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Solar to produce more than 26 Gigawatts by 2015

renewableenergyworld.com — According to NanoMarkets, a leading industry analyst firm based here, the thin-film photovoltaics (TFPV) market will produce the equivalent of 26 gigawatts (GW) by 2015 and will generate well over $20 billion in revenues in that same time frame.

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  • Byrune, on 07/08/2008, -4/+16I wonder when people are actually going to start using solar energy istead of predicting how everythings gonna be solar....
    • JettaMan, on 07/09/2008, -4/+1I'm with you. Solar power is one of the biggest scams out there. It costs many times what nuclear or hydro power costs and the solar panels create butt loads of toxic waste to produce, not to mention how costly they are to produce and how much land they take up. It's a pipe dream kept alive by gullible politicians and subsidies to make it appear economical.
      • Scaryclouds, on 07/09/2008, -1/+2RTFA, this is about thin film PV, not rigid.
      • kieranmaine, on 07/15/2008, -0/+1@JettaMan
        In the past I've posted replies to your comments regarding solar and how it isn't a scam. You never replied to any of why comments. I'll won't get into specific technologies, but instead talk about the costings.

        Solar in the UK works out at about £0.40/KWh for a 1.5Kw system, costing about £10000 - I think if you opt for a 2.5Kw system the costs drop to about £0.30/KWh. It's hard to get solid facts. These two links about people installing solar are informative though. http://www.bettergeneration.co.uk/solar-photovolta ... and http://www.earth.org.uk/towards-a-LZC-office.html.

        Current UK energy prices are £0.10 and will be going up for the next few years at least (the new UK nuclear plants won't be finished until 2018). By next year energy prices will increase by 40%. "Gas prices are trading at 59p today and at 107p for the first quarter of 2009" - http://www.theyworkforyou.com/debate/?id=2008-06-3 ... (I recommend you read the whole debate. A lot of good information). Energy prices are increasing fast and won't slow down for a while. I think it is very much within the realms of possibility that energy prices will get to £0.30/Kwh, and in turn makes solar much more competitive.

        This is just the UK. A 1.5kw system only produces about 1200Kwh a year. In the likes of California, Spain, Israel, etc, the amount of energy produced will be significantly higher and costs significantly lower. Of course this is relative to each regions energy costs.

        As I've mentioned in the past 50% of the cost of domestic solar is the cost. Hopefully with a growing and competitive market these costs can be cut down as well. Also, as I've said before, look at how the cost of solar is dropping historically. More PV cell production is coming on line in the next couple of years. Thin film and non silicon PV is making large steps forward. Intel have started there own PV panel production company. 100s millions are being invested into it. Efficiencies are increasing every year.

        I'm completely unsure as to why you feel that solar is "pipe dream" when the evidence shows it will provide more and more of the worlds energy.
  • chestyle, on 07/08/2008, -3/+5Yeah, man, It's the same like with oil-based products, hydrogen based engines could be a common thing if it wasn't for the "evil" oil companies that earn a fortune on petrol etc. It's all about the money, you know.
    • Subliminational, on 07/09/2008, -0/+1Not sure if you're serious or not, but hydrogen fueled vehicles are actually very impractical, as far as I know, largely due to the difficulties of storing useful amounts of hydrogen. Not to mention the infrastructure required to refine and distribute it. Perhaps we will develop some better means of storage and production, but for now it isn't a viable option. Tried to find a link to the atlantic monthly article by Robert Zubrin I read about it, but couldn't in the limited time I devoted to it.
  • ytt12, on 07/08/2008, -2/+6Thats the thing oil controls everything
    even the goverments, its their biggest source of income
  • McP1ckl3s, on 07/08/2008, -0/+5http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=mjCRUvX2D0E&feature= ...
    • NuclearIsShit, on 07/09/2008, -0/+1That was the perfect scene for this story buddy.
  • cyberwiz01, on 07/08/2008, -2/+80I thought it only took 1.21 Gigawatts to get to 2015?
    • tkstock, on 07/09/2008, -0/+13You'll have enough for 21 trips with some to spare!
    • tapo, on 07/09/2008, -0/+6It does! So solar panels will be able to power about 21.5 Deloreans!

