The title of this diary may appear to be too good to be true. However, I just recieved a press release from Nanosolar, a start up solar manufacturer which produces "solar laminates" - a new type of solar power cell that are printed on a sheet as opposed to growing silicon crystals as in semicondoctor plants. Nanosolar have announced that they now have a facility with the yearly production capacity of 1 gigawatt.
Let's consider what that means. A typical nuclear plant in the US has a base productive capacity of just under 1000 megawatts (1000 megawatts = 1 gigawatt). There are 104 nuclear plants in the US with a total capacity of 100,000 Megawatts(MW). Now energy production is better measured over time so one of these plants running at 90% efficiency for the year will produce roughly 7.8 million Megawatt hours of electricity. The average US household will use about 10,000 kilowatt hours a year so one nuke plant can power 780,000 households.
Since the sun doesn't shine all day 1 gigawatt of solar power arrays will not generate 7.8 million megawatt hours. There are many variables that will determine the effective generating capcity of solar such as weather patterns, placement (trees, angle, latitute etc.), but suffice it to say that this still represents a LOT of power. If we take a conservative yearly average estimate of 6 hours of peak sunlight per day that means solar panels coming our of this plant in a year will produce 2.19 million megawatt hours of electricity. In three and a half years, this one startup facility will create installed capcity equal to the largest nuclear facility in the US. Only the fuel is free and there's no radioactive waste (solar does have arsenic wastes which are much cheaper to process).
And the costs of this equipment?
From Tech Crunch
Roscheisen claims his company has produced "the world’s lowest-cost solar panel – which we believe will make us the first solar manufacturer capable of profitably selling solar panels at as little as $.99/Watt." That would put energy systems made with Nanosolar panels within striking range of the price of coal, which is around $2.10 per watt for new coal plants.
Nanosolar has managed to get a 14.6% efficiency rate from its panels and these costs are coming down while efficiency is going up at a fairly constant rate all across the industry. Next year and in 2009 massive amounts of supply are scheduled to come online for solar which should bring prices down for the technology. Imagine what will happen when this becomes a full blown industry in a few years. Meanwhile, coal price is likely to remain at all time highs for the next two to three years, by which time carbon prices will start to be phased in outside Europe. Natural gas prices are high, and I don't need to tell anyone about what's up with oil. The large scale utility company is dead. May it rest in peace.
[Update] I forgot to mention that Johnny McCoal said at a campaign event Wednesday in Missouri, that he wants 45 new nukes by 2030, with a longer-term goal of 100 new reactors. He also wants to pledge $2 billion a year in federal spending to "make clean coal a reality." Glad to see he has the same understanding of energy as he does with computers...