Thursday, August 23, 2007
Solar Farming
My recent trips across the Great Basin and the Colorado Plateau gave me ample time to ruminate about the economics of solar power generation. The vast expanses of arid, sunny land seem ideal for such use, and the several for-sale signs invited my curiosity. Many questions came to my mind. How much per acre does such land go for? What is the going wholesale rate of electricity? What is the cost per panel of commercially-available solar panels? What is the highest efficiency of current commercially-available solar panels? Would it be more economical to install them at a fixed angle or to have them track the sun? What is the weathering on solar panels like? Does one have to clean the dirt off regularly? How do they stand up to hail? How much would it cost to hire labor to install them in a remote place? How much would it cost to connect the panels and in what configuration? What kind of hookup to the power grid is necessary and how much does that cost? While I am not thinking of leaving behind my PhD program to pursue "solar farming", it is an interesting question. I would think if the economics favored solar power, the energy companies would already be picking up the land and installing their own arrays.
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5 comments:
Wow, way too much time driving through no where. :) Hope you enjoyed Geoff's wedding!
William, on the Great Plains and in the Basin, the wind potential is MUCH greater and cost in acreage is much less. Photovoltaics are still not that viable, but are getting better. Solar farms that use mirrors to concentrate the energy into superheating a glycol like solution to 1000 degrees which in turn heats water to steam and turns a turbine is also pretty viable.
I know this because I watched a special on it on the National Geographic channel. ( I also used to be in the industry a long time ago, things don't change....)
Solar Power
Photovoltaic, or solar-electric, systems capture light energy from the sun's rays and convert it into electricity. Today these solar units power everything from small homes to large office buildings.
Technological improvements have made solar-electric modules more cost-effective. In the 1980s the average price of energy captured with photovoltaics was 95 U.S. cents per kilowatt-hour. Today that price has dropped to around 20 cents per kilowatt-hour, according to Collins, of the American Solar Energy Society.
The cheaper rate is still more expensive than the average national price of electricity, which in 2003 was a little over 8 cents per kilowatt-hour, according to the U.S. Department of Energy's Annual Energy Review.
The rest of the story is here:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/10/1028_041028_alternative_energy.html
Wind power is about 4 cents per KWh. Cheaper than coal or hydroelectric. I would like to get one of those and go "off the grid" but my neighbors would be against it. I would have to move....Maybe your cousin will move to Colorado and take up horse and wind farming......
I appreciate all of your comments. I guess I think more about photovoltaics since I am in the business of predicting the electronic structure of materials and often here researchers discussing the relationship of their research to photovolatics. One problem being in science is we rarely hear about or discuss the economics of the applications of our research, but then that's not our purpose.
A year or so ago, I looked into what it would take to be self-sufficient on solar and/or wind power in Columbus given our current electricity usage and average sunlight and wind strengths here. Roughly, the cost would be equivalent to the cost of my house. :)
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