Bob Wallace’s Recent Comments

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  I wonder if Bachman might have been talking only overnight costs? I don't have access to his numbers, so there's no way to tell how the final number might have been reached. But looking at your $0.11 kWh number, we need to remember that solar is not competing against 24 hour average power costs, but peak hour costs. At eleven cents it seems to me that we've reached, or nearly reached, the point where utilities are going to opt for solar as a peak demand supply. The competition is largely natural gas. With solar fuel costs are fixed at zero. There's no carbon emission to be controlled, paid for, or offset. And I think that utilities recognize that by purchasing solar now, even if it makes them a bit less money, they are speeding the cost drops which will create a very affordable peak power supply.On SolarReserve's 24/7 solar power plant posted 7 hours, 40 minutes ago 97 Responses

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  "It involves extreme sacrifice, low power electricty only and even lower emergency power with battery storage (new Oasis lead acid battery, 1500 cycle life, no maintenance) and biogas backup. Heat and cold storage built into the building (an insulated tent), air and water pressure stored for washing, solar and biogas cooking, composting toilet, solar cogeneration (electricty and heat), small scale wind (vertical rotor), ground source heating/cooling, wood burning backup for heating, cooking, and electricty (with a thermocouple)." Well, good luck getting more than a handful of people signed up for that trip. You could probably get a few energetic and highly concerned twenty-somethings, but don't look for Joe Sixpac and your Aunt Nellie to join. The solutions which I think will be widely adopted are those which are "easy" for the end user to implement, cost only a tiny bit more or ideally less, and if they involve lifestyle changes make life more comfortable. I think we will see some "individual" power storage as EVs come to the market and smart meters are installed. I think people are going to find it so little work to plug in each night that they will accept that new chore. Given the large "fuel" savings provided with EVs and some financial incentives from utility companies they'll find that 15 seconds to plug the cord to their car when they get home. Then down the road, I think we'll see very affordable 'plug in robots'. There are already robotic gas stations which can fill your car while you wait behind the wheel. Extending this technology to EVs should be a piece of cake and cost no more than an inexpensive vacuum cleaner. And this storage, your Aunt Nellie can drive to the "Quickie Lube" which will have been converted from doing oil changes to doing 10,000 mile battery checks. I don't think we'll see composting toilets. I've used them and most people are not going to want to use them or service them. Current toilets work just fine. We can extract the biogas on a commercial scale (again, concentrating our expertise) and use the water in a wiser way. Do that and there is no reason to do in house composting. (Where would one dump their composting toilet tray if they live in the middle of any large city?) We might see some 'in house' energy storage in terms of thermal mass accompanying heat pump systems. But more likely we'll see the installation costs of earth effect heat pumps come down and thus avoid having to heat or cool any storage mass. Wood heating is not likely to happen in cities. If you live in a 30 floor apartment complex where do you store your wood, dump your ashes? How would urban areas deal with all that smoke? And how efficient would it be to haul massive amounts of wood into cities from far away forests? Look at the direction that Europe is going with their zero energy buildings. The emphasis is going into design, insulation, efficiency. Create a building that requires little external energy for temperature control and then it becomes much easier (and less expensive and less difficult) to supply the energy needed. LED lightbulbs are an excellent example of a less expensive, less effort future. Their initial costs are still too high to make them "easy to implement", but once the price comes down people would be spending half the energy cost of a CFL and not having to change bulbs for 20 years. EVs are going to be less expensive and less effort to run. Fuel prices will be a fourth. No more oil changes and few repairs. No standing outside in the blazing sun or blowing snow to fill your tank. As much as possible we should look for conservation methods that people will want to embrace rather than asking for sacrifice.On Solar's rapid evolution makes energy planners rethink the grid posted 8 hours, 6 minutes ago 17 Responses

