Lets dump everything we know about solar technology in here, TWW; technical, political, financial, everything is welcome. This in my new industry, I am investing all my money and time and I need your help. I've been taking classes in this for a while now and will be doing much more in the near future culminating in a new business venture to begin within a year. I have just broken my arm so I have lots of down time and can't really study that hard because of the meds, so lets just chat it up for the next few days. I especially hope to hear from all of the encouraging, helpful people from whom I've been receiving PM's. Lets get it all out there and discuss it, maybe even get some google docs going. By day, you can grind away at your engineering jobs but your heart can be here with me in Florida. Our mission is to reach critical mass and start a Photovoltaic Revolution!

12/28/2010 3:10:57 PM

my ex girlfriend works for a solar startup in Atlanta. Unless you are doing printed nano-solar cells, it's basically an impossible industry to break into on the panel side.

I think the big money to be made is in coming up with an affordable, flexible system to tie panels into local power grids for home and business owners.

12/28/2010 3:13:37 PM

The big money is in pimping this stuff to the public sector, because right now the green image is still all it's good for.

12/28/2010 3:24:11 PM

I completely agree with that, Noen. I think the technology is already in good hands considering we have the Mars Rovers and stuff, we have no shortage of whiz-bang in the U.S. I am just talking about getting the technology out into the neighborhoods. Over the next few days, I will post some very interesting facts depending on where TWW wants to go with this thread.

12/28/2010 3:28:14 PM

Good thing I'm a pimp, slut. I always thought I'd be a Physicist but it just isn't where my true talent lies.

12/28/2010 3:31:05 PM

Noen, flexibility for grid-tied systems is already here luckily. I agree, it is critical though. It is sort of the core of my recent coursework. Now I'm working on certifications, licensing, and I've got to figure out a way to get Workman's Compensation Insurance without going through a payroll company. Some of the business arrangements will be Florida specific, so I may not go into detail on TWW. Hopefully, we will get some MBA's in here to address that stuff. One group I'd love to get involved but that we completely lack at State is Lawyers. Extra karma for anyone who can bring in some legal advice.

12/28/2010 3:41:01 PM

Noen! I just looked at your website. Industrial Design huh? I will look that over at State's web page: sounds helpful, I also liked what you had to say on that small business thread. I also have some business interests in Wilmington where u have your Land Rover Test Course.

12/28/2010 5:01:52 PM

http://www.livevideo.com/video/Drachnid/42D68EF1758F4BA08792E0A84179B7B9/saved-by-the-sun-1-2.aspx
please everyone watch this PBS Nova program if you haven't already seen it.

12/28/2010 5:49:37 PM

I'm in the building industry semi-related to sustainable design and I have to say solar power has a REALLY long way to go. There are MUCH better sustainable power alternatives out there like geothermal, biomass, etc. PV cells are extremely low efficiency in terms of the raw materials that go into PV's, silicon only gets us so far before the jump to platinum where the efficiency is increased, but then you're getting into rare-earth metals, and really not so eco-friendly as people would believe.

I'll be the first to admit I don't know much about this, but every time we look at PV for a sustainable design alternative, the cost/benefit ratio is about the worst out of all our options.

At least for building energy which is 40% of the energy used today. As for Mars rovers... well it might be useful for.

[Edited on December 28, 2010 at 6:09 PM. Reason : .]

12/28/2010 6:07:32 PM

I'm studying wind and geo very soon, right after my solar technical sales course. they are definitely superior under certain conditions and are awesome as part of a multi-source distributed power generation system. I just finished the technical portion of PV and Solar Thermal though, so I'm biased. The nice thing about PV is it can be applied to existing structures is scalable and u can actually PROFIT from the thing by selling power back to the utility by universal federal mandate. There is also a minimum 30% federal subsidy as long as your installer is certified (I'm getting that done even before I finish these classes)

12/28/2010 6:31:07 PM

The beavers on our farm built a dam and built an impressively large pond at the top of a 50ft shear cliff into Gray's Creek. It would be illegal for me to build such a dam, but it is also illegal for me to allow the beavers to build their dam. Oh well. My father is planning to dynamite it. Would have been nice to keep the dam, reinforce it, build a spill way, and use the 56ft drop to turn a generator.

12/28/2010 6:41:21 PM

^^But the payback doesn't happen until 5-15 years depending on the system and PV's lifespan is only like 20 years. In the construction industry, it's nearly impossible to sell to commercial real-estate owners who are only interested in first-cost, and nearly impossible to sell to residential owners because the first cost is too high. The ONLY way you sell PV's is with an owner that is committed to the building or site for 20+ years. That's the only way the PV will ever payback the owner. On average people move 5-10 years, so it's a tough sell, good luck.

