10 ms·

Ikea's New Solar Panels: Sunshine Optional, Subsidies Required

66 points by Edvik 13y ago

xutopia 13y ago
If they put as much effort into this as they did in the kitchen cabinet software they built I expect to see a lot of people using this. IKEA has a knack for packaging things in such a way that works for people.
- spongle 13y ago
  Although I can say that nothing I've bought at Ikea has lasted a terribly long time. Tend to go for non chipboard and non UV sensitive plastic stuff now that you can actually clean and leave in the sun without destroying it.
DanBC 13y ago
IKEA has a bizarre complex business setup which ends up with IKEA being the world's largest (and nearly least generous) charity. (http://www.economist.com/node/6919139/print?story_id=6919139 http://www.economist.com/node/6919139/print?story_id=6919139)
- hosay123 13y ago
  This seems fairly straightforward to understand compared to the tax avoidance strategy Google employs in Europe ( http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/public-accounts-committee/news/tax-avoidance-google/ http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/... )
- quarterto 13y ago
  I don't see how that's relevant to the article in hand.
  - DanBC 13y ago
    IKEA promotes itself as ethical and clean. Selling solar panels is part of this marketing buzz that IKEA has created. This submission is a direct result of IKEA marketing. Some people may not want to buy from a company engaged in such vigorous tax avoidance.
    - ctdonath 13y ago
      Some people may not want to re-elect a government which creates such lucrative tax avoidance incentives ... including by confiscating so much of income as to necessitate aggressive leveraging of such deductions. Sure, Ikea isn't doing it out of sheer altruism. They're doing it because, under the laws they're subject to, it's a sensible business strategy.
teamonkey 13y ago
> Photovoltaic panel systems costing £5,200 ($9,212) With the exchange rate at 1.62 USD to the GBP, I can't imagine how they got that dollar figure. Remember that UK prices include sales tax @20%, so that puts the retail price at about USD$7000 pre-tax.
- objclxt 13y ago
  > Remember that UK prices include sales tax @20% Solar panels are charged only 5% VAT, not 20%.
jdmitch 13y ago
It doesn't sound like it is sustainable to have these subsidies for very long: - At current rates the Feed-in Tariff pays you 14.9p for every kWh you produce, whether you use it or not. The Feed-in Tariff is TAX FREE and RPI Linked. - Export your excess electricity to the grid and earn an additional 4.6p/kWh. (http://www.hanergy.co.uk/why-solar/feed-in-tariff http://www.hanergy.co.uk/why-solar/feed-in-tariff)
- xbryanx 13y ago
  It does if you factor in the extremely expensive, yet largely unaccounted for, costs associated with generating electricity from coal.
  - TheCraiggers 13y ago
    Where are you getting your information? What assumptions are you making here? It looks to me that coal is one of the cheapest forms of generating electricity there currently is. [1] [1]: http://en.openei.org/apps/TCDB/ http://en.openei.org/apps/TCDB/
    - lukeschlather 13y ago
      That doesn't factor in numerous externalities such as healthcare costs due to emphysema and other diseases caused by coal smoke, ocean acidification killing fisheries, rising sea levels displacing seaside residents...
    - polshaw 13y ago
      I believe xbryanx was referring to the externalities (ie the costs arising from pollution, global warming, etc that traditionally go unpaid by the producer) rather than just the financial cost of producing the power.
      - TheCraiggers 13y ago
        Perhaps. But you don't hear about those things with the green power alternatives, either. Like, for instance, the pollutants created when manufacturing solar panels, or the amount of energy consumed in making them and safely disposing of them every 15 years or so. I'm not going to cite any articles here, because at my knowledge level, it's near impossible to separate the biased articles on topics like this. But a simple search for "pollutants from making solar panels" will garner some things to read about it. I suppose I should say at this point that I'm all for green, cleaner energy, and wouldn't go so far as to say I'm "pro coal". I do, however, think that living in Michigan (which is lucky to have a single sunny day a week) makes me a tad pessimistic about using solar to power my house. I'm well aware that it makes more sense in places that can practically guarantee sunny days 6/7 days a week, but the TCO will need to improve massively for it to make sense in my region.
