Does anyone know how solar prices compare per country $/watt ?

This was posted on TOD last week:

http://www.theoildrum.com/uploads/2305/Solar_Insolation_map.gif

It shows solar insolation (total solar energy averaged over time) for the United States. I'm not sure what the source was.

They invested $30 million? Peanuts!

OPEC collects $600 BILLION each year for their crude. Total worldwide spending on crude oil and nat gas is almost 2 TRILLION per year.

We need a global push into wind and solar to the tune of $500 BILLION. Then we'd see some result.

"They invested $30 million? Peanuts!"

Sharp has made a business decision to expand it's production capacity by 20%. This is not a trivial decision but is probably a wise one in the current market.

Sharp is out to operate a business, not conduct a solar crusade. Their responsibility is to the stockholders.

Many countries, states, and provinces currently have significant subsidy programs for PV installations.

Stormy:

Google “solar” and “state you live in”. Comprehensive guides will be on the first search page.

Price for crystalline silicon used for manufacturing of PV solar panels is expected to double in couple of years and severely limit PV production. Due to high capital cost and long construction time new crystalline silicon manufacturing capacity is not expected to rump-up production in two years at least. Some companies, like ECD Ovonic, use amorphous silicon and claiming that their PV is not restricted by crystalline Si shortages.

These guys haven't a chance if nanosolar come through on their promises.

www.nanosolar.com

They are just building a single factory capable of making 430 MW of cells per year, printed reel-to-reel around $1 per watt.

Maybe the cost to manufacture might be $1 a watt, I have not seen any data to support that and I doubt Nanosolar nor their investors would disclose that, but I bet the price to consumers is much closer to $5 a watt.

SJC, of course NanoSolar will price against the market, not their production cost. If you could make 430MW of cells for $1/Wp would you:

A. Sell for $1.10/Wp and make $43 million profit, or
B. Sell for $5.00/Wp and make $1.7 billion?

Not a hard choice. Especially when you consider that pricing at 1.10 would only cause speculators to buy up your entire supply, resell it at $5.00/Wp and pocket the $1.65 billion difference themselves.

So will $1/Wp production cost have ANY impact on pricing? Yes, just not immediately. The $1.7 billion profit they make from building at $1/Wp and selling at $5 will allow Nanosolar to build 17 more factories. That's over 7 TW of production, almost 50% of current global supply! To expand the market that fast Nanosolar and other producers will have to lower prices below $5/Wp. By this mechanism the price will approach $1/Wp, but it won't happen overnight. More like five years.

Well, I consider a reduction from $5/Wp to $1 pretty dramatic even if it does take five years. Especially considering that it would completely rewrite the energy industry's economic laws. Perhaps I'm too easily impressed.

BTW, Nanosolar makes the most audacious claims and gets mucho press, but there are over a dozen companies building CIGS production lines plus a few who claim non-CIGS thin-film breakthroughs. Miasole claims they'll have 200 MW of capacity by the end of 2007. The others combined account for another 200 MW +/- around the same time frame. Some of these will fall by the wayside, of course, but it only takes 3-4 solid competitors to dramatically accelerate the pace. We could see sub-$3/Wp in 18 months and $1/Wp by 2010 if competition really heats up.

For module pricing see graph on homepage of Solarbuzz, Inc.:

http://www.solarbuzz.com/

Note the dipping of the European price level and more or less stabilisation of both curves. America is becoming still a bit more expensive because California eats all the modules due to SB1 being signed by Schwarzenegger.

Prices will fall in Germany, has been predicted by several analists.

We'll see, it is a fascinating market.