GE plots big solar push, takes on First Solar

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/business/ge-plots-big-solar-push-takesfirst-solar_448804.html

GE plots big solar push, takes on First Solar

Published on Sat, Mar 27, 2010 at 10:58 | Updated at Sat, Mar 27, 2010 at 15:50 | Source : Reuters

General Electric Co (GE) is betting on thin-film solar technology and plans to roll out a new panel next year that has the potential to lead the market, a company executive told Reuters on Friday.

The largest US conglomerate, now a bit player in the solar market, has stopped investing in traditional crystalline-silicon panels and is pouring research efforts into panels made with little or no polysilicon, broadly known as thin film.

But the company will have to go up against established players like First Solar Inc, one of the world's largest solar module makers, and others like Japan's Sharp Corp and Applied Materials Inc that are also expanding into the market.

Thin-film solar panels are less efficient at turning sunlight into electricity, but tend to be cheaper than silicon-based modules. GE argues they have the greatest growth potential.

...

[The Wielding Truth]

1. Yea! n/t

[theophilus]

2. BRING IT ON! Suck on that Petro Corps. n/t

[drm604]

3. This is very good.

The big conglomerates are fighting over the market for solar panels. That's good. This is one of those instances where the free market may work for the common good (unlike, for example, health care).

[kristopher]

4. "GE argues (thin film modules) have the greatest growth potential..."

Yep.

There are reports/rumors that Nanosolar's cost is about $0.35/watt. *If* that is true, then that gives us a hint of where the solar module price is headed.

The market rewards early innovators with the ability to be price setters, their competitive advantage is large enough that they can demand a profit in excess of what a saturated industry would allow. However, when that situation exists, it is an open invitation for other manufacturers to enter the field with competing products. This drives price reductions as they compete for market until eventually, the producers are no longer setting the prices based on "how much the market will bear" but are instead in a position of setting their price based on actual production costs plus just enough mark-up to survive. They become price takers.

With the entry of large players like GE and Sharp, this segment is in the process of switching from the price setter mode to the price taker mode.

[Statistical]

5. Thin film has future potential but it is nowhere close to dominating the market.

In 2009 only 2 thin film companies produced >100MW of production (First Solar & Unisolar).
Thin film makes up about 15% of the market.

The much touted Nanosolar and their 1 GW per year production capacity(promised since 2007) is nowhere to be seen.
In 2009 total production capacity was 12 (thats right twelve MW) or about 0.2% of the total market.

Despite your claims a-si isn't dead (or is a dead end), it is projected to be the majority of thin film production for next decade. CIGS and CdTe have a lot of potential but commercialization has been difficult. Nanosolar is still massively unprofitable in 2009 requiring another $200 million to remain open. While First Solar is leading the market is production capacity and profits.



Some realistic outlook for thin film in solar market.
http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/the-future-of-thin-film-beyond-the-hype/

So when companies like Sharp & GE are looking at Thin Solar it is more a realization that long term that is where it makes sense for R&D money to go. Mono & Poly Crystaline got solar started but it is obvious that outside niche markets long term it won't be able to compete. That day isn't there yet.

[kristopher]

6. GE began their effort in '08 and plan to begin prodution in 2011.

As a person dedicated to selling nuclear power you really should worry about this. The price decline of solar combined with the overall pricing of renewables across the board is a time bomb waiting to happen for nuclear power.

As more stringent goals for noncarbon energy become increasingly inevitable the power system isn't going to wait for the government to shove nuclear power down every everyone's throat. Individual decisions around the world are going to result in ever higher penetration of renewable energy. The result is going to be that when these nuclear plants come online - even under the most rosy economic scenarios - they are going to be the most expensive option on the market for producing electricity.

That means that the 90% plus capacity factor you point to as justifying their economics isn't going to be achieved; they will be LUCKY to sell 60% of the power they produce.

That, in turn, means that most of the new plants are going to go bankrupt.

That, in turn, means that there is no nuclear revival going to happen.

As to Nanosolar and their recent production numbers under the economic downturn? Given your penchant for self delusion, I'm not at all surprised you read that as a statement on the technology rather than the economy.

[Statistical]

7. You are so silly.

Once built nuclear reactors have a negligible marginal cost. <2 cent per kWh. While ultra cheap solar may prevent NEW plants from being built existing plants will operate until end of life.


Lets say you magic solar revolution happens and by 2020 solar is available at some insanely low price say 3 cents per kWh AC. Lets also pretend that we can store energy overnight for free.

Natural gas will go first. It has the highest marginal cost. Some natural gas will remain for demand matching (due to speed it can adjust generation) but 90% of it will disapear. Oil fired plants will also go. Combined they make up about 20% and have very high marginal cost.

