SolarByTheWatt.com » solar

Industrial Solar Panels Offered at Lower and Lower Prices

SolarByTheWatt_com — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 21:01:35 +0000

Solar panels sold at large order quantities for industrial needs are being offered at lower and lower prices.

SolarMaxDirect.com, a distributor for solar photovoltaic modules, has recently dropped prices for large industrial size orders.

Buyers involved in projects of 50kw and upwards can get their panels at prices $2.25 per watt peak and lower.

The offered industrial solar panels have the same variety of sizes and use the same technology (polycrystalline and monocrystalline) as most photovoltaic modules massively sold these days and carry similar or better warranties like 90% output power 12 years warranty and 80% 25 years warranty.

Prices of the solar modules are a core factor in the economic efficiency of solar power projects.

Do Solar Photovoltaic Modules Have to be UL Listed? Are There Other Certification Options?

SolarByTheWatt_com — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 21:34:16 +0000

OK, here we are coming back to an issue that was brought up by us early on and we were trying to get different opinions on. It is the UL listing of photovoltaic equipment, it having to be listed, at all.

It seems like everyone who purchases photovoltaic modules in the US is verifying whether the modules are UL listed.

What does that mean and where does the concern come from?

Well here is the latest of what we find.

The requirement really comes from the National Electric Code (NEC), but the requirement does not directly specify that the listing should be by UL (Underwriters Laboratories – a company).

The exact requirement states:

“…

Chapter 6 Special Equipment

…

ARTICLE 690—SOLAR PHOTOVOLTAIC SYSTEMS

…

690.4 Installation.

…

(D) Equipment. Inverters, motor generators, photovoltaic modules, photovoltaic panels, ac photovoltaic modules, source-circuit combiners, and charge controllers intended

for use in photovoltaic power systems shall be identified and listed for the application.

…”

In section 100 there is the definition for listed:

“…

Chapter 1 General

…

ARTICLE 100—DEFINITIONS

…

Listed. Equipment, materials, or services included in a list published by an organization that is acceptable to the authority having jurisdiction and concerned with evaluation of products or services, that maintains periodic inspection of production of listed equipment or materials or periodic evaluation of services, and whose listing states that either the equipment, material, or service meets appropriate designated standards or has been tested and found suitable for a specified purpose.

FPN: The means for identifying listed equipment may vary for each organization concerned with product evaluation, some of which do not recognize equipment as listed unless it is also labeled. Use of the system employed by the listing organization allows the authority having jurisdiction to identify a listed product.

…”

In the same article we look up the definition for Authority Having Jurisdiction (AHJ).

“…

Authority Having Jurisdiction (AHJ). An organization, office, or individual responsible for enforcing the requirements of a code or standard, or for approving equipment, materials, an installation, or a procedure.

FPN: The phrase “authority having jurisdiction,” or its acronym

AHJ, is used in NFPA documents in a broad manner, since jurisdictions and approval agencies vary, as do their responsibilities. Where public safety is primary, the authority having jurisdiction may be a federal, state, local, or other regional department or individual such as a fire chief; fire marshal; chief of a fire prevention bureau, labor department, or health department; building official; electrical inspector; or others having statutory authority. For insurance purposes, an insurance inspection department, rating bureau, or other insurance company representative may be the authority having jurisdiction. In many circumstances, the property owner or his or her designated agent assumes the role of the authority having jurisdiction; at government installations, the commanding officer or departmental official may be the authority having jurisdiction.

…”

(this is for reference purposes only; the NEC text is copyrighted and isolated use of extracted instructions from it may be very insufficient for many purposes)

Ok so, obviously UL is considered to be “an organization that is acceptable to the authority having jurisdiction” as worded in Article 100 and ties in with the Article 690 point 690.4 (D) for photovoltaic equipment. So it’s is widely accepted that a UL listing (and labeling) assures that the equipment meets the NEC requirements.

What about other testing organizations though? There is no reason for monopoly of UL.

Well we are not able to find a list of such organizations but we came across information about one more company that does testing – Intertek ETL SEMKO. They state that their ETL labeling and listing is as good as the UL one.

Here is what they say on a brochure you can look up here.

(Click here for the Intertek ETL SEMKO brochure.)

“…

When it comes time to test your products to North American product safety standards, you may be led to believe that your choices are limited to certain marks, such as the UL Listed Mark. In reality, there are others equally recognized and accepted — prominent among them, the ETL Listed Mark issued by the ETL SEMKO division of Intertek.

…”

(again we are only quoting here for the purpose of supporting this article; Intertek’s text is copyrighted and all trade marks are their ownership)

The whole brochure is an interesting reading on the topic.

So we are finding that UL is not the only possible listing that solar panel manufactures can chose. A lot of new manufactures are suffering from the time it takes UL to start and complete the process if testing them and listing them. Some of them report that ETL is quicker to get, not because the testing and inspecting takes less time but because it is a company that at least for now offers less waiting to start working on the certification.

I guess the issue is still open, though, depending on what the AHJ will decide about “an organization that is acceptable to the authority having jurisdiction”. May be some state or local authorities, or insurance companies will have their own list of organizations that are acceptable.

All trademarks are property of their respective owners and are only displayed here as a reference.

Please, as always, feel free to comment on this. The opinion of people who have experience of going through the inspection process or getting a system insured is especially important.

Lowest Solar Panel Prices Per Watt 2009-10-20

SolarByTheWatt_com — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 02:30:05 +0000

We are continuing our series of articles on lowest prices per watt for solar photovoltaic panels where every time we have changes in the price ranking we will publish a new article with corresponding date in the title.

We list the cheapest panels dollar per watt that we can find on the internet and through direct research. We also include listings of products our readers submit to us through the Contact Us form or in the comments. Representatives of the different vendors are welcome to submit info about their products too. Very differently from other “cheapest solar panels lists” out there we will not charge you for that and we will not tell you the list is already full – yep, this is what some publishers of lowest prices in solar have told some of the vendors of realistically the cheapest panels in certain sizes. Yeah, we had a good laugh listening to the story of one of the vendors here trying to get listed with a web page claiming to be a free survey of the lowest prices. While these vendors were not allowed to be listed their after being asked for money and told that the list is full already there are companies on their list that are listed twice.

