I wrote:
Whoa! $8,900 for 2.3 kWh/day?!? That's 100 watts average power (over 24 hours), or $89,000 per kilowatt of generator capacity. That's insane. Is that correct?
. . .
I believe the Japanese PV program makes more sense.
I am still not sure about this, but as far as I can tell most rooftop PV installations in Japan do not include batteries, so they are much cheaper than this $8,900 installation. They are not stand-alone systems. It seems most of them use reverse metering when the electricity is not needed at the house. No doubt they have safety features to prevent shocking electric power company workers.
PV installations in Japan are becoming very common, as I mentioned a few months ago. ~70,000 houses are equipped with them, and the cost has fallen so much that subsidies have been almost completely phased out. The average installed cost has fallen 69% since 1994. See p. 9 here:
http://www.southeastgreenpower.net/2005/presentations/ChrisOBrien.pdf - Jed