      I'm not sure about the flying train, though.
      • ferrite, on 07/09/2008, -0/+8Pity that will only power the time circuits.

        The engine still runs on gasoline.
      • Matri, on 07/09/2008, -0/+4Well technically only the flux capacitor needs that much power.
      • bman85, on 07/09/2008, -0/+7@ferrite

        well call it 1.22 and throw an electric engine in that puppy...
    • Nemisys, on 07/09/2008, -2/+0dugg... thats funny right there
    • humperdinck, on 07/09/2008, -0/+14This is heavy.
      • pe5t1lence, on 07/09/2008, -1/+7Why do you keep saying that? Is something wrong with the earth's magnetic field?
      • pixelperfect, on 07/09/2008, -0/+1Why do you keep saying that? In the future, is there something wrong with the gravitational pull??
    • batmanz, on 07/09/2008, -0/+9Great Scott!
    • MagMan68Classic, on 07/09/2008, -0/+7The only reason I opened this article is to find a BTTF reference.
      Thank you all
    • Mpulse, on 07/09/2008, -0/+5What the hell is a gigawatt!?
    • peestandingup, on 07/09/2008, -1/+21.21 Gigawatts!!!!
    • davewelsh79, on 07/09/2008, -1/+4I'm sorry, but you are wrong. You need jiggawatts to travel through time.
    • tkstock, on 07/09/2008, -0/+1Well, I think that horse is not only dead and beaten, it's not even recognizable as a horse anymore.
    • misterdrumz, on 07/09/2008, -0/+21.21 Gigawatts and remember to fill the Mister Fusion up with Banana skins and left over pepsi before the trip!
  • TJ11240, on 07/09/2008, -0/+2"By 2015, NanoMarkets expects that TFPV will account for more than half of the world's production of PV."

    That would be great if it came true
  • PokerGigolo, on 07/09/2008, -5/+4What's a gigawatt?!?!
  • Yimyack, on 07/09/2008, -0/+26Doc: 1.21 JIGGAWATTS!!!!!
    (softer)
    1.21 jiggawatts...

    Marty: Wha...WHAT THE HELL IS A JIGGAWATT?!!?!
  • sonicHeart, on 07/09/2008, -0/+16Great scott!!!
  • SonicEarth, on 07/09/2008, -0/+12A bolt of lightning!
  • inphu510n, on 07/09/2008, -2/+1Pshhhhhhhhh.
    My uber gaming machine uses that much in an hour.
    Pansies.
  • poidh, on 07/09/2008, -0/+7Please, PLEASE, throw money at solar.
    Although wind power is honourable, I'd prefer a future based on solar and backed up by nuclear.
    It's the only way.
    • xexx, on 07/09/2008, -0/+2All 3 ftw... Wind for night and day, solar for day, nuclear to fill in the gaps of the other 2 when needed.
    • KeillRandor, on 07/09/2008, -0/+0You got that the wrong way round - it's Nuclear (40GW per plant) supplemented by solar, wind and tidal - it's the ONLY solution...
      • SuperCujo, on 07/09/2008, -0/+2Pity tidal has a massive environmental cost associated with it.
  • philhatesyou, on 07/09/2008, -11/+9Congratulations, Solar Power nuts, you've achieved production of 4% of our electricity demand in 2001(demand has undoubtedly increased since). Now, how many tons of toxic waste will it take to get there, and how many square miles of environment will be utterly destroyed because they're covered with panels? How much oil did you guys have to burn to purify all of that Si required to make the panels, and how much waste did THAT generate?
    • rhodydog, on 07/09/2008, -1/+8You could provide the same sentiment for every other technology that's been developed in the past. For example, we should never have started using fire all those eons ago, fire is highly dangerous, spreads easily, has probably being the cause for millions of deaths, it causes huge amounts of atmospheric pollution, it emits toxic fumes and when used on a large scale can devastate huge areas of the planet. Fire, bad bad idea.
      • pe5t1lence, on 07/09/2008, -0/+5FIRE BAD!!
      • ikrit2006, on 07/09/2008, -1/+1Fire helps some plants grow back better, keeps people from freezing to death, kills bacteria in food, etc. Also people didn't just discover fire, it's a naturally occurring event... I wasn't aware of solar panels spontaneously appearing in nature.
      • rhodydog, on 07/09/2008, -0/+2...and solar generates electricity without producing waste (except during manufacture), provides shade for desert critters, reduces CO2 emissions and the consumption of non-renewables.

