I cannot imagine utilities lobbying group not going whole hog to squash this.
The price of solar power just fell 50% in 16 months
21–30 of 448 posts
Re: The price of solar power just fell 50% in 16 months
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
At which point would it be financially beneficial for a farmer to turn a field into a solar farm rather than plant a crop? I have no knowledge in economics of either so I couldn't even estimate.
I think the economics of food production will probably trounce that of power production. In any event, it's more efficient to stick solar panels in the desert and wire electricity to places that are less sunny.
The Gulf states are the most polluting per capita on the planet, so great planetary benefit can be derived even just by using the power where it's generated.
Re: The price of solar power just fell 50% in 16 months
#23A side effect of this, large scale grid solar is now significantly cheaper than rooftop solar due to labor costs.
At which point would it be financially beneficial for a farmer to turn a field into a solar farm rather than plant a crop? I have no knowledge in economics of either so I couldn't even estimate.
There's a lot of farmland and ranch land in the US that shouldn't be farmland or ranch land. They're too dry, too hot, and competing for water resources with people and natural (sometimes endangered) ecosystems.
So, maybe it's something that should be encouraged; the food those farms and ranches produce would need to be replaced by food grown in more appropriate climates, and we'd need to rethink our recent "local food" movement, in some regards, but agriculture, and particularly animal agriculture, are an ecological disaster almost everywhere they exist. Couple that with limited water resources (where a lot of agriculture takes place in California, Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico) and you've got a recipe for serious problems long-term.
That said, agriculture could also shift. Less water-intensive foods, more foods that are appropriate for the area they're being consumed in.
Anyway, I think solar farms replacing agricultural farms could be a net win for the environment, even before considering the improvements that come from turning off coal-fired plants.
Re: The price of solar power just fell 50% in 16 months
#24If the price of solar continues to drop rapidly, why would anyone buy solar? Waiting a couple years for another 50% price drop seems like an obvious choice while we're still in the $5k-10k range to outfit a home.
Do you mean the generated power, or the generation hardware? If it's the cheapest energy source available in a market where you have the freedom to choose your supplier, it's a no-brainer.
Re: The price of solar power just fell 50% in 16 months
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
At which point would it be financially beneficial for a farmer to turn a field into a solar farm rather than plant a crop? I have no knowledge in economics of either so I couldn't even estimate.
I think you get fined if you do that.
Where? Even if this was true, surely it would depend on where you live, yeah? Country and local laws would vary?
The questions was what it would cost a farmer, not farmer in place where it's obviously illegal?
What...
Re: The price of solar power just fell 50% in 16 months
#26If the price of solar continues to drop rapidly, why would anyone buy solar? Waiting a couple years for another 50% price drop seems like an obvious choice while we're still in the $5k-10k range to outfit a home.
sure, this is what they teach you in econ 101 about deflation, but in reality, people buy things with utility even if they're getting cheaper (computers, cars, electronics, etc.)
Re: The price of solar power just fell 50% in 16 months
#27Pretty impressive. They need to work on cheaper batteries now.
Batteries would be great but they are not necessary unless you want to replace all generation with solar which would be a gargantuan undertaking. As part of the current generation stack, even at expanded scale, solar works very well without storage.
Yup. There's no reason why we can't rely on peaker plants a little bit longer. In general, there's a ton of power-plants designed to turn on and off throughout the day to inject power into the grid when demand grows.
The chief benefit however, is that this happened starting at daytime hours (when workers come into factories and tons of energy is suddenly demanded from the grid). However, because 12:00 noon is peak solar, peaker-plants will shift to later in the day to 3:00pm to 5:00pm or so (as opposed to running from 12:00 to 7:00 each day, they'll maybe run 3:00 to 7:00 each day).
Peaker Plants can be Hydro or Natural Gas. Natural Gas Peaker Plants are the most expensive, and they currently happen to run during a similar timeframe as solar.
For now, Peaker Plants can remain the solution. We need something to work on cloudy / rainy days after all. And "battery" tech is getting better.
Re: The price of solar power just fell 50% in 16 months
#28A side effect of this, large scale grid solar is now significantly cheaper than rooftop solar due to labor costs.
At which point would it be financially beneficial for a farmer to turn a field into a solar farm rather than plant a crop? I have no knowledge in economics of either so I couldn't even estimate.
Well the farmer doing it himself wouldn't be financially attractive (too big setup costs). But if the farmer is the land owner then he could rent it out to a power business that are good for the upfront costs. The exact point that would happen is when all the cheaper (non-arable) available land is already covered. That might have already happened in specific locations and countries.
Note that at the moment upfront costs (the panels) are so expensive it will be a long time before solar panel 'fields' would become any significant fraction of total arable land. I.E. a simple few acre farm field might be worth a couple hundred thousand euros, but totally filling it with panels might cost billions.
Re: The price of solar power just fell 50% in 16 months
#29It's interesting how no one is discussing how the governments massive subsidy of the solar and wind power industries are completely distorting the market for these "prices", so studies like these are pretty much nonsense.
Of course price/KW will drop massively if the entire thing is being propped up by taxpayer dollars and not the actual need to be profitable.
I guess I just need to resign myself to the idea that so many misguided people now believe that government can print and spend money on everything and that will always work forever.
But it won't.
Re: The price of solar power just fell 50% in 16 months
#30It's interesting how no one is discussing how the governments massive subsidy of the solar and wind power industries are completely distorting the market for these "prices", so studies like these are pretty much nonsense. Of course price/KW will drop massively if the entire thing is being propped up by taxpayer dollars and not the actual need to be profitable. I guess I just need to resign myself to the idea that so…
Which government are you talking about? You realize this article is not about the United States?