SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
from the power-to-the-people['s-homes] dept.
Residential solar is cheap, but can it get cheaper? Paths to $0.05 per kWh
The price of solar panels has fallen far and fast. But the Energy Department (DOE) wants to bring those costs down even further, especially for residential homes. After all, studies have shown that if every inch of useable rooftop in the US had solar panels on it, the panels could provide about 40 percent of the nation's power demand. Right now, the DOE's goal is residential solar that costs 5ยข per kilowatt-hour by 2030.
In a new report from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), researchers mapped out some possible pathways to that goal. Notably, the biggest barriers to cost reduction appear to be the stubborn "soft costs" of solar installation. Those soft costs include supply chain costs, labor costs, and sales and marketing costs that aren't related to the physical production of solar cells at a factory.
NREL wrote: "Because the 2030 target likely will not be achieved under business-as-usual trends, we examine two key market segments that demonstrate significant opportunities for cost savings and market growth: installing PV at the time of roof replacement and installing PV as part of the new home construction process."
The report mapped out two "visionary" pathways (as well as two "less-aggressive' pathways) to achieving those cost reductions within the roof replacement and new home construction markets. The result? The only way NREL found it could achieve the "visionary" cost reductions was by assuming that solar installers would start selling low-cost solar-integrated roof tiles before 2030, "which could significantly reduce supply chain, installation labor, and permitting costs."
[...] [It's] not just Tesla working on this: the Colorado-based lab cites CertainTeed's solar shingle product and GAF's solar panels as examples of products breaking the divide between roof and solar panel installation.
(Score: 2, Flamebait) by fritsd on Wednesday February 21 2018, @06:33PM (1 child)
I wonder it they still teach Lavoisier's 18-th century Law of the Conservation of Mass [wikipedia.org] in high schools chemistry???
Q: Where do the rare materials and elements that are used to create new solar cells come from?
A: Old solar cells.(*)
Q: Where does the rare earth Neodymium in those humongous wind turbine stators come from?
A: Old wind turbine stators (same *). In fact, I suspect they don't wear down that much.
Besides Neodymium isn't so rare, just difficult to separate from the other Lanthanides used in fireworks and cigarette lighters.
(*) Yes, I know what "steady state" means, that we aren't there yet, and I concur that evaporation and wind abrasion and vandalism and lightning strikes and spontaneous nuclear transmutation (if any) of the solar cells/wind turbines means, that a fraction of a percentage of the materials has to still be mined.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 22 2018, @05:59PM
You make the very incorrect assumption that everyone will always "recycle". As long as it is cheaper to mine new material, old material may wind up in a landfill where it becomes harder or impossible to access in the future.
And that still does not take in to consideration the fresh materials, resources, and labor required to build something new from old materials. Something made out of recycled material did not just pop in to existence from unicorn magic.