walshemj 13y ago
The problem is that this is a tax dodge for rich middle class people - at one time selling your solar energy back to the grid you got 8% return for 20 years guaranteed by the government. Even after the scheme was amended its a nice little subsidy for richer people it's the poor sods on key/coin meters that are paying for this.
- huherto 13y ago
  Will this create a scale economy to drive down the cost? Which may end up helping the (not rich) middle class.
- bborud 13y ago
  I find it disheartening that every technology that takes us in the right direction, but which is not yet cost effective, is constantly pissed on by people who expect immediate solutions and who fail to see that these things are not going to develop themselves. Sure, it is a tax dodge for rich middle class people, but if people could just keep their envy in check for the decade or two it is going to take to bring costs down and sustainability up, this is going to benefit a lot of people. How else are we going to incentivise companies to develop better solar panels? Seriously, I really want to know. We are seeing the same thing with the Tesla Model S in Norway right now. On one hand people dismiss electric cars because they are not yet as sustainable as we would like them to be. On the other hand they get their panties in a bunch because you can now buy a really good car (with amazing performance) at the same price as a regular car. In Norway the Model S costs ~550k NOK. A petrol-powered car with the same performance figures costs ~1,500k NOK -- nearly 1,000k NOK being taxes. (Interestingly, the Model S is the first electric car that many people would consider buying as their only car. So far, electric cars have been toys for people who can afford a second or third car, and who want to park for free and use the public transport lanes). It is going to take a lot of development to make solar panels sustainable. The more of a market we can create for them, the quicker development will take place and the quicker they will become available to broader segments of consumers. And we'll just have to tolerate that to push the industry forward, we will have to dangle some incentives in front of those who are able to take part.
  - 13y ago
mmagin 13y ago
yawn Nothing much to see here. Do something about the labor and permitting costs of a solar install in the developed world and I'll actually be impressed.
steven2012 13y ago
I'm super excited about the promise of solar panels, because my house has unobstructed exposure to the sun, and I live in the Bay Area, so we get sunshine 300+ days per year. However, every time I revisit the math, it never works out. Even if I purchase it myself, the payoff times are never less than around 17-20 years, depending on how aggressive I project the rise in electricity rates. Given that solar panels have a serviceable life about 20 years, it still isn't cost effective yet. But I'm getting more and more optimistic that in the next few years, we'll reach a level where solar panels make sense.
- huherto 13y ago
  Can you take advantage of the shade from the Solar Panels? If you can install solar panels above the ceiling with enough space to keep the air flow, it can help you keep your house fresh and comfortable during the day. Specially in a hot and dry climate.
  - driverdan 13y ago
    The Bay Area is not a "hot and dry climate."
    - huherto 13y ago
      I am not familiar with the climate on the SF Bay area and don't know how effective the shade would be. It think this would be ideal for a house in Arizona, New Mexico, West Texas, May be Southern California.
    - mikeyouse 13y ago
      Much of the East Bay would probably be classified as hot and dry.
  - ChuckMcM 13y ago
    I've found that my panels keep my attic probably 3 - 5 degrees cooler than before the panels were installed. So it's definitely a benefit. I don't have air conditioning and on warm days this keeps the house from heating up.
rwmj 13y ago
Does anyone know if this includes the inverter? I just built an office which has 4x3m of roof on which I could easily put panels (fit them myself, I don't need someone to do that). But the cost of the inverter has put me off, and there doesn't seem to be any alternative way to power computers from it. Ideally I'd have a battery and 12V supply just to power the computers and gadgets, I don't need full mains voltage, nor do I need to feed back into the grid.
- derekp7 13y ago
