Why aren't solar power panels cheaper?

Question

I live in Tucson,AZ. Where it's sunny 300 days of the year if not more. I would like to build my own home, completely off the grid.

Answer 1

Solar cells are made either with single crystal silicon or polycrystalline silicon, with the latter being much cheaper & most common.

The single crystal material is used for all standard chips, so large quantities have been used for a long time. It is still quite expensive because it is very difficult to make. The impurities are in the parts per billion level or less. Also, the enormous single crystals must be made very slowly in a furnace.

The polycrystalline stuff eliminates the slow crystal growing stage. Also, Dow chemical has a new material & process developed to dramatically reduce the cost of the polycrystalline material. I think they blend a lower quality & cost silicon feedstock with a higher quality one, & still get it to work OK.

Finally, I don't know of any solar cell that is 40% efficient that is in production. The current champ is the Sunpower cell at about 17% efficient.

Answer 2

Eventually solar panels will come down in price, just like everything else. In the meantime, we do the best we can. I think it's a GREAT idea be self-sufficient and being "off the grid" is a good start.

Answer 3

solar panels are made of a silicon semiconductor. It has to be made carefully, so it is expensive.

Also, most solar panels can only get about 40% efficency, so you need to have a large amount of them. Especially if you want to run houshold appliances, you will probably need about 100 sq. meters.

I don't see why you could not have a solar power system rigged up with some batteries if you live in Arizona. It would just be expensive to set up.

Answer 4

Because they are hard to make. They are made exactly the same way as computer chips. Basically, they are just big arrays of diodes, like light emitting diodes (LEDs). The difference is that LEDs use electricity to make light where solar cells use light to make electricity.

Have you considered using mirrors to heat water to run a steam engine? Could you make your own power that way more cheaply than by using solar cells?

Answer 5

Because the US government hasn't poured billions of dollars into solar energy like it did into nuclear energy. Also, even though it is nice to have solar power where there is abundant sunlight (I live in El Paso, TX and we have it here), many parts of the US aren't afforded this luxury. Since that is where most of the people in this country live, they would rather rely on fuel oil or nuclear energy than on semi-reliable solar power.

Answer 6

It will take time for technology to make the process commercially viable. What happened to a transistor? how the prices crashed. Same is true of many electronic components today. Solar panels will be dirt cheap sooner than later.

Answer 7

Due to the peculiar technological demands of the manufacturing process, the costs of raw materials, the lack of perceived mass consumer demand for the finished product, 'the start up' costs for manufacturing, the firms that are now involved having conflicting interests, and our government's lack of incentives for the industry the production of photovoltaic cells has not yet reached levels that produce the economy of scales required to produce economical unit prices. This is most unfortunate and aggravating.

Answer 8

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Answer 9

Because of the materials they haven't developed a mass-production method so, each solar panel is individually made by hand. Learned this on my fave new show "How It's Made" on the discovery channel.

Answer 10

i remember when i went to radioshack for a soler panel. it was one of those small ones about .75in x 1.25in. that thing cost me 5 dollars. and i had to buy about 4 or 5 to get the same output as two AA batteries.