I"m still around...

I've got an idea / project that I'm working on with collaboration from others, and it's hot.

It's also frustrating, because I don't have quite the programming skills to make it a reality as I see it in my mind's eye.

It WILL rock the Solar World, whether I build it, or whether someone else builds it. Only, I want a piece of the action, so am not yet ready to just give it away to the four winds.

I've thought that maybe the DOE could help, but I've got no contacts there. I've thought about fat cat Corporate money-folk, but frankly, they're not to be trusted.

Given a team of 5 Developers, the thing could become real in a very short time.

Ok, so who's got 5 Developers handy?

Ytterbius@comcast.net

Revealed: the secret evidence of global warming Bush tried to hide

The pictures, kept secret by Washington during the presidency of George W Bush, were declassified by the White House last week.

Photos from US spy satellites declassified by the Obama White House provide the first graphic images of how the polar ice sheets are retreating in the summer. The effects on the world's weather, environments and wildlife could be devastating

Satellite images of polar ice sheets taken in July 2006 and July 2007 showing the retreating ice during the summer. Photograph: Public Domain

Graphic images that reveal the devastating impact of global warming in the Arctic have been released by the US military. The photographs, taken by spy satellites over the past decade, confirm that in recent years vast areas in high latitudes have lost their ice cover in summer months.

The pictures, kept secret by Washington during the presidency of George W Bush, were declassified by the White House last week. President Barack Obama is currently trying to galvanise Congress and the American public to take action to halt catastrophic climate change caused by rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Bush can STILL just go F himself.

Barrons is a bad Joke.

Analysts See Little Upside from China Solar Subsidies.

We'll just have to see what happens when the whole plan is finally revealed. Should be interesting. These guys are jumping all over themselves to make sure that the Public doesn't buy Solar Stocks (particularly the Chinese ones). At some point the case will be clear, and what are they going to do? I don't know, but I'm sure we'll see some great examples of cognitive dissonance.

Business Risks and Costs of New Nuclear Power

Because I often seem to need this.

It's a great paper on the real costs of Nuclear Energy.

Unit Idea... PowerPeak-Lifetime25 (or somesuch).

A Solar Cell performance degrades over time. The effective lifetime of Solar Panels are right now considered to be in the area of 25 years.

The rate at which a collection of cells degrades, on average, over the lifetime may not be a nice line.

I can only guess what the curve looks like for a standard Silicon, Wafer-based, Cell but I imagine that it's close to linear. If you have good data, I'd love to see it.

On the other hand, particularly when future cells have their efficiency enhanced by things like coatings, the curve could get alot more complicated. You might have a Silicon Solar Cell that will degrade linearly over 25 years, but the cell might be coated with a product that will increase its initial efficiency by a very significant amount, but which might degrade in effect completely after only 15 years.

Depending on the cost to add the coating, etc, it might very well be financially advantageous to buy this panel with a rapidly degrading initial phase, and a slowly degrading long term component.

The way I see it is that if, for example, a 100W panel were to degrade at 1% per year over its 25 year rated lifetime, then the effective Peak Power is really 87.5W. That's the effective peak power over the panel's lifetime, of Power_Peak-Lifetime₂₅.

In the same way, if you had a panel of the same surface area area that was 160W, but it degraded at 2% per year for 15 years, and then 1% after that till 25 years, it would have an effective Power_Peak-Lifetime₂₅ of 140W.

This would allow the customer to know what they're really buying over 25 years, even if it would take some estimations and tricky modeling on the part of manufacturers. They'd have to try to figure out with great care exactly what the FUTURE degradation curve of their product is going to look like. No worries, they'll appreciate the challenge. :)

In any case, if you're not reflecting rates of lifetime degradation in the cost per Watt, then there is trouble on the horizon for everyone involved.

EDIT: I suppose I spoke prematurely. I assumed that there wasn't a standard name for this. There must be. I ask then, what is it?

White roofs to fight global warming - Chu

From money.cnn.com.

It's a fine article on the potential impact of white roofs.

What gets me is:

This is a marked contrast from previous energy secretaries, who often came from business or political backgrounds and had little experience in the energy industry itself, let alone the scientific community that many now hope will help the country move away from fossil fuels. President Reagan's first energy secretary tried hard to abolish his own department.

It just makes it hard to believe in humanity that this kind of thing is true. Sure, not many people understand Energy, or its real impact on their lives; I wouldn't understand it if I hadn't stumbled into Physics. Aw well, we've got a good Qualified Energy Secretary right now, and so I'll try to just keep looking forward. :)

LDK Solar July Investor Presentation

There's some good stuff in here.


