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

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

#231

Post by mikeyouse »

nickysielicki wrote: post #86
megablast wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We did. We do.

> We did. We do. What a completely useless response. Why even bother commenting? Four words? Since you can't be bothered to come up with a source, see pages 3-10 of the following document from the Congressional Budget Office. [1] Renewables get the large majority of the cash, and nuclear isn't even close. [1]: http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/attachments/...

Well it's going to cost over $150 Billion to clean up the Hanford Nuclear Site, so shouldn't that be considered as government support of nuclear power?

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

#232

Post by invalid-access »

sandGorgon wrote: post #118
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 :-)

pretty cool. I dont know if you applied for YC this time, but I encourage you to do this for the next batch. Contact me if you need any gyaan.

Thanks - might just take you up on it!

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

#233

Post by dexterdog »

pjc50 wrote: post #137
dexterdog wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't the same be said for local nuclear?

Local nuclear is not going to happen in the lifetime of anyone who remembers Chernobyl's fallout across half of western Europe.

Chernobyl was not local nuclear. It was regional nuclear. People are investing a lot of money in this tech for some very good reasons.

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

#234

Post by dang »

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…

Thanks for vetting this for all of us. We've inserted "some" before "coal" in the title above.

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

#235

Post by sbov »

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…

Your own link has a link showing California is already running into these problems you say are not problems: http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2016/04/04/what-will-california-...

Batteries are obviously not the only solution - a more connected grid would push the problem into the future, but to claim this is not a relevant problem is ignoring something that is already manifesting.

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

#236

Post by homido »

If solar was profitable (or saved money), we would see all power companies switching to it on a massive scale and with a sense of urgency (it would be good business after all). Where are the regional solar arrays on a massive scale being built in deserts across the US? We aren't seeing this (there are some token tax writeoff/marketing/PR ones only). Alert me when it happens because this will signify that solar is finally viable. Forget these stories and media hype, it's all BS. If you want to invest your money to save the world A La Prius owners who almost never break even financially, more power to you. It's mostly an illusion that you are saving the planet at this stage of efficiency and manufacturing environmental cost, but if it makes you feel good - Go for it. Sorry to be a downer, but reality agrees with me.

Edit: One more thing, I can almost guarantee that the India energy minister is being compensated in some way for saying this. Either directly or he has financial investment in a particular solar company.

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

#237

Post by dogma1138 »

kumarski wrote: post #224
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…

Where do we go after lithium iron phophate batteries as far as a galvanic chemical source for batteries? Please help me the understand evidence that suggests we have somewhere on the periodic table to move to after Lithium batteries? (Lead Acid ----> NiCd ----> Lithium....now where do we go?) How do we improve energy storage? Be very explicit about what data/evidence are driving your statements. Bold claims about ene…

Energy storage doesn't mean only batteries, we can store energy as heat, as kinetic energy for example by pumping air into under water tanks, and by quite a few other means.

As far as batteries go, the chemistry doesn't necessarily has to change that drastically the internal structure of batteries is always evolving and we are finding more ways to increase their efficiency.

And with advancements in nano technology new flow batteries are becoming more and more viable for long term energy storage Hydrogen–lithium batteries could offer 8-13 times the energy density of regular LiOn rechargeable batteries and modern flow batteries are just in their infancy.

Flow batteries are also very appealing to the automotive market because cars with batteries that run on nanoelectrofuels could be refueled just like petrol so once your battery runs out of charge you simply pump out the depleted solution and pump new one in.

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

#238

Post by shripadk »

barney54 wrote: post #152
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 reliable energy or energy when the sun is not shining is critical important--according to the people of India. For example, according to this article in ClimateWire (a trade pub) http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/stories/1060026477/ Dharnai, a community of about 3,200 people in eastern India's Bihar state, had been without electricity for three decades. So when activists with Greenpeace set up a solar-po…

Greenpeace is a big scam. It's been banned in India under the current dispensation. http://www.ndtv.com/india-news/greenpeace-india-claims-its-r...

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

#239

Post by marcosdumay »

tomp wrote: post #75
noisy_boy wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are correct that every country puts their economy before others. However, India is not asking another economy to help them. India can develop its solar energy sector by itself. The west accuses the developing countries to be big polluters since they use less environmentally-friendly means of energy production. Then when countries like India try to subsidize the domestic solar energy market, WTO accuses them of il…

> Then when countries like India try to subsidize the domestic solar energy market, WTO accuses them of illegally supporting domestic over international solar producers. Doesn't EU do the same (i.e. tax Chinese solar panels to support local producers)?!

Subsidizing local producers is against the rules, taxing foreign producers is not.

Don't expect logic, empiricism, or any kind of sanity to hold in international trade policies.

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

#240

Post by ZeroGravitas »

kumarski wrote: post #225

These are all red herrings from the most immensely important technology we must regulate.... We must put carbon capture technology on all coal plants as the immediate high impact stop-gap solution to CO2 emissions. I think the only way this happens is regulatory. The general utility verdict on solar/wind is that it's good for displacing natural gas peaking in a small way.

As the headline says, solar is already breaking even with coal and the projection is for it to continue to drop for some time, even without further big breakthroughs.

If you add carbon capture to coal, you decrease efficiency and increase costs to the point that it simply isn't viable. It's simpler to just regulate coal out of existence directly and replace it with a mix of gas/solar/wind/hydro/etc.

The only people who care about carbon capture for coal are those invested in coal. Everyone else sees it as pointless (though it may have applications for other carbon producing processes like concrete).

Solar and wind are ready for prime time, displacing peaker plants is just the beginning, solar will wipe out all contenders during daylight hours and then the stuff they displace into the off-peak hours will start getting eaten by storage that shifts solar into the evening.

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