I am looking at a range of different solar technologies, and trying to get a handle on current costs.

First Solar’s Wikipedia page claims a total capital cost per kW of $3500/kW, for a plant built in 2008.

Estimates I have seen of Solar Thermal range from $2000-$7000/kW. Does anyone have any more information on this? What are today’s prices like? What would be the cost for the storage component, per kW?

Steve

Hey Steve,

Perhaps one of the best indicators of technology costs is what they did over in Adelaide where they are putting a 1MW system over at Adelaide showgrounds.  The budget for this is ~8M, which some math gives $8 per watt installed. 

It’s not too hard to get panel prices of around $4 per watt, and I’m sure companies like Nu Energy are getting better deals in order to support their now defunct rebate sales.  There has been a big drop in panel prices lately an oversupply across all technologies.

The next question is which technoligy is best for the applicaiton, and that’s a choice between the amorphous “thin films” and the poly and monocrystalline varieties.

Storage, that gets expensive with the current generation of monocell lead acid bateries.

Another great resource for solar benchmarks of solarbuzz.com who have a great price benchmarking

base module prices:  http://solarbuzz.com/Moduleprices.htm

overall system prices:  http://solarbuzz.com/solarprices.htm

Sam.

The application of solar thermal technologies is a new area with a lot of research and economic analysis being undertaken in EU to evaluate technology performance and comodify system component technologies to allow mass production. See summary of reseach bodies and test sites here http://www.estif.org/252.0.html#690.

From my experience in the AU market there is a great deeal of interest in the combisun systems (Systems designed for hot water and hydronic heating) but very little in the way of professional support and availability of system hardware. Consise summary of solar thermal efficiency compared to PV http://solar.calfinder.com/blog/going/solar-the…