Cost of photoVoltaics, is it coming down?

 

Currently the life of photocells stated to be about 20 years; not yet long
enough to recoup the cost of their manufacture. Any progress in this area or
do we have to rely on the price of oil to rise to make these cells cost
competative?

 

Gary Helfert wrote:

Most PV makers provide a warranty for 25 years. It's generally accepted
that the PV cells and panels will last longer than this, perhaps several
times longer. They do degrade over time, perhaps losing as much as 1% a
year. This means the warranties are generally only for 80% of their
original rating after 25 years. I've never heard of anyone actually
making a warranty claim.

I don't know what you mean by "recoup the cost of their manufacture"
but in some situations the cost of purchasing PV panels is recouped
the moment they are installed. Clearly this is going to vary widely
depending on the installation and how you figure costs.

Anthony

 

That's silly. Who's claiming the life of a pv cell to be 20 years?

40+ years is much more like it.

Steve Spence
Dir., Green Trust, http://www.green-trust.org
Contributing Editor, http://www.off-grid.net
http://www.rebelwolf.com/essn.html

Gary Helfert wrote:

 

Steve Spence wrote:


I suspect he's confusing warranties with expected life span.  The warranties
I have on my panels are for 20 or 25 years, and we've all been programmed
to expect that products that come off warranty are carefully planned to be
at the end of their useful life :-)

PV panels are a little different, because they degrade slowly and fairly
reliably, so it's pretty easy for a manufacturer to guarantee that it will
output 80% of it's rated capacity after 20 or 25 years (of course, most of
them output a little more than rated capacity when new).
--
derek

 


    You may find the PV FAQ of some use, specifically questions
    #1D and #12A:
    How has the price of PV changed historically?
    <http://www.autobahn.mb.ca/~het/energy/pv_faq.html#Q01>
    What is the Payback Time of PV?
    <http://www.autobahn.mb.ca/~het/energy/pv_faq.html#Q12>

<fwiw>
-het

PS.
    Added a.s.pv



--
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 a new form of energy. I don't know that there is one."
-Matthew Simmons, energy adviser for President Bush, May 23rd 2002

Energy Alternatives: http://www.autobahn.mb.ca/~het/energy/energy.html
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