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The State of the Thin-Film Photovoltaic Industry

Is it wise to install a solar system in an area that has golf-ball sized hail once every 10 years?

The State of the Thin-Film Photovoltaic Industry

My calculation is the same except they take into account a 5% "loan" for having to up-front the costs. That gives 10 cents/kWh at $2.5/Wp when the loan is spread out over 25 years. A more realistic 7% loan for home owners would make it 12 cents/kWh. Currently the price is $8/Wp. The magic number for utilities to find it profitable is more like $1.25/Wp.

solarbuzz.com/Consumer...

The State of the Thin-Film Photovoltaic Industry

Steve, I said southeast, not southwest. Here's the "solar insolation" on wiki for the sunlight chart:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

It's for standard latitude tilt, south facing solar systems. 6-7 kWh/d/m^2 for most of southwest, 5-5.5 for southeast, yearly average. Multiply by 13% efficiency x 365 x 25 yr to get the amount of 7117 kWh/25yr/m^2 for 13% eff modules. A m^2 of FSLR will someday be 13% producing which is 130 Wpeak/m^2 (1 kW/m^2 max Sun x 0.13) and at $3/Wpeak means $260/m^2 for FSLR. For 6 kWh/d/m^2 this yields $260/7117 = $0.0365/kWh/25yr

I used $1/Wp profit to help justify current stock price and as long as there is no competition, they don't need to lower it. We can reduce it to $0.50/Wp to get $0.03/kwh/25 yr. $1/Wp installation might also be possible, bringing it down to $0.024/kWh/25yr

These numbers are for large installations. Small installations might be twice as high, less than the $0.08/kWh you've calculated.

A 10kWp solar system would provide only 1.7 kW when averaged over 24 hour. A household of 2 requires about 6 kW averaged over the course of a day to power the house and car. This would require a 30 kWp solar system at the house. Someday, an installed system at the house might be only $4/Wp including energy storage and therefore cost only $0.05/kWh, but that's a $120K loan to be paid off, something like $900/month on a 25-year loan, and the system is used up by the end of the loan. Suddenly it doesn't look like a $0.05/kWh system (half price from the utlity) anymore. That's the importance of making a distinction between Wp and actual watts: the large initial outlay. So the $2/W capital cost of coal and nuclear can't be compared to the $1/Wp capital cost of solar cells, because that $2/W is 24 hr/day for 40 years but the $1/Wp for solar cells averages out to $5/W over 24 hours for 25 years.

If you have some numbers showing how solar distribution is a lot cheaper than nuclear distribution, I'd like to see them. Likewise, i'd like to see a source that says daytime power is 5 times more valuable.

30 nuke plants are being built right now. Construction itself takes 4 years (from WNAI web site). In the U.S., it's obviously a little more difficult than that.

The State of the Thin-Film Photovoltaic Industry

I don't see where i made an error. I gave FSLR $3/Wp in 2012, which is pretty much the same as $3.50 now. We know they're selling now close to $2/Wp, so that gives the same installation cost ($1.50/Wp) which I assume won't go down much and I expect them to keep a $1/Wp profit margin. They expect to reduce costs by $0.50/Wp by 2012, so my numbers are pretty much exact on that. Keep in mind that $3/Wp is $14 per actual watt when averaged over 24 hr in relatively sunny places like the southeast U.S. that averages only 5kWh/day/m^2 of sun. The best places in the world are 9 kWh/day which would be $8/W actual as the best FSLR can ever do. This is before distribution and power company profit margins, so i don't know why you're complaining about the same omission when it comes to coal and nukes. Is there something cheaper about solar cell distribution? The costs for solar will be even higher on home installations. Notice that my 15 cents/kWh at the house for nuke is 5 times higher than the accepted 3 cents/kWh for nuclear. This allows 60% losses, a great profit margin, and overcoming even U.S. regulatory hurdles. Of course coal could have CO2 and that's just another reason to go nuclear. Let me know if you find any errors in my numbers.

The State of the Thin-Film Photovoltaic Industry

Looks like I'm late to the nuclear party: the WNAI index upon which PKN is based has increased 400% in the past 5 years. I didn't know i was that much out of the loop.

