6 ms·

But then you'd also need to cover 5 times the area, and land also costs money.

mikepurvis 9y ago
I'm doubtful that land area is really a significant cost for most solar installations. Small ones go on rooftops that people already have, and large ones go on marginal land in the middle of nowhere that's cheap. If there's someone with knowledge of the numbers, I'd be interested to be shown otherwise.
- philipkglass 9y ago
  You are correct. "Small" utility-scale solar projects of 1-20 MW capacity take 7.6 acres of land per megawatt-peak, for fixed-tilt ground mount systems: http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/articles/2013/08/calculating-solar-energys-land-use-footprint.html http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/articles/2013/08/calcula... Fixed-tilt utility scale systems just recently fell to $0.99 per watt-peak in the US: https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/Sunshot-1-Per-Watt-Solar-Cost-Goal-Mission-Accomplished-Years-Ahead-of-S https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/Sunshot-1-Per-W... You can buy 124 acres of land in California's sunny Imperial County, near existing solar farms, for $95,000: http://www.landwatch.com/Imperial-County-California-Land-for-sale/pid/3446602 http://www.landwatch.com/Imperial-County-California-Land-for... If you turned that land into a solar farm you could fit about 16 megawatts of fixed-tilt solar arrays on it. 16 MWp of installed solar equipment would cost $15.84 million at $0.99/watt and the land is $0.095 million. Land accounts for only 0.6% of the combined costs. (A 16 MWp farm is small by utility-scale project standards and probably would not cost only $0.99/watt because of dis-economies of small scale. I cited $0.99/watt to set a conservative bound on how much cost the land component represents in a utility scale solar project.)
chriswarbo 9y ago
If the cost is right, land won't be an issue. If solar tech were cheap and rugged enough, it could be added to paint, tarmac, billboards and many other artificial surfaces, even at very low efficiency. I've seen work in this direction with organic molecules (i.e. plastics).
- klodolph 9y ago
  I'm not optimistic about solar power being added to paint, tarmac, or just wherever you want. See for example the dumpster fire that is Solar Roadways. At this point, there's enough land / rooftops for proper PV installations that easily last decades, so trying to shoehorn fragile PV in places where it has to withstand daily abuse, like tarmac, stinks of bad engineering. Maybe that will change, but it doesn't need to change, because we still have plenty of places to stick solar.
  - chriswarbo 9y ago
    Yes, to be clear I didn't mean the sort of rigid, silicon/glass PV panels we have right now; and solar roadways is evidence enough that it would be a bad idea. I meant something more like a polymer, bought by the bucketful and mixed in as an additive.

I'm doubtful that land area is really a significant cost for most solar installations. Small ones go on rooftops that people already have, and large ones go on marginal land in the middle of nowhere that's cheap. If there's someone with knowledge of the numbers, I'd be interested to be shown otherwise.

philipkglass 9y ago
You are correct. "Small" utility-scale solar projects of 1-20 MW capacity take 7.6 acres of land per megawatt-peak, for fixed-tilt ground mount systems: http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/articles/2013/08/calculating-solar-energys-land-use-footprint.html http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/articles/2013/08/calcula... Fixed-tilt utility scale systems just recently fell to $0.99 per watt-peak in the US: https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/Sunshot-1-Per-Watt-Solar-Cost-Goal-Mission-Accomplished-Years-Ahead-of-S https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/Sunshot-1-Per-W... You can buy 124 acres of land in California's sunny Imperial County, near existing solar farms, for $95,000: http://www.landwatch.com/Imperial-County-California-Land-for-sale/pid/3446602 http://www.landwatch.com/Imperial-County-California-Land-for... If you turned that land into a solar farm you could fit about 16 megawatts of fixed-tilt solar arrays on it. 16 MWp of installed solar equipment would cost $15.84 million at $0.99/watt and the land is $0.095 million. Land accounts for only 0.6% of the combined costs. (A 16 MWp farm is small by utility-scale project standards and probably would not cost only $0.99/watt because of dis-economies of small scale. I cited $0.99/watt to set a conservative bound on how much cost the land component represents in a utility scale solar project.)

chriswarbo 9y ago

If the cost is right, land won't be an issue. If solar tech were cheap and rugged enough, it could be added to paint, tarmac, billboards and many other artificial surfaces, even at very low efficiency. I've seen work in this direction with organic molecules (i.e. plastics).

klodolph 9y ago
I'm not optimistic about solar power being added to paint, tarmac, or just wherever you want. See for example the dumpster fire that is Solar Roadways. At this point, there's enough land / rooftops for proper PV installations that easily last decades, so trying to shoehorn fragile PV in places where it has to withstand daily abuse, like tarmac, stinks of bad engineering. Maybe that will change, but it doesn't need to change, because we still have plenty of places to stick solar.
- chriswarbo 9y ago
  Yes, to be clear I didn't mean the sort of rigid, silicon/glass PV panels we have right now; and solar roadways is evidence enough that it would be a bad idea. I meant something more like a polymer, bought by the bucketful and mixed in as an additive.