        Fire does not appear spontaneously in nature either. It requires initiation and a finite amount of time to emerge. People did discover fire, it wasn't invented. someone turned a corned, saw a burning tree and discovered fire!
      • philhatesyou, on 07/09/2008, -0/+1Your argument falls flat. The primary reason anyone even considers solar power is because they're so ***** stupid that they think it's "green." Also, solar power is one of the most inefficient methods of electrical production(given that the sun gives out about 1200W/m^2 on a good day in the desert, you're required by simple physics to plaster the Earth in solar panels to get any real power), whereas fire was not the most inefficient method of heating and lighting, it was the only one. Also, we have alternatives, most of which work better than solar and are even more environmentally friendly. But you solar nutbars are too ***** dumb to get it. Again, your analogy is so transparently wrong to someone with even a junior high school understanding of science, it's amazing that anyone could be so ***** dumb to not only think of it, but actually commit it to writing.

        Also, to the douchebag who suggested that desert critters want shade: that's ***** absurd. You should be shot in an effort to clean up the gene pool.
    • skywiselh, on 07/09/2008, -1/+2GW does not equal GWh.

      Regardless, while 25k GW of production would be impressive, we could build the same with 5 nuclear power plants (assuming EPR technology) having 3 reactors each. This is not the answer to the energy crisis.
      • NuclearIsShit, on 07/09/2008, -0/+1High level waste (HLW) is produced by nuclear reactors. It contains fission products and transuranic elements generated in the reactor core. It is highly radioactive and often thermally hot. LLW and ILW accounts for over 95% of the total radioactivity produced in the process of nuclear electricity generation. The amount of HLW worldwide is currently increasing by about 12,000 metric tons every year, which is the equival to about 100 double-decker busses or a two-story structure built on top of a basketball court.

        Here is the fun part-

        The timeframe in question when dealing with radioactive waste ranges from 10,000 to 1,000,000 years.

        Yea I got it from Wikipedia, but you can't really argue with those facts, and I can bet you that they are very conservative.
      • rhodydog, on 07/09/2008, -0/+2A balanced energy policy is the best, we shouldn't rely on just nuclear either.
      • philhatesyou, on 07/09/2008, -0/+1Dear *****,

        You're obviously extremely uneducated on the subject, so you don't deserve a reply, but here goes anyways.

        If Nuclear power is properly done, waste is far less a problem than you make it out to be. The system that's in place in France is a good example of how to do it. Most of the waste products from nuclear reactors can be re-used. By the time the fuel has been recycled, the average amount of electrical power generated by the average American family is extremely small: the waste generated by a family of four for 20 years would fit in "a glass cylinder the size of a cigarette lighter." (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/reac ... This is most certainly a smaller amount of waste than the toxic waste generated in the creation of solar panels.

        ***** like yourself also like to quote the 10,000 to 1,000,000 year lifetime of radioactive waste as well. However, you fail to note that the toxic waste generated by other forms of energy are toxic forever. Perhaps you can find a way to turn the toxic materials into something not so toxic, but then doing so would probably require more energy than your solar panel would output in it's lifetime.
      • NuclearIsShit, on 07/09/2008, -0/+0Like I said I got it from Wikipedia. By the way calling someone a ***** and other ignorant terms does not make you sound any smarter either.