The State of the Thin-Film Photovoltaic Industry

Correcting bad English: thin-film seems to be $1.5/Wp installed. My 4 cents/kWh for FSLR in 2012 assumes $3/Wp installed as calculated in previous post. I should say Si doesn't seem to be able to get down to 4 times the cost of coal/nuclear in most locations at $5/Wp installed (half today's price?) and using the average 4 kWh/day/m^2 for southeast U.S. and 25 year lifespan. Since silicon can come online faster than nuke and out-supply thin-film and since the PE's are really good now, I have a position in CSIQ (smaller, faster growing) and BCON (currently the only way to store the energy for night-time to recharge your car - new carbon composite flywheels under vacuum, 5% loss overnight). But BCON's a long-long way from that use and it's not really a secret technology.

I would like to have a 25 kWh flywheel unit to get me through the night if i had a 10 kWp solar cell installation powering the house. Make that 50 kWh flywheel and 20 kWp solar if I need an additional 1 gallon of fuel per day for a car. Nuclear would be a lot cheaper at $300 a month at 15 cents/kWh. For 20 kWp future Si solar cells/thermal solar (you can forget thin film as explained above) might cost as little as $100,000 installed and $50,000 for the $1/kWh storage overnight. This is the nuclear and solar cell cost for the equivalent of 2 gallons of fuel a day for house electricity and avg use of one car: $150,000 loan ($1,200/month for 25 years) for solar or $300/month for nuclear. The average per capita of the U.S. is twice as much, 4 "gallons" a day of energy (including manufacturing, food, etc, everything).

The State of the Thin-Film Photovoltaic Industry

The thing about nuclear is this: where else are we going to get the energy? Especially at night and "low-light", "windless" areas. For example, the northeast U.S. Worldwide, there's not enough indium and tellurium for more than 200 GW (1 TWp) and it doesn't seem like Si will get down to twice the price of coal. Even the thin-film claims of "grid parity" are not true if it's going to continue to cost $1.5/Wp installed. In a post above I showed how that causes FSLR's best future price (no tellurium shortage) in the perfect sunny location to be 4 cents/kWh, almost twice the cost of coal electricity production in the U.S. and equal to the price in France. At-home units would cost twice as much which means consumers even in the U.S. should install residentially to bypass the power company profit and distribution costs/losses (we currently pay 10 cents/kwh). My point is that thin film will barely meet coal/nuclear costs which means Si doesn't have a chance. So the question is, if nuclear isn't the answer for future energy needs, what is? The gain in nuclear stocks isn't from an installed plant 20 years from now, but the planning and construction going on now. Construction is planned to begin on about 100 nuclear power plants in the next 15 years. 30 just in China. Each reactor (a plant can have 1 to 4) is about 1GW, so each plant is equal to FSLR's 2011 or 2012 output which will require 100% of the world's annual tellurium production (500 tonnes/yr). Nuclear makes up about 6.5% of the world's energy production, and as the oil runs out, guess where the majority of new energy will come from. If nuclear can't come online fast enough, I'd be selling my FSLR/ASTI in 2011 before the metals run out and place it in nukes for a great retirement and inheritance. I'm switching to nuke now before everyone else catches on.

The State of the Thin-Film Photovoltaic Industry

Steve, people should look at watt-hr instead of watts, but no one really knows how long the various technologies will last and it depends on environment. ASTI reports that someday they will reach $0.90/W so that's a slight addendum for the CIGS. CdTe is currently $1.12/W which is not fair since they expect to be $0.60/W in 5 years. Si will also decrease. Also, installed costs are roughly $1.5/W which dilutes all of the differences from a buyers standpoint. A better number to look at is profit/Watt (or profit/kWh) and no one can beat FSLR on that because they are here and now and can have a huge margin because competitors are behind. Then there are the incurable metal shortages which will stop FSLR in 2012 and CIGS in 2013.

ASTI reports an expected Capex of $2/Wp capacity, or $0.30/Wp if they are able to churn CIGS out for 7 years. Converting from peak to actual is about $1.5/W, comparable to nuclear capital expenditure.

Where is ASTI going to get $220M plus $50M in R&D and G&A over the next 4 years?

The State of the Thin-Film Photovoltaic Industry

Andrew, my numbers were kWh, not kW. If FSLR eventually sells for $1.5/Wp and the end user's total cost installed is $3/W and you place it in the best desert in the U.S. (8kWh/day yearly avg) and it's at 12% efficiency for 25 years, then FSLR cost is 4 cents/kWh verses nuclear's 2.5 cents.

