Solar cell - less than a dollar a watt

I think we are talking about new technology, not old technology done cheap and bad. Sliver (and other) PV technology allows the construction of quality panels at a lesser cost.

Also are you saying that some "cowboys" over promise (by a factor of 6 or 7) on what a 1 kWh system is capable of producing per day on average? They should be drummed out of the industry if that is the case.

And putting that money directly against a mortgage has significant benefit too given the predicted interest rates rises.

Unless OE finds a suitable partner for its Sliver projects, it'll be shut down this soon. Papers have been drawn up so that part of the business has a dollar value. Sad, but truth be told the technology was never really meant for residential use, more for commercial (i.e. the side of buildings etc).

We're hoping it gets picked up and we start manufacturing both crystalline and sliver. It's a nice dream.

And Yep, thats exactly what I'm saying.

My department deals with complex Solar billing and complaints as well as the sale of solar systems. We speak to customers so often who have been promised exactly what they want to hear "You'll never have bill again." " you'll get a credit every quarter" etc, They get there bill, which is higher then is was before they got the system and when we ask questions, They've got 5 panels on their room, living in Melbourne and didn't pay anything for the system itself, but paid $1000+ more then they expected from the hidden extras at install (tiles +$150, double storey +$300, extra wiring from inverter to meter box +$200, etc etc). It's very easy to feel sorry for our customers. We might charge well over $1000 for a solar system, but at least we're honest with you.

That is bad. If the industry can't rid itself of cowboys there may need to be a legislative approach to demand fixed prices and full disclosure. I think anybody who is considering a PV system should as the first step have an energy audit to determine their energy use (or simply look at the last electricity bill - that will often indicate a daily usage). Then if that reveals that they are consuming at say 20kWh per day and the proposed brand new PV system (perhaps costing thousands of dollars) is only going to supply 3.5 kWh/day it may prompt them to ask whether the dollars could be better spent in saving energy first before considering generating it on roof. In fact I think it should be mandated that they have an independent home energy assessment prior to installation if they wish to receive any Government rebates or subsidy for the system.

And these home energy assessments are currently available for free under the Green Loans Program (http://www.environment.gov.au/greenloans/). The assessment may suggest better ways of spending the money which would probably result in higher energy and money savings than a PV system or at least encourage energy efficiency changes to be carried out in conjunction with the PV system.

This doesn't surprise me. Eco or not people are out to make a buck like everyone else. The onus is on the consumer to do their homework. Caveat Emptor! This is the point I was trying to make with this thread:

Busting Ecomyths and Misunderstandings

I would tick these off before I even considered purchasing solar panels:

- First check if I can get close to maximum insolation onto my panels (if not forget about it and just buy Greenpower)
- Get my total energy consumption (electric, gas, wood, LPG) to below an average of 25 kWhr/day
- Work particularly hard on reducing my artificial heating and cooling requirements using passive solar principles (involving a variable mix of window/room placement, appropriate shading, enough insulation, radiant barriers, double glazing, heat reflective glass)
- Next reduce my hot water energy use - e.g. solar hot water or heat pump
- Wait until the price of solar panels drops by at least half i.e. $4/watt. This is FULLY installed by a professional ready for feed in (no hidden costs). I don't want a contract that says it will cost you such and such depending on what we find in your house. In other words a 2.5 kW system will cost me $10000.
- Request a warranty of at least 25 years to maintain 90% power output.

You are absolutely correct. Although you would hope if they had Eco consciouness that they would also have some Ethical consciousness as well. But perhaps not - as you say Caveat Emptor. But buyers need to have a certain amount of knowledge to be able to be aware - I don't think that knowledge is in the community as yet.

It would be nice, though if it is to mean anything you would have to be sure that the company would be around in 25 years. It would be interesting to know how many on the current installation and panel companies will still be operating in 25 years - quite a small percentage I would guess.

Definelty a luxury of working for a very big company! I can tick that box, and tell customers that we'll be here in 25 years time.

And that is why I am very cautious with long term investments. Is current solar technology similar to buying bank shares or dot com shares? Here today, gone tomorrow. The industry is still very immature but people love their gimmicks.

Hi Everyone,

Well I have been lurking on this thread for about two months now and thought it was time to chime in.

1. Quality vs. Price: I have just come out of spending a week in various German Solar R&D labs, I too had been struggling with the quality vs. cost debate, but not anymore. A good, well designed solar system (electric) should take <10 yrs to pay itself back in Australia, but it needs to last 20 to really get a good return on your investment. One company showed me their low cost counterparts life cycle data, 80% of these low cost solar electricity manufacturers, had 95%+ of their components fail life cycle testing. This life cycle was only 10 yrs. Also, you need to be sure your manufacturer (and retailer in Australia) is going to be around in the same form to honour any warranty, key issue with low cost manufactures is not their warranty, but their lack of corporate history. What happens if they shut down their operating company and restart another one on the same facility.....

I want to stress that I am not trying to bag asian PV companies, but there is the reality of today, they will get there, just like Japan did some decades ago (now look at Japanese quality: awesome).

A solar electric module is a commodity product, its like baking a cake, anyone can bake a cake, everyone uses the same type of ingredient (cells, EVA, Tedlar, encapsulants, solar glass), but there are vastly different life-cycles and shades of grey within the EVA, Tedlar, Glass and encapsultants, everyone more or less has the same quality cell. Ask yourself after now knowing this, why does one module cost $4/watt from one manufacturer and $2/watt from another, when labour is a very minor input into this (most lines are automated these days). Pretty obvious right, when all manufacturers have access to the same OEM components.

