how much power does it take to produce a solar panel?
Tomasz Chmielewski
articles etc.:
I hate to cut this down but a lot more energy went into producing
this than it will ever produce itself. I think people are too
easily tricked into thinking they are doing something good for the
environment.
Is it true that a solar panel, generally, takes more power to make than
it will ever produce?
--
Tomasz Chmielewski
http://wpkg.org
Eeyore
Tomasz Chmielewski wrote:
Depends where it ends up getting sited for one thing. I too would like to
know the true energy 'cost' of making a panel. Every single part of it.
Graham
Cosmic
> Is it true that a solar panel, generally, takes more power to make than
> it will ever produce?
it was used to be.
nowadays it isn't so anymore, both with silicon panels and Thin films :)
Mauried
wrote:
I often wonder why people ask this question.
You dont for example see people asking whether it takes more energy to
produce a wind turbine or a nuclear power plant or a wave farm than
they will ever produce.
And is the question a sensible one anyway.
Wouldnt a better question be
Does a Solar panel make more energy (measured in todays dollar value)
than it will ever produce (measured in the same dollar value).
try and get a sensible answer to that one.
Eeyore
Mauried wrote:
> Cosmic <balti...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >Tomasz Chmielewski ha scritto:
> >
> >> Is it true that a solar panel, generally, takes more power to make than
> >> it will ever produce?
> >
> >it was used to be.
> >nowadays it isn't so anymore, both with silicon panels and Thin films :)
>
> I often wonder why people ask this question.
> You dont for example see people asking whether it takes more energy to
> produce a wind turbine or a nuclear power plant or a wave farm than
> they will ever produce.
We know it's less. Certainly for the first two, assuming the wind turbine is
sensibly sited.
> And is the question a sensible one anyway.
> Wouldnt a better question be
> Does a Solar panel make more energy (measured in todays dollar value)
> than it will ever produce (measured in the same dollar value).
> try and get a sensible answer to that one.
In dollar value in most places, NEVER.
Graham
Russ in San Diego
> On Mon, 04 May 2009 20:17:01 +0200, Cosmic <balticsu...@gmail.com>
For conventional, terrestrial applications, OF COURSE that question
has to be asked and answered. Especially in the case of a utility
provider. It wouldn't make a whole lot of sense to burn enough coal
to produce 10 megawatt-hours in order to produce a device that will
generate only 5 megawatt hours over its lifetime. For special purpose
applications (e.g., off-grid sites), the question is not terribly
relevant.
As for whether the panels will break even financially -- that's an
orthogonal question. It's also relevant in certain situations, but
irrelevant in others. If you're only interested in being "green", the
financial breakeven question may not be terribly important. Again, if
you're a commercial entity, only interested in providing power for
people to buy, it may be very relevant (even so, it's not necessarily
the primary issue).
I've got a nice PV setup, and I suspect I'll reach power consumption
breakeven eventually (perhaps I already have -- my 4KW system has been
operational for nearly 8 years), but I'm not convinced it will reach
financial breakeven, ever. And I understood all that before I made my
purchase.
Ron Rosenfeld
No it is not true. The energy cost of production is not a straightforward
calculation however. Today�s PV industry generally recrystallizes any of
several types of �off-grade� silicon from the microelectronics industry,
and estimates for the energy used to purify and crystallize silicon vary
widely.
http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy04osti/35489.pdf
So they are using waste materials -- do you want to charge for the energy
used to produce the waste? Then you'd have to give a credit for the energy
saved by not having to dispose of the waste.
There've been a number of published estimates ranging from 120 kWh/m2 for
frameless amorphous silicon (add another 120 for the frame) implying a 1-3
year payback in an average US location, up to 420 kWh/m2 for
multicrystalline and 600 kWh/m2 for single crystal silicon and a payback of
2-4 years.
Knapp and Jester studied an actual manufacturing facility and found that,
for single-crystal-silicon modules, the actual energy payback time is 3.3
years. This includes the energy to make the aluminum frame and the energy
to purify and crystallize the silicon.
(K. Knapp; T.L. Jester, �An Empirical Perspective
on the Energy Payback Time for PV Modules.�
Solar 2000 Conference, Madison, WI, June
16�21, 2000).
--ron
T. Keating
<t...@nospam.wpkg.org> wrote:
It depends.. a lot...over 10x diff..
on type of PV technology used, where it's located, and the type of
mounting (dual axis tracking is the best). .
http://groups.google.com/group/sci.energy/msg/869fdd7d1ad888d2?dmode=source
Note: PV/Wind Energy payback time has been dropping year by year,
meanwhile fossil fuel/nuclear Energy payback times are increasing..
