From a Reuters story via Tyler in Clean Break comes the headline: "Sharp sees US taking lead as top solar consumer." Germany followed by Japan currently have the largest solar installations. Sharp, worlds largest producer of solar panels, sees the home construction industry as the way to expanding solar sales. Sharp is in touch with all the major home builders and many have solar projects either under construction or in planning stages. The company is currently working on a 400-home project in Naples, Florida, with U.S. home builder Centex Corp. in which all the new houses will be wired for solar energy. According to Sharp builders are finding that homes sell faster and have a significantly higher resale value than homes without a solar system.
Sales are made easier by state and federal subsidies that reduce the 8 to 12 years required for non-subsidized solar systems to pay for themselves . One thing driving up the cost is a shortage of refined silicon, the most costly component of solar panels. Its price has risen 120 percent over the last 14 months. But costs will be reduced as Sharp starts to produce thin film solar panels that use 2 to 3 microns of silicon, rather than the 200 microns used in conventional panels. In this area Sharp would be in a race with producers such as Daystar and Solar Ovonics who are already producing non-silicon thin film solar.
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Looking at my annual energy bill, a solar-thermal installation would be more welcome than a photovoltaic installation. Natural gas is a bigger slice of my personal pie graph than electricity.
Posted by: Robert | April 08, 2006 at 08:28 PM
Both heat and electricity can be produced from the same installation, it is called solar cogeneration.
Posted by: amazingdrx | April 09, 2006 at 12:05 PM
How do these installations compare to Ovonics shingles? I bought a home in July and shortly after that replaced the roof. I was interested in putting in a solar shingle system but didn't feel I had enough information at the time to calculate the return on investment.
Posted by: A3K | April 10, 2006 at 10:43 AM
Check it out a3k!
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog/_archives/2005/7/29/1089323.html
This New Jersey homeowner has a system that will pay itself off in 8.5 years.
I haven't found a solar cogeneration system yet. But I will have one soon, stay tuned!
Posted by: amazingdrx | April 10, 2006 at 11:39 AM
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/14/business/14solar.html
21% efficient PV cells. Imagine these at 10 suns? Maybe 50% efficient?
We are getting close to powering the world from rooftops.
Posted by: amazingdrx | April 14, 2006 at 02:09 PM