We do not claim at all that these are research and results of an absolute character. That is, we realize that there might be products, vendors, pricing structures for certain types of projects and quantities that we are not able to identify through our effort.

That is why nobody should get offended that their product brand or vendor company is not included in our research or they are not ranked correctly because we have not found out about their lowest, low or otherwise competitive prices.

While we maintain that prices as dollar per Watt ($/Wp, dollar per Watt peak) is the number that will take the solar power industry to the stage of playing a major role of resolving the gigantic issues the US and the world have with securing clean, safe and abundant source of energy, we also realize that with many products groups prices reflect many other things than just willingness of the manufactures and the marketers to provide an affordable product.

Namely, different prices may reflect different quality and quality preference of the market – i.e. higher quality products may maintain relatively higher prices given all other factors being equal.

Different prices may reflect different costs to manufacture products of certain type of technology. We are well aware that this is especially true with solar panels. We will try, as effort grows to provide a way for our readers to be able to separate prices listed and researched for different underlying technologies of products.

In this edition of the lowest prices article for example we are separating in different tables the three most popular commercially available cell technologies on which solar photovoltaic modules are based: monocrystalline, polycrystalline and thin-film. That should make it very easy for our readers to get to useful information about the competitors in the different technologies. Also it will give a chance for a vendor who offers a good price in one technology to not to be shadowed by a vendor with low price in the other technology.

We also have tried to include more sizes, that is make the list much longer in order to give chance for vendors that are not necessarily with the lowest price to show in the study. One thing you can expect in future editions is to see the lists broken down in different size ranges which should give even better chance for vendors to appear in their area of strength.

In any case if any reader, buyer or seller of solar products thinks that our best research effort has not presented certain vendors, brand or price – please, feel free to contact us and forward to us details of the the product and price you think we should list. We will add additional level to research to verify that such price is being offered on regular basis and will try to reflect this in our report.

The reason we believe prices in dollar per watt peak with solar photovoltaic modules is so critical for this industry to take off as a major player in resolving the energy issues the world has created for itself is that such price is a major factor in the economic efficiency of a solar power installation. See our article Economics of Solar Power on this.

Have in mind in addition to the very sharply falling prices of solar modules what else is driving the further acceptance of this clean energy technology is the government incentives programs that exist in different places in the world including incentives on federal level in the US in the form of a 30% tax credit on total installation costs and other different state level subsidies and feed in tariffs.

Here is or current ranking:

Monocrystalline

($/Wp, $ per module, Wp of the module, technology, Model, Brand,Vendor, URL to the vendor’s page)

$2.25 / Wp, $416.25, 185W, Mono-crystalline, SMD185M, SolarMaxDirect, SolarMaxDirect.com, http://SolarMaxDirect.com

$2.25 / Wp, $405.00, 180W, Mono-crystalline, SMD180M, SolarMaxDirect, SolarMaxDirect.com, http://SolarMaxDirect.com

$2.25 / Wp, $540.00, 240W, Mono-crystalline, SMD240M, SolarMaxDirect, SolarMaxDirect.com, http://SolarMaxDirect.com (sizes over 190W from SolarMaxDirect.com are not UL listed)
(SolarMaxDirect’s prices for less than a container size of order are $2.70)

$3.20 / Wp, $544.00, 170W, Mono-crystalline, DMSOLAR 170 MONO, BrightWatts, DmSolar, http://www.dmsolar.com

$3.40 / Wp, $594.41, 175W, Mono-crystalline, NT-175U, Sharp, Infinigi, http://www.infinigi.com

$3.57 / Wp, $625.00, 175W, Mono-crystalline, SW175, Solar World, Backwoods Solar, http://www.backwoodssolar.com

Polycrystalline

($/Wp, $ per module, Wp of the module, technology, Model, Brand, Vendor, URL to the vendor’s page)

$2.25 / Wp, $427.50, 190W, Poly-crystalline, SMD190P, SolarMaxDirect, SolarMaxDirect.com, http://SolarMaxDirect.com

$2.25 / Wp, $416.25, 185W, Poly-crystalline, SMD185P, SolarMaxDirect, SolarMaxDirect.com, http://SolarMaxDirect.com

$2.25 / Wp, $405.00, 180W, Poly-crystalline, SMD180P, SolarMaxDirect, SolarMaxDirect.com, http://SolarMaxDirect.com

$2.25 / Wp, $393.75, 175W, Poly-crystalline, SMD175P, SolarMaxDirect, SolarMaxDirect.com, http://SolarMaxDirect.com

$2.25 / Wp, $382.50, 170W, Poly-crystalline, SMD170P, SolarMaxDirect, SolarMaxDirect.com, http://SolarMaxDirect.com
(sizes over 190W from SolarMaxDirect.com are not UL listed)
(SolarMaxDirect’s prices for less than a container size of order are $2.70)

$2.43 / Wp, $509.97, 210W, Poly-crystalline, REC210AE, REC, The Solar Biz, http://www.thesolarbiz.com

$2.43 / Wp, $533.97, 220W, Poly-crystalline, REC220AE, REC, The Solar Biz, http://www.thesolarbiz.com

$2.43 / Wp, $424.97, 175W, Poly-crystalline, BP 175B, BP Solar, The Solar Biz, http://www.thesolarbiz.com

$2.44 / Wp, $549.00, 225W, Poly-crystalline, REC EA US 225, REC, Sun Electronics, http://sunelec.com

$2.54 / Wp, $558.00, 220W, Poly-crystalline, REC EA US 220, REC, Sun Electronics, http://sunelec.com

$2.59 / Wp, $543.90, 210W, Poly-crystalline, REC210AE, REC, BeyondOilSolar, http://www.beyondoilsolar.com
(many REC sizes from BeyondOilSolar are at this price)