(As depletion occurs fossil fuels/uranium are harder to find,
mine/pump, increased distance to transport, use more energy to
refine, etc.).
Long term, (over hundreds of years) with recycling. Energy costs
(glass, Al frame, Si, Cu) drop significantly and PV EROEI climbs to
~200 to 1 range.. Wind EROEI also climbs from the current ~80 - 120
to 1.. into ~200 to 1 range..
mike-r...@iinet.net.au
however, as other contributors have said, this is reducing and is down
to less than 5 years. A lot of the embodied energy is in the frames.
I'm particularly interested in the First Solar product which is a
thin-film glass sandwich. It's apparently 100% recyclable and even
has its collection costs built into the price. Even the cadmium
telluride is collected for reuse.
The advertising blurb says it's less than US$1 per watt and it's
frameless (which removes the aluminium's embodied component).
I believe it's only a matter of time before it's integrated into every
large window facing north (in Australia).
They're geared up to supply world-wide
Mike
On Mon, 04 May 2009 11:27:33 +0200, Tomasz Chmielewski
<t...@nospam.wpkg.org> wrote:
Erdeemal
Graham you should update. Now on EBAY you can buy solar *cells* at
a bit less than US$1.00 per watt peak. Knowing that a watt peak
produces approximately 1 kWh per year in London (2.5 in sunny Sahara),
on 10 years it will provide you with kWh at US$0.10 . I pay my day
kilowatts at US$ 0.25 per kilowatt.
As I wrote two years ago here: "The dreamers are not the one who
think that solar energy will prevail, the dreamers are the one who
think they can stop it."
I too wrote that this will probably lead to a bank collapse :)
(due to all the changes implied).
I am the new Nostradamus :). I will not tell you what I see
for you :)
Erdy
Martin Riddle
using estimated costing from current panel pricing.
If I had used a southern insolation instead of 3.5hr it would had been
closer to 3 years.
Cheers
"Ron Rosenfeld" <ronros...@nospam.org> wrote in message
news:qb6vv4lq7bjmuc00v...@4ax.com...
Ron Rosenfeld
<marti...@verizon.net> wrote:
>Interesting I did a rough calculation that came out to 7years, just
>using estimated costing from current panel pricing.
>If I had used a southern insolation instead of 3.5hr it would had been
>closer to 3 years.
>
>Cheers
At least one of the papers used about 5 hrs, as an "average USA insolation
value".
--ron
Eeyore
Ron Rosenfeld wrote:
> "Martin Riddle" <marti...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
> >Interesting I did a rough calculation that came out to 7years, just
> >using estimated costing from current panel pricing.
> >If I had used a southern insolation instead of 3.5hr it would had been
> >closer to 3 years.
>
> At least one of the papers used about 5 hrs, as an "average USA insolation
> value".
Very optimistic if you mean by that 5 kWh /day.
The data's readily available.
http://www.apricus.com/html/insolation_levels_usa.htm
Only 4 of many locations listed make 5 or better in the CONUS.
3.5 - 4 would be nearer the mark ( anyone fancy averaging all those numbers )
and don't forget to consider population distribution vs location too as to how
effective it will be for how many people.
Not to mention different energy profile usage requirements vs time of the
year. NY does OK with an average 3.53 but that falls to 1.4 in December when
it's cold and you want heat.
Now something like one of these in say Arizona might do well.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PS10_solar_power_tower
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_updraft_tower
PV solar will always be most effective in the Tropics.
Graham
Ron Rosenfeld
<rabbitsfriend...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>Very optimistic if you mean by that 5 kWh /day.
No, I mean 5 kWh/M2/day
>
>The data's readily available.
>http://www.apricus.com/html/insolation_levels_usa.htm
>
>Only 4 of many locations listed make 5 or better in the CONUS.
That is a rather limited subset of the 1400+ monitoring stations.
>
>3.5 - 4 would be nearer the mark ( anyone fancy averaging all those numbers )
The average of the limited apricus data is 4.095 kWh/M2/day. It took less
than 60 seconds to import the data into Excel and compute an average.
The data published on the NREL web site, also readily available, is 1800
kWh/M2/year as an average for the US. 1800/365.25 --> 4.93 kWh/M2/day. (or
"about" 5)
Eyeballing the PV Solar Radiation Annual map for Flat Plate, Facing South,
Latitude Tilt (for CONUS), I would say the NREL value is more accurate than
the apricus subset.