If between 2020-2030 solar plants could install a staggering 18,000 GW a year it would replace oil & natural gas in a decade.

By 2030 I hope we have a carbon tax and one would make coal have higher marginal cost than nuclear and would be displaced next. Say by then growth has risen to a staggering 45TW per year it would replace coal in another decade.

Now while solar may be cheaper than "new" nuclear. Marginal cost of existing plants will be even cheaper. They likely will operate until end of life.

Of course solar isn't going to get that cheap, nor can it store energy overnight, nor will it grow that fast. Still even if it did we will still have nuclear plants 50-60 years from now.

[kristopher]

8. Ignoring those costs to get you to the "once built" stage is overt dishonesty.

Nuclear power HAS HUGE CAPITAL COSTS that have to be paid for. I take it you are ignoring those capital costs because you know the plants will go bankrupt and the taxpayers will be on the hook for paying them, right? That is the only way to get out from under them and achieve the scenario you paint.

Nuclear is a scam to pick the pockets of the public. It has NO redeeming value when compared to the available options for noncarbon energy.
Nuclear power is a third rate choice.

Abstract here: http://www.rsc.org/publishing/journals/EE/article.asp?doi=b809990c

Full article for download here: http://www.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/revsolglobwarmairpol.htm


Energy Environ. Sci., 2009, 2, 148 - 173, DOI: 10.1039/b809990c

Review of solutions to global warming, air pollution, and energy security

Mark Z. Jacobson

Abstract
This paper reviews and ranks major proposed energy-related solutions to global warming, air pollution mortality, and energy security while considering other impacts of the proposed solutions, such as on water supply, land use, wildlife, resource availability, thermal pollution, water chemical pollution, nuclear proliferation, and undernutrition.

Nine electric power sources and two liquid fuel options are considered. The electricity sources include solar-photovoltaics (PV), concentrated solar power (CSP), wind, geothermal, hydroelectric, wave, tidal, nuclear, and coal with carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology. The liquid fuel options include corn-ethanol (E85) and cellulosic-E85. To place the electric and liquid fuel sources on an equal footing, we examine their comparative abilities to address the problems mentioned by powering new-technology vehicles, including battery-electric vehicles (BEVs), hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (HFCVs), and flex-fuel vehicles run on E85.

Twelve combinations of energy source-vehicle type are considered. Upon ranking and weighting each combination with respect to each of 11 impact categories, four clear divisions of ranking, or tiers, emerge.

Tier 1 (highest-ranked) includes wind-BEVs and wind-HFCVs.
Tier 2 includes CSP-BEVs, geothermal-BEVs, PV-BEVs, tidal-BEVs, and wave-BEVs.
Tier 3 includes hydro-BEVs, nuclear-BEVs, and CCS-BEVs.
Tier 4 includes corn- and cellulosic-E85.

Wind-BEVs ranked first in seven out of 11 categories, including the two most important, mortality and climate damage reduction. Although HFCVs are much less efficient than BEVs, wind-HFCVs are still very clean and were ranked second among all combinations.

Tier 2 options provide significant benefits and are recommended.

Tier 3 options are less desirable. However, hydroelectricity, which was ranked ahead of coal-CCS and nuclear with respect to climate and health, is an excellent load balancer, thus recommended.

The Tier 4 combinations (cellulosic- and corn-E85) were ranked lowest overall and with respect to climate, air pollution, land use, wildlife damage, and chemical waste. Cellulosic-E85 ranked lower than corn-E85 overall, primarily due to its potentially larger land footprint based on new data and its higher upstream air pollution emissions than corn-E85.

Whereas cellulosic-E85 may cause the greatest average human mortality, nuclear-BEVs cause the greatest upper-limit mortality risk due to the expansion of plutonium separation and uranium enrichment in nuclear energy facilities worldwide. Wind-BEVs and CSP-BEVs cause the least mortality.

The footprint area of wind-BEVs is 2–6 orders of magnitude less than that of any other option. Because of their low footprint and pollution, wind-BEVs cause the least wildlife loss.

The largest consumer of water is corn-E85. The smallest are wind-, tidal-, and wave-BEVs.

The US could theoretically replace all 2007 onroad vehicles with BEVs powered by 73000–144000 5 MW wind turbines, less than the 300000 airplanes the US produced during World War II, reducing US CO2 by 32.5–32.7% and nearly eliminating 15000/yr vehicle-related air pollution deaths in 2020.

