{"id":130044,"date":"2021-11-04T21:24:27","date_gmt":"2021-11-05T04:24:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2021\/11\/solar-energy-is-about-to-get-a-whole-lot-cheaper"},"modified":"2021-11-04T21:24:27","modified_gmt":"2021-11-05T04:24:27","slug":"solar-energy-is-about-to-get-a-whole-lot-cheaper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2021\/11\/solar-energy-is-about-to-get-a-whole-lot-cheaper","title":{"rendered":"Solar energy is about to get a whole lot cheaper"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/solar-energy-is-about-to-get-a-whole-lot-cheaper2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.freethink.com\/technology\/solar-power\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Solar panel<\/a> companies turn to silicon because it is efficient and lasts a long time. A single panel lasts for at least 25 years, providing more than 80% of its initial power.<\/p>\n<p>Despite the benefits, crystalline silicon is difficult to produce, which slows down the solar panel manufacturing process. In the past year, the cost of silicon has skyrocketed, up to a 300% increase, and the U.S. banned imports from China (due to a violation of international standards on child labor) \u2014 making it the second most abundant element on the planet an actual scarcity.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Alternative semiconductors: <\/strong>Some companies are ditching silicon for, a cheaper alternative. If they can commercialize low-cost films, the solar industry would change dramatically.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Solar panel companies turn to silicon because it is efficient and lasts a long time. A single panel lasts for at least 25 years, providing more than 80% of its initial power. Despite the benefits, crystalline silicon is difficult to produce, which slows down the solar panel manufacturing process. In the past year, the cost [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":662,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1633,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-130044","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-solar-power","category-sustainability"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130044","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/662"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=130044"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130044\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=130044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=130044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=130044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}