sorry, but if you think "the last question" relates to energy conservation or energy efficiency or green energy, then you have missed the point.

the last question relates to the unstoppable force of entropy, which means the universe will run out of energy eventually regardless of how green or energy conserving you are. it may take 10 billion years, or 10 billion billion years, but it will happen.

Thorium is 3 to 4 times as abundant as Uranium-238, which is not useful for a nuclear reactor if not enriched first. It is 700 times as abundant as naturally-occurring Uranium-235, which is the fissile fuel of nuclear reactors running on the Uranium fuel cycle. U-238 is only used as the fertile blanket to be neutron-enriched into Plutonium if I recall correctly.

100kWh!!! Are you sure about that? If a solar panel was 100% efficient and could capture 100% of the sun's spectrum, and could track the sun through the sky so that it's always incident against the sun, it would take 100 square meters of these solar panels to produce that much power.

If it's a fixed installation that doesn't track the sun, you'll need 400 square meters to generate 100kWh.

But since polycrystalline solar cells can only capture 20% of the sun's spectrum, we'll actually need 2000 square meters to generate 100kWh on a totally sunny cloudless day.

RM90k is a bargain for 2000 square meters of polycrystalline solar cells! Is it a subsidized price? Such as the solar panels under that TNB's BIPV subsidy program?

Ah. I stand corrected on this one. Thanks for the info!

Well I actually work as an Solar Design Engineer out here in California. Interestingly, what I found was Photovoltaics is actually not new technology, it actually has been around for almost a hundred years. It is true that initial start up costs are high, however, the system has a life-span of 25 to 30 years, and your ROI in Malaysia would be about half of that (Actually, I'm going to say this depends on how much of a utility bill you get in the first place). In California, there are government based and utility based incentives to help balance the cost of Solar systems here and ROIs can go from 4 to 7 years depending on the size of the system. Though, it would be unfair for me to point on California's case.

It is true that power is not produced during the night, however you would be surprised that power can still be produced in cloudy weather, though production may be halved or even more. However, all these would have already been taken into account in the first place when sizing a system, so your building/house would be covered. Also, do keep in mind that renewable energy systems will definitely not take over current forms of energy, but it would actually mitigate the amount of coal being burnt, hence making KL's skyline more visible at times.

Efficiency of panels range from 18 to 20 percent and its bound to only go higher. Especially with the recent boom in the European market again due to large incentives and not forgetting the large American market. Prices on PV panels are now so competitive due to the over production in China.

my group at polytechnic has making Green Energy project..
but it stil not success loh..
coz the electric that we produce it stil low..
and many modification have to make..

What about if I start with a small scale first? Example taking out a few light to be connect to the solar? Will this still cost alot more? Worst it?

I m still thinking about this start with small scale first which maybe cost not more than RM4k.

The efficiency rating for solar panels takes into account the spectrum IIRC. That was a mistake I used to make myself.

reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cell#En...sion_efficiency , and standard test conditions are defined here http://rredc.nrel.gov/solar/spectra/am1.5/ . So yeah, it's not going to be that bad.

Does a coal-mine cause THAT much pollution? The closest coal-fired plant to KL is in Kapar. I always thought that too many cars on the road were more of a factor.

Ozak:

Well, again i'm not too familiar with the Malaysian energy market, and the prices of panels in Malaysia, I was just giving information based on what I know since I work in the industry.

If you wanted to start small scale, you may want to consult the manufacturer or an electrical engineer/electrician before starting.

VMSmith:

The last statement I wrote was intended as a pun. I did not really mean what I said. Though, you never know.

Ah. Duly noted.

I do have a couple of questions regarding PV cells maintenance though.

#1: Considering that it's easy for dust to gather on the glass surface and for it to be easily scratched, how often/expensive would it cost to replace it? (Not looking for a specific number, just an approximate figure)

#2: Does the silver paste for PV cells need to be replaced over a certain number of years as well?

I have check around my local solar company. There have some small scale solar package for home user. With considerate cost. I calculate mostly base on US website as here don't have much detail. I guess it same since the parts is not much different. I might be wrong. The installation is not diffiuclt for me.

Over US side, are they start in small scale first or mostly go for whole house?

When the raining season comes u gg.


from wat i understand, there are 2 ways of generating electricity from solar. One is using solar cells, semi conductor like selenium can convert light particles to electric current.

light energy --> electric energy


the other way is to use the heat from sun to heat water and convert it to steam to push the turbine.

heat energy --> electric energy.

In Malaysia, a big barrier for us will be the still significant ROI. With most Malaysians actually taking 7-9 years to pay off a car, on a similar price scale, it will not be feasible for most people without a good financing option to be able to afford that cash outlay.

Actually, wasn't there a global overcapacity of panels? I was actually hoping for a price crash, followed by the surviving firms finally getting their acts together and put PV on the same price law as semiconductors (e.g. installed price per kW to be halved every 18-24 months)

IIRC there was one. But PV panels do not follow the Moore's law, because power scales with area of panels, while Moore's Law talks about number of transistors, which gets smaller.

The glass is actually manufactured to be more durable than that, the dust can be cleaned off easily with water, and the glass used is actually a temper proof/scratch proof glass, so you wont have to replace it.

PV panels are maintenance free, you dont have to maintain them at all. As a matter of fact most panels should come with a 25 year warranty. The reason their maintenance free is due to the fact that it has no mechanical parts.


Most of the time they just go for the whole house, or try to anyway, again it really depends on available area. There are reason for this and I don't want to go too in depth about it.

This is true, however a good solar company would have already sized the system so that you produce more energy during the non-monsoon months to cover up for the monsoon months, however I'm not too sure whether TNB will credit the power back to you if you over produce. Might want to check your local utility company, on this regard.


This is true, if the government however gives incentives, it may make sense then.

There is a global overcapacity, prices of panels have dropped since last year to an all time low. The firms are still pretty much waiting for other firms to file for bankruptcy and it may happen very soon, however with the new government incentives in some EU countries, these firms are given a thin life line for a while at least.