In sum, use of wind, CSP, geothermal, tidal, PV, wave, and hydro to provide electricity for BEVs and HFCVs and, by extension, electricity for the residential, industrial, and commercial sectors, will result in the most benefit among the options considered. The combination of these technologies should be advanced as a solution to global warming, air pollution, and energy security.

Coal-CCS and nuclear offer less benefit thus represent an opportunity cost loss, and the biofuel options provide no certain benefit and the greatest negative impacts.

[Statistical]

9. You are such a fanatic that you don't even read.

Once built that cost is sunk.

There may be a time where NEW power is no longer commercially viable but that doesn't mean all installed capacity is shutdown and scrapped just because new plants are no longer viable.

The different is total cost vs. marginal cost.

Once a plant has been built the capital and interest costs are already sunk. You don't get a refund of those costs just because you shut it down early.

So if solar/wind cost (including storage or overcapacity) > total lifecycle cost for nuclear then likely no new plants will be built.

However for those plants to be shut down early (on economic basis) the cost of wind/solar would need to be lower than not just total cost but the marginal cost.

So even in a scenario where solar displaces virtually all power on the planet that displacement will be based on marginal power.

Say you have a coal plant which is already built. Shutting the plant down doesn't make the capital cost go away. So while plant is functional the only reason to shut it down early would be if the marginal operating cost is HIGHER than cost of installing new power.

Natural gas & oil - high marginal cost
Coal - moderate marginal cost
Nuclear - low marginal cost
Hydro - lowest marginal cost

So even if hypothetically wind/solar start completely replacing the current power grid that replacement will happen from highest to lowest marginal cost.

If the lifetime cost of solar (with storage) is less than lifecycle cost of nuclear maybe we will never build NEW nuclear plants.
However to shutdown nuclear plant early the cost of solar would need to be less than the marginal operating cost of nuclear.

If that happens we have 1-2 cent electrical power in this country. The "fuel cost" of an EV is about $26 per month. I don't really care if nuclear dies at that point. Still it is never happening in our (or anyones lifetime).

[kristopher]

10. You are trying to hide the point by creating a strawman

BANKRUPTCY and LOSS OF PUBIC MONEY USED TO BUILD THE PLANTS.

I said the nuclear revival isn't going to happen, you are trying to portray what I said as the economics are going to cause them to dismantle the reactors.

But in making your strawman you've admitted my point - the only way that money becomes sunk cost is if efforts collect it are abandoned.

The point I made was that new nuclear construction is headed towards a market reality where they CAN NOT SELL THEIR POWER because it is too expensive compared to the new renewable generation that will be flooding the market.

That means those plants are NOT going to be able to operate at the 90%+ capacity factor you always use to justify the investment in them.

Most of these new nuclear plants are going to go bankrupt because the economics will only allow them to sell about half of the power they can produce. THEN your scenario will start playing out they will be able to sell power cheaply enough to compete with renewables.

However that will saddle the taxpayers/ratepayers with the stranded costs of building the damned things in the first place, while profits will accrue to the new owners - large energy companies. And, of course, we will have to accept the risk and pollution for decades.

Alternatively we could reach our noncarbon goals faster, cleaner, and safer by spending the money you want for the nuclear boondoggle on renewables and energy efficiency.

[Statistical]

11. Once again. No.

A nuclear plant will never "only be able to sell 60% of power".

It's marginal cost is <2 cents per kWh.

If it had to sell power that low it would never be able to be profitable but selling only 60% power WOULD BE EVEN MORE UNPROFITABLE.

No nuclear utility would be stupid enough to sell only 60% of it's power. The fact that it you suggest it indicates you don't even realize how stupid it is.

It would make more sense (lose less money) to sell 100% of power from reactor no matter how low the price as long as it is above marginal operating cost.

Selling less power would only make reactor EVEN MORE UNPROFITABLE. The company would be willfully losing MORE MONEY then it has to.

Reactor has a fixed cost of P&I. This exists no matter if the reactor sells 0 kwh or 12 billion kwh.
Then it has MARGINAL COSTS of about 2 cents per kwh.

As long as reactor can sell power at 2.000000000000001 per kwh or greater it makes the most economic sense to run reactor at 100%.
Selling less power would reduce revenue faster than it reduces marginal costs.

[kristopher]

12. Are you really that thick?

The 60% load factor represents the maximum amount MONEY they can recover given expected competition. YOU pretend that they will be able to sell 90% of their power AT MARKET RATES IN ORDER TO PAY FOR THE REACTORS.

THEY CANNOT. They will only be able to cover a maximum of about 60% of the expected amount needed to meet their obligations.

The way I describe the problem is clear, concise, unambiguous and ACCURATE. Whether the plants spread that income out by selling all of their power at a 40% loss or whether they don't sell 40% of their output is a strawman of the sort the facts often force you to employ.