  I've seen a few 12 volt ATX power supplies available -- seems to be a bit more expensive ($200 - $300 range), since they are lower volume (specialty) items. Another option would be to use a smaller inverter like you get for a car (they are around 150 to 400 watts, priced about $30 or so), and have one of them for each device you want to power. Just remember if you are running 12-volt DC, it requires fairly thick wiring to get the same current as you would with 120 volt AC.
- miahi 13y ago
  Depending on hardware, you can get a PicoPSU or similar ATX power supply at ~$50, but they are usually limited to 160-200W - so no fancy quad core desktop CPU or powerful graphics, but 200W is plenty for a normal PC. Some LED displays also have an external power brick - if that's 12V then you can wire them to your grid. Unfortunately most of them will have higher voltage to reduce wire costs and losses. If you can replace at least part of the AC power with 12V DC power, you can then buy a lower power (cheaper) inverter for the AC power.
infinotize 13y ago
Tangental observation: it's interesting that a large number of people are really enthusiastic about changing to solar, moving away from carbon-producing energy sources, etc. But when it comes down to it, even for those people the response is usually "the math just doesn't work" for solar. I wonder if in surveys how many people would say they would pay a little extra for clean energy, until it's actually time to shell out?
- mjn 13y ago
  One place to look for numbers more solid than people just claiming they would pay more, could be in areas with deregulated markets for home electricity, like Texas, where people have a choice of generation provider. Since generation is decoupled from transmission and maintenance, providers don't compete on reliability, but mainly on price and environmentalism. The "green" plans are typically $0.02-$0.04/kWh more expensive than the cheapest plans. Would be interesting to know what proportion of people opt for one. Examples of such a provider and the plans: http://www.greenmountain.com/texas-oncor http://www.greenmountain.com/texas-oncor
  - ag80 13y ago
    Centerpoint has some overall price data they monitor at http://www.mytruecost.com http://www.mytruecost.com, though at present it doesn't include distinctions between electricity sources. I submitted some feedback via their contact form suggesting they should put some data together.
    - ag80 13y ago
      They put a blog post up here: http://www.mytruecost.com/news/2013/10/3/how-green-are-truecost-users http://www.mytruecost.com/news/2013/10/3/how-green-are-truec...
  - toomuchtodo 13y ago
    I live in Schaumburg, a suburb of Chicago. Recently, ballot measures were passed by local communities across Illinois that allow the communities to collectively negotiate with power providers for their citizens. I used to pay ComEd (incumbent generation/transmission provider) 7-8 cents/KwH for power (nuclear-generated by their Byron, IL facility). I know pay a provide 5.5 cents/KwH for "green" (wind-generated) power. The cost for non-renewable power was only 0.5 cents cheaper per KwH.
cperciva 13y ago
Britain isn’t known for an abundance of sunshine, but Hanergy’s solar panels are designed to generate electricity from ultraviolet rays rather than sunlight. Seems to me that these solar panels are designed to generate government subsidies more than anything else...
- 7952 13y ago
  The government in the UK is by far the biggest player in the energy market. For example in any offshore energy development they are the land owner, planning authority, biggest planning consultee, regulator, and may tax and subsidize. Market competition in energy is arguably more about access to capital than consumer choice. Currently individuals provide most of the money through tax and bills but only large energy companies can easily access the resulting capital. It is wrong to criticize individuals for wanting access to this money.
- jadc 13y ago
  More constructive criticism would be to offer some information on the expected efficiency of these panels as opposed to just dismissing them.
wehadfun 13y ago
KB Homes makes solar panels an option http://content.usatoday.com/communities/greenhouse/post/2011/03/kb-home-solar-standard-green-feature/1#.Ukw2nFIo5oI http://content.usatoday.com/communities/greenhouse/post/2011...
DanBC 13y ago