$2.60 / Wp, $312.00, 120W, Poly-crystalline, DMSOLAR 120 POLY, BrightWatts, DmSolar, http://www.dmsolar.com

$2.68 / Wp, $522.60, 195W, Poly-crystalline, ES-A-195-fa3b, Evergreen, Sun Electronics, http://sunelec.com

$2.89 / Wp, $635.80, 220W, Poly-crystalline, SCHOTT POLY 220, Schott, Affordable Solar, http://www.affordable-solar.com

$2.99 / Wp, $523.25, 175W, Poly-crystalline, PV-UD175MF5, Mitsubishi Solar, Affordable Solar, http://www.affordable-solar.com

Thin-film

($/Wp, $ per module, Wp of the module, technology, Model, Brand,Vendor, URL to the vendor’s page)

$3.87 / Wp, $232, 60W, Thin-film, Kaneka, GSA-60, Living Off The Grid, http://livingoffthegrid.ecrater.com

$3.97 / Wp, $237.98W, Thin-film, Kaneka, GSA-60, Green Box Usa, http://www.greenboxusa.com

Feel free to send suggestions through comments on our articles or the Contact Us page.

Price, Dollar Per Watt for Large Solar Photovoltaic Projects

SolarByTheWatt_com — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 03:52:12 +0000

A Review of Total Investment Cost, Dollar per Watt Peak and Euro per Watt Peak for Large Solar Photovoltaic Power Plant Projects.

A reader of SolarByTheWatt.com commented in a letter to us (via the Contact Us page/form) on how important it is for publications when price of solar photovoltaic is discussed – dollar per watt – to point out the difference between cost of solar just for the modules or panels and the cost of completing a whole system.

The price to complete a whole system in addition to the price of panels will include price of mounting, installation hardware, wiring, junction boxes, disconnects, price of the inverter or inverters, wiring and disconnect boxes from inverter to grid switch box, price of installation service (usually specifically trained and certified professionals are involved). In the case of a large scale projects the part of the project involving connection to the grid can be of substantial value too. In these project the price of the land used and all permits for the land and for the utility project also add to the cost.

While the break down of these expenses can be harder to study (one needs to find internal data from different projects) we thought that it is possible for many large project to find the overall costs and get to an indicative price per watt for solar power in terms of complete projects.

We also thought that focusing on as large projects as possible will let us minimize the error of rounding and approximation some of news articles might have made.

We have reviewed different announcements that indicate the price dollar per watt of complete projects.

Thought there is a lot of information about what the largest solar photovoltaic plants in the world are it has been difficult for us to find specific cost, investment information about many of them. The readers are welcome to contribute through comments or on our Contact Us page/form with links to articles specifying cost of projects.

Here is the table of results we have gathered:

Project	Peak Power, MWp	Cost, Euro, millions	Euro / Wp	US$ / Wp
Waldpolenz Solar Park	40	130	3.25	4.23
Amareleja, Moura, Portugal	62	250	4.03	5.24
SinAn Power Plant	24	110	4.58	5.96
Beneixama photovoltaic power plant	30	150	5.00	6.50
Arnedo Solar Plant	34	181	5.32	6.92
Nellis Solar Power Plant	14	77	5.49	7.14

In our results table you can see the name of the project included, peak power or the capacity of the power station in MW (MWp), investment cost in million of Euros – many of the large projects for which capacity and investment cost data was available were in Europe and the articles report the prices in Euros, cost Euro per watt peak, US dollar per watt peak – we used a 1.3 factor (close to the exchange rate at the moment EUR to USD) to get this number which we thought will be useful for anyone used to work in USD as a currency. We ordered the projects in ascending price per watt.

None of the prices we are seeing in the results are very surprising. Different articles mention about a commonly expected price of about US$ 6 – 8 per watt for industrial (utility) size projects. Many specialists involved in the industry, especially in Europe lately talk about bids that projects get in the range of 4 – 5 Euros per watt, approximately US$ 5 – 6.60 per watt.

Lowest Solar Panel Prices Per Watt 2009-02-24

Economics of Solar Power

Solar Energy Land Area Efficiency or How Many Acres per MW, kWp per Acre

A Short Science Lesson for Journalists – Watts, Kilowatts, Megawatts, Kilowatt Hours

Resources used:

http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2007/02/phase-one-of-40-mw-german-solar-park-begun-47541

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moura_photovoltaic_power_station

http://www.xltelenergy.com/PRESS%20RELEASE%20170209.pdf

http://www.conergy.de/en/DesktopDefault.aspx/tabid-181/316_read-9306/

http://www.thinkspain.com/news-spain/12834

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nellis_Solar_Power_Plant

Commercially Available Solar Photovoltaic Panels at $2.25

SolarByTheWatt_com — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 22:55:54 +0000

SolarMaxDirect. Com is offering by the container solar photo voltaic panels at $2.25 delivery included. This is another development in solar prices that shows that solar can become economically very efficient and interest among industrialists will increase in building solar power.

Lowest Solar Panel Prices Per Watt 2009-04-24

SolarByTheWatt_com — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 17:04:57 +0000

We list the cheapest panels dollar per watt that we can find on the internet and through direct research. We also include listings of products our readers submit to us through or Contact Us form or in the comments. Representatives of the different vendors are welcome to submit info about their products too. Very differently from other “cheapest solar panels lists” out there we will not charge you for that and we will not tell you the list is already full – yep, this is what some publishers of lowest prices in solar have told some of the vendors of realistically the cheapest panels in certain sizes. Yeah, we had a good laugh listening to the story of one of the vendors here trying to get listed with a web page claiming to be a free survey of the lowest prices. While these vendors were not allowed to be listed their after being asked for money and told that the list is full already there are companies on their list that are listed twice.

Namely, different prices may reflect different quality and quality preference of the market – i.e. higher quality products may maintain relatively higher prices given all other factors being equal.