Like I said, make a PV that's more affordable and/or more efficient and it will take over. But until that happens, it's not the best option out there.

[Edited on December 28, 2010 at 6:45 PM. Reason : .]

12/28/2010 6:42:32 PM

Very good points, Prospero and this perceived limitation is precisely where I'm planning to be innovative. I'm working on a couple of different methods of controlling the asset (PV System) in new ways. More info to follow after dinner.

12/28/2010 8:12:01 PM

How do you plan to be innovative without improving efficiency? That is deep down in the cell and you aren't going to do shit about that in sales.

12/28/2010 9:08:47 PM

Let me first point out some large financial benefits to putting up PV before I even address the up-front cost issues:
1. The money that used to leave the household to pay for grid power can now be used to make payments on the PV system, so it essentially the same as the rent vs own argument, except for your electricity instead of your car/house
2. (in Florida, primarily) The panels tend to generate the most power right when the utility is at its peak demand: smack in the middle of the day when AC is at full blast. So not only are you selling juice back to the man, you're doing it at the best price. (some regions still let the utility pay you the minimum rate but whatever)
3. for the next 25+ years, your cost for electricity is known, not at the mercy of dwindling resources and unpredictable regulation
4. Hugely reduced carbon footprint, not that anyone cares. Opportunity to sell carbon credits maybe?
5. You have power at least some of the time during natural disasters
I could go on but I see you drinking the kool-ade

Dealing with the up-front costs is the real issue and it's tricky but I have it all figured out even if I am not quite sure how I'm going to proceed.
Just some basics first, The federal government is paying an unlimited 30% on your system in the form of a tax credit that, on paper at least, you don't see until April or whatever. PV customers feeling like there is this large chunk of uncertain money is common but totally unnecessary and destructive to the Revolution.
Solution 1: Attach the asset to the property tax to be paid over the 25 year guaranteed life of the system. (gov't loan) Pros-the asset sticks with the house regardless of who owns it Cons- it is difficult and uncertain to get municipalities to agree to this despite there being successful precedent. I am quite in love with the idea of having just the cost of a security product attached to the property tax but such a detail is a bit too far ahead right now.

Solution 2: Attach the asset to the mortgage as a lein (equity loan) Pro- banks will actually return your call for a simple mortgage loan. Con-customer base for this solution is limited because few people have enough equity to float a loan right now and also, the traditional installers already serve these customers so its just simple competition

Solution 3: Attach the asset to a 3rd party (panel leasing) Pros-ehhh, i finish laters...

12/28/2010 9:19:40 PM

This is kind of hilarious man. You're giving us a sales pitch about PV in fucking Tech Talk. Do you want to have a tech discussion or are you just trying to sell us some shit?

12/28/2010 9:33:58 PM

Chance, the technology is always changing and every application is unique. How efficient is it to do nothing? I will be qualified in and putting up whatever is best for each application not just PV. My intuition is that reputation and versatility will be critical in this industry right after it's big bang, this is why I'm taking all these extra classes and getting certifications in everything. Most people will be starting off with Solar Thermal Water for the biggest bang for the buck, just to let you know. One thing I hope to learn in this Solar Technical Sales Course I have coming up in January is how best to cope with the impracticality of communicating the complexity of this industry to the consumer. There's almost no straight answers to be had about anything, but I will turn this into an opportunity somehow.

12/28/2010 9:43:38 PM

That's actually the major reason I'm doing this thread, Chance. I need technical input on all of this from Engineers, and other professionals. I'm not even set up to sell you a stick of gum yet, I'm just communicating why I'm going into this industry.

12/28/2010 9:53:30 PM

You dont get it dude. People already know the benefits, and they aren't willing to sink their money in for 20 years. You can talk your talk until you're blue in the face, you aren't going to change the industry. Unless you come up with a technological or business breakthrough, forget it. There's some opportunity to change the system with business strategy, but it's going to take shit tons of financial backing that is impossible to secure in this economy, and especially in the real estate quagmire that is Florida

12/28/2010 11:36:35 PM

You touched on it right there: business strategy. I have an innovative plan to make use of the fact that investors are not able to get a decent rate on CD's or bonds anymore. I'm going to be financing installations and serving customers unreachable by existing installers. I'm creating a local green financial product that is secured by various methods depending on the region that pays like twice as much as a bank CD's (like 3%). Customers are willing to borrow at like 8% to get their panels. The trick now is actually designing and optimizing the financial product and making it all legal and binding. I don't even know who the fuck does stuff like that yet: but I have customers AND investors ready to roll. I will be a licensed PV contractor here shortly but I may end up just focusing on the financial product sales and contracting out the installs especially since I can't get a Workman's comp policy until I have 5 years experience and I can prolly onlu float 15 or so systems with my own money. U got to have some faith, buddy, I know what I'm doing. If you pay close attention, the real potential problem in this business model is the security for the financial product: it really needs to be rock solid with some legal precedent before it will really fly without a hand-operated pimp job on my part.

