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posted by martyb on Wednesday February 21 2018, @04:23PM   Printer-friendly
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.


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  • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday February 22 2018, @03:36PM (1 child)

    by Grishnakh (2831) on Thursday February 22 2018, @03:36PM (#641834)

    Zero point Energy?
    Well if we have that tech, its safe to assume we have the stargate tech as well...

    No, not necessarily. Finding a new energy source (that requires new physics maybe) is somewhat different than finding a way of moving matter instantly between different star systems in the galaxy. We could very well figure out how to harness quantum fluctuation energy long before we figure out how to open stable wormholes.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 22 2018, @04:15PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 22 2018, @04:15PM (#641849)

    Using an energy source that by its very definition cannot be used is definitely less likely than a star gate (that at least doesn't violate the laws of logic).