I'm a bit surprised that China has produced too many panels. People keep talking about the coming eco-apocalypse from countries like India and China becoming more developed and needing more electricity, and not having the capacity to generate that cleanly. Chinese mining has a lousy safety record, even for a dangerous industry. (15 people PER DAY dying just from volatile gases, in 2010) Anything that offloads electricity generation from dangerous mining for coal powered stations is a good thing for China. So I'm not sure why they're not just putting these solar panels on every roof. (http://www.wvcoalmining.com/coal-news/reducing-chinese-coal-mining-deaths-new-technology.html http://www.wvcoalmining.com/coal-news/reducing-chinese-coal-...) (http://www.mining.com/coal-mining-deaths-in-china-lead-to-more-imports/ http://www.mining.com/coal-mining-deaths-in-china-lead-to-mo...) (http://www.scanimetrics.com/condition-monitoring-news/13-equipment-failures/82-coal-mining-deaths-in-china-linked-to-equipment-problems http://www.scanimetrics.com/condition-monitoring-news/13-equ...)
petercooper 13y ago
I have the means and the property (albeit small) to do this but.. no chance. The main payback (ignoring the environmentalism externality) is dependent upon a government subsidy rather than actual savings or efficiency gains and as soon as it suits them, the government can yank the benefit away and you're sat with an expensive piece of plastic on your roof that'll take 20 or more years to pay for itself. (I seem to recall the government encouraging the use of diesel in the 80s and LPG in the 00s through reduced duties, yet both are now in the same sky high ballpark as petrol once their respective efficiencies are taken into account.)
- dangravell 13y ago
  Is that true for these particular subsidies? Or has the UK government committed to them over the coming 15-20 years? I thought the latter.
  - petercooper 13y ago
    Hopefully someone who knows for sure will comment, as I didn't know that. Even if they did, though, I'm not sure I trust the government to stick to a long-term promise because I'm not even convinced the state pension will still exist when I reach my 70s ;-)
qwerta 13y ago
I find this article bit too skeptical. Solar panels improved a lot in recent years, and you can break even with investment even in UK without subsidies. My friend in Czech Republic is a software developer. He works from home and his house is not connected to grid. He has 12-volt house grid with dozen car batteries. His office has 2 LED screens. Everything is powered by solar energy, except once a week he runs a generator for one hour to do a laundry. Heating and cooking is done by solid fuels and gas. Investment into solar panels and grid was about 6000 euro.
- ctdonath 13y ago
  Bravo! A key under-discussed factor therein: making it work necessitates a deep change of lifestyle. 110v always-on >50 amp service normalizes comforts and conveniences ("OMG I have nothing to wear tomorrow" laundry, smooth-top electric stoves 'cuz they look nice, no concern about peak usage, weather awareness, gratuitous A/C usage, vast non-12v product availability, etc.), and most people really don't want to give that up. I grew up on wood heat & other off-grid norms in a cold climate; much later in life I realized that what I considered normal and pleasant, most [sub]urbanites recoil from in horror.
- spongle 13y ago
  I could do the same myself and certainly will next year. The only appliance I have that consumes mega power is the washing machine. I've got a gas Aga that can be converted to solid fuel if need be and provides most of the heating as well and the only other things already work on 12v. I don't own a toaster, dryer, kettle, microwave or massive television. I have LED lighting everywhere as well and have programmed my family to turn the lights off. 3 children, 2 adults, 2 guinea pigs = £230 a year in electricity! Not bad for a tech family. only problem is losses associated with 12v wiring. I probably don't have to fish out €6000 either for my needs.
  - qwerta 13y ago
    Most electronics use low-voltage DC internally. You only need DC-DC converter with stabilizer to run 32" TV. My friend also has microwave and fridge, all 12V.
DrPhish 13y ago
You can get a 6.5kW system from wholesalesolar (with inverter and gridtie kit) for almost exactly the same price. I don't know what the ikea system is rated for, but I'm guessing less than that. 6.5kW should do for pretty much any domestic residence, clouds or no, assuming you have the room for 24 panels. I'll be picking one of these up once prices dip down to $1/W all costs included (it's about $1.50 right now, with racking still extra)