12/29/2010 1:52:45 AM

Worst case scenario, I going to have to personally meet and greet every single investor with every single customer with no diversifying financial product in place for a while, but it's still going to work. The worst thing that could happen is the customer loses his house and the investor has to execute personally in civil court on some mortgage lein or something (depending on the security mechanism for the region)

12/29/2010 2:00:47 AM

So wait, I should borrow 8% money to get a 6% RoR?

12/29/2010 3:24:46 AM

no u invest in a product that allows your neighbors to have solar panels for a 3% return. or u borrow at 8% on avg to finance your own panels.

12/29/2010 3:45:56 AM

Right, you're going to be able to convince neighbors to front the money for the panels for a paltry 3% return? A 5 yr CD at the NCSECU is paying 2.5% and I am 100% certain I'll get that money back. Getting it back from your neighbor...not so certain.

I live in 28570. My average monthly use is going to be in the 1800 kWh range and I'm paying .0939 per. That works out with the facilities charge, taxes, wholesale cost adjustment (which varies, but we'll ignore that) to about $175 per month.

You tell me which product you'd push. I have a ranch style home with quite a bit of roof space that isn't shaded at all and my home faces north-south. Which product would you push, how much will it cost me turn key, and how much on average is it going to save me (or put in my pocket) per month. I'm specifically interested in the ROI.

12/29/2010 6:44:20 AM

^all very good question Chance.

If you can bundle this whole thing into a service plan, I think there's a lot of opportunity there.

For instance, if you could wrap it so that the homeowner pays no out of pocket expenses and gets a flat rate of electricity for free over the next X years, and assume that your company earns the buyback surplus over that time, it might be worthwhile.

12/29/2010 1:07:43 PM

^^ You live in Newport?

12/29/2010 1:36:59 PM

Chance, every application is highly unique, we don't do straight answers in this industry. (don't worry, I will be massaging this response in the near future) What I can tell you is that $175 could be building equity in a distributed energy investment. I'm busy trying to find someone who can help me design this financial product right now, so please watch the video I posted and I'll check back in soon.

12/29/2010 3:40:05 PM

^^ Newport addy, technically in the county, and I am closer to and rep the MHC.

^ You don't need any other information to just make suggestions. Are you really going to go out like a bitch or are you going to actually prove you know what you're doing? If you don't actually know yet, then just say so. But quit acting all coked out over some PV if that is the case.

12/29/2010 5:43:33 PM

Chance, after I take that Solar Technical Sales Course, I will be much better able to please. As it is right now, I just know how the system itself works. I can tell you right now: you can't have ANY shading on typical PV system (you can tolerate it a little with an amorphous thin-film array). Actually, If I was going to serve someone like you right now (looks at power bill, skeptical, not green) I'd just put up a Solar Thermal system and not even bill you right away for it: then come back and hit you up for a PV install.

12/29/2010 6:17:55 PM

When I was in the Solar engineering MAE class this past spring, Cleveland told us that the magic mark was ~ $1/W for PV to become more accepted. I believe it was slightly less than $2/W at the time. I'm not sure where it is now.

I'm very interested in renewable energy, not necessarily PV, although I am getting my NABCEP installers license this semester.

I'm looking to start a full-time job this time next year (after I get my M.S. degree) doing energy engineering in some form. If I go to work for a utility I'm not worried about starting in the renewable energy area, but I'd like to EVENTUALLY end up working there. I'd like to work for a utility and get my PE license. I don't know how much emphasis NC utilities are placing on setting up renewable energy engineering departments, although they have Renewable Energy Portfolios (REPs) to consider now.

As said before, solar thermal systems have the best value currently. Usually, a solar thermal system is paired with a tankless hot water heater, because there is decreasing returns on the investment once you get over ~ 80% solar thermal hot water.

With PV, it's more of a waiting game. You can get 8-15% efficient cells off the shelf today, ~ 20% if you go with bifacial panels. But, there are ~ 40+ % multijunction cells out there. It takes a long time for higher efficiency cells to reduce price by polishing the manufacturing processes and figuring out better materials sources or alternatives.