Here is or current ranking:

Monocrystalline

($/Wp, $ per module, Wp of the module, nominal voltage, technology, Brand, Model, Vendor, URL to the vendor’s page)

$3.15 / Wp, $630, 200W, 43.60V, Mono-crystalline, SMD200M, SolarMaxDirect, SolarMaxDirect.com, http://SolarMaxDirect.com

$3.30 / Wp, $726, 220W, 45.2V, Mono-crystalline, SMD220M, SolarMaxDirect, SolarMaxDirect.com, http://SolarMaxDirect.com

$3.30 / Wp, $610.50, 185W, 36V, Mono-crystalline, SMD185M, SolarMaxDirect, SolarMaxDirect.com, http://SolarMaxDirect.com

$5.03 / Wp, $1,005.00, 200W, 42V, Mono-crystalline, HIT-200BA19, Sanyo, atlE Store, http://store.altenergystore.com

$5.16 / Wp, $1,032, 200W, 55.8V, Mono-crystalline, HIP-200BA19, Sanyo, Affordable Solar Group LLC, http://www.affordable-solar.com

$5.52 / Wp, $552, 100W, 18V, Mono-crystalline, SW100C, Sunwize, atlE Store, http://store.altenergystore.com

Polycrystalline

($/Wp, $ per module, Wp of the module, nominal voltage, technology, Brand, Model, Vendor, URL to the vendor’s page)

$2.95 / Wp, $516.25, 175W, 24.2V, Poly-crystalline, SMD175P, SolarMaxDirect, SolarMaxDirect.com, http://SolarMaxDirect.com

$3.30 / Wp, $445.50, 135W, 20.6V, Poly-crystalline, SMD135P, SolarMaxDirect, SolarMaxDirect.com, http://SolarMaxDirect.com

$3.30 / Wp, $594.00, 180W, 24.2V, Poly-crystalline, SMD180P, SolarMaxDirect, SolarMaxDirect.com, http://SolarMaxDirect.com

$3.54 / Wp, $637, 180W, 24V, Poly-crystalline, CSI ECOSENSE CS6P-180, Canadian Solar, Affordable Solar Group LLC, http://www.affordable-solar.com

$3.56 / Wp, $142.49, 40W, 17.3V, Poly-crystalline, BP Solar, Discount Sales Electronics, http://discountsales.com

$3.94 / Wp, $630, 160W, 24.9V, Poly-crystalline, ES-160-A, Evergreen Solar, KULLY Solar, http://kullysolar.com

$4.62 / Wp, $1,016, 220W, 28.7V, Poly-crystalline, SCM220, REC Solar, Affordable Solar Group LLC, http://www.affordable-solar.com

$5.48 / Wp, $328.88, 60W, 12V, Poly-crystalline, CD Tech Solar, RV Fun Products, http://www.rvfunproducts.com

Thin-film

($/Wp, $ per module, Wp of the module, nominal voltage, technology, Brand, Model, Vendor, URL to the vendor’s page)

$3.83 / Wp, $230, 60W, 67V, Thin-film, Kaneka, GSA-60, Living Off The Grid, http://livingoffthegrid.ecrater.com

Feel free to send suggestions through comments on our articles or the Contact Us page.

Physical Area Efficiency of Solar Photovoltaic Panels, or Watt Per Square Foot

SolarByTheWatt_com — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 07:13:14 +0000

A specialist from one of the companies distributing and retailing solar panels brought up a question for discussion that is not usually very specifically talked about but was raised by a client of theirs. The client was looking for the most efficient panels in terms of peak power (rated watts) per square foot of the panel (module) the way it was commercially available.

He was not interested to hear about the comparison between the different technologies in particular because they are usually compared on cell level and the data available is usually from scientific lab test not necessarily directly related to the realistic efficiency of the finished panel. When cells are actually implemented in the configuration of the panel there might be numerous factors additionally affecting the power-to-physical-area efficiency of the panel. Different models of panels are also built on different grade of cells so many time you can have one and the same physical shape, area and cell configuration gaining very different rated power (watt peak). How much space (area) is left between the cells in the panel can also influence the over all watt per square foot performance.

The different solar photovoltaic cell technologies are usually given a percentage physical efficiency number that represent what part of the light energy is turned in to electrical energy. Monocrystalline cells usually are said to be with physical efficiency of about 16 – 17%. Polycrystalline – 14 – 15%. So, often in discussions it is assumed that monocrystalline panels, too, are more area efficient. As we will see our study shows that this does not need to be the case.

Because polycrystalline cell based panes use square (or rectangular) cells they use better the surface area of the panel for light to electricity conversion.

The monocrystalline cells are cut off from round wafers and though they usually have for edges cut off from them for the purpose of not removing too much of the expensive wafer they are not turned in to square cells but in to squares with round edges. When these cells are put in to a panel there are small areas between the edges of the cells that are left unused.

In thin-film panels usually most of the area of the panel is covered by a photovoltaic surface. The configuration of what are effective cells in them may be more complex but there are better opportunities in thin-film panels to use larger part of the surface of the panel efficiently. With thin-film the actual photovoltaic elements are not as physically efficient though – the commercially widely available ones are only know to have 7 – 9 % physical efficiency. So it will be hard for them to compete with the mono- and poly crystalline ones.

You probably already know that SolarByTheWatt.com in general maintains that the economic efficiency of photovoltaic equipment (like panels) is the most important number because this defines the economic efficiency of a whole project.

Surface area efficiency (watt per sq. ft.) can only be critical, or more critical, when there is a limitation of how much area can be used for placing the panels and there is a requirement for the peak power of the whole project. Often this could be the case with residential projects where we intended certain peak power already and the roof area is simply not enough for us to go with the most cost efficient technology (possibly thin film).

Let’s look at the practical numbers for commercially available panels and compare the surface area efficiency they have. We will get the numbers for peak power rating in watts for the panels and the actual physical surface area calculated from the reported dimensions of the panel.

