I’ve split this email off to reduce the annoyance factor with cross-posting. I wanted to quickly clear up a few things regarding solar power and units of energy given. Forgive me, those of you that already know this, and correct me if I made a mistake, those that know better. Also, math is involved to show my work, so you know where my numbers came from.

The output values being discussed are watt-peak output (Wp), meaning output under ideal conditions, which is useless for assessing real power generation. Please see the following Wikipedia links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watt-peak
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacity_factor

So, we can see capacity factor is the max output (Wp) divided by actual output, meaning that if we only have the capacity factor and the max output we should be able to multiply them to determine rough actual output. I’ll do a quick example.

Look at the capacity factor of the world’s largest PV power plants, shown in the table on this page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power

Let’s use the Waldpolenz Solar Park that uses newer “thin film” PV, like the cells Nanosolar offers. Notice how the values are given in DC MW. To be more precise, that should be MWp–peak output, not actual. (Let’s assume the loss from converting DC to AC was included in the capacity factor to make things easy.)

So, we do the math to determine actual output: 40 * .11 = 4.4 actual MW.
Convert to MWh per year: 4.4 MW * hours in a year (8766) = 38570.4 MWh.
Fact-check the table with that, and we see it’s close: 38.5704 GWh/year compared to 40 GWh/year.

As a rule of thumb, to find Nanosolar’s thin-film cell cost per actual watt output, divide cost per “watt”(Wp) by .11.* .12 if you’re feeling generous. Thus, $.30 per Wp actually costs $2.73 per W, or $2727 for a setup that produces 1 kW on average.

The difference between MWp and actual MW output is the first vital consideration when looking at solar claims. The second is probably more obvious: inherently variable solar (and wind) can’t be used to replace baseload plants like fossil fuel, nuclear, hydro, wood, geothermal, and OTEC. While nuclear capacity factors can be steadily improved–and have been–it’s hard to make many gains with solar and wind. Fission and combustion are far more steady than the weather.

— Stan

* Not sure if this is clearer than saying to take the reciprocal of the capacity factor and multiply by the price per Wp. So, actual price per watt = 1/Capacity Factor * price per Wp. Math would be 1/.11 * $.30 = $2.73 actual price per watt. Hope this makes sense.

It seems to me that there is a factor in transforming to alternative energy use that isn’t present in Moore’s law for the comupting industry.

In the energy field we have a dominant player (the fossil fuels energy cartel) that is opposing game-changing progress with all means available. Those means include buying up patents to novel energy solutions only to be shelved and never reach the market. They also include dirty play – many an inventor has met an untimely tragic fate. Once removed, I predict that progress in energy cost going down is going to approach the progress in – say – processor miniaturization, increase of data storage capacity and computer costs.

What else could that be but hydrogen? –assuming fusion remains fantasy and the green movement stay against the very needed nuclear–which may be against a wall of peak uranium anyway.

1. How much does renewable cost per kW-h?
2. Is that cost sustainable?
3. Do the technologies wear out and fill landfills with ugly toxic messes?

You know I am a fan of hydrogen and OTEC. I am also a huge fan of geo-thermal, which I consider a mature technology particularly when used to make hydrogen as an energy transport medium.

I see nuclear as a bridge. I know others don’t. That argument should be developed in clear, realistic and scientific terms.

It isn’t P2P energy–yet, but that may not be feasible. I’d love it if it were feasible. Centralized power achieves economies of scale–4 now. Maybe film solar offers some hopes…but I have serious doubts.

P2P ownership of large scale solar (non-photovoltaic) and OTEC may be a path.

Ryan