[Statistical]

13. Man you have no concept of business.

Even if we accept your premise that nuclear reactors will go bankrupt because wholesale cost of power will fall so dramatically (something nobody on the planet is projecting) nuclear reactors will still run at near 100% capacity.

EVEN IF THEY LOSE MONEY.

They lose LESS money selling every ounce of power they can generate as opposed to idling the plant. Idling the plant won't save anything when it comes to capital & interest costs. They are sunk. The company has to pay theem regardless of it they run at 90% (1000 million kwh per month) or 60% (600 million kwh per month).

There is no avoiding them. Reducing capacity factor won't save any of that money. It makes MORE SENSE (LOSE LESS MONEY) to sell run reactor at 90%+ capacity factor then it does to LOSE EVEN MORE MONEY at 60% capacity.

The MARGINAL COST of a reactor is 2 cents. As long as wholsale power is >2 cents the company WILL LOSE LESS MONEY by selling everything it can. Now the revenue from selling power at say 3 cents (1 cent gross profit after marginal costs and before paying capital & interest) will not be enough to lose money however they would lose even more by not selling power (0.0 revenue).

The construction cost is already sunk and static regardless of how much or little power the plant sells. In that scenario EVEN IF power prices are below the point where company is profitable they should sell all the power they can do reduce the loss.

[kristopher]

14. WTF is your problem?

You are the one that has no idea of how the power market works. You are sitting here insisting that whether they sustain massive financial losses with strategy A or strategy B makes a difference to the economic viability of the new reactors.

IT DOESN'T MATTER. Financial analysts look at it the way I described it. The nuclear power industry has absolutely no argument for their technology EXCEPT the fiction they've created around high capacity factors, so you are tying yourself in a knot trying to maintain the "A high capacity factor is important" fiction.


Either way you describe it they go bankrupt and the public loses money and time in meeting our noncarbon goals; and we are stuck with the trash these monsters leave behind.

[Statistical]

15. Only in your imagniary scenario where cost of solar falls 90%.

That is some kool-aid even solar advocates aren't drinking.

Yes if wholesale price of solar falls to <6 cents per kwh then nuclear plants will operate at a loss. Given most utilities are diversified it is unlikely they will go bankrupt but that will end any future nuclear reactors. Nobody (sane) on the planet is predicting solar going that cheap.

Even at $1 per watt panels the entire system is far more expensive. You still have inverter, labor, hardware, wiring, mounting/frames and capital costs.

Plant will still have finite lifespan and power output will still degrade over time.
You will have derating between DC peak and AC peak.
You still have low capacity factor.

Add all that up and it is impossible for solar to get as low as you imagine.

Say solar panel is $1 per watt shipped and available in bulk (as much as you want to buy). Mounting, hardware, wiring is all only another $0.25 per watt. Inverter is $0.50 per watt and you use illegal migrant workers to get labor down to $0.25 per watt.

You are still looking at $2.00 per watt installed. $2000 per KWh.
1 KWp @ 84% system derate and 5.0 solar insolation will produce 1533 kWh annually.

If output decays 0.25% annually over 30 year lifespan total power output would be 44,250 KWh.

Capital & Interest Cost @ 7% interest over 30 years is $5987 per KW.

Your C&I costs alone (excluding all maintenance, repairs, operations, and decommissioning) is $0.10 per KWh.
That is at $1 per watt for panels (which don't exist).

Unlike you I have actually run the numbers for solar because I have the money to install a solar array on my home. The only way it works is by subsidies and gaming the system (using HELOC to write off interest and reduce income tax).

[kristopher]

16. *Another* strawman...

Like natural gas right in the present grid, solar is just one element of the renewable energy portfolio (and the most expensive at that), so larger than standard predicted price declines are not part of the outlook that prompted the evaluation of the CBO that under economic conditions forecast more than 50% of new nuclear plants will be going bankrupt. And as I said, that is THE MOST OPTIMISTIC scenario. If there is no market intervention to help them the default rate for new nuclear plants is expected to be above 70%.

So you can rail all you want about price declines in solar you claim will never happen (although such behavior happens everywhere else where the same market conditions apply) but the fact is that renewables aren't going away. They are going to be increasing market share yearly while nuclear struggles to come online, and they will be there generating electricity with NO fuel costs when the clunkers finally begin producing a product for sale.

As a representative of the nuclear industry your political machinations may snag a couple of hundred BILLION taxpayer dollars, but that isn't going to make them cost effective.

