SOLAR TODAY Blog

By Seth Masia
SOLAR TODAY Managing editor

I've had conversations recently with homeowners, MBA students and college professors who want to know "What does a photovoltaic system cost?"

It's a complex issue. The price a homeowner pays for a PV system depends on the worldwide price of silicon, the competitive scene in module distribution, local costs for labor and construction materials, and the competition in the local installer market. The net price depends on local rebates, incentives, tax credits, feed-in tariffs and possibly on the market value of renewable energy credits. The long-term value of the investment depends on the rate of utility inflation, the cost of borrowing money and the homeowner's tax brackets. There's no simple answer, and the answer can change from day to day as prices and incentives ramp up and down.

Lots of online tools and spreadsheets are available for doing all these calculations. For a number of years ASES has made available its own solar calculator, which you can find at findsolar.com/index.php?page=rightforme Recently we posted a spreadsheet created by Ron West, a retired professor at the University of Colorado, which you can download at solartoday.org/costofsolar (find links to a variety of calculators there, too, including the excellent tools created by the U.S. Department of Energy and the California Consumer Energy Center).

There are problems. These tools are only as good as the values you plug in. In some cases they ask for information we can only guess at: the future rate of inflation, for instance, and interest rates. Some of the information needed is based on market conditions, and the only way you can get it is to call around to local installers and find out what they're charging now. Sometimes they won't answer without doing a formal estimate.

A year ago, a typical system sold for $8 to $10 per watt, installed, before rebates and incentives. Today, a local installer tells me, quotes can come in anywhere from $9 per watt for top-of-the-line equipment to $4.50 per watt with bargain-basement gear in a very competitive locale. Installers don't bother buying big lots of modules right now, because the price may be lower next week. It would be nice if the on-line tools could get equipment prices in real time, but they're not plugged into the inventory systems at factory warehouses.

On Monday, the German-backed Solar Millennium LLC dropped plans to buy rights to a billion gallons a year of water for two proposed CSP arrays in Nevada's Amargosa Valley. By switching to dry-cooling condenser technology the company expects to cut water needs by 90 percent, easing resource conflicts with local farmers. See

Solar Today provides background on the energy-vs.-water issue in the upcoming January-February issue. See Water versus Energy: How Solar Power Can Help, by Carey W. King and Michael E. Webber.

Sanyo to quadruple PV manufacturing

Sanyo Electric announced today that it plans to more than quadruple its solar cell production capacity to 1,500 megawatts by 2015, with the goal of holding 10 percent of the worldwide market. Short term, the company said it will expand solar cell production capacity by 66 percent, to 565 megawatts, by March 2011.

The company will be acquired by Panasonic before the end of this year.

India, China plan major solar push

India's government on Friday will launch an ambitious program to generate 1,000 MW of solar power by 2013, expanding to 20,000 MW by 2020.

By Seth Masia
Solar Today managing editor

The thermophotovoltaic (TPV) reaction converts the heat energy radiated by a hot body directly to an electric potential. A team led by Peter Hagelstein of the MIT Research Laboratory of Electronics reports that quantum dot devices in near-surface electric fields can improve the efficiency of the TPV reaction by orders of magnitude, with the potential to convert energy at up to 90 percent of the Carnot limit, the theoretical limit for the efficiency of thermodynamic devices. Current TPV technology maxes out at less than 10 percent of the Carnot limit.

The work was published Nov. 13 in the Journal of Applied Physics. Commercial development is underway at MTPV Corp., founded by MIT grad Robert DiMatteo, who hopes to introduce a product next year.

By Joseph McCabe
SOLAR TODAY "Solar Prose" columnist

The latest solar conference
Was well attended
Solar is a real industry
Speculation has ended

Many new faces
Were at the show
Joining industry veterans
Because solar will grow

By Liz Merry
SOLAR TODAY "Ask Ms. Liz" Columnist

With all the federal funding for solar training and workforce development finally being distributed, there are more choices than ever for classroom, field or online solar training. The majority of classes are targeted toward solar installation skills, but I've noticed many new online courses from consultants and/or adult-education providers on solar sales training or starting your own solar business.

At the recent Solar Power International conference, I asked a panel of solar installation company employers what they are looking for from an applicant. "Race horses, not specialists," was the consensus. They need "start-up mentality" employees, who are willing to work hard, with stamina and enthusiasm. For most specific skills, the employers said they will train new employees. This is not to say that you don't need to understand how solar works, but it reiterates that networking and demonstrating your passion for the technology is probably as important as taking a training course. Participating in your local American Solar Energy Society and/or Solar Energy Industries Association chapter activities is a good way to start learning about your local solar market.

By Seth Masia
Solar Today managing editor

The New York Times reported on Sunday that the EU may forbid the sale of all products containing cadmium, including thin-film solar modules. Manufacturers of thin film panels are lobbying to continue their exemption from the rule.

The manufacturers are on solid ground.

By Seth Masia
SOLAR TODAY managing editor

Very quietly, with hardly a press release, the huge German automotive parts maker Robert Bosch is setting up to be a major player in both PV and EV.

Bosch is at least a $50 billion company. It's been selling solar water-heating equipment for several years. Last year Bosch bought controlling interest in Ersol, a leading German maker of solar cells and modules, in silicon and thin-film formats. A couple of days ago the company bought a controlling share of Aleo, a leading German thin-film module manufacturer. This latest announcement suggests that Bosch will make controllers and other circuitry for EVs and possibly make inverters for its own PV modules.

Bosch is a unique company and does things in ways that would be considered odd in any other corporation. It's the world's largest maker of electrical parts for cars and trucks, and so it's been hurt badly by the downturn in the automotive business. Setting up for EVs would be a normal reaction to this situation - the company will naturally be the major supplier of components for European-built EVs, including products from VW, Mercedes, BMW and Fiat.

Bosch is 92% owned by a charitable foundation -- it's as if the Ford Foundation got 92% of the profits from Ford Motor Co. The company is run by a board of trustees who themselves hold less than 1% of the stock but vote the 92% of shares owned by the foundation - and the Bosch family owns the remaining 7%. So the company makes decisions quickly and based on long-term planning, not on short-term stock price considerations. One result is they spend twice as much on R&D, as a percent of their budget, as anyone else in the automotive business.

A little historical background: Founder Robert Bosch was a farmer's son who trained as a technician and then went to America, where he worked for Thomas Edison for a few years (he also helped found a Siemens division in the UK). Back home in Germany, in 1897 he invented the first commercially successful magneto for motor vehicles; five years later his firm marketed the first reliable spark plug. He set up factories around the world, including in the United States. During the Depression, instead of pulling in his horns, Bosch expanded and diversified; he had a reputation for very progressive labor and social policies, which didn't do him much good after the Nazis came to power. Bosch died in 1942, and after the war the family restructured the company's finances to support charities worldwide.

I think Bosch is going to be huge in solar and electric transport, and very quickly. Those of us who grew up tinkering with old cars and motorcycles have deep respect, if not warm fuzzies, for Bosch. When the Triumph or Fiat wouldn't start, you could blame Joseph Lucas or Magneti Marelli. But no one ever cursed the name of Robert Bosch.

In a couple of blog posts a year ago I ranted about the foolishness of allowing General Motors to sell Opel. American car factories needed not to sell their efficient small-car divisions, but to import that technology.

Now that we, as taxpayers, effectively own the company, we can breathe a great sigh of relief that GM is going to do the sensible thing and keep Opel's fuel-efficient engines in the family. In fact the new Buick LaCrosse is built on an Opel platform. Good move. Now let's see a hybrid version.