Whats the current Solar Cell manufacturing capacity.

Just as an interesting exercise, I figured out what it would take to replace all the Coal Fired Power stations in Australia with Solar Voltaics. Current Coal Fired capacity is around 20GW so to replace it with solar needs around 60GW of capacity to provide 24 hour generating capacity. Im not considereing here the storage issue as thats another prob. 60 GW needs 300 million 200 watt panels. Leaving aside the cost issue, whats the worlds capacity to make this many. Power wise , Australia doesnt generate a lot of power , given its low population. If you apply the same sums to China , you get some very big numbers.

Mauried wrote:

60 GW needs 300 million 200 watt panels. ===========================================

The $5 a watt seems to let the manufacturers make a profit. So $300 billion.

Mauried wrote:

Just as an interesting exercise, I figured out what it would take to replace all the Coal Fired Power stations in Australia with Solar Voltaics. Current Coal Fired capacity is around 20GW so to replace it with solar needs around 60GW of capacity to provide 24 hour generating capacity.

You have 8 hour insotaion at peak sunlight ???? !!!!!
I rather doubt it. Try at least ~ 90GW

Im not considereing here the storage issue as thats another prob. 60 GW needs 300 million 200 watt panels.

450 million.

Leaving aside the cost issue, whats the worlds capacity to make this many. Power wise , Australia doesnt generate a lot of power , given its low population. If you apply the same sums to China , you get some very big numbers.

Some time in the next few centuries probably.
Graham

Mauried wrote:

Just as an interesting exercise, I figured out what it would take to replace all the Coal Fired Power stations in Australia with Solar Voltaics. Current Coal Fired capacity is around 20GW so to replace it with solar needs around 60GW of capacity to provide 24 hour generating capacity. Im not considereing here the storage issue as thats another prob. 60 GW needs 300 million 200 watt panels. Leaving aside the cost issue, whats the worlds capacity to make this many.

As Graham pointed out, you've probably underestimated the number of panels that would be required to do this. At any rate, the world's current manufacturing capacity is in the neighborhood of 3 GW/year (though production will probably be limited to 2-2.5 GW this year because of silicon supply issues). This is up from less than 1 GW/year capacity just three years ago, so it *is* growing quite rapidly.
That said, PV is likely limited to 25-30% of the power mix until/unless cost-effective storage is invented. Until such a time, it won't make a dent in the fraction of electricity generated from coal. Instead, it will primarily replace peak-power generators fired from natural gas (which is a better match to PV both in terms of price and how it's used).

On Tue, 31 Oct 2006 09:05:54 -0500, "R.H. Allen" wrote:

Mauried wrote: Just as an interesting exercise, I figured out what it would take to replace all the Coal Fired Power stations in Australia with Solar Voltaics. Current Coal Fired capacity is around 20GW so to replace it with solar needs around 60GW of capacity to provide 24 hour generating capacity. Im not considereing here the storage issue as thats another prob. 60 GW needs 300 million 200 watt panels. Leaving aside the cost issue, whats the worlds capacity to make this many.
As Graham pointed out, you've probably underestimated the number of panels that would be required to do this. At any rate, the world's current manufacturing capacity is in the neighborhood of 3 GW/year (though production will probably be limited to 2-2.5 GW this year because of silicon supply issues). This is up from less than 1 GW/year capacity just three years ago, so it *is* growing quite rapidly.
That said, PV is likely limited to 25-30% of the power mix until/unless cost-effective storage is invented. Until such a time, it won't make a dent in the fraction of electricity generated from coal. Instead, it will primarily replace peak-power generators fired from natural gas (which is a better match to PV both in terms of price and how it's used).

The reason I posed this question is that there is a practical problem that is going to need addressing, and thats what do you do when an existing Coal Fired Power Station has to be replaced. What do you replace it with. There currently arnt many viable options other than a Nuclear Plant of Gas fired plant provided there is the gas to run it. Another Coal Fired Plant unfortunately seems the most realistic option from an economic perspective.

Mauried wrote:

The reason I posed this question is that there is a practical problem that is going to need addressing, and thats what do you do when an existing Coal Fired Power Station has to be replaced. What do you replace it with.

Nuclear it looks like.
Something like 85% of France's electricity is nuclear generated but I'll bet almost no Americans know this.
Graham

On Tue, 31 Oct 2006 00:04:08 GMT, mauried@tpg.com.au (Mauried) wrote:

Just as an interesting exercise, I figured out what it would take to replace all the Coal Fired Power stations in Australia with Solar Voltaics. Current Coal Fired capacity is around 20GW so to replace it with solar needs around 60GW of capacity to provide 24 hour generating capacity. Im not considereing here the storage issue as thats another prob. 60 GW needs 300 million 200 watt panels. *

Current up time of US Coal fired plants is just over 72%. Additionally they need extensive&expensive serving every couple of years. (Not factored into cost equation below.)
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epa/epat1p1.html http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epa/epat2p2.html
2005 2,013,179,000 MWh/ 315,556 == ~6,379 hours of operation..
6379/8766 == 72.7%
However.. Coal fueled power plants output derates by about ~7% during the summer months. A figure which is likely to increase as GW kicks in.
A second issue with coal plant, is not all their capacity is required during winter months. (currently used for servicing intervals.)

Leaving aside the cost issue, whats the worlds capacity to make this many. *

Any entity which is producing and using that much PV will have their own integrated manufacturing facilities on site. (with Mg silicon & Al metal and Sand as inputs) . Such an Integrated facility could reduce PV cost to under a 1$ per watt.
2004 Construction cost of Coal power plant was $1300 per kilowatt.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossil_fuel_power_plant
or $1.30 per watt. A 2004 number which is likely to increase dramatically once gasification or other types of pollution controls are installed to sequester Co2 emission..
Adding in summertime capacity deration and up time into costs.. $1.30 * (1/.72) * (107) == $1.93 per watt (not including Fuel & it's transportation Costs)..
Verses 3 to $4 per equivalent watt for PV with 2 to 3x higher peak output and NO additional Fuel or transportation costs.