The highly touted renaissance of nuclear power is based on fiction, not fact. It got a significant part of its momentum in the early 2000s with a series of cost projections that vastly understated the direct costs of nuclear reactors. As those early cost estimates fell by the wayside and the extremely high direct costs of nuclear reactors became apparent, advocates for nuclear power turned to climate change as the rationale to offset the high cost. But introducing environmental externalities does not resuscitate the nuclear option for two reasons. First, consideration of externalities improves the prospects of non-fossil, non-nuclear options to respond to climate change. Second, introducing externalities so prominently into the analysis highlights nuclear power’s own environmental problems. Even with climate change policy looming, nuclear power cannot stand on its own two feet in the marketplace, so its advocates are forced to seek to prop it up by shifting costs and risks to ratepayers and taxpayers.

The aspiration of the nuclear enthusiasts, embodied in early reports from academic institutions, like MIT, has become desperation, in the updated MIT report, precisely because their reactor cost numbers do not comport with reality. Notwithstanding their hope and hype, nuclear reactors are not economically competitive and would require massive subsidies to force them into the supply mix. It was only by ignoring the full range of alternatives -- above all efficiency and renewables -- that the MIT studies could pretend to see an economic future for nuclear reactors, but the analytic environment has changed from the early days of the great bandwagon market, so that it is much more difficult to get away with passing off hope and hype as reality.

The massive shift of costs necessary to render nuclear barely competitive with the most expensive alternatives and the huge amount of leverage (figurative and literal) that is necessary to make nuclear power palatable to Wall Street and less onerous on ratepayers is simply not worth it because the burden falls on taxpayers. Policymakers, regulators, and the public should turn their attention to and put their resources behind the lower-cost, more environmentally benign alternatives that are available. If nuclear power’s time ever comes, it will be far in the future, after the potential of the superior alternatives available today has been exhausted.

Cooper Report:
http://www.vermontlaw.edu/it/Documents/Cooper%20Report%20on%20Nuclear%20Economics%20FINAL%5B1%5D.pdf

Here is both a range of predictions related to comparative costs and a graph produced by Cooper.

Cooper collected comparisons


Cooper cost graph

[Statistical]

17. Your got to love the humor in a chart that says "source: calculated by author".

:rofl:

Wow. Now that is some strong cite! Slightly less convincing than "because I said so".

The 50% number is completely debunked and the 70% number is one you just pulled out of your ass.

The Director of CBO even indicated :
a) that number no longer applies.
b) that each project will be evaluated individually and that a banket figure is not possible for something as complex as a nuclear reactor.
c) that DOE is required to collect risk premium in advance for each loan thus taxpayers are protected.

Of course you already knew that but I will post it against in case someone else doesn't.

http://cboblog.cbo.gov/?p=478

[kristopher]

18. The 50% and 70% numbers are real.

That "disclaimer" doesn't affect the basis of conclusion that 50%+ will default. If they don't default it is going to be because they are being propped up by government funds either directly in the form of guaranteed purchase of the power at above market prices or by shifting the costs associated with the risks onto the backs of the taxpayers/ratepayers. Either way it is a huge drain longterm on the public treasury that isn't needed with renewable energy. If the risk premium reflects the actual estimate of 30% losses they won't afford to be able to build the plants. So they will set the number artificially low and the taxpayers will pick up the tab.

In fact, since CBO estimate that more than 50% of new nuclear power plants would go bankrupt, the price of new nuclear plants has TRIPLED. So the economics are worse now than they were when the 50% estimate was put forth.

BTW my naive little waif, EVERY chart has an author; or do you think they just magically appear? Cooper has expensive experience and is perfectly qualified to analyze the data behind that chart.



Full report can be downloaded by clicking this link:
http://www.vermontlaw.edu/it/Documents/Cooper%20Report%20on%20Nuclear%20Economics%20FINAL%5B1%5D.pdf

[Statistical]

19. Per CBO YOUR 50% & 70% numbers are just that.

Before you were content to lie at 50% fake number.
Now it is the 70% fake number. That is some inflaiton.

How long before it is 80%, 90%, 99%.

Why not just go for 5 nines 99.999% like we strive for in telecom.

[kristopher]

20. That is a Dec 2008 analysis - specific numbers are 55% and 70.3(IIRC)% .

There is no way the 50%+ number from the CBO can be construed as a lie. Your characterization of the statements on the CBO blog can't erase the fact that the market fundamentals that resulted in the 50+% estimate are WORSE now than they were then. You know that is the case and you know that the response of the CBO do not address that point in any fashion.

...we argue that political will and political perception of economic variables rather than actual economic factors is the single most important driver for new nuclear construction and that in itself should be a concern for equity investors.