2. $1/pW: I hear this all the time, only two companies are anywhere near this, and one of them we are not really sure if this is marketing hype or they are making breakthroughs. The more advanced (real revenue) published about US$0.93 / watt production cost, but sale price is going to be 2X+ that unless you buy 10's of Megawatts at a time. Most of the industry is still producing at US2.25+/watt.

Now lets say $1/watt module price is achieved, thats nice, but its doesn't reflect the true cost, you need to add in inverters, framing, installation and some profit to the retailer / installer. Right now, 50% of the costs are not in the module, and these costs do not have much margin in them, nor are they on a rapidly declining cost curve unlike PV modules. So I would say even if someone can retail a PV module for $1/pW (10 yrs time), the actual installed price of the complete system is going to be >$4/pW.

3. Solar Payback.
Lets use a simple example of a Sydney system. 1.5kW. The capital cost of this for a high quality (european: i.e. real quality control) system should be about $11,500 installed (ex rebates). Add on Solar Credits at a REC price of $50 (not over the next 3 months, but highly likely after COAG re balances RET in Dec 09), on 150 RECS, thats a $7,500 rebate. So an installed price of about $4,000.

A very basic system electrical output over the 25 yr deemed life period = 5 sun hours / day (annual average: sydney) X 1.5KW X 365days X 25 yrs X 0.8 (20% derating factor: system losses) = 54,750 kWh's of output.

System $/kWh = $4,000/54.750 = 0.07/kWh. This is already below grid parity (what do you pay / unit, i.e. Perth: $0.176 / Melbourne $0.15+).

Payback in yrs = 5 sun hours X 1.5kW X 365days X 0.8 (derating factor) X $0.15/kWh= $328.50, therefore $5,000/ 328.50 = 12.17 yrs (NOT 20).

Also, this is the worst case payback, because it ignores the effect of any feed in tariff, which varies from state to state. But if you are DINKS, you will most likely export 60% of your weekly power @ a rate of >$0.5/kWh (depends on state), this lowers your payback to <7 yrs. A gross feed in tariff is better, but even on a net feed in tariff and DINKS, you will payback in <7.


4. Warranties
To be honest, the power output warranty at 20 - 25+ yrs is irrelevant, you are never going to measure the actual power output of your system (no one is buying monitoring systems in Australia). You should be most concerned about the actual product defect warranty, ask for 10 years standard, and make sure its a company with corporate history giving it. Key point, read the fine print, power output warranties are not real product defect warranties. For any module to not produce >80% of this output after 25 yrs would have to be a serious DIY bunky.

Hope this helps!

The NSW feed-in tariff is 60c/kwh, so your system payback timeframe is considerably much shorter.

Module costs at the cheaper end of the market are now around $700 for 170w.

China can make anything. And they will make it to a price. If you want best quality, they can still do it, but obviously it will cost more, and probably still alot cheaper than euro gear. I think most people have the stereotype that anything made in China is cheap and nasty, like anything made in Korea and Taiwan in the 80's and 90's...


My consumption has been a minimum of 27kwh/day average (over the last 4 or so years) due to an old 3-phase ducted air conditioner. I did the maths that I'd need to produce at least 8kwh/day just to recoup the costs from changing my old single-rate meter to a time-of-use meter (based on when the air conditioner is used in relation to the changing tariff throughout the day). So if I get a 1.5kw system, I'm barely going to break-even (and that's calculated using the 60c/kwh GROSS feed-in tariff!).


I too feel sorry for those customers that have the bare-minimum 990w system (installed "free" with the first $8000 govt rebate), as they never see more than about 800w peak. They're still on NET metering (ie: barely anything produced reaches the meter), so it'll be beneficial for them to change to GROSS metering ASAP.

For many people the pay-back needs to be over a short period of time. It's no use quoting pay-back periods of 10-20 years. Over that period of time it's quite likely that people will move houses, and won't be taking their solar PV systems with them. Dpending on the area and market awareness a solar system may not add much value to the price of the house (though I'd argue that it probably should). Under 5 years is an optimum pay-back time as it allows people to get into solar power without the risk of not making back the initial outlay.

There is a lot of debating here. I have never looked back after getting a 1kwatt system installed. It only cost me 500 dollars, and in my new house without the use of air cond I have almost been able to match my output by what i use. I have new house and i tried to consider all energy efficient items and appliances. The key comes down to what you pay upfront and what additional charges you have.

Hi guys /ladies,
I recently imported from china 10 x 130 watt solar panels ( 12 volt ) and 72 cells per panel.
They were quoted at 7.5 amps per panel.
They are set up in 2 lots of 5 each, feeding through 2 pl60 solar controllers ,and charging a 2600 amp hour battery ( fork lift wet cell ) .
On the sunny days , cool climate around the middle of the day I can see both amp meters reading 50 amps each.X 2 = 100 amps , on a hot day 40 degrees the best I have seen is 40 amps or just below.= 80 amps.
Moral of the story , these cost me USD $ 1.80 per watt including all the connection cables and the double adaptors ( have a look at the energy matters site ands see how much the leads and the double adaptors cost )
It cost me AUD $ 500 for custome and shipping and all the extra little charges taht happen along.
All up about $ 4500 AUD .
And the quality is first class , and with output figures much better that quoted.
Just a note , $ 10 per watt is now a pipe drean as the raw materials have dropped in price as there is more mass production = supply and demand .
rgds
Greg

Who were the suppliers and how much was the shipping costs?