COST PER KILOWATT HOUR

[[email protected]]

What is the cost of solar power per kw/hour ?

 

[Fred B. McGalliard]

as I recall you can find cells for about $3/watt.
You get around 5 hours/day and around 300 days a year (there is some down
time even in LA). For about 1.5 KWH/year. And the cells can survive for
30-60 or more years. so this is around 75 KWH for $3. About 4 cents per KWH.
This assumes that you do not dump any of it but put it all somewhere useful.
This requires that it be a part of a grid system, perhaps one with large
storage capacity somewhere. For a personal or small business system you have
to provide local storage, as in batteries, and the cost of the batteries can
dominate the long term cost of this solar power.

 

[William P.N. Smith]

Is 30-60 years a realistic number?

That indeed is the 64K$ question. While modern panels come with
20-year warranties, no modern panels have been in service for 20 years
or more, so we don't really know(*) how long they'll last.

(*) Engineering analysis and accellerated lifetime testing can only do
so much. You pays your money and you takes your chances. For
purposes of financial modelling you should probably pick a number
around 20 years, but be prepared to be off by a factor of (say) two.

 

[Chuck Y]

A friend in humbolt (way off grid) has a couple from the
late 70's (77 or so). They run at around 80% of their initial
capacity. 25 years and 80% is pretty good.

I don't expect that they've gotten WORSE in the last 1/4 century.

30-60 years is all theory, of course. Mass production wasn't
really there and the public couldn't get them until the mid 70s.
There were exceptions, but I'm talking about being able to make
a call and get 4 panels delivered to Joe Schmoe.