>and don't forget to consider population distribution vs location too as to how
>effective it will be for how many people.
That is not relevant to the question being asked. So if you want to answer
that question, feel free to formulate it and do the analysis.
>
>Not to mention different energy profile usage requirements vs time of the
>year. NY does OK with an average 3.53 but that falls to 1.4 in December when
>it's cold and you want heat.
Again, the question being asked had to do with energy to produce a solar
panel vs energy produced by the panel. To me it makes sense to average
production over a large area when trying to answer that question.
If you want to take the position that the energy payback will be longer in
an area of limited insolation, vs an area of above average insolation, I
would not argue with that.
>
>Now something like one of these in say Arizona might do well.
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PS10_solar_power_tower
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_updraft_tower
>
>PV solar will always be most effective in the Tropics.
As a matter of fact, if you limited PV sales to those areas with above
average insolation, energy payback would be even quicker than what has been
published!
--ron
Eeyore
Ron Rosenfeld wrote:
> Eeyore <rabbitsfriend...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> >Very optimistic if you mean by that 5 kWh /day.
>
> No, I mean 5 kWh/M2/day
m2 actually but that was what I meant.
> >The data's readily available.
> >http://www.apricus.com/html/insolation_levels_usa.htm
> >
> >Only 4 of many locations listed make 5 or better in the CONUS.
>
> That is a rather limited subset of the 1400+ monitoring stations.
Are you deliberately suggesting they missed all the hot spots ? Promoters of PV
solar will naturally tend to inflate their figures and fail to disclose losses.
> >3.5 - 4 would be nearer the mark ( anyone fancy averaging all those numbers )
>
> The average of the limited apricus data is 4.095 kWh/M2/day. It took less
> than 60 seconds to import the data into Excel and compute an average.
So I was pretty close.
> The data published on the NREL web site, also readily available, is 1800
> kWh/M2/year as an average for the US. 1800/365.25 --> 4.93 kWh/M2/day. (or
> "about" 5)
>
> Eyeballing the PV Solar Radiation Annual map for Flat Plate, Facing South,
> Latitude Tilt (for CONUS), I would say the NREL value is more accurate than
> the apricus subset.
>
> >and don't forget to consider population distribution vs location too as to how
> >effective it will be for how many people.
>
> That is not relevant to the question being asked. So if you want to answer
> that question, feel free to formulate it and do the analysis.
It's relevant to its practically in NY or New England for example.
> >Not to mention different energy profile usage requirements vs time of the
> >year. NY does OK with an average 3.53 but that falls to 1.4 in December when
> >it's cold and you want heat.
>
> Again, the question being asked had to do with energy to produce a solar
> panel vs energy produced by the panel. To me it makes sense to average
> production over a large area when trying to answer that question.
>
> If you want to take the position that the energy payback will be longer in
> an area of limited insolation, vs an area of above average insolation, I
> would not argue with that.
>
>
> >Now something like one of these in say Arizona might do well.
> >http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PS10_solar_power_tower
> >http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_updraft_tower
> >
> >PV solar will always be most effective in the Tropics.
>
> As a matter of fact, if you limited PV sales to those areas with above
> average insolation, energy payback would be even quicker than what has been
> published!
Sensible calculations excluding 'subsidies' which are other peoples' taxes and
including all true costs including cost of capital indicate a system is unlikely to
pay back in your lifetime or ever.
Graham
do...@17.usenet.us.com
> Very optimistic if you mean by that 5 kWh /day.
> Only 4 of many locations listed make 5 or better in the CONUS.
That looks different in NREL Government pages.
> 3.5 - 4 would be nearer the mark ( anyone fancy averaging all those
> numbers ) and don't forget to consider population distribution vs
> location too as to how effective it will be for how many people.
No need to do math, when the US Government provides colored charts.
http://rredc.nrel.gov/solar/old_data/nsrdb/redbook/atlas/
"Flat plate facing south tilted at Latitude" is what I chose, and
I might say that roughly weighted for what I think are population centers,
and annual average of "5" would be about right.
Picking data for the top 10 cities in population,
http://rredc.nrel.gov/solar/codes_algs/PVWATTS/version1/US/code/pvwattsv1.cgi
New York City 4.56
Los Angeles 5.63
Chicago 4.42
Houston 4.79
Philadelphia 4.57
Phoenix 6.57
San Antonio 5.41
San Diego 5.77
Dallas 5.46
San Jose 5.45
average 5.26
> Not to mention different energy profile usage requirements vs time of the
> year. NY does OK with an average 3.53 but that falls to 1.4 in December when
> it's cold and you want heat.
