Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Solar is now cheaper than some coal, says India energy minister

climatechangenews.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 256 posts

Re: Solar is now cheaper than some coal, says India energy minister

#171

Post by parimm »

saravanannkl wrote: post #154
invalid-access wrote: post #39

Shameless plug: If you want to participate in India's progress towards bigger rooftop-solar, please consider joining http://www.oorjan.com . We believe we are doing something unique in leveraging banking and financial relationships to productize solar deployments. And looking for great devs right now - esp frontend :-)

Is solar viable for small installations without any subsidies ? I was recently looking at a 30KW proposal for a small enterprise in Tamil Nadu. The quoted price is Rs. 36 lakhs. At the rate of Rs 6.75 per unit, it doesn't even cover the interest costs. Does this match with your capex costs or is this way off ?

Solar is viable, you will be looking at a 6-7year payback on the system with interest, 36Lakhs is very high for a 30kW system. The prices should be in the range of 25-27L for an on grid system with a simple structure. Where in Tamil Nadu is this? Ping me if you are looking for more details(mail Id in profile), I work for a company that does solar installations.

Re: Solar is now cheaper than some coal, says India energy minister

#172

Post by parimm »

Osiris30 wrote: post #155
downandout wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The comparison is between the cost of new installations That may be, but that isn't what the headline says. It simply says that solar is cheaper than coal, which of course is not the case right now.

Yes, all solar installations are not cheaper than all coal installations. But conversely, all coal is not cheaper than all solar! That applies globally and in India. The point is that solar costs are declining every year, by 10% p.a. In many sunny places it is already at parity or below (eg Arizona, Mexico, Rajasthan and Gujarat in India, Mexico). We have already seen several bids this year at US¢ 3/Kwh ($30/MWh). $2…

> US¢ 3/Kwh ($30/MWh).

$30/MWh seems to be very very cheap. That is half the price of the lowest bid in India. Is there a source for that number?

Re: Solar is now cheaper than some coal, says India energy minister

#173

Post by Osiris30 »

TheLogothete wrote: post #102
tremon wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FTFA: Capital costs [for solar] have fallen 60% in the past four years and could drop a further 40% reports Deutsche Bank Solar energy prices hit a new record low in January with the auction of 420 megawatts in Rajasthan at 4.34 rupees a kilowatt-hour. In comparison coal tariffs range between 3-5 rupees/kWh. You do the math.

I can't do the math because there are no baselines. Talking about capex reduction in percentages doesn't tell me the overall picture. You also talk about energy prices, but are those prices subsidized? All the talk about solar energy is making unfair comparisons and people are eating it up because it aligns with their wishful thinking. Just take as an example this article. The minister said that solar energy might be…

No, not at all. see my comment here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11520789

Solar and wind is for the majority not subsidized in India.

What you are referring to is the Min of New and Renewable Energy offering a VGF "viability gap funding" for certain very large projects termed UMPPs (Ultra Mega Power Plants) of 1000-4000MW. These are few and take-up has been poor due to the execution complexities.

India is adding 15-20k MW of Solar and 10k MW of Wind per year - the vast majority of which is completely unsubsidized. State electricity distributors tender for plants, and private developers bid a tariff they feel will support their ROI.

Apart from the US and its PTC structure, most of the huge capacity additions happening in wind and solar in Europe, Asia, Africa, China and India are happening from pure private unsubsidized auctions for power.

Re: Solar is now cheaper than some coal, says India energy minister

#174

Post by Osiris30 »

dogma1138 wrote: post #168
Osiris30 wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11524691 Why does solar always need batteries? These are not "advances". India is adding 20k MW of solar and 10k MW of wind p.a. China is at 20+20. US at 20+20. Europe at 20+20. 30% of all new power capacity additions globally will be from renewables for the foreseeable future. Probably more. This is without "batteries". Without subsidies. The need for "baseload", "storage…

>The need for "baseload", "storage", or "the sun doesn't always shine and the wind doesn't always blow" are red herrings. They are not relevant. They aren't red herrings they are poor excuses when used as a reason to not to expand renewable but they aren't without their merit. We need to improve energy storage considerably to be able to push renewables to be actually a major part of the electric grid. A a major part…

Misinformed. Please see my comment at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11524691

and these links would be helpful

http://www.nrel.gov/analysis/re_futures/

http://cleantechnica.com/2016/03/02/base-load-power-is-a-myt...

http://cleantechnica.com/2014/08/08/rmi-blows-lid-baseload-p...

http://rameznaam.com/2016/01/31/how-far-can-renewables-go-pr...

Re: Solar is now cheaper than some coal, says India energy minister

#175

Post by ageofwant »

mistermann wrote: post #166
Osiris30 wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11524691 Why does solar always need batteries? These are not "advances". India is adding 20k MW of solar and 10k MW of wind p.a. China is at 20+20. US at 20+20. Europe at 20+20. 30% of all new power capacity additions globally will be from renewables for the foreseeable future. Probably more. This is without "batteries". Without subsidies. The need for "baseload", "storage…

> The need for "baseload", "storage", or "the sun doesn't always shine and the wind doesn't always blow" are red herrings. They are not relevant. Maybe I'm misunderstanding your comment, but how is my desire for electricity at night time "not relevant"?

Its not relevant to people who are prepared to sacrifice convenience for cost. Especially if night-time prices are directly linked to supply. Smarter devices will become available that use energy when its cheaply available. Long time storage will improve and spread the load, probably from smaller to larger scale. Base load is really an artefact of system and usage inefficiencies, not some inherent problem with renewables.