66 points by Edvik 13y ago

If they put as much effort into this as they did in the kitchen cabinet software they built I expect to see a lot of people using this. IKEA has a knack for packaging things in such a way that works for people.

spongle 13y ago
Although I can say that nothing I've bought at Ikea has lasted a terribly long time. Tend to go for non chipboard and non UV sensitive plastic stuff now that you can actually clean and leave in the sun without destroying it.

DanBC 13y ago

IKEA has a bizarre complex business setup which ends up with IKEA being the world's largest (and nearly least generous) charity. (http://www.economist.com/node/6919139/print?story_id=6919139 http://www.economist.com/node/6919139/print?story_id=6919139)

hosay123 13y ago
This seems fairly straightforward to understand compared to the tax avoidance strategy Google employs in Europe ( http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/public-accounts-committee/news/tax-avoidance-google/ http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/... )
quarterto 13y ago
I don't see how that's relevant to the article in hand.
- DanBC 13y ago
  IKEA promotes itself as ethical and clean. Selling solar panels is part of this marketing buzz that IKEA has created. This submission is a direct result of IKEA marketing. Some people may not want to buy from a company engaged in such vigorous tax avoidance.
  - ctdonath 13y ago
    Some people may not want to re-elect a government which creates such lucrative tax avoidance incentives ... including by confiscating so much of income as to necessitate aggressive leveraging of such deductions. Sure, Ikea isn't doing it out of sheer altruism. They're doing it because, under the laws they're subject to, it's a sensible business strategy.

teamonkey 13y ago

> Photovoltaic panel systems costing £5,200 ($9,212) With the exchange rate at 1.62 USD to the GBP, I can't imagine how they got that dollar figure. Remember that UK prices include sales tax @20%, so that puts the retail price at about USD$7000 pre-tax.

objclxt 13y ago
> Remember that UK prices include sales tax @20% Solar panels are charged only 5% VAT, not 20%.

jdmitch 13y ago

It doesn't sound like it is sustainable to have these subsidies for very long: - At current rates the Feed-in Tariff pays you 14.9p for every kWh you produce, whether you use it or not. The Feed-in Tariff is TAX FREE and RPI Linked. - Export your excess electricity to the grid and earn an additional 4.6p/kWh. (http://www.hanergy.co.uk/why-solar/feed-in-tariff http://www.hanergy.co.uk/why-solar/feed-in-tariff)

xbryanx 13y ago
It does if you factor in the extremely expensive, yet largely unaccounted for, costs associated with generating electricity from coal.
- TheCraiggers 13y ago
  Where are you getting your information? What assumptions are you making here? It looks to me that coal is one of the cheapest forms of generating electricity there currently is. [1] [1]: http://en.openei.org/apps/TCDB/ http://en.openei.org/apps/TCDB/
  - lukeschlather 13y ago
    That doesn't factor in numerous externalities such as healthcare costs due to emphysema and other diseases caused by coal smoke, ocean acidification killing fisheries, rising sea levels displacing seaside residents...
  - polshaw 13y ago
    I believe xbryanx was referring to the externalities (ie the costs arising from pollution, global warming, etc that traditionally go unpaid by the producer) rather than just the financial cost of producing the power.
    - TheCraiggers 13y ago
      Perhaps. But you don't hear about those things with the green power alternatives, either. Like, for instance, the pollutants created when manufacturing solar panels, or the amount of energy consumed in making them and safely disposing of them every 15 years or so. I'm not going to cite any articles here, because at my knowledge level, it's near impossible to separate the biased articles on topics like this. But a simple search for "pollutants from making solar panels" will garner some things to read about it. I suppose I should say at this point that I'm all for green, cleaner energy, and wouldn't go so far as to say I'm "pro coal". I do, however, think that living in Michigan (which is lucky to have a single sunny day a week) makes me a tad pessimistic about using solar to power my house. I'm well aware that it makes more sense in places that can practically guarantee sunny days 6/7 days a week, but the TCO will need to improve massively for it to make sense in my region.

