Jim Baen's Universe

NonFiction articles

Fifteen Ways Cheap Solar Cells are going to Change the World

Written by Stephen Euin Cobb

 

 

In the next seven to fourteen years your monthly electric bill will drop to zero permanently, and you will drive a car every day which costs you nothing to fuel. Many of the predictions contained in this article will sound just as ridiculous as that first sentence, and yet must be included here since—unless civilization falls—they are very nearly inevitable.

Cheap solar cells are going to alter your life in more ways than can be listed or even anticipated, but some changes are predictable. Exactly when the changes will begin and when they will be completed can be estimated at roughly seven to fourteen years. But this is only an estimate. These events might begin in as little as four years, ending in ten; or might begin in twelve years and end in twenty.

(1) Solar cells made of silicon will continue to achieve increased efficiencies, but these achievements will be meaningless since solar cells made of other materials will drop below one tenth the price of the silicon versions; and then shortly after that, below a hundredth. Prices will continue to drop, but at a pace that is unstable and unforeseeable. Eventually prices will drop below a thousandth, but how long that might take is impossible to estimate.

(2) Solar cells will no longer be an object. Instead they will be a paper-thin coating added to an object after that object has been made. This is one of several reasons they will become so cheap.

(3) Solar cells will no longer be made inside a vacuum chamber (another massive cost savings).

(4) Solar cells will be made using a variety of processes, methods and materials. No company will be able to gain a monopoly on solar cells because each of the dozen or more manufacturers will have their own patents which do not infringe the patents of others. Thus every manufacturers’ line of solar cells will compete against those of the others based on efficiency, attractiveness, ease of installation and most especially: price.

(5) All the major home improvement stores like Lowe’s, Home Depot, and even Wal-Mart will carry vinyl siding and roofing tiles in the usual colors and styles but with a thin outer coating which transforms the vinyl siding or roofing tile into one big solar cell array.

(6) Siding and roofing tiles with solar cell coatings will cost about ten to twenty percent more than the non-electricity generating variety; but because of the incredible popularity of the solar versions the non solar versions will become difficult to find for several years since many stores will not bother to stock them.

(7) At first, most of the homeowners who install solar siding and solar roofing tiles will have no way to store the electricity for later use. Consequently, this will only reduce the amount of electricity they must buy from the power grid during those hours of the day when the sun is shining on their house. For some people this will cut their electric bill by a third; for others it will cut it in half.

(8) People will drive cars which cost them nothing to fuel. Anyone who has a solar powered home will be able to recharge their electric car for free. By allowing people to drive every day for the rest of their life without paying so much as one penny for fuel, solar homes will finally cause electric cars to become overwhelmingly popular.

(9) Some solar homeowners in America will use a converter to change the DC (direct current) made by their solar home into AC (alternating current) which they can then push out of their house and into the power grid used by the general public. Some of these people will push their electric bill down near zero, and some will push it all the way into negative numbers. Those in negative numbers will receive monthly checks from their local electric company as payment for the power they contributed to the grid during that month. (There are laws in forty U.S. states that require electric companies to do this.)

(10) When rechargeable battery technology also becomes cheap, people will abandon the power grid altogether. Isolated from the power grid, their electric bill will drop to exactly zero, and will remain zero for the rest of their life.

(11) Oil will remain an important commodity since it will continue to be used to make plastics, lubricants, paints and other chemicals. However, since it will no longer be the dominant source of energy for any developed nation, its price will decline steadily over many years and eventually settle to a level that would seem ridiculous today.

(12) Gasoline too will decline in price over many years. Eventually gasoline prices will fall low enough that gasoline powered cars will enjoy a new but much more limited popularity with a new but much smaller segment of the population. This new popularity will not threaten the dominance of electric