SLO County PV Estimation for 2050

1. SLO County PV Estimation for 2050 Group 1 John Carlin Chris Day Hyung Joon Kim Gordon Lai Alvin Tran Yat Tam

2. Overview • Model of our estimate includes • Population number P • PV technology efficiency E • Declining cost factor C • Storage Cost Estimate S • Financing Cost F • Conclusion

3. San Luis Obispo County

4. Population • Total size of 3304 square miles • In 2003, population in SLO county estimated is 253,118 • Population growth rate from April 2000 – July 2003 is about 2.6%. Roughly speaking, the annual growth rate is 1%. • Based on the 1% population growth rate, in 2050, population in SLO county estimated is 404,043 http://quickfacts.census.gov

5. Energy Consumption • Energy Consumption in U.S. per capita • Coal: 3.65 tons/person • Electricity: 12406.03 KWh/person • Geothermal Power Use: 0.01 per 1000 people • Hydroelectricity: 0.88 TWh/1 million people • Natural Gas: 76805.82 cubic ft/person • Nuclear Energy: 2.82 TWh/1 million people • Oil: 67.85 barrels per day/per 1000 people http://www.nationmaster.com

6. SLO Energy Use 0.131 Exajoules

7. What are solar panel prices and where are they headed?

8. Yesterday: Trend of solar panel price index over the last 4 years is generally decreasing Price index is volume weighted toward the high density (>125Watt) solar panels Solar Panel Prices, Today and Tomorrow Price index is for single panel quantities http://www.solarbuzz.com/index.asp

9. Solar Panel Prices, Today and Tomorrow Today: • Index cost is $5.00 per watt • Increased $0.01 per watt from last month • September had 499 modules below $4.50/Watt • Lowest cost crystalline module is $3.50/Watt • “Very large volume purchasers” can secure prices around $3/Watt

10. Solar Panel Prices, Today and Tomorrow Tomorrow: (The forecast is sunny…….) • An Exponential projection indicates 35¢/Watt cells by 2050 • Breakthroughs (or lack there of) in solar cell technology will significantly effect the cost of solar panels over time

11. Current EfficiencyCurrent Technological status of the photovoltaic technology • Photovoltaic (PV) is the direct conversion of sunlight into electricity using devices made of thin semiconductor layers. Silicon technology is the most mature and a crystalline silicon cell can convert up to 23.5 % of the sunlight in electricity. Cheaper cells made of amorphous silicon actually have stable efficiencies of 7 %. • The area related component (structure, cabling, etc) cost represents from 35 to 60 % of the total cost of a photovoltaic system depending on the application. Power related components (inverters, batteries, ...) can represent 16% of the total cost of a photovoltaic system.

12. Future EfficiencyProspective analysis of the photovoltaic technology • Technical aspects: The majority of experts have responded that the efficiency of the photovoltaic cells will be 95% of the theoretical efficiency sometime in the period 2020-2050. • A flat crystalline silicon module will reach to 23 % of efficiency by the year 2050 and its lifetime will be up to 35 years. The crystalline silicon photovoltaic panels are already reliable (reliability more than 98%) and the thin film silicon and non-silicon modules will be in the period 2001-2020. • According to the R&D status, experts thought that USA is in the first position and Europe and Japan are in the second and third position respectively. The expectations of the experts for the R&D status of these three regions are that they are going to achieve the same R&D level by the year 2020.

13. Storage Cost Estimation Available Storage Technology • Pumped Hydropower • Compressed air energy storage (CAES) • Flywheels • Superconducting magnetic energy storage (SMES) • Supercapacitors • Batteries

14. Why use batteries? • Power quality assurance • Transmission and distribution • Voltage regulation • Load leveling • Respond well to instant voltage spikes or sags and outages • No emissions, solid wastes, or large amount of leakage • Almost all battery materials (lead, acid, plastic casing) can be recycled.

15. Energy Storage Est. System Cost http://www.eere.energy.gov/power/techchar.html

16. Battery Technologies • Lead-Acid Batteries • Valve-Regulated Lead-acid (VRLS) Batteries • Advanced Batteries ($275/Kw) • Lithium Ion • Zinc/bromine

17. Storage Price Estimation • 72.6% of total energy consumption are to be stored in battery • .131 Exajoules used in year 2050 • .095106 Exajoules needs to be stored • (1KWh = 3.6 MJoule) • 2.6418*(10^10 KWh/year) • X = (2.6418E10)/(12m*31d*24 h) KW • (X KW) *($275/KW) = $.813736 Billion http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/aeo/demand.html

18. Funding Assumptions • 5% interest rate • 10 year repayment loans • Exponential energy usage • Exponential cost reduction

19. Installation Plan

20. Cost of Power

21. Cost • Installation cost: $19.2 Billion • Maintenance cost: $4.4 Billion • Batty Cost: $.814 Billion • Total cost with loans: $39.3 Billion • Total cost per person: $108,081.44

22. Conclusion • Installing the whole system upfront is costly without the long term benefits • Improvements in panel MTBF are as important as improvements in efficiency • Acceptance of HVDC for transmission can lead to significant savings by eliminating inverters in favor of DC-DC converters • Long term less expensive than PG&E