I have been using solar PV to offset my daily energy needs for 17 years and for all of the “information” available, one needs to look at the long term use of solar PV overall. YES, there is LID in solar PV panels and over time the panels degrade and put out less power each year. What’s not being said, is over years of use you are more than likely to have an appliance break down and a new one is bought to replace it. An example here is air conditioning systems. A,15 to 20 year old A/C unit replaced with a new latest/greatest VFD driven compressor unit(s) will have Energy Star efficiency allowing the (degraded) solar PV panels to offset energy use by the new appliance. Every replacement of an appliance with an Energy Star device uses less energy over the lifetime of the appliance.

We start with the statement, paraphrasing George Orwell, that “not all watts are created equal”. We then go on to explain that:

1. Buying panels based on a cost per watt basis from a rating derived from a 1-second flash conducted at room temperature (25C) with a 1000W bulb placed directly above the panel….makes as much sense as buying a car based on its tire pressure.

2. Yes, it’s a metric. But it’s a metric unrelated to real world conditions obtained from a test designed to obscure the inadequacies of Si as a semi-conductor – which are limited spectral response, thermal instability, and light induced degradation.

3. Imported PV-Si panels may cheap to buy on a per watt basis, but they are expensive to own over time…..especially when compared to American made CdTe Thin Film panels that produce 10% to 40% more power per watt per sf over time (depending on geographic location. The hotter the site, the more CdTe outperforms Si.)

We provide potential clients with a site specific, apples-to-apples modeled comparison of the power output and ROI provided by our American made panels vs the imported competition. In nearly all cases, our superior economics are hard to refute. The fact that our panels are made in America, have a lower carbon footprint, and are fully recyclable is the frosting on the cake.

The IRA was specifically designed to promote production of American made solar technology. Where the raw materials emanates from the United States! Not bringing in wafers or ingots from China and continuing the same path of massive pollution. The amount of energy required to create a silicon wafer is astronomical and a major form of pollution. So, America made has to be made in America with American materials American glass Americans and other PV technology.

Just the basic overall model of the “crossroads” manufacturing facility, if you can decrease recidivism from the prison system, then there is a cost savings advantage in the costs locally of crimes (not) committed. When one starts “doing the math”, of a $1,000 premium “over” a cheap Chinese panel, one also needs to be brutally honest in the overall consolidated cost of the system. For instance the IRA gives subsidies for solar PV systems with a specific component count (Made in the U.S.A) and for a lot of folks even solar PV panels manufactured in the U.S. right now still depend on Chinese solar PV cells for their panels, which are under the 201 tariff taxes. Then let’s get down to the (simple ROI) of system cost divided by kWh of electricity saved over years of use. ONCE YOU have the solar PV system installed the ROI becomes a moving target. Early on some systems were determined to be a “payoff” in energy savings of up around 20 years. With electric utilities putting in more infrastructure this raises residential electricity rates, the energy you use each day costs more and so the energy you ‘generate’ saves you more money each day. That 20 year ROI has been proven to be from 15 to 12 years for payoff of the system. Folks that already have been in the BEV market and intend to have a BEV (and) charging station at home can save enough on energy costs, (this is electricity savings as well as gasoline savings) each month have found they can pay off their system in as little as 8 years and down to (3) years when using solar PV to charge their BEV. The costs of solar PV panels today are such that one can ‘design’ a system to take into account LID, dusting generation losses and can then put in enough “extra panels” to offset these losses over a 30 year life expectancy of a solar PV system.

Solar PV is a marathon, not a sprint. Buy American and support your own countrymen/women.