walshemj 13y ago

The problem is that this is a tax dodge for rich middle class people - at one time selling your solar energy back to the grid you got 8% return for 20 years guaranteed by the government. Even after the scheme was amended its a nice little subsidy for richer people it's the poor sods on key/coin meters that are paying for this.

huherto 13y ago
Will this create a scale economy to drive down the cost? Which may end up helping the (not rich) middle class.
bborud 13y ago
I find it disheartening that every technology that takes us in the right direction, but which is not yet cost effective, is constantly pissed on by people who expect immediate solutions and who fail to see that these things are not going to develop themselves. Sure, it is a tax dodge for rich middle class people, but if people could just keep their envy in check for the decade or two it is going to take to bring costs down and sustainability up, this is going to benefit a lot of people. How else are we going to incentivise companies to develop better solar panels? Seriously, I really want to know. We are seeing the same thing with the Tesla Model S in Norway right now. On one hand people dismiss electric cars because they are not yet as sustainable as we would like them to be. On the other hand they get their panties in a bunch because you can now buy a really good car (with amazing performance) at the same price as a regular car. In Norway the Model S costs ~550k NOK. A petrol-powered car with the same performance figures costs ~1,500k NOK -- nearly 1,000k NOK being taxes. (Interestingly, the Model S is the first electric car that many people would consider buying as their only car. So far, electric cars have been toys for people who can afford a second or third car, and who want to park for free and use the public transport lanes). It is going to take a lot of development to make solar panels sustainable. The more of a market we can create for them, the quicker development will take place and the quicker they will become available to broader segments of consumers. And we'll just have to tolerate that to push the industry forward, we will have to dangle some incentives in front of those who are able to take part.
- 13y ago

mmagin 13y ago

yawn Nothing much to see here. Do something about the labor and permitting costs of a solar install in the developed world and I'll actually be impressed.

steven2012 13y ago

I'm super excited about the promise of solar panels, because my house has unobstructed exposure to the sun, and I live in the Bay Area, so we get sunshine 300+ days per year. However, every time I revisit the math, it never works out. Even if I purchase it myself, the payoff times are never less than around 17-20 years, depending on how aggressive I project the rise in electricity rates. Given that solar panels have a serviceable life about 20 years, it still isn't cost effective yet. But I'm getting more and more optimistic that in the next few years, we'll reach a level where solar panels make sense.

huherto 13y ago
Can you take advantage of the shade from the Solar Panels? If you can install solar panels above the ceiling with enough space to keep the air flow, it can help you keep your house fresh and comfortable during the day. Specially in a hot and dry climate.
- driverdan 13y ago
  The Bay Area is not a "hot and dry climate."
  - huherto 13y ago
    I am not familiar with the climate on the SF Bay area and don't know how effective the shade would be. It think this would be ideal for a house in Arizona, New Mexico, West Texas, May be Southern California.
  - mikeyouse 13y ago
    Much of the East Bay would probably be classified as hot and dry.
- ChuckMcM 13y ago
  I've found that my panels keep my attic probably 3 - 5 degrees cooler than before the panels were installed. So it's definitely a benefit. I don't have air conditioning and on warm days this keeps the house from heating up.

rwmj 13y ago

Does anyone know if this includes the inverter? I just built an office which has 4x3m of roof on which I could easily put panels (fit them myself, I don't need someone to do that). But the cost of the inverter has put me off, and there doesn't seem to be any alternative way to power computers from it. Ideally I'd have a battery and 12V supply just to power the computers and gadgets, I don't need full mains voltage, nor do I need to feed back into the grid.