For Example:

* China announced an upfront subsidy of RMB 20/W ($2.94/W)
for BIPV projects greater than 50 kW and certain rooftop solar
systems for 2009
* China introduces RMB 1.09/kWh preferential feed-in tariff for
solar power that supplies to grid
* Jiangsu provincial NDRC announced a solar PV incentive plan,
which targets a 400 MW on-grid installation over the next three
years, with 260 MW for rooftops, 10 MW for BIPV and 130 MW
for ground-mounted systems. The plan also details a feed-in
tariff for each type of system, which may result in very attractive
IRRs
* China announced it is planning a stimulus package worth RMB
3 trillion to expand its renewable energy use. China targets to
reach an installation capacity of 20 GW of solar power by 2020

This stuff was pretty well known by anybody watching the Yahoo Boards. Lots of articles have been coming through from China. So far it's been ignored, as if it were just rumor, but this puts it a bit past what I'd think could be considered rumor, though.

As for the 20GW goal by 2020, I've also seen reference to talk of an eventual goal of 70GW by 2020. Since the goal is reviewed every 5 years, they'll have the opportunity to raise it if the situation warrants it. In any case, the 20GW goal for 2020 should not be considered as a cap on capacity by that time.

LDK also points out 2-3GW in Framework Agreements in China, as well, but they don't give a timeframe for that total. These are another item that has been coming out in Chinese news stories, and I suspect that we'll actually see much bigger totals than this revealed soon enough.


They've also provided an estimation of their future poly costs:

Target Polysilicon Prices (per kg)
2H 2009 : $60 - $85
1H 2010 : $40 - $65
2H 2010 : $35 - $50
1H 2011 : $32 - $42
2H 2011 : $30 - $35

So, currently they're basically a wash, but soon enough they'll be well below market price.

Solar Manufacturer Database.

If you want to see what appears to be a list of just about every Solar Manufacturer in the known universe, click here.

Stealth mode...

I get the sense that the industry is in super stealth mode right now. You know that there are alot of people seriously working their butts off right now, planning for the projects to start in earnest, but they're definitely not speaking freely about it.

I can't help but wonder if there's a concerted effort not to upset the balance in Washington prior to ink hitting paper on Cap and Trade later this year (hopefully). If the Chinese make a bold move, then it could potentially be used against Energy Legislation by bringing up outsourcing to China.

Personally, I think that kind of event could be used to sell partnership with the Chinese on the issue of Climate Change / Peak Oil, and it could also whip up the American competitive spirit to good effect.

It's too bad that fear and hate are such an easy sell.

Sunways 33kW Inverter.

Transformerless central inverters for medium-sized PV systems

Neat.

So, you want to buy a solar plant, part 2.

I thought I'd extend my calculations from So, you want to buy a solar plant, part 1, to make them a bit more realistic. You'll find the basic logic for this post at that location. Here's a recap:

(1) Outgoing$Monthly = TotalPeakPower (kW) * Cost/Wp * C1

(2) Incoming$Monthly = TotalPeakPower (kW) * Rate ($/kWh) * C2

(3) C1 = i / (1 - (1+ i)^-n)

Note: i = .0042, n = 300. Previously, I had set n to 240 for a 20 year loan, but in this case, I'll be setting n to 300 for a 25 year payoff period.

(4) C2 = Insolation Ratio * 1year * 365days/year * 24hours/day / 12months

Note: Insolation Ratio = .1875. Previously I had used .20 for the Solar Plant's local Insolation Ratio. The particular location that's being considered is in the area of Bangalore. I see from this Insolation Map that that area seems to be recieving between 4kWh/day/m2 and 5kWh/day/m2 in Solar Energy. For this estimation's sake, I'll pick the middle, or 4.5kWh/day/m2. Using previous calculations, this works out to an Insolation Ratio of 18.75%.


(5) Setting Outgoing$Monthly = Incoming$Monthly gives the break-even long term average energy price per kWh with respect to the cost per Watt of the Installation:

(6) Cost/kWp ($/Wp) = Rate ($/kWh) * C2/C1

Or conversely:

(7) Cost/kWp ($/Wp) * C1/C2 = Rate ($/kWh)

I want to take this one step further, and take into account degradation of the system over time, as well as various losses like Inverter / Substation losses. I'll try to be aggressive on this correction, to err towards the worse case. So, over the 25 years over which I'm considering, I'll say that the modules lose 1% per year, and Inverter losses are 8%. Averaging the degradation over 25 years gives a loss of 12.5%, plus the 8% Inverter loss, gives a total of a 20.5% loss.

