PV Gap

Ruby Said:

What is the best free power source Biofuel or Solar energy?

We Answered:

Neither biofuels or solar energy are free. There is a substantial cost to grow and harvest the crops and process them into biofuels and distribute the biofuels to the consumers.

The cost to convert solar energy to electricity is substantial. Unfortunately, the cost data is not readily available.

(perhaps because the salespeople who sell these systems do not want it to be available because few people would buy these systems if they knew how much these systems really cost for the meager amount of elecricity that you get out of them)

However several years ago, one of my colleagues here in the silicon valley in California didput solar panels on the roof of his house to produce electricity, so I do have some cost data from him that I will share with you.

The total cost of the solar panels installed was $32,596.37

My colleague financed the installation with a second mortgage on his house that has an interest rate of 7.5%

The annual interest cost of his second mortgage is $2,444.73

The amount total amount of electricity produced by the panels last year from January 1, 2006 to December 31, 2006 was 4,186 Kilowatt hours.

The cost of the electricity produced per kilowatt hour just in the cost of the interest on his second mortgage is 58.4 cents per kilowatt hour.

This does not even take into account the amortization of the system over its expected life.

The system has an expected life of 25 years. Straight line depreciation of that system is $,1303.85 per year.

The total cost per kilowatt hour just based on the annual interest cost of the mortgage and annual straight line depreciation of the system is: 89.55 cents per kilowatt hour.

In my opinion that is not free. In fact it is a very expensive way to generate electricity.

Also, I did not even take into account routine maintenance of the system which is also a significant added cost.

When you add the cost of routine maintenance you are over $1.00 per kilowatt hour for the electricity generated by a solar photovoltaic system on the roof of your house!

This is not free! In my opinion it is incredibly expensive!