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Arbitrage II

10 comments

A German aristocrat of my acquaintance has figured out that the price he will be paid for the output of a solar panel is so high compared with the price he will pay for his input of normal electricity, that he is thinking of rigging up powerful arc lamps to shine on solar panels on his extensive roof.

(HT: Bishop Hill)

Written by Sinclair Davidson

March 9th, 2010 at 8:10 am

Posted in Uncategorized

10 Responses to 'Arbitrage II'

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  1. what is the expected price of electricity in the future?

    Butterfield, Bloomfield & Bishop

    9 Mar 10 at 9:54 am

  2. It might matter more too when the price gets upped.

  3. Sounds like crap. Solar panel efficiency is max 15%, lamp efficiency is going to be around 50% or less. Are they really paying 15 times as much for solar power as they are charging for electricity?

    As far as I can tell with a few minutes on google the feed in tarriff in Germany is around 43 euro cents / kwh, and the electricty cost around 20 euro cents/ kwh. A good subsidy but a long long way from being arbitrage in the way described.

    Steve Edney

    9 Mar 10 at 10:31 am

  4. I’m sure it would be simpler to just charge a battery or other storage from the mains then feed it back in with your solar. Or run a line from your neighbours mains into your solar feed and split the profits.

    Tim Quilty

    9 Mar 10 at 12:44 pm

  5. I believe the expression is Epic Win (or Epic Policy Fail).

    JackP

    9 Mar 10 at 1:26 pm

  6. Yes, but I imagine this would be considered fraud.

    Steve Edney

    9 Mar 10 at 1:45 pm

  7. So I guess could the original suggestion.

    Steve Edney

    9 Mar 10 at 1:46 pm

  8. Electricity has already gone up, 50% of power costs are infrastructure and guess where a lot of the big increases are….air conditioning

    Did the world stop because energy prices went up?

    rog

    9 Mar 10 at 4:44 pm

  9. We were contemplating buying several solar panel systems for our property this past year. The only issue was the cost. The most affordable solar system we identified was about 10 thousand dollars. It might have taken us several years to recoup that amount of money. Anyways, we happened across these directions for building your own solar power panels. We decided to try out that way. It ended up saving us quite a bit of money, and the no cost, environment friendly electrical power is excellent! :) We run a number of of our home appliances off this grid.

    Melanie Madden

    27 Mar 11 at 11:04 am

  10. Did the world stop because energy prices went up?

    But it will if it continues at the same pace, you unadulterated innumerate.

    JC

    27 Mar 11 at 11:35 am

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