derekp7 13y ago
I've seen a few 12 volt ATX power supplies available -- seems to be a bit more expensive ($200 - $300 range), since they are lower volume (specialty) items. Another option would be to use a smaller inverter like you get for a car (they are around 150 to 400 watts, priced about $30 or so), and have one of them for each device you want to power. Just remember if you are running 12-volt DC, it requires fairly thick wiring to get the same current as you would with 120 volt AC.
miahi 13y ago
Depending on hardware, you can get a PicoPSU or similar ATX power supply at ~$50, but they are usually limited to 160-200W - so no fancy quad core desktop CPU or powerful graphics, but 200W is plenty for a normal PC. Some LED displays also have an external power brick - if that's 12V then you can wire them to your grid. Unfortunately most of them will have higher voltage to reduce wire costs and losses. If you can replace at least part of the AC power with 12V DC power, you can then buy a lower power (cheaper) inverter for the AC power.

infinotize 13y ago

Tangental observation: it's interesting that a large number of people are really enthusiastic about changing to solar, moving away from carbon-producing energy sources, etc. But when it comes down to it, even for those people the response is usually "the math just doesn't work" for solar. I wonder if in surveys how many people would say they would pay a little extra for clean energy, until it's actually time to shell out?

mjn 13y ago
One place to look for numbers more solid than people just claiming they would pay more, could be in areas with deregulated markets for home electricity, like Texas, where people have a choice of generation provider. Since generation is decoupled from transmission and maintenance, providers don't compete on reliability, but mainly on price and environmentalism. The "green" plans are typically $0.02-$0.04/kWh more expensive than the cheapest plans. Would be interesting to know what proportion of people opt for one. Examples of such a provider and the plans: http://www.greenmountain.com/texas-oncor http://www.greenmountain.com/texas-oncor
- ag80 13y ago
  Centerpoint has some overall price data they monitor at http://www.mytruecost.com http://www.mytruecost.com, though at present it doesn't include distinctions between electricity sources. I submitted some feedback via their contact form suggesting they should put some data together.
  - ag80 13y ago
    They put a blog post up here: http://www.mytruecost.com/news/2013/10/3/how-green-are-truecost-users http://www.mytruecost.com/news/2013/10/3/how-green-are-truec...
- toomuchtodo 13y ago
  I live in Schaumburg, a suburb of Chicago. Recently, ballot measures were passed by local communities across Illinois that allow the communities to collectively negotiate with power providers for their citizens. I used to pay ComEd (incumbent generation/transmission provider) 7-8 cents/KwH for power (nuclear-generated by their Byron, IL facility). I know pay a provide 5.5 cents/KwH for "green" (wind-generated) power. The cost for non-renewable power was only 0.5 cents cheaper per KwH.

cperciva 13y ago

Britain isn’t known for an abundance of sunshine, but Hanergy’s solar panels are designed to generate electricity from ultraviolet rays rather than sunlight. Seems to me that these solar panels are designed to generate government subsidies more than anything else...

7952 13y ago
The government in the UK is by far the biggest player in the energy market. For example in any offshore energy development they are the land owner, planning authority, biggest planning consultee, regulator, and may tax and subsidize. Market competition in energy is arguably more about access to capital than consumer choice. Currently individuals provide most of the money through tax and bills but only large energy companies can easily access the resulting capital. It is wrong to criticize individuals for wanting access to this money.
jadc 13y ago
More constructive criticism would be to offer some information on the expected efficiency of these panels as opposed to just dismissing them.

wehadfun 13y ago

KB Homes makes solar panels an option http://content.usatoday.com/communities/greenhouse/post/2011/03/kb-home-solar-standard-green-feature/1#.Ukw2nFIo5oI http://content.usatoday.com/communities/greenhouse/post/2011...