In the following table we have put the number for panels that available at online retailers. If any of the readers know of a model that might show interesting numbers they are welcome to submit data and links through the comments form or the Contact Us page and form on the website.

We were trying to select panels for which we calculated highest watt per square foot efficiency. That is marked in the table as power density.

Model	Techn ology	Rated Power, W	Vmp, V	Imp, A	Peak Power, Wp, W	Surface Size, ft	Surface Area, sq ft	Power Density, W / Sq Ft
SMD190P	Poly-	190	24.48	7.76	190.0	4.34×3.24	14.045	13.53
SMD185M	Mono-	185	35.96	5.15	185.2	5.18×2.65	13.742	13.48
SMD240M	Mono-	240	46.90	5.11	239.7	5.18×3.48	18.027	13.29
SMD185P	Poly-	185	24.48	7.56	185.1	4.34×3.24	14.045	13.18
SMD180M	Mono-	180	35.65	5.05	180.0	5.18×2.65	13.742	13.10
STP-180	Mono-	180	35.60	5.05	179.8	5.18×2.65	13.742	13.08
SMD090M	Mono-	90	18.36	4.90	90.0	3.93×1.78	7.008	12.84
KD205	Poly-	205	26.60	7.71	205.1	4.92×3.25	15.984	12.83
SMD180P	Poly-	180	24.24	7.43	180.1	4.34×3.24	14.045	12.82
PV-UD190	Poly-	190	24.70	7.71	190.4	5.44×2.74	14.884	12.79
SMD230M	Mono-	230	46.40	4.96	230.1	5.18×3.48	18.027	12.77
SMD175M	Mono-	175	35.71	4.90	175.0	5.18×2.65	13.742	12.73
SMD155P	Poly-	155	21.21	7.31	155.0	3.82×3.24	12.366	12.54
NT-175U1	Mono-	175	35.40	4.95	175.2	5.17×2.71	13.993	12.52
SMD175P	Poly-	175	24.24	7.22	175.0	4.34×3.24	14.045	12.46
SW175	Mono-	175	35.70	4.90	174.9	5.28×2.66	14.037	12.46
SMD215P	Poly-	215	30.30	7.10	215.1	5.39×3.25	17.515	12.28
SMD220M	Mono-	220	45.20	4.87	220.1	5.18×3.48	18.027	12.21
KAN60	Thin-Film	60	67.00	0.90	60.3	3.15×3.25	10.230	5.89

This is a key to the different models – how they correspond to a brand name and a website of one possible vendor.

SMD – SolarMaxDirect – http://SolarMaxDirect.com
STP – Suntech Power http://store.solar-electric.com
KAN – Kaneka – http://store.altestore.com
KD – Kyocera – http://store.solar-electric.com
PVUD – Mitsubishi – http://aeesolar.com
SW – Solar Wordl – http://aeesolar.com
NT – Sharp – http://sunwize.com

We reiterate here that we were looking for the data from the specification sheets that come on different product pages of different vendors. Apart from the ordering by power density, or area efficiency – watt per sq ft, we did not have any other criteria for picking the model or the places they can be purchased. Please do feel free to submit your suggestions for us to include other examples.

A Quick Review and Analysis to Expect

SolarByTheWatt_com — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 02:35:32 +0000

We are issuing this quick analysis of the current solar photovoltaic industry and related businesses and we also want to announce some topics we are currently preparing analysis on for you to know what to expect soon from SolarByTheWatt.com (Solar By The Watt Dot Com).

There has been a huge interest to our analysis till now on cost per watt of components (panels, modules etc.) as well as of whole projects and the reflection of that on economic efficiency (return on investment) from solar photovoltaic projects. Such articles include: Price, Dollar Per Watt for Large Solar Photovoltaic Projects , Lowest Solar Panel Prices Per Watt 2009-02-24 and Economics of Solar Power. Our Lowest Solar Panel Prices Per Watt series will continue when we have a good update on the contenders in the top list. Notice that differently from many popular low price listings like that we do not charge the participants any fee. We have heard that some other lists not only get paid by the companies who get on the list but also at the moment if there is a company that has lower price they will to get listed because the spaces have already been taken and paid. What do you think about a top list like that. Well whatever you think – just know for a company to get to our list we have to find their product on the Internet through searching or the company has to send us links to their online store, we verify that there is believable evidence that the products truly can be purchased at that price and then we list the company without them having to pay and yes, what a concept, if there is a new company with lower prices we will list them before the other ones. Non non-sense rules with places already taken.

Again – expect more issues in our series on cheapest price dollar per watt peak for solar panels and modules. We plan to add analysis for other components like inverters, mounting hardware and wiring too.

We will try expand by braking down the list or at least explicitly emphasizing on the specific type of the panel (or comprising cell) when we talk about price per watt since the kind of technology used is defining with the price per watt.

The continuing growth, despite the global crisis, in the renewable energy businesses drives a lot of interest to our studies on large projects like Price, Dollar Per Watt for Large Solar Photovoltaic Projects . In many countries through feed-in-tariffs (FIT’s) and subsidies for the capital expenses in vesting in the solar power generation has become a very profitable business and there are growing number of large scale projects getting to the drawing board. We are working and planning to release very soon an analysis on what countries offer best investing environment for building a solar power station. The most important factors that we are after are solar insolation (a natural phenomenon – so not much related to current business environment), feed-in-tariffs, cost of construction, other possible factors like subsidies for building, tax environment. Our Economics of Solar Power and Solar Energy Land Area Efficiency or How Many Acres per MW, kWp per Acre have been under the radar for investors who plan new large projects. We were worried that having to use Euro as part of the cost analysis would be a problem but some of the readers have thanked us for this. We did actually do calculations in US dollar too, so, we home there was no confusion.

Interest towards information on off grid systems especially for remote installation like vacation homes, cabins, lake houses, hinting cabins has also grown. There sees to be growing interest in solar photovoltaic systems with batteries able to provide independent power supply in places where grid power is impossible or difficult to get.

