Solar Energy Cost Down, Installations Up

Storm’s Copper Components Play a Role in Alternative Energy Boom
By Frank Ross

The Solar Electric Generating Station IV power plant in California consists of many parallel rows of parabolic trough collectors that track the sun. The cooling towers can be seen with the water plume rising into the air, and white water tanks are in the background. Photo courtesy of Sandia National Laboratory.

There is good news for the power-consuming public in general and alternative energy suppliers and installers as well. The cost of solar electricity is likely to drop by 50% in 2009, compared to the previous year, due largely to a big drop in the price of solar panels. This encouraging news comes from New Energy Finance, a London-based provider of industrial information and analysis to investors, corporations and governments developing clean energy, low-carbon technologies and carbon markets.

This decrease refers to what’s commonly called the “levelized cost of electricity,” an analytical concept that looks at the cost of producing the power over the lifetime of a solar power plant. These calculations include construction and operational costs, but do not consider government subsidies. Utilities and banks that finance them utilize these calculations to evaluate their investment amortized over a facilities operational lifespan.

A researcher at a DOE laboratory uses a physical vapor deposition system to create a high-efficiency copper indium gallium diselenide solar cell.

According to Jenny Chase, head of solar research at New Energy Finance, in the worldwide market, the cost of solar electricity fell to as much as $160 per megawatt hour in 2009. This figure was achieved by installations in sunny locations such as deserts in the western United States, using thin-film solar panels that are less expensive. The US national renewable energy research facility NREL achieved an efficiency of 19.9% for the solar cells based on copper indium gallium selenide thin films, also known as CIGS solar cells.

The cost of building these solar energy systems can be as low as $3 per watt in prime Sunbelt regions. Projects slated for less productive locations require the more costly crystalline silicon solar panels, a factor that could more than double their levelized cost. Other forms of alternative power, such as geothermal and wind are expected to experience a drop of 10% in 2009, as compared to the previous year.

Storm Copper Components are key to solar energy expansion
In addition to the decrease in price for photovoltaics, Storm Copper has played a role in reducing the costs of alternative energy by supplying competitively priced copper components to four of the larger manufacturers of Solar energy equipment and systems. Armed with the advantage of a Flex-Tooling system Storm produces OEM parts quickly without the expense and long production cycles required for hard dies. Naturally, that also means a quick turnaround time, which is often key to installations tied to a deadline.

Many of these solar power installations are located in extremely harsh environments in deserts and mountainous regions of the southwest, where tin plating of copper components is mandatory, and that’s one of Storm Copper’s specialties. Electroplated components from Storm experience full emersion and are tin plated to a thickness of .0002, compared to many competitive coatings that only measure .00005 in a pre-flashing process. Storm also offers several different types of tin plating as well as tin/lead plating used mainly in applications involving lead/acid batteries.

Solar batteries with Storm cables.

Solar panels produce DC power that has to be converted to AC, through the use of inverters. Smaller home installations often include a bank of batteries which serve to collect the power from the panels, and in turn the batteries are connected to an inverter to meet the electrical requirements of a home. All of the connections in these systems require high efficiency copper battery connectors (link to solar cables on Store 1) that are tinned because of the exposure to lead-acid batteries, and Storm supplies a full line of solar inverter and interconnet cables for battery banks.

For fast quotes on copper components, a quick turnaround time and no minimum order; give the OEM Sales staff at Storm Copper a call at OEM Sales 1-866-716-9773 , or log onto the web site. Either option provides fast, friendly service.