storage practices in use already to store power when it's not needed on the grid.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helms_Pumped_Storage_Plant

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compressed_air_energy_storage

http://www.nrel.gov/hydrogen/proj_wind_hydrogen.html

[grahamhgreen]

6. Hydro, Wind, Tidal, Fuel-cells, Efficiency, Biomass, and Batteries in our cars can complete the

energy profile, among others.

When you add in the hidden costs of coal (cancer, mt top removal, sludge ponds, CO2, etc) and gas (fracking, contamination, C02), and the additional cost of subsidies, they simply become to expensive to continue to use.

They were great when we were tooling around in steamboats, and setting our rivers on fire, but it's time to join the future.

[librechik]

13. read up on the systems--the sun doesn't have to shine for solar to work

a. there are battery backups and be, we don't need battery backups when the system is wired into The Grid.

solar is more than ready to supply all our needs, with a smart grid especially.

[BlueStreak]

17. Moreover, we generally need less power at night, so a combination of

solar and wind, or solar and hydro, or solar and geo or ... you get the picture.

We may always need a few natural gas-fired plants around for peak capacity, especially in the parts of the country that don't have hydro or geothermal resources. But we should be moving to supply the first 70% of our needs with renewables.

[robinlynne]

24. That is what batteries are for.

[NoOneMan]

8. Is it cheaper to operate a coal plant in China?

Take away subsidies, saftey standards and living wages, how do the costs compare? They are putting up coal plants like they are going out of style (set to operate 50+ years till end of life). The cost advantage of solar has to be pretty decent to have them shutdown those plants and swtch

[think]

9. Maybe they will decide

that they want to breath

[HereSince1628]

14. Either that or they'll decide such air could solve the population problem.

[BlueStreak]

19. I wonder if that smog has any energy content

I remember years ago that Honda (I think) bragged that their cars, when driven in Los Angeles, actually had cleaner air coming out the tailpipe than was sucked into the intake. I wonder if it would be possible to build a generator that runs on smog.

[HereSince1628]

22. In the above pic it looks thick enough to haul in buckets...would that be buckets of nitric acid?

[AtheistCrusader]

18. That is fucking horrifying.

Just insanely awful.

[NYC_SKP]

10. K/R, but some may be misled by the numbers.

I read the one comment at the pv magazine site which questions the coal price (12.8c/kWh) and had to go checking.

http://www.eia.gov/electricity/annual/html/epa_08_04.html

The EIA lumps all fossil fuel together, existing NG and coal plants, and the total cost is about 3.5 cents/kWh.

I think the operative term that explains the high cost quoted in the article is "new" (coal-fired power stations).

The build-out cost, maintenance operation and fuel cost for a new "cleaner" coal plant, all taken together, may be as high as 12.8 cents/kWh, or even higher.

In any event, I'm a big proponent of solar.

[Scuba]

15. Yeah, but just one solar spill can create a major nice day.

[amandabeech]

16. How long will the thin film panels remain at say, 95% effective.

I read a piece either here or over on TOD indicating that the thin film deteriorates quickly.

Perhaps that is not now the case.

[grahamhgreen]

25. A lot longer than a ton of coal remains 95% effective, I think!

[SunSeeker]

20. I am so sick of the foot dragging on renewable energy.

[freshwest]

21. Beware! Look at this link. Oh, the horror:

After Wind & Solar disasters Millions learn new energy source

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/03/20/958515/-After-Wind-Solar-disasters-Millions-learn-new-energy-source



Actually, that wasn't the one I was looking for, but it'll have to do.

[rightsideout]

26. Solar's great!!!

Just got a system put on our house last year. It provides 70 percent of the electricity we use. This is our first winter with it and a couple days ago the system produced more electricity than we used even though there is less sunlight.

The other 30 percent of the electricity we get is from wind signed up through our utility.

[link:|

[grahamhgreen]

29. That is awesome!

[rhett o rick]

28. Hey! Hold on just a minute. If it is cleaner than "clean coal", why isnt it called "clean solar"??