The awareness of the benefits of using power has grown and we can tell there is a lot of interest towards the solar energy systems because of benefits different, or in addition to economic efficiency. We are planning an article on the benefits of solar beyond money, or at least beyond the purchase/acquisition price – revenue ratio. Some of the positives that are not directly related to economic efficiency do indirectly give economic benefits to their owners or to the economy and the society.

Another area of interest has been the breakdown of price for solar photovoltaic (PV) systems. We talks about price per watt for components (solar panels for example) and for whole projects. It will be interesting to see how the total cost spent on a project are broken down by materials (components) and services (incl. labor).

Analysis on strategic issued of the governments like the role of renewables to replace at least partially the use of nonrenewable, toxic and imported fuels has drawn a lot of interest too. We plan to expand the analysis in that area too.

In addition to the free entry we offer of vendors on our cheapest solar panels per watt list we also have one of the most comprehensive free directories if the renewable energy business out there. Renewable Energy Directory. We build the directory based on our findings for popular and relevant websites and we include the websites and companies who simply contact us and want to be included in it. We do not ask for money to do that because we think this limits free and open competition.

We receive a lot of questions and comments through our Contact Us form. We do not publish those unless requested by the authors. Please feel free to comment through the Comment forms on most of our articles and other pages. Also please let us know if you want messages from you (that are not sent through the Comment forms) to be posted on the site and what credits and back links to include with them.

Economics of Solar Power

SolarByTheWatt.com — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 02:25:22 +0000

One of the most frequently asked questions to consultants and specialists in the solar energy industry is how efficient is the investment in a solar power installation – small or large.

(jump directly to calculation tables)

We want to look at a very simple model of economic efficiency where are we interested in the annual return on investment. A project involving a solar photovoltaic installation requires certain amount of capital to be built and will expect certain amount of annual revenue. The simple indicator of efficiency that we want to study is this annual return on invested capital.

There are more complex models that also include the cost of capital. In a model that studies the cost of the electricity produced for example the cost of capital and factored in return for the investor could be very important factors. Cost of capital on its own can be a complex concept too. Whether the capital is borrowed and the cost will be defined by the interest rate of the loan or is cash participation from the investor and the cost will be defined by other opportunities the investor has to invest in (including risk free investments) or the combination of the two, cost of capital is very significant factor in such models.

We simplify our model to the level of looking at potential return from invested amount of capital. Further investment efficiency study and study on the cost of production of electricity should involve cost of capital.

We will also try to come to tables of calculated efficiency depending on different factors but not the size of the installation. The size of the installation definitely impacts the efficiency of a project. This is the traditional concept of economy if scales. A larger project will be expected to be more efficient over all because of the spread fixed expenses that the project has. But we will be building our model around the idea of dollar per watt, dollar per watt peak, so that it is applicable to different. The efficiency that comes from scale can be reflected in the factors going in to our model – specifically cost to build.

Another factor not included in our model is the maintenance cost of the solar installation. We are hoping that the reader can find resources which will indicate dollar per watt peak what the expected cost to maintain the station are.

The factors that expect to influence our model are: cost to build the power installation, insolation at the geographic location, electricity market price.

The cost to build the power installation includes:

the price of the core photovoltaic components employed: modules, panels, arrays (what exactly list of such components we deal with depends on the design and configuration of the installation),
the price of the mounting equipment (trackers and, or positioning frames) and wiring;
price of inverters and grid connection equipment
service and labor cost to assemble
management and administration costs and costs of permits

The insolation at the geographic location. The insolation is the amount of solar light energy falling on the surface of the earth at a given geographic location per certain amount of area in the span of certain unit of time. More specifically the unit of measure used is watt per square meter (W/m²) or also kilowatt hour per square meter per day (kWh/m²/day). Insolation in Europe, just for reference purposes, approximately, ranges between 1,000 to 2,000 kWh per year per installed kWp, in the continental US – between 800 to 2,100 kWh per year per installed kWp for different regions. Exact numbers can be found in different reference tables and insolation maps on the internet and elsewhere.

In the photovoltaic industry a measure of insolation is employed which helps us more directly figure out how much electricity in kilowatt hours (kWh) we can produced annually from an installed nominal watt (Wp) – that is kilowatt hours annually per installed kWp (kWh/kWp/y).

The market price of the electricity produced. Since we are trying to figure out economic efficiency – annual return on investment we need to involve in the model:

the price of the electricity we produce and sell to the grid

or conversely

the price of the amount of electricity we offset that we were otherwise going to pay for at such market price.

In many places in the world – by country or by specific territory (state, other subdivision) there are financial incentives for investors in photovoltaic power stations in the way of a special feed-in-tariff. These usually are higher price the grid pays to energy producers who utilize photovoltaic power stations. If we have to give some examples these countries have the following feed-in-tariffs (unit of measure is Euros per kWh since classically many of the notable incentives started in Europe and that is the currency used there): Austria 0.57 – 0.59, Germany 0.52 – 0.57, Italy, 0.36 – 0.49, France 0.30 – 0.55, Spain 0.19 – 0.44, Switzerland 0.10 – 0.50, Israel 0.14 – 0.16, Bulgaria 0.40.

The formula.

The annual return on investment in a solar power station will be the annual income from sold (or offset electricity) divided by the amount of the investment.

Annual return on investment = annual income ($) / investment amount ($).

The annual income is the market price of the electricity in dollar ($) per kilowatt hour (kWh) times the amount of energy produced in an year in kilowatt hours (kWh).

Annual income ($) = production per year (kWh) x market price ($/kWh)

The production per year is the solar insolation in kilowatt hours per year per kilowatt peak installed times the installed capacity/power in kilowatt peak (kWp).

Production per year (kWh) = insolation (kWh/y/kWp) x installed capacity (kWp) .

So that we can work on dollar per watt basis we will express the investment amount by the investment cost per watt.

Investment amount ($) = total cost per watt ($/Wp) x installed capacity (kWp) x 1,000

– the 1,000 factor is to adjust the dollar per watt unit to the kWp in which we are measuring the installed power.

