Sunfri Claims to Develop Solar Power Cell Producing Electricity for 5 Cents per kWH

Sunfri Claims to Develop Solar Power Cell Producing Electricity for 5 Cents per kWH

An interesting claim, but I always considered the measurement of solar power production cost in terms of kWH to be confusing, since solar power is actually produced at a cost of ZERO kWH. After all, solar power is free.

It would be more meaningful to discuss the materials and installation cost of solar power per kW, not kWH. For example, we sell Photovoltaic (PV) Solar Power panels at a cost of about $ 8.00 per watt, which is on the low side of the industry average of $ 8.00 - $ 12.00 per watt.

To repeat, the system is sized by rated power in kW (kilowatts), not in kWH (kilowatt-hours), which is a billing measurement.

If solar power panels were engines, kW would translate to horse-power output, while kWH would correspond to miles driven. (The engineering purist will want to provide the correction "miles * weight," which better reflects the work done by the engine over time, but let's stop now before this gets really boring.)

Anyway, I read somewhere that another company will soon be selling solar power panels at a price of $ 1 per Watt, or about 1/5 the materials cost of the typical system today. They have supposedly sold out their first year's production, and are capable of producing about 480 MW of capacity per year.

That should take a big dent out of the fossil-fuel based production, if it's true!

More information on that later...