Quote:
Originally Posted by Hagar
The fact that the amount of power used to make any form of solar collector far outways the savings made over the life of the system unless you happen to live in some very remote or sun drenged part of the country.
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it takes 2-8 years, depending on the type of semiconductor, for a solar panel (PV, which are more energy intensive than hot water collectors) to produce the amount of energy it takes to make one. They have a life of 25-30 years.
http://www.energybulletin.net/node/17219
as for the money value of the energy, well yes, they are only economically viable if grid extension is very expensive and the only saving is the avoided cost of grid energy. Feed-in tariffs such as the QLD solar bonus scheme can means that grid connected systems can turn a small profit, but you're still looking at a simple payback of 8-10 years.
even so, that's good enough for some people.