New Solar Cells 20 Times Cheaper

handy_vandal writes "STMicroelectronics has announced a new generation of photocells made from organic plastics. Over a typical 20-year life span of a solar cell, a single produced watt should cost as little as $0.20, compared with the current $4. See also article @ cnn.com. On a related note, this article @ IEEE discusses new improved LED technology by the same team."

"organic plastics"?

[Elwood P Dowd]

Does the phrase "Organic Plastics" strike anyone else as exceedingly stupid?

"Get this! It's plastic... made from LONG CARBON CHAINS! BRILLIANT! Why did we never think of this before!?!"

Someone want to explain that to me? Aren't all plastics "organic"?

Re:At that price...

[wankledot]

Laugh it up. [solareagle.com]

Re:I heard Solar was going to get cheaper in 1976

[cgranade]

A lot of it comes down to power density... even if you can afford solar cells, the power delivered per square length is low. Right now, power efficency is at maybe 15-20%, with pending increases as technology improves. What that means is that we get only 1/5 of the possible power out of our solar cells. Give it time... after all, fuel cells have been around since the mid 1800s...

I don't believe it guys. Sorry.

[Ophidian P. Jones]

I don't believe this story for a second. Not a bit.

For decades I have been folowing solar cell technology, absolutely salivating at the promises that efficiency rating would soon rise above 15%, or that costs would no longer be prohibitively expensive or damaging to the environment (moreso than more conventional, polluting alternatives).

Well, I've given up. I've read shitty pie-in-the-sky stories like this almost every year for the last 25-years.

Now, if someone on Slashdot tells me that they bought these +50% efficient solar cells in Home Depot, that's when I'll get excited. Like I'll get excited when Chevrolet markets a flying car or my city puts a nuclear fusion power plant into service.

Re:Potential Importance

[gwernol]

Even with existing prices, it is about as cheap to buy cheaper land in outlying areas and generate your own power as it is to pay a power company _and_ pay higher prices for land. The main problem is you have to have a fair degree of mechanical aptitude to keep one of these systems running reliably.

No, the main problem is that unless you are generating your power using only renewable resources, you are likely causing a disproportionately high amount of pollution. Almost all power generation from fossil fuels is much more efficient if done on a large scale at a centralized power generation station. If we abandonded the grid and went to a lot of localized power generation facilities, the overall impact on the environment would be severe.

Re:no wonder

[leoxx]

One thing you should also keep in mind is that when they talk about "initial cost", they are in part referring to the amount of energy (and thus pollution) needed to create the solar cells themselves. With current cells, it takes a lot of energy to make them, so although they are pollution free when they run, they caused a lot of pollution when they were made so the net benefit can be limited. As someone who lives in a relatively sunny climate, I can't wait for improvements to the technology so I can get my house off the grid!

Re:Misleading body. RTFA.

[Croaker]

To quote the CNN Article:

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) -- A major European chip maker said this week it had discovered new ways to produce solar cells which will generate electricity twenty times cheaper than today's solar panels.

So, the question is, did Reuters screw up, or is there an announcement that didn't make it to the STMicroelectronics page that was linked to in the body?

Re:"organic plastics"?

[phliar]

Sorry, no. Organic chemistry is carbon chemistry. For instance, the study of alkanes (hydrocarbons like octane, aka petrol/gasoline) is organic chemistry. While oxygen is present in just about all the interesting organic compunds, it is not a necessary condition. Also, "plastic" is a pretty generic term for synthetic polymers -- phenolic resins such as Bakelite, for instance, have oxygen atoms.

This war on terror

[anarchima]

Perhaps the United States govt. could spend just a tiny fraction of the hundreds of billions of dollars it is throwing at the oil companies, on some serious R&D into clean energy...Meh.

NIMBY all over again.

[Nino the Mind Boggle]

Just stretching out the "back yard" to the moon is all.

Wind power runs into this all the time, too.

Consumer: "Yes, let's build more wind/solar power plants."

Power company: "OK. The best location for that is site A."

Consumer: "What? That will ruin the view!"

Power company: [sigh]

Re:Sign Me Up!

[Politburo]

Since he used the cost per watt, the efficiency difference is already integrated. It may turn out, however, that his calculations would call for a square footage of solar panels that is larger than your roof.

Re:At that price...

[Seanasy]

And i thought we were technologically advanced.

But in so many other ways, we're still pretty un-advanced[sic], or at least, it has always seemed that way to me.

uhmmm... we're "un-advanced" compared to what?

Re:At that price...

[Blikbok]

A LED light like the CMG Infinity will run for 30-48 hours on an AA battery. The brighter CMG Infinity Ultra will run for 10-12 hours on the same battery.
http://www.cmgequipment.com/Infinity_New.html [cmgequipment.com]

Since it's only used for a few minutes every night, batteries last for months. Check out the Avexa Swiss Light (link in my previous post) for a much more modern take on the solar-powered flashlight.

Re:Why this is important..

[Rob Riggs]

Getting 5% interest on that $4, it'd be worth $10.61 by then end of the 20 year period. Averaging that out, the last watt costs you $.18 in 2023 money.

You cannot get 5% interest on a CD today. The best interest rate you can get today does not match the current rate of inflation for energy. Nor do you know that at any time in the future it will. In fact, you can be fairly certain that the rate of inflation will be quite close, on average, to the rate earned on a CD. So, there is no need to do this sort of calculation.

Re:exoskelton

[bheerssen]

That's the whole point of this article. Buy using organic plastics, they can reduce the price considerably. As they further their research, expect the price to drop further. A few more advances like this one and we'll have our affordable solar. These greens you disparage may not be working with ideal technology, but they are working, and making progress.

Look at history. In the 60's the idea of a 'personal computer' was probably pretty laughable.

Re:Balance of power

[letxa2000]

I guess you were against the space race too, because it wasn't "cost effective"?

No, I wasn't against it. But I would've been against requiring all citizens to use space capsules to get to work at a time when it was cheaper to drive a car (and still is, of course). Likewise, I'm not against the use of solar or alternative energy. It's a great goal. I *AM* against the government *requiring* alternative energy before it is economically viable.

The point here is that, hopefully, these guys are going to make solary energy more economically viable--at which point solar energy will be adopted by the masses whether the government requires it or not. As such, the business operating in the free market is making solar energy economically viable and attractive to everyone. What the government couldn't force down our throats capitalism and the free market provide all by themselves.

Funny how the "evil capitalists" eventually do more to help the environment than the environmentalists that run around in circles complaining about evil capitalism and all the consumption in our society--consumption which generates wealth which allows companies such as this to develop technology that, in the end, improves the environment. :)

Gotta love it.

Re:Sign Me Up!

[Lord Ender]

"Now If 100 more people in my area do the same? you get a major drop in the need to generate electricity by the company... expand this to 20% of the residents here? you can forget about having to build a new power plant... the consumer is making your power now..."

Actually, they would need just as many power plants as if there were no solar panels. They would not be running at full capacity during the day, but at night, the plants would be the only source of power.

the big picture

[Anonymous Coward]

That is only because things like long term environmental damage and the inability to sustain our mining of resources like oil in the future are not factored into the price you pay for company generated electricity.

In fact, damage done to the environment usually hits us multiple times (and very little of it is factored in)... just to make the fuel you have the mining, the shipping, the refining - all of which cause air pollution and water pollution that isn't factored into the cost you pay for company generated electricity. Then, if we're talking about fuels that are burned, that also generates air pollution that may only be marginally factored into the overall cost (by filter technology mandates etc. - but then there are always grandfather clauses)

Basing judgements of actual value - actual cost - purely on prices, is really quite naive.