DanBC 13y ago

I'm a bit surprised that China has produced too many panels. People keep talking about the coming eco-apocalypse from countries like India and China becoming more developed and needing more electricity, and not having the capacity to generate that cleanly. Chinese mining has a lousy safety record, even for a dangerous industry. (15 people PER DAY dying just from volatile gases, in 2010) Anything that offloads electricity generation from dangerous mining for coal powered stations is a good thing for China. So I'm not sure why they're not just putting these solar panels on every roof. (http://www.wvcoalmining.com/coal-news/reducing-chinese-coal-mining-deaths-new-technology.html http://www.wvcoalmining.com/coal-news/reducing-chinese-coal-...) (http://www.mining.com/coal-mining-deaths-in-china-lead-to-more-imports/ http://www.mining.com/coal-mining-deaths-in-china-lead-to-mo...) (http://www.scanimetrics.com/condition-monitoring-news/13-equipment-failures/82-coal-mining-deaths-in-china-linked-to-equipment-problems http://www.scanimetrics.com/condition-monitoring-news/13-equ...)

petercooper 13y ago

I have the means and the property (albeit small) to do this but.. no chance. The main payback (ignoring the environmentalism externality) is dependent upon a government subsidy rather than actual savings or efficiency gains and as soon as it suits them, the government can yank the benefit away and you're sat with an expensive piece of plastic on your roof that'll take 20 or more years to pay for itself. (I seem to recall the government encouraging the use of diesel in the 80s and LPG in the 00s through reduced duties, yet both are now in the same sky high ballpark as petrol once their respective efficiencies are taken into account.)

dangravell 13y ago
Is that true for these particular subsidies? Or has the UK government committed to them over the coming 15-20 years? I thought the latter.
- petercooper 13y ago
  Hopefully someone who knows for sure will comment, as I didn't know that. Even if they did, though, I'm not sure I trust the government to stick to a long-term promise because I'm not even convinced the state pension will still exist when I reach my 70s ;-)

qwerta 13y ago

I find this article bit too skeptical. Solar panels improved a lot in recent years, and you can break even with investment even in UK without subsidies. My friend in Czech Republic is a software developer. He works from home and his house is not connected to grid. He has 12-volt house grid with dozen car batteries. His office has 2 LED screens. Everything is powered by solar energy, except once a week he runs a generator for one hour to do a laundry. Heating and cooking is done by solid fuels and gas. Investment into solar panels and grid was about 6000 euro.

ctdonath 13y ago
Bravo! A key under-discussed factor therein: making it work necessitates a deep change of lifestyle. 110v always-on >50 amp service normalizes comforts and conveniences ("OMG I have nothing to wear tomorrow" laundry, smooth-top electric stoves 'cuz they look nice, no concern about peak usage, weather awareness, gratuitous A/C usage, vast non-12v product availability, etc.), and most people really don't want to give that up. I grew up on wood heat & other off-grid norms in a cold climate; much later in life I realized that what I considered normal and pleasant, most [sub]urbanites recoil from in horror.
spongle 13y ago
I could do the same myself and certainly will next year. The only appliance I have that consumes mega power is the washing machine. I've got a gas Aga that can be converted to solid fuel if need be and provides most of the heating as well and the only other things already work on 12v. I don't own a toaster, dryer, kettle, microwave or massive television. I have LED lighting everywhere as well and have programmed my family to turn the lights off. 3 children, 2 adults, 2 guinea pigs = £230 a year in electricity! Not bad for a tech family. only problem is losses associated with 12v wiring. I probably don't have to fish out €6000 either for my needs.
- qwerta 13y ago
  Most electronics use low-voltage DC internally. You only need DC-DC converter with stabilizer to run 32" TV. My friend also has microwave and fridge, all 12V.

DrPhish 13y ago

You can get a 6.5kW system from wholesalesolar (with inverter and gridtie kit) for almost exactly the same price. I don't know what the ikea system is rated for, but I'm guessing less than that. 6.5kW should do for pretty much any domestic residence, clouds or no, assuming you have the room for 24 panels. I'll be picking one of these up once prices dip down to $1/W all costs included (it's about $1.50 right now, with racking still extra)