The State of the Thin-Film Photovoltaic Industry

Andrew, my numbers are total cost for kWh, including capital costs, maintenance, refining, and disposal. Nuclear is more cost effective than coal and it doesn't have a 1 TWp (200 GW actual) theoretical maximum like all thin films combined. It has been competitive with coal in the past, achieving today 25% of the world kWh produced by coal. It now costs even less. The price of nuclear is 4 years ahead of solar. If global warming gets worse press, nuclear may start to be viewed as the new green energy. It emits no particulates, SO2, NOx, CO, mercury, or CO2. Those $2B plants produce 1GW for 40 years. That's a good number for comparing to FSLR: in 2010 it will be producing the equivalent of one nuclear power plant. If you've ever been around a nuclear power plant, you know how amazing an achievement that is. In 1987 the world produced 0.5TW of nuclear and it hasn't increased much since then, but the industry has been incubating (slowly researching and achieving) to be safer and cheaper.

The State of the Thin-Film Photovoltaic Industry

Nuclear costs $0.017 to $0.029/kWh verses $0.02/kWh for coal and the future installed price of FSLR. FSLR will never have a reason to charge less than coal. Nuclear must be cheap since something like 10% of the world's electricity is already made by nuclear. The costs have been decreasing the last 20 years, while coal has gone up. Uranium ("at the pump") is currently half the price of coal.

www.uic.com.au/nip08.h...

I agree ASTI is really early in the game, especially in light of nanosolar apparently not living up to the hype.

The chart in the link above is interesting: the at $0.08/kWh and quickly rising for gas and oil, solar could NOW be used by power companies as peaking units to offset peaks in air conditioning units during sunny days. Those peaking units are a major reason gas has increased so much in recent years. 10 to 5 years ago, there was a flood of U.S. power companies installing gas turbines as peaking units. I went to one of them being installed and thought "this is insane". I knew even then gas didn't need to be used for that kind of thing. Now flywheels made by BCON could replace those turbines....as well as evening out the output of wind farms.

The State of the Thin-Film Photovoltaic Industry

ASTI has all of 34 employees and a market cap of 134 M. So producing "only" 110 MW in 2011 at a profit of $1/W would be a fantastic PE=1.3. Better than FSLR can dream of. DSTI's web site says CIGS can easily beat CdTe's efficiency at 20%. 15% seems more reasonable at ASTI for 2011 which would make it directly competitive with FSLR after installation costs are taken into account (15% better efficiency for ASTI means 30% lower installed cost, making the $1/W more comparable to FSLR's anticipated $0.70 per watt in 2012).

I wouldn't discount < 200 micron Si as everyone else here has. I've switched from FSLR to CSIQ. CSIQ has been ramping production even faster than FSLR and their projected PE is five times better. They also expect to increase margin by a factor of 3 compared to FSLR just keeping their 45% margin. FSLR and CIGS will not produce enough to satisfy demand. Si has it's place. But if demand does wane, Si can be crushed. That "tripling" of margin i mentioned for CSIQ is going from 5% to 15%. If demand wanes away from the more expensive cells, FSLR will not suffer a bit but the Si players will go negative margin overnight.

It's a fascinating field with a lot of entertainment to come. But they won't be able to supply as much energy as nuclear which is why i'm also in PKN.

The State of the Thin-Film Photovoltaic Industry

It would be nice to know how much $ per year FSLR has sent to AMAT for equipment.

Contradictions in the Solar Market

I agree that the seeking alpha article that discussed oversupply is probably wrong. The reported demand appears to be a gross underestimate of actual demand. The solar companies themselves know better than financial institutions what their customers are scrambling for. There's no incentive for buyers to tell outsiders what their needs are. They just need to tell the solar manufacturers, who are reporting a very bullish outlook.

For the 1st contradiction, who's forecasting the 54% utilization? Certainly not any individual solar manufacturer. So i would question your industry-wide numbers It's also important to compare last quarter's capacity with next quarter's production. Not this year's year-end capacity with this year's production.

In the 2nd contradiction, the thin film expansion in light of poly oversupply, you're going backwards towards the same data used in contradiction number 1. It's not a different contradiction if the problem is simply an underestimate current demand. The 30% lower cost/watt of installed thin film explains the increasing market share.

The 3rd contradiction is still not a different contradiction. Over supply of poly is inherent to the argument of contradiction number 2 and still explain by an underestimate of coming production and demand.

For the 4th item, thin film (FSLR) has 2 times the profit margin and their costs will be cut in half in the next 5 years. Lower mono and poly prices will still not enable poly and mono manufacturers to keep up. That is not to say I'd buy FSLR at this PE. In fact, I sold FSLR and bought CSIQ right after FSLR jumped, but also right before CSIQ fell. Thankfully it's coming back today.