I'll reflect this in my equation by going back to another equation from Part 1 (one of the roots of the (6), above):

(8) TotalPeakPower (kW) * Cost/kWp * C1 = TotalPeakPower (kW) * Rate ($/kWh) * C2 (Hours/Year)

Just prior to (6), I had canceled TotalPeakPower out of my equation. Essentially, these equations should give a rough estimate of the Levelized Cost of Energy irrespective of the total size of the Installation. Of course, there are alot of variables involved when changing scale, and these aren't reflected here. Consider this to be more along the lines of an ideal solar farm. It costs the same per Watt to add a thousand Watts of capacity, or a hundred thousand Watts.

Remember that on the lefthand side of the equation is the initial cost per Watt of the system, while on the righthand side of (8) is the income per unit energy. So, essentially, the "TotalPeakPower" on the left is the ideal TotalPeakPower, while the TotalPeakPower on the right is the effective TotalPeakPower as reflected in the Energy produced over the lifetime of the system, by which income is derived.

So, I'll throw in some subscripts.

(9) TotalPeakPower_ideal * Cost/kWp * C1 = TotalPeakPower_effective * Rate ($/kWh) * C2 (Hours/Year)

In the ideal case, TotalPeakPower_effective = TotalPeakPower_ideal, but in this case, there's a 20.5% loss, so:

(10) TotalPeakPower_effective = .795 * TotalPeakPower_ideal

Plugging (10) back into (9) gives:

(11) TotalPeakPower_ideal * Cost/kWp * C1 = TotalPeakPower_ideal * .795 * Rate ($/kWh) * C2 (Hours/Year)

So, I can now still cancel out the TotalPeakPower_ideal, and I'm left with a correction to the income side of the equation, which reflects system degredation losses and Inverter losses.

The final result is:

(12) Cost/kWp * C1 = (Rate ($/kWh) * C2 (Hours/Year)) * .795

Taking a case, let's say your installation is going to cost $5.25/W, or $5250/kW.

Solving (12) for Rate gives:

(13) Rate ($/kWh) = Cost/kWp * C1/.795C2

C1 = i / (1 - (1+ i)^-n) = .0058 (i = .0042, n = 300 (25 years))

C2 = .1875 * 8760 Hours/Year / 12 Months/Year = 137 Hours/Month

C1/.795C2 = .00005325

Rate ($/kWh) = $5250/kWp * .00005325 = $.28/kWh

News leaks out on China Solar plan upgrade - 6/26/09

Here's the translated version.

There's also a version on Interfax (subscription).

Thanks to gyproc1955 and baidukevin of Yahoo for the finds.

LDK Short Interest vs. Price - 6/25/09

Data is here and here.

Interesting. Since 2/13/09, the net difference in short Interest is positive 5,254,001 shares, and the price is up. There seems to be a strong recent trend where Short Interest is increasing, along with the price. This trend can't go on forever. Which way does it break?

Here's something to think about.

LDK's Poly Plant is Mechanically Complete - 6/23/09

This is what alot of people have been waiting for.


LDK Solar Achieves Major Milestone in its 15,000 MT Polysilicon Plant Construction Project

XINYU CITY, China and SUNNYVALE, Calif., June 23 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- LDK Solar Co., Ltd. ("LDK Solar") (NYSE: LDK - News), a leading manufacturer of multicrystalline solar wafers, announced today that it has reached mechanical completion of the first 5,000 metric ton (MT) train in its 15,000 MT annualized capacity polysilicon plant in Xinyu, China. Installation has been completed of the Utilities, Infrastructure and Offsite (U&I&O) facilities. Pre-commissioning and commissioning of all the U&I&O systems is nearing completion in preparation for initial production of polysilicon in the first 5,000 MT train.

"We are very excited to reach this major milestone in the construction of our 15,000 MT polysilicon facility," commented Nick Sarno, Senior Vice President of Manufacturing at LDK Solar. "Commissioning of the first train and startup plans in this facility are underway. We remain on target to ramp to full 5,000 MT capacity over the next two quarters."

"The excellent cooperation between LDK Solar and the Fluor project teams has been the key driver to achieving this milestone for this world-class, fast-track polysilicon project," said Peter Oosterveer, President of Fluor's Energy & Chemicals Group. "We remain on schedule to meet upcoming major construction goals in order to enable LDK Solar to start polysilicon production as planned."

This is an incredible achievement, make no mistake. The pieces are together. Now it's up to LDK to continue in their efforts to make the thing hum.


Click for more background on LDK, GT Solar, Polysilicon.

A couple of funny things... LDK Solar

Last week we heard that UBS downgraded LDK to sell at $14, down from $22. Of course, what they mean by this, considering that their sell price is above the current selling price, is unclear. Well, such is the way of the Wall Street Analyst. They work in Mysterious ways.