So the complete formula for the annual return on investment will be:

Annual return on investment = annual income ($) / investment amount ($)

If we use the formula for the annual income we get:

= production per year (kWh) x market price ($/kWh) / (total cost per watt ($/Wp) x installed capacity (kWp) x 1,000)

If we use the formula for the production per year we come to:

= insolation (kWh/y/kWp) x installed capacity (kW) x market price ($/kWh) / (total cost per watt ($/Wp) x installed capacity (kWp) x 1,000)

Here we can get rid of the installed capacity (kWp) in the numerator and denominator and get to:

Annual return on investment
= insolation (kWh/y/kWp) x market price ($/kWh)
/ ( total cost per watt ($/Wp) x 1,000 )

Let’s use the formula in an example where $7 per watt were spend in the building of the station, the insolation is 1,200 kWh per installed kWp and there is a $0.52 feed-in-tariff for the electricity produced.

Annual return on investment = 1,200 x 0.52 / (7 x 1,000) = 624 / 7,000 = 8.92%.

This calculated rate now can be compared to cost of capital and maintenance cost can be factored in to look for some more complete number of real economic return.

In addition to this formula the following tables can be used to get to approximate numbers:

The first table is given for insolation of 1,000 (this can be easily factored if we know the specific insolation, i.e. for 1,500 we just have to multiply by 1.5, for 2,200 we simply multiply by 2.2, etc.)

The investment cost per watt is given in a very wide range of $3 to $10 per watt but it is not implied that these are possible, practical or easy to obtain prices in reality. Our research shows that large industrial project can reach down to $6 per watt of such cost and smaller commercial and residential projects can go up to $10 and even $15 per watt peak installed.

The price for kWh of electricity is given in a range of $0.05 to $0.60 to reflect different market prices for electric energy and all possible feed in tariffs.

Annual Return on Investment At Insolation of 1,000 kWh/kWp:

	Cost to build, dollar per watt peak ($/Wp)
Price $/kWh	3.00	4.00	5.00	6.00	7.00	8.00	9.00	10.00
0.05	1.67%	1.25%	1.00%	0.83%	0.71%	0.63%	0.56%	0.50%
0.10	3.33%	2.50%	2.00%	1.67%	1.43%	1.25%	1.11%	1.00%
0.15	5.00%	3.75%	3.00%	2.50%	2.14%	1.88%	1.67%	1.50%
0.20	6.67%	5.00%	4.00%	3.33%	2.86%	2.50%	2.22%	2.00%
0.25	8.33%	6.25%	5.00%	4.17%	3.57%	3.13%	2.78%	2.50%
0.30	10.00%	7.50%	6.00%	5.00%	4.29%	3.75%	3.33%	3.00%
0.35	11.67%	8.75%	7.00%	5.83%	5.00%	4.38%	3.89%	3.50%
0.40	13.33%	10.00%	8.00%	6.67%	5.71%	5.00%	4.44%	4.00%
0.45	15.00%	11.25%	9.00%	7.50%	6.43%	5.63%	5.00%	4.50%
0.50	16.67%	12.50%	10.00%	8.33%	7.14%	6.25%	5.56%	5.00%
0.55	18.33%	13.75%	11.00%	9.17%	7.86%	6.88%	6.11%	5.50%
0.60	20.00%	15.00%	12.00%	10.00%	8.57%	7.50%	6.67%	6.00%

Annual Return on Investment At Insolation of 1,500 kWh/kWp:

	Cost to build, dollar per watt peak ($/Wp)
Price $/kWh	3.00	4.00	5.00	6.00	7.00	8.00	9.00	10.00
0.05	2.50%	1.88%	1.50%	1.25%	1.07%	0.94%	0.83%	0.75%
0.10	5.00%	3.75%	3.00%	2.50%	2.14%	1.88%	1.67%	1.50%
0.15	7.50%	5.63%	4.50%	3.75%	3.21%	2.81%	2.50%	2.25%
0.20	10.00%	7.50%	6.00%	5.00%	4.29%	3.75%	3.33%	3.00%
0.25	12.50%	9.38%	7.50%	6.25%	5.36%	4.69%	4.17%	3.75%
0.30	15.00%	11.25%	9.00%	7.50%	6.43%	5.63%	5.00%	4.50%
0.35	17.50%	13.13%	10.50%	8.75%	7.50%	6.56%	5.83%	5.25%
0.40	20.00%	15.00%	12.00%	10.00%	8.57%	7.50%	6.67%	6.00%
0.45	22.50%	16.88%	13.50%	11.25%	9.64%	8.44%	7.50%	6.75%
0.50	25.00%	18.75%	15.00%	12.50%	10.71%	9.38%	8.33%	7.50%
0.55	27.50%	20.63%	16.50%	13.75%	11.79%	10.31%	9.17%	8.25%
0.60	30.00%	22.50%	18.00%	15.00%	12.86%	11.25%	10.00%	9.00%

Annual Return on Investment At Insolation of 2,000 kWh/kWp:

	Cost to build, dollar per watt peak ($/Wp)
Price $/kWh	3.00	4.00	5.00	6.00	7.00	8.00	9.00	10.00
0.05	3.33%	2.50%	2.00%	1.67%	1.43%	1.25%	1.11%	1.00%
0.10	6.67%	5.00%	4.00%	3.33%	2.86%	2.50%	2.22%	2.00%
0.15	10.00%	7.50%	6.00%	5.00%	4.29%	3.75%	3.33%	3.00%
0.20	13.33%	10.00%	8.00%	6.67%	5.71%	5.00%	4.44%	4.00%
0.25	16.67%	12.50%	10.00%	8.33%	7.14%	6.25%	5.56%	5.00%
0.30	20.00%	15.00%	12.00%	10.00%	8.57%	7.50%	6.67%	6.00%
0.35	23.33%	17.50%	14.00%	11.67%	10.00%	8.75%	7.78%	7.00%
0.40	26.67%	20.00%	16.00%	13.33%	11.43%	10.00%	8.89%	8.00%
0.45	30.00%	22.50%	18.00%	15.00%	12.86%	11.25%	10.00%	9.00%
0.50	33.33%	25.00%	20.00%	16.67%	14.29%	12.50%	11.11%	10.00%
0.55	36.67%	27.50%	22.00%	18.33%	15.71%	13.75%	12.22%	11.00%
0.60	40.00%	30.00%	24.00%	20.00%	17.14%	15.00%	13.33%	12.00%

To factor in the cost of capital in the numbers from these tables one needs to subtract the cost of capital as a percentage. For example if the cost of capital is 4% that has to be subtracted from the numbers in the tables above. Similar adjustment can be made for to factor in the maintenance costs.

