Reply #12: Two small things...

[TreasonousBastard]

OK, you made me look up stuff.

Regardless of the voltage, a cell can only create "X" watts per square inch or whatever. Right now, the commercially available cells have an efficiency of 12%, which means 120 watts per square meter at full power. 40% cells are in the works, though.

So, for one house using 15K peak, would need 125 square meters of cells plus whatever is needed to cover various conversion losses-- which would not be working all the time because of clouds and nighttime, making electrical storage, or a second source, a necessity. That's over 1345 square ft. for one house and it still might not do the whole job.

8,000 square meters per megawatt= >86,000 square feet, or well over two acres of cell area alone, plus all the other hardware and stuff needed.

AC isn't produced simply because our appliances use it-- a long time ago Westinghouse shoved Edison's face in it proving that AC has much lower transmission losses than DC, and DC actually has a very limited transmission distance. While DC is very useful for some lighting and small motors, flourescents require AC, many things from clocks to TV sets use the 60 Herz pulses for internal timing, and larger motors use the phases from AC to reduce internal losses and produce more power from less total current.