Let's Talk Alternative Energy, with Scott Sklar
(Page 2 of 3)
October/November 2005
By Scott Sklar
Another report describes how an Iowa farm family acquired a wind turbine using the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Farm Bill, Section 9006, which makes available grants and loans for renewable energy to farmers, ranchers and other rural small business owners. While there are clear challenges to some wind projects, the future is looking quite solid for wind power for large grid-tied and small on-site generation.
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SILICON AND HIGH PV PRICES
I was wondering about the high cost of silicon and whether it will prevent the price drop in solar residential systems that everyone expects.
Jerry H.
South Carolina
Today's photovoltaic (PV) solar panels are made primarily from silicon, which in the 1990s was de rived from the silicon waste that came from the computer chip industry.
In April, reports from the biggest PV companies indicated that solargrade silicon prices had jumped from $9 per kilo in 2000 to $25 last year, and were expected to jump to $60 this year. These higher silicon prices are a result of the fast growth of the global PV industry, which produced more than 1.2 gigawatts of power in 2004, and a result of new efficiencies in the traditional silicon chip industry that leave behind less solar-grade silicon waste.
With the SEIA's announcement of the American Solar Power Industry Research and Investment in Technology collaborative, the PV industry is working to build upon its earlier efforts for fair access to sili con. The industry-funded collaborative is designed to reduce the cost, increase the efficiency and improve the manufacturing process of PV through better designs and processes, which should lead to low-cost manufacturing and new silicon production processes, among other industry goals.
While there are some promising PV materials in the marketplace, such as thin films that replace silicon with indium, selenium and gallium, and cadmium telluride, another emerging player will be nonsilicon nanotechnology, which uses light-sensitive dyes. In fact, Konarka Technologies, a manufacturer of nonsilicon nanotechnology, is setting up a pilot plant this year. With smart tactics for using existing nonsilicon materials, nanotechnology and improved efficiency in the use of traditional silicon, the silicon shortage issue should be seen only as growing pains for an industry in its early adolescence.
For more information, go to the National Center for Photovoltaics Web site at www.nrel.gov.
RADIANT/SOLAR THERMAL HEATING
I live in upstate New York and have a 1,200-square-foot hot water radiant-heated area, which is well-insulated. I have a relatively large southfacing roof area available for solar heating, so I need some information on solar heating equipment to supplement or replace two large 40,000-British thermal unit (Btu) propane heaters in this system.