        And regardless of your argument, 3 mile island and Chernobyl are other reasons to avoid this technology. Especially since terrorism is at the highest levels it has ever been at.

        Don't forget the DU. DU is poisonous and we are shooting it into other countries (oh sorry did I say we? I meant the US and Israel). Most other civilized nations have banned it's use in weapons.

        Long story short, use nuclear and risk another Chernobyl and get stuck with more Nuclear waste or use a fricken spinning propeller and solar energy. And for all of you naysayers, we can use a variety of energy sources like solar, wind, biomass, methane capture, clean coal, hydro and tidal and we would be pretty close to being where we want to be regarding reducing emissions.

        But whatever, you want to trip out and call peoples names who you don't agree with, then go ahead, just keep embarrassing yourself.
    • cplusplus, on 07/09/2008, -0/+3So you are against solar power because its environmentally unfriendly?!
      • philhatesyou, on 07/09/2008, -0/+2Yes, because they demonstrably are. Just because some hippie ***** tells you something is true doesn't mean it is.
      • NuclearIsShit, on 07/09/2008, -0/+0Well Just because some right wing dip ***** says something doesn't mean it's true. And by the way how much pollution does it take to build a nuclear power plant? Which is the most expensive energy source? What are you a hired nuclear propagandist or something? Your obviously a very overly judgmental person calling people names all day long.
    • jaxcs, on 07/09/2008, -0/+1The fact that solar panels require energy input to create and generates some pollution is not reason to avoid solar energy. Things we need in modern life do not spring from the ground fully formed. Everything generates waste, the question is what kind of waste and how much.
      • philhatesyou, on 07/09/2008, -0/+1The fact that they take energy to create and generate pollution isn't a problem. Solar power demonstrably generates more waste than Nuclear power does and is in no uncertain terms worse for the environment. Seeing as to how the entire point behind having solar power is that it's environmentally friendly, the fact that big bad scary Nuclear power is actually less invasive to the environment seems to me to be something of an insurmountable stumbling block.
      • jaxcs, on 07/10/2008, -0/+1It's an interesting claim that solar manufacturing creates more toxic materials than nuclear. What particularly are you talking about? When people say that solar is environmentally friendly, they are refering to it's operation. A bank of these can be placed anywhere, even the roof of the whitehouse without fear. You can't say the same about nuclear. A solar furnace is a different animal but it also creates little to no pollutants during it's operation.
  • govsucks, on 07/09/2008, -1/+3I would love to see solar and have been watching it for a while as a add on to my current home. But you know that some ***** will claim that the manufacturing of solar panels threatens the habitat of the yellow bellied fru fru (or makes their eggs soft ;) ) and that will be it for solar power. Just like the bitches that cry about the birds at this very moment with wind power.
    • tacojohn48, on 07/09/2008, -0/+2But it does make the fru fru eggs soft, and they aren't as good in omelets that way.
    • NuclearIsShit, on 07/09/2008, -0/+1The oil, coal, nuclear, and hydro dam industries use those kinds of environmental fears to help fight against the exploration of new technologies also. I just read a story about a lobby group that is fighting against electric cars here in Canada and they use the fact that the cars are too quiet, so blind people won't be able to see or react to them. Now that is some *****.
  • EntreLangdon, on 07/09/2008, -3/+6IS THAT ENOUGH TO POWER THE FLUX CAPACITOR??
  • theghoul, on 07/09/2008, -0/+4Heavy.
  • bman85, on 07/09/2008, -0/+5I love the word Gigawatts.... just seems so...powerful.
    • Nudar, on 07/09/2008, -0/+5It seems even more powerful when you pronounce it jigawatts.
    • wibambau, on 07/09/2008, -1/+1jigawho?
    • Subliminational, on 07/09/2008, -0/+2femtawatt and petawatt sound kinda wussy. We should just express everything in gigawatts so that it sounds better.
  • TomPlansMedia, on 07/09/2008, -1/+4it'll probably take 26 gigawats to power my laptop in 2015
  • m4csrgh3yk3v, on 07/09/2008, -10/+4What's that in Niggawatts?
  • MobiusPrime, on 07/09/2008, -1/+3Take that global warming !
  • GuZ2k7, on 07/09/2008, -1/+18If I read one more Back to the Future joke I may cry..
    • NuclearIsShit, on 07/09/2008, -0/+3But this suckers electrical, I need 1.21 gigawatt's...

