My Solar Adventure
This is my story of moving toward renewable energy. I say “toward” and not “to” for two reasons. First, I have just started the journey and this journal will track my progress as I make my way to a more environmentally friendly energy footprint. Second, is that at journeys end I still expect to use some traditional energy sources. My goal is to reduce my dependence on fossil fuels at a reasonable cost, not eliminate fossil fuel use at any cost. If we are to phase out traditional energy sources and move toward renewables, we have to do it at a competitive cost. Basic science and technology can only move so fast. Improvements in efficiency take money and time. While the changes in energy production technology and manufacturing have brought us to the cusp of a renewable future today, we have really just begun the journey of actually deploying that technology. Renewables, including hydro, make up less than 15 percent of electrical production and less than 5 percent of total energy use. I expect that it may take most of the 25 or 30 years left in my life to get to a fundamentally renewable world. So I have started my journey with small steps. I have slowly eliminated objects in my life that use fossil fuels and have moved to more efficient technologies as they become available. Each week I will chronicle what I have done to reach my personal goal of a renewable life. The path is not always a straight line so that is why this is an adventure.
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As of today, April 16 2018, I have already embarked on the first part of my journey. I’m not yet collecting photons but that will start soon. The next few columns will explore how I prepared for a solar future. After that I will show the process I went through to demonstrate that solar power was now a cost effective option. Then I will explain the process of designing and installing the system. Once I actually start producing solar energy I will show my monthly production and actual cost savings on my electric bill. In addition I will be monitoring each of my individual panels to see how well we calculated how much energy each panel can produce. I live in Atlanta Georgia and if you know anything about the primary vegetation here you will understand that this is not an ideal location for solar power. (More on that in a future column.) First let us explore the history and economics of the solar cell.
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For most of the history of solar power the major cost component was the silicon solar cell. Two years after I was born in 1953 Hoffman Electronics-Semiconductor Division offered a 2% efficient commercial solar cell for $25/cell or $1,785/Watt. By the mid-1960s that price had dropped to a few hundred dollars per watt. Even to my teenage mind filled with visions of a sun powered future, energy at those prices was best reserved for spacecraft where cost was a small consideration. By 1977 the price had come down to $76 a watt and small scale terrestrial applications began to be cost effective. Places like remote weather stations and other applications where grid power was not available started to make sense. The next decade brought a rapid reduction in the cost as alternatives to single crystal silicon were found to produce much cheaper solar cells. By the late 80s the cost had dropped to less than $10 per watt.
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At this point some larger scale projects became cost effective. Solar power still made little sense if you had access to grid power but remote vacation homes, boats, RVs and other applications where grid power was unavailable or very expensive, became possible.
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Cost reductions at the end of the 20th century slowed as the silicon solar cell became the step child to the silicon integrated circuit. Few manufacturers wanted to use silicon wafers for $25 solar cells when integrated circuits worth $25,000 or more could be made from them. Progress was still made as manufacturers learned to slice very thin wafers and use less than perfect crystalline silicon. By the turn of the millennium prices were close to $6.00 per watt and it was clear that manufacturing economies of scale had a good chance to drive the cost down to the magical $1.00 per watt that would begin to make solar cost competitive with traditional sources of electricity. The question was how to drive enough demand to ramp up the manufacturing to the levels needed for these cost reductions. The answer came in 2005 with the passage of the federal Investment Tax Credit. With total systems cost in the range to $10- $12 a watt, a 30 percent tax credit reduced that to $7-$8 a watt. Still pricy but low enough for early adopters to start installing arrays. Additional tax credits from some states and the continued reduction of installation costs began to make both residential and commercial solar a reality. Rapid expansion of solar panel plants in China and elsewhere led to another dramatic drop in prices as production began to exceed demand. Today it costs less than $.30 a watt to produce many panels and solar power has started to become a cost effective solution even for applications where there is a grid connection.
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Solar power is not a panacea and there are still several challenges in implementing a cost effective solution. Over the next few weeks I will explore how I investigated these issues and what I have proposed as cost effective solutions. First I will explore a little background on energy usage.
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Next Time: Efficiency first.