12/30/2010 1:17:00 PM

A big short-term problem with new technologies in this industry is manufacturing capacity: it doesn't matter that there are better systems available if you can't get them. Germany and China are way ahead of us and are probably negotiating for the purchase of the entire capacity of the new stuff. sprocket, I am very happy to meet you and please elaborate on what your Solar Engineering class covers and maybe post some links. What book did your class use? Photovoltaic Systems 2nd edition: James P. Dunlop?

12/30/2010 5:28:22 PM

Quote :

"5. You have power at least some of the time during natural disasters"

Guess you haven't learned anything yet. This is not the case with the vast majority of systems. PV systems are shut down when the power goes out to prevent a backfeed of power into the grid.

12/30/2010 5:42:51 PM

On the $/watt issue, I believe it is far less relevant for this industry because of it's distributed nature. If it were a body of stockholders, then yes, they'd wait for some cost-effectiveness point and then take one big action to further profit from economy of scale. Home/Commercial Property owners do not behave this way. If you look at the recycling movement, lots of people make quite an effort at the home scale to recycle and are unconcerned about profiting from their aluminum or even making sure their materials don't just go to the landfill.
I am planning to emulate the Toyota Prius Club and create a social community that is irrationally absorbed with their PV performance and then use this set of people as evangelicals. I have the perfect person in mind if start it off: he's already in the open source javascript world. COMPUTER PEOPLE: if this is something you're interested in, please post in here and let me know.

12/30/2010 6:03:02 PM

PV power does go out when the grid goes down for the safety of lineman who may be working on the lines. There is a switch that you can flip that isolates your house from the grid and allows you to safely re-enable your PV system. Furthermore, if you have a battery system, you can even have electricity when you're not generating power. Battery systems are many thousands of dollars and have to be replaces every 5 to 7 years unfortunately.
Actually, that reminds me of an Idea I had in class: why can't you just use some big elevator springs wound up by an electric motor powered by the excess juice during the day and then have the same motor run your house electricity at night? Somebody do the math and post, I did it and it looks workable. I also had an idea for a Grav-pot energy system using Mercury instead of water: mercury is cheaper than you'd expect.

12/30/2010 6:14:16 PM

Here is an interesting link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micro_hydro Archemedes screw on that pipe?

12/30/2010 6:39:52 PM

Quote :

"If you look at the recycling movement, lots of people make quite an effort at the home scale to recycle and are unconcerned about profiting from their aluminum or even making sure their materials don't just go to the landfill. I am planning to emulate the Toyota Prius Club and create a social community that is irrationally absorbed with their PV performance and then use this set of people as evangelicals."

I see what you're going for, but a comparable $/W price doesn't hurt either.

Quote :

"why can't you just use some big elevator springs wound up by an electric motor powered by the excess juice during the day and then have the same motor run your house electricity at night"

You CAN store energy this way, but you would need to be able to regulate it (I would think), it would need to last for a while (not minutes). I would think that all the conversions you'd have to do would make it less practical. Photons -> electrons via p-n junction, electric motor conversion losses, little losses in the spring itself, conversion BACK to electricity somehow. I can't think of a simple way to regulate the release rate of the spring offhand.

Quote :

"I also had an idea for a Grav-pot energy system using Mercury instead of water: mercury is cheaper than you'd expect"

I would expect alot of environmental/legal issues surrounding Mercury

Quote :

"please elaborate on what your Solar Engineering class covers and maybe post some links. What book did your class use? Photovoltaic Systems 2nd edition: James P. Dunlop?"

That's the book I'll be using this semester.
At NCSU, for MAE 421, I used: Solar Energy Engineering: Processes and Systems by Kalogirou. It was very good, had several misprints in it though.
For ECE 452, I used Renewable and Efficient Electric Power Systems by Gilbert Masters. It is a more classic book, very thorough, covers more of the grid-side stuff. I enjoyed it. Both those books are findable in pdf format in various ebook listings online.

12/30/2010 6:45:23 PM

This thread is titled Photovoltaic Revolution, and now you're talking about micro hydro and elevator springs?

Time to lock this one up.

12/30/2010 6:45:41 PM

Can someone look up what the spring coefficients and prices for some large existing industrial springs? Maybe you can work the whole thing out in TeX and post it. It's an innovation killer to operate on the assumption that: if it is feasible, it would have already been done. Budget for this energy storage machine is $10,000. Would it be tricky to power an electric motor with a varying spring force?

12/30/2010 6:52:24 PM

ohhh I hasidea rather than a cable pullingh and spin a alternator, wat if is rail gun in reverse? or like maglev train, the varying force fro the the spring move a electromagnet and softwares...anyway you get the idea: Chance is right, i getting way off message here.