      1.21 GIGAWATTS!!!
    • ikrit2006, on 07/09/2008, -0/+4All those gigawatts would power nearly 2 complete runs through the trilogy (I counted 11 uses of the time machine, 11 * 1.21 = 13.31)
  • Trav3133, on 07/09/2008, -2/+1That is enough to power the house i live in for like 3 months.
  • NecroSexy, on 07/09/2008, -0/+2y hello thar exponential function
  • welliwonder, on 07/09/2008, -0/+0I was going to comment on the funny comments but all I could do was stare at this ladies huge *****:
    http://ll.atdmt.com/b/4IBTSBTSABS7/BT300JUNE011.jp ...
    from the banner advertising... and no I'm not going to buy a t-shirt... nice rack though! I'd like to put my face in there and go BUABABABABABABABBA
  • 8347, on 07/09/2008, -0/+0I'm making my own prediction that it will be 30 gigawatts by 2014! And that nobody will give a ***** what was predicted by July 9th, 2008!
  • TheBanch, on 07/09/2008, -0/+4And here I was about to make a clever Back to the Future comment...
  • mrinsanity, on 07/09/2008, -0/+2That's roughly 21.49 times the amount we need to go back to..... ah ***** it.
  • Judman, on 07/09/2008, -0/+3*cue back to the future jokes*
  • NateTheApe21, on 07/09/2008, -0/+3yes but.....I still need to get to 88 mph
  • l800LEMMINGS, on 07/09/2008, -0/+1if the government doesn't more stops on solar companies to examine the "effects" of solar power
  • mrhuhk, on 07/09/2008, -0/+2It's what makes time travel eco-friendly.
  • osmaker, on 07/09/2008, -0/+1We need far more than 26 Gigawatts by 2015. With the US using somewhere around 3 Terawatts in 1999, 26 Gigawatts is barely a drop in the bucket (assuming my math is correct):

    26 GW = 0.026 TW
    0.026 TW / 3 TW = 0.008 = 0.8%

    Yes, that's less than 1% of the US's total power consumption. And that's assuming the 26 GW figure is average output, not peak output (the high price tag on the report makes it hard for me to find out whether it's an average or peak figure).

    I'm all for solar, but we need some MAJOR breakthroughs before it can really make a difference.

    Digg me down (with a friendly comment) if my math is wrong.
  • wlwest82, on 07/09/2008, -0/+2That's enough to supply 21 people with the necessary 1.21 gigawatts (pronounced Jigga-watts) to go back to 1955.

    Sweet.
  • OzzieAlThor, on 07/09/2008, -0/+2Silence Earthling. My name is Darth Vader. I am an extraterrestrial from the planet Vulcan!

    http://www.moviewavs.com/php/sounds/?id=gog&media= ...

    Oh and on topic:

    http://www.moviewavs.com/php/sounds/?id=gog&media= ...


  • beauley, on 07/10/2008, -0/+1With Global Warming on many people's minds, do we have any ideas of the best way to lessen the impact on our future, or maybe a possible relief of its possible ravages or even a possible key to its eventual reversal. Many scientific experts have proposed
    http://www.quazen.com/Science/Technology/Solar-Pow ...
    Solar Power, Source of Endless Energy
  •  

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