New York City shows an annual average of 4.56 kWh/m2/day, 2.85 in January,
5.78 in June. Maybe I want Air Conditioning in the summertime more than I
want heat in the winter.
> PV solar will always be most effective in the Tropics.
Or cost effective where electricity prices are high.
My PV installation is doing quite well, financially.
--
Clarence A Dold - Hidden Valley Lake, CA, USA GPS: 38.8,-122.5
http://cdold.home.mchsi.com/Solar-generation.htm $1775 avoided in 2008
do...@17.usenet.us.com
> > >Now something like one of these in say Arizona might do well.
> > >http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PS10_solar_power_tower
> > >http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_updraft_tower
Here's another cost, the water needed for operations.
http://cals.arizona.edu/azwater/awr/d3aa3f8e-7f00-0101-0097-9f6724822dfe.html
> Sensible calculations excluding 'subsidies' which are other peoples'
> taxes and including all true costs including cost of capital indicate a
> system is unlikely to pay back in your lifetime or ever.
Excluding the end user subsidies would make no sense, because those
subsidies are in place. Those subsidies are part of the full financial
equation.
On the other hand, without those subsidies, your gross exaggerations are
just untrue. They might increase the time for payback in dollar terms, but
not stretch them to "ever", and they have no effect on the watt for watt
payback, which was the question of this thread.
Ron Rosenfeld
<rabbitsfriend...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>Sensible calculations excluding 'subsidies' which are other peoples' taxes and
>including all true costs including cost of capital indicate a system is unlikely to
>pay back in your lifetime or ever.
Please explain in detail how dollar subsidies affect the energy used to
produce a solar panel?
--ron
Mel
snip
>
> Note: PV/Wind Energy payback time has been dropping year by year,
> meanwhile fossil fuel/nuclear Energy payback times are increasing..
> (As depletion occurs fossil fuels/uranium are harder to find,
> mine/pump, increased distance to transport, use more energy to
> refine, etc.).
snip
I don't see how a fossil fuel / nuclear system can have an energy
payback time;you keep putting energy into to get energy out...
You can produce more energy than that required for the systems
construction & deconstruction, but you can't escape the fact that you
have to keep supplying it and that requires energy (transporting the
fuel, treating the fuel, running the system etc.. not to mention that
the conversion rate of the incoming energy is somewhere between 3 and 60%)
PV, and wind,on the other hand, ask for next to nothing once it's up and
running, so you can have a real energy payback time.
Mel
Mel
You can also check out : Report IEA-PVPS T10-01-2006
Compared assessment of selected environmental indicators of photovoltaic
electricity in OECD cities
here : http://www.iea-pvps-task10.org/rubrique.php3?id_rubrique=4
whit
Evergreen's drawn string silicon cells use muchless energy (and
silicon) and have a quicker energy payback than other cells.
The calculations on energy payback are for grid connect systems where
100% of the energy is added to the system (which is only 50% effiecent
it's self)
I live off gris so the system cost payback is of intrest to me, but
agreed it's a seperate issue, though they are related.
In my case it is cost effective with the grid running in front of my
house! Our electric coop has a $25 a month user fee before you buy any
electric, as I use only 2-4 Kilowatts a day most days and max out in
summer with 6-7, when I run an AC.
My system will pay back it's $ cost in @12years (I installed my self,
built and maintained my self or this would several years longer) As to
the system energy payback, it likely will never make due to the
batteries, though I may if I continue with an under sized battery bank
(I was unwilling to toss the year old, 4 golf cart batteries I was
using when I built my small well insulated cabin and it's worked out
OK though I can only run the AC for a 2-3 hours at night. I'm on the
4th year now and I hope to make it through the summer.)
In the end the great savings for me is learning to use energy
economically, even building the 6" thick walled cabin in the shade,
using an on demand gas water heating system that lives outside. I even
built a seperate kitchen/bathroom to keep the heat from inside my
cabin.
One thing that I find interesting is often the usefulness of solar
panels is only considered their under warranty period. I have 3 French
photowatt panels made in the late 70's that were producing @ 80% of
their rated value 3 years ago when I added panels to run AC. Not sure
if we aren't looking at the wrong thing on the production end if the
string tech of the evergreen panels will have a shorter life (I think
they expect 30-40 year from thier panels)