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  From the perspective of someone who has made their own, stored their own, and been disconnected from the grid for the last 20 years, I don't see an "each home/building" the right way to go. Energy systems take some maintenance. It wouldn't be very efficient to locate, say, a battery bank in every house and then have to have it serviced by someone going from house to house to check water levels, clean terminals, change out batteries at the end of their life, .... I suspect a much better model is "neighborhood" storage with a combination of centralized and (perhaps) distributed generation. I'm uncertain about putting PV on individual houses. Will they get washed and adjusted throughout the solar year? Will snow get cleaned off when needed? Nano Solar thinks it makes more sense to put solar in local solar farms rather than spread across residential roofs. Creating storage on moderate scale at many places on the grid would mean less load on the grid and the ability for an area to maintain some flow in the event of transmission disruption. Use some lower cost real estate such as played out manufacturing space or industrial park. Install flow batteries and later on "80%" EV batteries. Make the installation large enough to support a trained maintenance staff. That way less expensive power could be fed into the storage unit and fed back out during peak hours. Less need for big pipes into the area in order to service the total peak load. And the entire system could be kept in good working condition, unlike what would undoubtedly happen if storage was spread over every building on the grid.On Solar's rapid evolution makes energy planners rethink the grid posted 20 hours, 5 minutes ago 17 Responses

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  "If you had $1/w with $2/watt installed rooftop solar cost it would be wildly popular. It might be pretty popular at $4/w." Right now I can buy panels - retail - for $3 a watt. I don't know what the discount to an installer would be, but it's at least 20%. Our local "guru of all things power" gets us stuff like panels from retail merchants. They give him a 20% discount and he splits it with us. So your installer is likely paying $2.40 per watt or less. "Bob, you mentioned financing solar through a homeowner's loan. Although that helps the homeowner, it doesn't help the utility in coming up with its cash needed for the subsidy program." The major subsidies are coming from the federal government, not the utility company. Here's something I just received today... "Today is the best time in history to purchase a commercial or residential solar electric system. The Federal Tax Credit for residential solar systems was extended and expanded, effective January 1, 2009. Previously, there was a $2000 cap on the tax credit but that cap has been lifted and the tax credit is now 30% of your system cost. Combined with State rebates the savings can be even greater. The system must be placed into service after December 21, 2008 The system does NOT have to be the taxpayer’s primary residence The bill allows taxpayers to use the credit to offset AMT liability Unused credits can be carried forward (see your tax adviser for details) Examples of how this works: If your PV system costs $9,000 & your tax liability for the year is $6,000 You would reduce your tax liability by $2,700 and only pay $3,300." The best way for utility companies to encourage homeowner rooftop installations might be to establish good purchase of generated electricity plans. Guarantee a fair price for each kWh supplied to the grid and guarantee that price for the life of the loan. "I see no way around this problem other than dropping the cost of solar panel installations down to the $2 per watt range. if we wish hard enough do you think it will happen?" I'm not going to take time to work the numbers right now, but I think your $2 is lower than the profit point. That said, we could look at what it is currently costing to manufacture a watt of solar, less than $1. Wishing seems to be working quite well....On SolarReserve's 24/7 solar power plant posted 1 day, 4 hours ago 97 Responses

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  Acnicolet - Today's news... "The company's first product, which Reddy says will sell for $1 per watt next year, will contain a single layer of the nanocrystals." http://www.technologyreview.com/business/23980/ From a little while back... "First Solar's claim to fame for the past several years has been in its ability to churn out large numbers of panels and a fairly low cost. Last month, the company said it was able to produce panels at $1.08 per watt. The figure, however, is a blended average of all of the company's factories. First Solar's cost out of its Malaysian factories is lower, closer to 75 cents." Over a year ago First Solar announced a price of $0.86 from its Malaysia plant, and I think $1.15 at their US plant. Looks like they have pulled manufacturing costs lower. http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/first-solar-reaches-grid-parity-milestone-says-report-5389/ Now, how about a return favor? Take a look at this part of the "First Solar Reaches Grid Parity" article and see if you can flesh out... "The plant, located in the Nevada desert near Boulder City, costs $0.075 per kilowatt hour to install without any subsidies, Bachman wrote. Conventional power fed into the grid costs $0.09 per kilowatt hour. .... Bachman's cost calculations, of course, are impacted by a number of factors. Others will likely come to different conclusions. Part of the calculation relies on what others are achieving in other locations with different kinds of panels. Nonetheless, it underscores the progress the industry is making toward the important milestone." Any idea what the "Others will likely come to different conclusions." means? Does it mean that others will ignore Bachman's figures because they don't want to believe them or that there is some obvious problem with Bachman's figures? I've held back on widely quoting that article and $0.09 kWh price because that sentence has bother me. Also, rumor has it that NanoSolar broke the $1 manufacturing cost sometime back, but I can't give you a link to anything solid. If you turn up something in your searching please post.On SolarReserve's 24/7 solar power plant posted 1 day, 4 hours ago 97 Responses