Re: Solar is now cheaper than some coal, says India energy minister

#176

Post by Osiris30 »

parimm wrote: post #172
Osiris30 wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, all solar installations are not cheaper than all coal installations. But conversely, all coal is not cheaper than all solar! That applies globally and in India. The point is that solar costs are declining every year, by 10% p.a. In many sunny places it is already at parity or below (eg Arizona, Mexico, Rajasthan and Gujarat in India, Mexico). We have already seen several bids this year at US¢ 3/Kwh ($30/MWh). $2…

> US¢ 3/Kwh ($30/MWh). $30/MWh seems to be very very cheap. That is half the price of the lowest bid in India. Is there a source for that number?

Dubai Nov 2014 - $58.40 per MWHr. See [1]

Austin July 2015 - $57.10 per MWh. See [2]

Nevada July 2015 - $38.7 per MWh. See [3]

Mexico April 2016 - $35.44 per MWh. See [4]

[1] http://cleantechnica.com/2014/11/29/dubai-shatters-solar-tar...

[2] http://cleantechnica.com/2015/07/02/worlds-cheapest-solar-po...

[3] http://www.pv-magazine.com/news/details/beitrag/buffett-stri...

[4] http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/Solar-Stuns-in-M...

Re: Solar is now cheaper than some coal, says India energy minister

#177

Post by _yosefk »

m_mueller wrote: post #170
_yosefk wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You need to be a pretty big country with a wide variety of natural resources to be truly independent (for instance, your "independent" agriculture is only independent if you have domestically produced fuel, fertilizer and machinery, etc. etc.) In today's world I think it's pretty tough (how many countries have their own chip fabs and how many don't? Chips go into a whole lot of products indirectly, etc.) Of course ha…

I agree with pretty much all you wrote - but I also don't think it's an actual counterargument. I never wrote that nation states should try to be fully independant as that is either futile or highly inefficient. However what India shows here is IMO a good example of a middle ground - you don't have to create everything from scratch, but it might be healthy to just mandate some percentage of vital infrastructure to be…

I dunno, you have to look at the cost side of these things and I'm not qualified in this instance. AFAIK India still protects its handloom manufacturers which IMO is madness cost-wise, but of course there's merit into looking at it on a case by case basis. I think the trouble with protectionism is you might end up subsidizing an inefficient domestic industry indefinitely; and I don't think "reinsurance" is a valid argument most of the time (there's usually enough sellers whom you can buy from even when things are very sour, and not having lost money on inefficient domestic production will keep you rich enough to afford it when things go sour), the valid argument IMO is you want to have a Korean auto company and you doubt that the first few cars it'll make will be able to compete with imported cars so you protect it. But what made this work great in Korea but not so great in India (which AFAIK produced pretty bad cars for internal market under similar protections for many decades) I'm not quite sure.

Re: Solar is now cheaper than some coal, says India energy minister

#178

Post by ageofwant »

Osiris30 wrote: post #174
dogma1138 wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The need for "baseload", "storage", or "the sun doesn't always shine and the wind doesn't always blow" are red herrings. They are not relevant. They aren't red herrings they are poor excuses when used as a reason to not to expand renewable but they aren't without their merit. We need to improve energy storage considerably to be able to push renewables to be actually a major part of the electric grid. A a major part…

Misinformed. Please see my comment at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11524691 and these links would be helpful http://www.nrel.gov/analysis/re_futures/ http://cleantechnica.com/2016/03/02/base-load-power-is-a-myt... http://cleantechnica.com/2014/08/08/rmi-blows-lid-baseload-p... http://rameznaam.com/2016/01/31/how-far-can-renewables-go-pr...

Solar power is great, but it will not flood the Sahara and the Simpson Desert, nor pump gigatons of C02 from the oceans or melt the oort asteroids into giant glass ball habitats for the billions of earth creatures that will live there one day. For that we need something a bit more energy dense. When the first commercial fusion reactor is sold, the vast majority of "renewable" installations will immediately become redundant.

Re: Solar is now cheaper than some coal, says India energy minister

#179

Post by spacecowboy_lon »

Osiris30 wrote: post #147
downandout wrote: post #119

"Solar energy prices hit a new record low in January with the auction of 420 megawatts in Rajasthan at 4.34 rupees a kilowatt-hour. In comparison coal tariffs range between 3-5 rupees/kWh." So the headline here is, as is usually the case with articles in this space, misleading at best. It's slightly cheaper than the highest-end coal, but dramatically more expensive - nearly 1.5X more - than the lower end. Overall, it…

No. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11524691 Why does solar always need batteries? These are not "advances". India is adding 20k MW of solar and 10k MW of wind p.a. China is at 20+20. US at 20+20. Europe at 20+20. 30% of all new power capacity additions globally will be from renewables for the foreseeable future. Probably more. This is without "batteries". Without subsidies. The need for "baseload", "storage…

the requiremnt for baseload is not a read herring.

Re: Solar is now cheaper than some coal, says India energy minister

#180

Post by [deleted] »

iSnow wrote: post #141
dexterdog wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't the same be said for local nuclear?

In the age of global terrorism, local nuclear is a no-go from the start. Dirty bombs hardly make sense in terms of headcount, but their psychological effects would be tremendous. Therefore, security around nuclear installations will remain high - and that's easier to organize and cheaper around big, centralized stations.

[deleted]
Post reply on HN