12/30/2010 6:57:23 PM

Quote :

"Would it be tricky to power an electric motor with a varying spring force?"

I'd be concerned that the motor needed to withstand the spring force would be prohibitively expensive for the energy amount output, but I could be wrong. The device(s) you'd need to regulate the output to something smooth would also be the source of extra losses

12/30/2010 7:00:31 PM

Chance, micro hydro is relevant if u use excess powers to pump waters up to water tower or up a hill

12/30/2010 7:00:36 PM

Lock. Suspend. Terminate.

12/30/2010 7:04:50 PM

Quote :

"micro hydro is relevant if u use excess powers to pump waters up to water tower or up a hill"

I wish I had a place where I could setup a micro-hydro system. Many large hydro sources have already been tapped, but small sources still exist. Alternatively, compressed air storage systems have some potential I believe. I've done some research in this area.

Yeah, this is getting pretty far off topic, but if you haven't seen this, this is a cool story I found years ago: http://ludens.cl/paradise/turbine/turbine.html

12/30/2010 7:09:01 PM

YAY! that link is awesome! look at those pictures! sprockey you're so cool, you're exactly the kind of people I want to know. thank-you so much for being here. I wonder if there is middle of the jungle somewhere has still a telegraph office up a steep jungley mountain with isolated tribe of Hmung keeping yearning for news from their genius children at university: if not, romantic short film idea? INB4
off topic

12/30/2010 7:17:55 PM

Opening scene: Hmung sexy girl youth winning award for some engineering cap-stone project at school

struggle to contact village: Baraka-esque footage from ultra-modern university along to telegraph mountain

interlacing 1. lovestory betw young girl and village boy using guerilla tactic to resist utility company (cool macquyver meets bourne identity scenes to sell movie to males) 2. struggle over utility company lobbying to put up a comms tower/ electricity on their mtn, and tearing up the lovely environment
3. girl returns to village, love scenes: temptation to settle for tainted paradise. 4. boy dies rescuing his comrades and redeeming himself.
4 girl fite utility non-violence and inspire ground-swell of civil disobedience among the old people. her university friends help too.
5. possibly some cultural barriers are overcome too through the struggle. maybe some school boy resolves his frustration at her unwillingness to relationship .
6 then in the end she finally romance with school boy and move away from village happily ever after
7. substory of majong or Go expert younger cousin boy goes down to university but drops out to pwn haughty gambling addicted city boys: but then gets involved in environmental struggle learns teh discipline and go back to school.
8 maybe guerilla 1st lover dies to rescue him

12/30/2010 7:41:49 PM

http://solar.calfinder.com/blog/

12/30/2010 8:17:53 PM

Quote :

"PV power does go out when the grid goes down for the safety of lineman who may be working on the lines. There is a switch that you can flip that isolates your house from the grid and allows you to safely re-enable your PV system. Furthermore, if you have a battery system, you can even have electricity when you're not generating power. Battery systems are many thousands of dollars and have to be replaces every 5 to 7 years unfortunately."

No one does this because generators are more cost efficient and dependable. Next.

12/30/2010 9:57:28 PM

Yeah PV sucks and is only a viable option because of government subsidies.

Now solar water-heating and solar collecting for heat purposes that shit works...

Windpower... that works...

Photo Voltaic panels are poisonous when thrown away and do not make enough power to pay for themselves in real world installations before they degrade to putting out less than half the power they originally had and even that is including the power rebates you get for having them and the NC tax credits you get.

Right now unless solar power means solar collectors boiling water to make steam to power a steam turbine its just like selling snake oil.

[Edited on December 31, 2010 at 6:36 PM. Reason : .]

12/31/2010 6:34:14 PM

The cost of PV is about to plummet because of the scale-up in manufacturing for the Chinese and German market. Federal subsidies are only meant to spark it off. It isn't a competition with other alt. energy sources: PV is just going to be the backbone. There will certainly be a place Solar Thermal as the starting application, geothermal and thermal heating for new construction, wind where appropriate or as a supplement, and even bio-fuel for vehicles.
Something I forgot to mention for you conservative fags: the military and security services have publicly stated that distributed energy and communications is critical to national security.
Did I mention coal and oil are killing our water table, our coral reefs, our estuaries, and causing us to sacrifice our American values in the Middle East, and going to cause annual Armageddon for the 90% of the population that lives close to sea level through climate change and starvation? so there is that, not that it factors into my business plans.

12/31/2010 8:36:28 PM

jcgolden = lafta?

12/31/2010 9:20:30 PM