Next, though not given a PR, LDK filed a Shelf Offering of up to $200 Million in Ordinary Shares and ADR's, Preferred Shares, Debt Securities, Debt Security Guarantees, Warrants Options or other Rights, Stock Purchase Contracts, and Equity-linked Securities. No Underwriters were mentioned.

WTF?

These guys don't do anything the way you'd expect. LOL!

Note that the following is pure speculation / guesswork. It's based on the assumption that the Poly Plant first line is near production, and the company is preparing to rise to a next level as a Global Company.

Well, they suggested that they may offer shares at the end of their June 9 presentation at UBS, prior to the huge Wednesday runup on the 10th. Now, it appears that they're serious about this, and they've got a plan.

Honestly, I can't imagine that they think that $200 Million Dollars is so critical that they will be forced to offer shares at such a low price. They've got solid Bank financing to get them by in the short term. What they do have, though, is a Short Interest in the area of 40%, and a quite illiquid float. While Shorts can't get out without driving up the price, neither can big fish on the long side buy in to any significant extent without similarly driving up the price.

So, it seems to me that where the big fish want liquidity, Mr. Peng is preparing to give it to them; presumably at a "fair" price.

We'll see how it goes from here. As usual, if nothing else, it will be interesting. :)

Global Insolation Map...

You can zoom into the various regions.

AmericanSolarEconomy Solar Newsfeed.

Just a note. I've just added my AmericanSolarEconomy.com main Newsfeed to Feedburner.

This is generated from semi-automated newsreaders in the back end of the AmericanSolarEconomy.com news site. I'll admit that I recently spent some time not updating that site, but I'll try to get back to it with more regularity. The feed should be worth at least about 15 or so good Solar Energy links per week.

Wondering about Intel.

The New york Times told us the other day that Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company is planning to enter the Solar Cell market.

What I want to know is, where is Intel? These guys know the Silicon Wafer as well as anyone else. Are they passing up an opportunity?

Wait, looking up "Intel Solar" brings up SpectraWatt. SpectraWatt was formed by Intel in June '08. Their plan was to build a manufacturing plant in Oregon to start deliveries in mid-2009. In January of '09, SpecraWatt halted construction of their Oregon plant, and on April 9th of this year they announced their intention to build a headquarters and manufacturing plant in New York.

Ok, so deals went sour in Oregon, I don't know the details, can't say much about that, but still, I gotta say WTF? Come on, INTC. Do you REALLY want into this market? After a year with pretty much nothing to show for it, you are now planning to manufacture 60MW by 2010, and 120MW annually within a couple of years after that. Even if the Implementation had gone flawlessly, this tiny output demonstrates a lack of vision, at the very least. SpectraWatt will have to do better than this if they want to compete in this market.

So, it looks then like Intel has actually moved to enter the Solar Market. They've just done so in a half-assed noncommital sort of way.

Of course, they've got cash. Maybe, like HP, they've discovered that the bottom line doesn't necessarily support building new manufacturing plants in the US. They could buy a heck of alot of Asian production, all in one fell swoop. There won't be too many opportunities to buy into the Asian industry on the cheap, though.

My guess then is that they're not actually idiots; they know what's up, and they're just being sneaky. It's too bad, though, that this Leading US Company is taking so long to get into the game.

Presentation - GT Solar

Here's a newish presentation by GT Solar (dated 6/5/09). Thanks to Parabequ of Yahoo for the find.

Also, here's a nice brief on the process of manufacturing Polysilicon.

It's tough stuff to make. The technology has been kept pretty carefully under wraps for years, but it's breaking out with help from the folk's at GT Solar. Note page 13 of the presentation and the estimated price per Kilogram of $25. If this works out to be true, then it will be a significant step in taking Silicon-based Solar Energy to Grid Parity and below in the mid-term.

Innovalight - Silicon-based Thin Film.

News came up this last week on Innovalight installing "the industry's first high-throughput silicon-ink inkjet printing system."

If there's any thin film competition for wafers in the large-scale installation niche, I suspect that it must be silicon-based, simply because of the whole supply-constraint problem in the rarer materials like Tellurium, and to a lesser extent, Indium. Innovalight looks to be a good potential contender in Silicon-based Thin Film.

It doesn't look like Innovalight is giving out its cell's efficiency, and they also apparently haven't mentioned the capacity of their new production line, but they are talking about $.50/Watt in the long term (cost vs price, unknown). It'll be interesting to see how far they'll have to scale in order to approach $.50/Watt, and how much money it's going to take them to get there.