Astyanax $30K could probably have paid the dead-dinosaur-fueled electric bill for the schools for the month if not more. That’s $30K more those panels now have to earn.
This looks like a typical fossil fuel fume infused reply – both literally and figuratively. 😉
$30k on a $3M+ project is under 1%, and most likely less than a monthly cost of electricity saved, especially 10 years from now..
Astyanax …and no one considered maybe panel technology may evolve during these next 3 decades?
If people were always waiting on inventions becoming much better, we could still be at the bronze age.
When you decide to invest in something with a significant up-front cost, you normally look at the cost at current prices and current technology and figure out out the payback using that information, not something TBD or TBI in the future.
Solar panel installs usually have a payback period of 5 - 12 years, and I would say anything under 8 is more or less of a no-brainer.
Astyanax Maybe they become 2-3X or more efficient and maybe 8-9 years you’re back in the same room hearing another schpiel to replace those with the “new and improved ones” that will get you a “quicker” ROI for “a few dollars more” for another $3 million?
A typical, vapor-ware based FUD, most often utilized by software companies. 😃
Mass produced solar cells are highly unlikely to get 2 - 3X more efficient in 8-9 years because of some hard limits imposed on them by solid state physics.
Some of the underlying physics is explained here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shockley%E2%80%93Queisser_limit – though that link is mostly for EEs or or other highly technical folks.
A slightly different read is at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar-cell_efficiency
Single layer materials have a theoretical maximum conversion efficiency in the 30% range.
The most popular solar cell material, silicon, has a less favorable band gap of 1.1 eV, resulting in a maximum efficiency of about 32%. Modern commercial mono-crystalline solar cells produce about 24% conversion efficiency, the losses due largely to practical concerns like reflection off the front of the cell and light blockage from the thin wires on the cell surface.
There are some trickeries and backdoors to possibly get around those limits, but they may not be cost effective. Developmental and other ‘cost no object’ stage solar solar cells can already reach efficiencies of well over 30 - 40%, but mass produced cells are mostly in the 15 - 25% range, and I don’t think we’ll see yearly improvements over 5 - 10%, if that much compared to their current efficiency.
Replacing panels only after a few years is most often practiced by commercial operators who wants to maximize profit and cash flow given a limited surface area, often on rented or leased land. I think this is less of an issue for home owners because by that time the system is paid off itself, and even if it produces somewhat less electricity, it’s mostly free money by that time.
The biggest uncertainty at this point is actually the tariffs and their effect on pricing since the great majority of solar panels, and a good portion of other equipment is currently comes from China.
Astyanax Apparently I was naive in assuming the point of doing it at all was to “save money”. Then it doesn’t even cover all the schools.
OK, I fully agree with you this time with respect to “naive” but in a different respect – savings normally come after a few years, and that should be universally understood. 🤨
Astyanax These guys would’ve been thrown out of the meeting room in my county let alone have it approved.
In any case, while I can’t speak about your county, for obvious reasons, there is quite a bit of solar effort in FL:
https://www.solarpowerworldonline.com/2025/01/2-mw-rooftop-solar-project-coming-to-bilingual-elementary-school-in-florida/
https://www.agt.com/project/solar-for-schools-florida/
https://www.sunsmartschools.org/
Lastly, bonus points for the inclusion of some totally irrelevant rubbish such as “ion-canon”. 😉
