The True Cost of Solar Power

Proponents of the Solar economy often argue that as the price of solar panels decreases the time to see a complete return on investment also shortens. What they often miss is the cost in terms of energy, environmental impact and government subsidies that solar panel manufacturing and installation incurs. Given that the majority of the solar panels being produced today are manufactured in China and the lack of transparency in the operations of these companies it stands to reason that a significant amount of the true cost is hidden from the mainstream and therefore left out of the discussion.

The manufacturing process for solar panels includes chemical reactions, enormous amounts of heat, off gassing of poisonous gasses and disposal of waste products. The amount of energy used in the complete manufacturing cycle of a solar panel is massive and centralised which means the decentralisation of energy gathered via solar panels is offset by the amount of centralised energy required to manufacture them in the first place.

In addition the cost in terms of energy required for mining the raw materials, smelting the metals required for the framing and components, transporting the raw materials and end products and the associated fuel consumed in that process generally is not taken into consideration when people look at the overall cost in terms of price when calculating the ROI for the purchase and installation of a solar array.

The cost in terms of inflation and personal income tax that is represented by the excessive government subsidies for the mining, energy and manufacturing industries is almost completely ignored.

The true cost of solar panels are therefore an energy negative solution to the energy problem. At barely 20% efficiency and approximately USD$1 per watt the price will have to fall to almost zero to balance out the true financial cost of the manufacturing and installation process.