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First Solar is making PV panels for less than China’s biggest producer
- _Codemonkeyism 11y ago1. Excellent 2. Significant costs now are building plants. Next cost dropping wave will be with robotic solar plant building (Also liked that rollable solar panel for the military)
- wrong_variable 11y agoI used to imagine the future to have self assembling robots that build their own power sources,etc. Its good to know we are nearing that future.
- kaybe 11y agoAnother step to self-sufficient AI I guess. At some point along the way we will have to stop and think about what we're doing there.
- jakozaur 11y agoCost of solar panel is dropping every year: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swanson%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swanson%27s_law The question is not whether you can get cheaper once, but whether you can be cheaper and maintain that advantage by improving each year.
- astrodust 11y agoStrange parallels to Bitcoin mining where you're worried your rig might not pay for itself before faster mining hardware comes out that pays better.
- tyho 11y agoWith exponentially increasing efficiency, when is the ideal to invest? This is solved by a "wait calculation"[0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wait_Calculation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wait_Calculation
- VLM 11y agoSwanson's Law is much more realistic than the simplistic linear extrapolation from the linked article which shows negative prices by 2030.
- jerven 11y agoThe response of the Chinese company Trina spokesperson is quite off the mark. First Solar expects to ship around 3GW of modules in 2016 so that is not exactly lab scale ;) FSLR expects to improve their shipped modules efficiency by more than 10% over last year. 15.4 to 17. FSLR also will also introduce their new larger modules that are easier to install. Reducing the cost of building a power plant. I really regret not investing in FSLR stock when I could have :( Off course when looking at energy supplies the physical efficiency is not important, one must look at the economic efficiency. Numbers that are hard to find :(
- davedx 11y agoYup, I invested in them a year or so ago, unfortunately I also invested in SunEdison at the same time. Took a hit to get out of that position. Happy with my portfolio now though: Accel Group, First Solar, Tesla, Vestas. They look good for the long run.
- m0dE 11y agoFSLR was at 140 in 2011, and now they're at 60.36. Perhaps it's not too late to buy?
- biswaroop 11y agoInteresting: CdTe has a bandgap of 1.5eV, closer to the ideal for solar efficiency than Si, which has a bandgap of 1.1eV. Multijunction cells can achieve efficiencies of over 80% since each junction can address a different part of the solar spectrum. However, they're not cost-effective yet.
- RNiK 11y agoRight now there are 2 different articles on Hacker News front page stating the opposite (almost). Bloomberg article (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-04-14/first-solar-making-panels-more-cheaply-than-china-s-top-supplier http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-04-14/first-sola...) states the following: "First Solar is producing panels for as little as 40 cents a watt, or about 15 percent less than China’s Trina Solar Ltd. In 2019, First Solar’s module cost could be as low as 25 cents a watt, according to analysts’ models.". VOX article (http://www.vox.com/2016/4/18/11415510/solar-power-costs-innovation http://www.vox.com/2016/4/18/11415510/solar-power-costs-inno...) states the following: "How cheap? Sivaram and Kann argue that the industry should set a goal of pushing the installed price of solar to 25 cents per watt by 2050 — down from around $3 per watt today."
- DenisM 11y agoPerhaps there's distinction between panel cost and installed cost?
- RNiK 11y agodollars/cents per watt should be a standard measure. Plus, the VOX article states that "...we'd also likely need to rethink how we install solar panels. After all, the panel itself is only half the cost.".
- pawelk 11y agoThe key difference here is a single word in the VOX article: installed solar. The 40cents/watt in Bloomberg article is just the panel (because it's an article about costs of producing panels). This would mean even if the price of a panel dropped to $0.01/watt you'd still need $2.60 per watt to install it on your roof. That's why the VOX article in the next sentence says > Current approaches to cutting costs won't necessarily get us there. We may need experimental new technologies. Or novel ways of integrating solar into our walls and windows. Or robot installers.
- toomuchtodo 11y agoOr we just realize that current installation costs are acceptable when your system is paid back within ~11 years, and the power is free after that.
- runamok 11y agoPart of the reason they survived to now is likely due to all the anti-dumping laws the US imposed. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-07-09/u-s-imposes-dumping-duties-on-imports-of-chinese-solar-goods http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-07-09/u-s-impose...
- tmaly 11y agoIf this is true, then why are the First Solar salesmen at my local Home Depot still pushing a $40K price tag at me?
- nxzero 11y ago>> “A discussion of cost in the lab is meaningless." Agree. If it read American solar company out produces, sells, etc. that would be meaningful. Does the US even have the raw materials & production capacity to use the research? If not, sounds like a complete waste of money.