Configuration efficiency, (performance ratio). We do not know whether this term is discussed in other research in length but we want to mention it for this reason: projects with equal labeled peak power – watt peak (Wp), nominal power, if taken directly from the labeled peak power of the modules involved can have different overall output electricity production – kilowatt hour (kWh) per year at the same geographic location. This could be because of how different modules perform when positioned with trackers or mounted stationary, or how well they perform in different cloud conditions etc. etc. So, realistically the nominal installed power (Wp) that can be used with insolation numbers to figure out annual production can be different for different installations mainly because of the type of modules used a the specific conditions (insolation, cloudiness, positioning etc.) For the different projects this factor has to be specifically researched based on data from similar configuration used in existing projects. By information we can get to such factor can vary between 0.75 and 1.4 – i.e. the electricity produced in a year from the installation in kWh may vary from the above calculation for known insolation from –25% to +40% from the indicated.

Solar Energy Land Area Efficiency or How Many Acres per MW, kWp per Acre

Can Solar Energy Completely Replace Fossil Fuel and Other Sources?

A Short Science Lesson for Journalists – Watts, Kilowatts, Megawatts, Kilowatt Hours

Lowest Solar Panel Prices Per Watt 2009-02-24

Resources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photovoltaic

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insolation

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feed-in_Tariff

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PV_financial_incentives

The Environmental Benefits of Using Solar Panels As An Energy Source

SolarByTheWatt.com — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 06:30:05 +0000

You probably know the sun generates more than 10,000 times the amount of energy the entire world consumes annually. Yet, this “free” energy has remained greatly untapped. Conversely, the environment is being degraded by our current energy choices. The positives for using solar panels are obvious, but what few know is how it also helps our environment.

First lets look at what we are using currently to meet our energy needs, coal and nuclear energy, and how ecologically damaging they are.

To start, most existing coal plants release many different toxins directly into the air we breathe, from sulfur to lead and mercury. Even the newer plants coming on line, which reduce toxins dramatically, still produce massive quantities of CO2, a greenhouse gas and a direct cause of global warming. Natural gas is far more benign but still produces large quantities of CO2 when used to produce electricity. How much CO2 is released – a 5-kilowatt solar system will prevent the release of nearly 10,400 pounds of CO2 every year for the life of the system. The average home uses 8,000-kilowatt hours per year. A coal power plant producing that much electricity emits about 18,000 pounds of CO2 per year.

When coal is burned, carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and mercury compounds are released. For that reason, coal-fired boilers are required to have control devices to reduce the amount of emissions that are released. Mining, cleaning, and transporting coal to the power plant generate additional emissions. For example, methane, a potent greenhouse gas that is trapped in the coal, is often vented during these processes to increase safety.

Secondly, large quantities of water are needed to remove impurities from coal at the mine. These large quantities of water are used for producing steam and for cooling systems. When coal-fired power plants remove water from a lake or river, the fish and other aquatic life can be affected, as well as animals and people who depend on these aquatic resources. At the same time, pollutants build up in the water used by the power plant boiler and cooling system. If the water used in the power plant is discharged to a lake or river, the pollutants in the water can harm fish and plants.

Last, the burning of coal creates solid waste, called ash, which is composed primarily of metal oxides and alkali. On average, the ash content of coal is 10 percent. Solid waste is also created at coal mines when coal is cleaned and at power plants when air pollutants are removed from the stack gas. Much of this waste is deposited in landfills and abandoned mines, although some amounts are now being recycled into useful products, such as cement and building materials.

So, you may say, what about nuclear power? While nuclear power plants do not emit carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, or nitrogen oxides – fossil fuel emissions are associated with the uranium mining and uranium enrichment process as well as the transport of the uranium fuel to the nuclear plant. Nuclear power plants also use large quantities of water for steam production and for cooling. When nuclear power plants remove water from a lake or river, fish and other aquatic life can be affected. Water pollutants, such as heavy metals and salts build up in the water used in the nuclear power plant systems. These water pollutants, as well as the higher temperature of the water discharged from the power plant, can negatively affect water quality and aquatic life.

Waste generated from uranium mining operations and rainwater runoff can contaminate groundwater and surface water resources with heavy metals and traces of radioactive uranium. Every 18 to 24 months, nuclear power plants must shut down to remove and replace the “spent” uranium fuel. This spent fuel has released most of its energy as a result of the fission process and has become radioactive waste.

All of the nuclear power plants in the United States together produce about 2,000 metric tons per year of radioactive waste. Currently, the radioactive waste is stored at the nuclear plants at which it is generated, either in steel-lined, concrete vaults filled with water or in above-ground steel or steel-reinforced concrete containers with steel inner canisters. This waste will remain radioactive for many thousands of years.

As you can see, the more solar power is used, the more it helps our environment. By investing in solar today you are investing in your future and your children’s future and you do this by combating global warming and reduce our nation’s dependence of foreign energy sources. And, you are helping in the reduction of CO2 emissions and protecting clean water sources. It’s amazing how such a small change in one’s life can do so much. ARI Green Energy is a manufacturer of wind generator technologies. Visit them today for a full line of wind turbines and solar technology solutions. Think green.

Article Source: http://www.articlealley.com/article_830778_45.html

About the Author: Author: Robert Bell