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The price of solar power just fell 50% in 16 months

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Re: The price of solar power just fell 50% in 16 months

#171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unlikely. Solar Panels don't replace all of your electricity costs. Naturally, you'll still run your refrigerator at night, right? And during the day, when you have peak-solar energy, you'll be at work and won't be taking advantage of it. You'll recoup some of the costs through net-metering, but you usually buy back at wholesale prices and not at retail prices. Finally, I'd expect utility companies to change their pr…

> And during the day, when you have peak-solar energy, you'll be at work and won't be taking advantage of it. I'm in Central Texas and I have two dogs at home. Even if I'm not there, I still leave the air condition going so they are comfortable. The last time I checked, my A/C system was the biggest power hog and so my electricity consumption aligns very closely with when the sun is shining.

Biggest power hog? Yes.

But not the only thing. My point is that its way too idealistic to assume that 100% of the costs will be covered.

I mean, yes, the laws as written seem to encourage a 1-to-1 transmission of energy. "Net Metering" is a law that subsidizes decentralized solar energy.

But in the future, when the subsidies run out and the laws are written to be FAIR (instead of written to encourage solar, as they are right now), you will not be allowed to purchase electricity and sell electricity back at the same prices.

All markets have a bid-ask spread. Wholesale prices are always going to be cheaper than retail prices.

Re: The price of solar power just fell 50% in 16 months

#172
post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is a slightly more nuanced question than you might think. First, I work from a baseline cost of $19K, even though the list price was closer to $40K I didn't pay that for the system so I use the actual cost in my calculations. Second there is the point where the money you've saved is equal to the money you paid, we hit that point about 10 years in. And then, depending on the life of your system (which has "positi…

Don't forget about taxes. Interest on that 6% loan get's deducted from your income which is an arguable subsidy. Alternatively, you also avoid paying taxes on your S&P returns. In many cases solar is really close to a no brainier. Which is why Florida Utility's have tried so hard to block residential adoption.

Usually, it's a more complicated issue, something like: "Historically, grid maintenance costs are amortized over electricity consumption, but when some people become net contributors, that breaks the model, since usage isn't high enough to pay for maintenance."

Of course, the correct solution isn't to compound one perverse incentive (out-of-sync fixed vs variable pricing) with another (ban on solar or refusal to buy); it's to change to a system of decoupled maintenance and power pricing.

Re: The price of solar power just fell 50% in 16 months

#173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chuck's sibling reply is spot on, but something else you must realize is that both renewables and energy storage are only going to get cheaper. This means if utilities attempt to squeeze people with solar on their roof, they will simply move to batteries eventually. This already makes sense, today, in Hawaii (where the local utility was stalling on additional grid tie capacity, and with their per kwh rates so high, i…

Indeed. But what's to stop utilities from purchasing or creating cheaper large-scale projects? I know you've seen my previous comments on Reddit with regards to Redox Flow batteries, CAES, and Pumped Hydro storage technologies. Utilities simply have access to battery-technology that the common people do NOT have access to. Some energy storage technologies only make sense in larger-scale 50MW applications or more. If…

At some point the price for the panels will drop below the price (and losses) of the transmission lines to transmit the energy from the large-scale project to your house. This happened long ago if you live in certain parts of the Rocky Mountains, and it will happen in areas of progressively greater population density.

Rooftop solar only needs roof-workers and their insurance until you have a cherry-picker-style robot arm to stick the panels up there with.

Re: The price of solar power just fell 50% in 16 months

#174
Unfortunately the price of solar hasn't dropped that much in California, and may take some time.

If you get a bid from a solar company they almost never give you the cost per watt (at least for the 5 companies I got bids from), but you should do that calculation yourself and then compare against the average in California to see if they are ripping you off:

https://www.californiasolarstatistics.ca.gov/

Re: The price of solar power just fell 50% in 16 months

#175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chuck's sibling reply is spot on, but something else you must realize is that both renewables and energy storage are only going to get cheaper. This means if utilities attempt to squeeze people with solar on their roof, they will simply move to batteries eventually. This already makes sense, today, in Hawaii (where the local utility was stalling on additional grid tie capacity, and with their per kwh rates so high, i…

Indeed. But what's to stop utilities from purchasing or creating cheaper large-scale projects? I know you've seen my previous comments on Reddit with regards to Redox Flow batteries, CAES, and Pumped Hydro storage technologies. Utilities simply have access to battery-technology that the common people do NOT have access to. Some energy storage technologies only make sense in larger-scale 50MW applications or more. If…

Utilities have a lot of capital tied in their existing fossil fuel plants, and their economics are probably tied into running these at capacity for their remaining lives.

So from their perspective it makes sense to lobby politicians to stall residential solar as long as possible, the environment be damned.

Re: The price of solar power just fell 50% in 16 months

#176

Curious… does it ever get low enough that electric heat becomes desirable? We moved into a place that had electric heat on the ground floor, ran it the first cold month, saw the bill, then made it a purely "on demand" heating solution. The rest of the apartment was gas forced hot air, which was on a normal schedule. To heat a whole home in a Boston winter seems like it might cost $1000 or so. Is it reasonable to expe…

Boston is not the best place to generate solar PV energy. Nor is it a good place to live in a suburban style (town)house, considering how much more efficient condos are in terms of heating and efficiency.

When you start with one of the worst possible use cases of solar, you can't expect great results.

Electric heating is great for individual rooms, not for whole house heating.

Re: The price of solar power just fell 50% in 16 months

#177
post #142

If you decide to go out of the grid almost completely, and buy batteries to store your energy. Have any idea about how much you'd spend?

Even with recent developments, being totally off-grid only makes sense when it's your only option (remote rural cabin, etc).

Solar panels with enough battery backup, plus an alternate generator (gas or diesel) for times when it's overcast for longer than your battery reserve are still going to have a very long payback time if utility power is an option.

There's a reason utilities exist, after all. It's always been possible to have your own electrical generator, it's just way more cost-efficient to do that at utility scale. That will likely continue to be the case with solar and batteries.

Re: The price of solar power just fell 50% in 16 months

#178

The availability of solar power at night or on cloudy days just improved 0% in 16 months. Saying that solar is okay because it's hooked up to the grid is not an answer, because that's just another instance of a reliable energy source (fossil fuels, nuclear, hydro) bailing out an unreliable one (solar, wind).

http://cleantechnica.com/2015/08/10/adding-energy-storage-to...

You can add a battery backup system to cover night-time usage on your own home. The $10k battery system basically doubles the price. But since the solar panel's price just dropped by 50%... Cloudy days you might still be in a deficit.

What is so wrong with a mixed system that uses renewables where it makes sense and relies on other sources to fill in whatever gaps appear?

Re: The price of solar power just fell 50% in 16 months

#179
post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is a slightly more nuanced question than you might think. First, I work from a baseline cost of $19K, even though the list price was closer to $40K I didn't pay that for the system so I use the actual cost in my calculations. Second there is the point where the money you've saved is equal to the money you paid, we hit that point about 10 years in. And then, depending on the life of your system (which has "positi…

I think you're being a little unfair with the S&P comparison: you should be comparing the returns on your actual investment with the expected returns on the S&P, not its actual returns. The stock market got a 5.4% return over that time, yes, but that's above average; we should expect its long-run returns to be close to the rate of economic growth, or more like 3%. And it could easily have been zero or even negative o…

May I ask where you got your 3% because that number is very low compared to any number I have ever read? This Wikipedia chart shows annualized returns to be 10.47%. That is >3x your 3%. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%26P_500_Index#Annual_returns

Re: The price of solar power just fell 50% in 16 months

#180

The aggressiveness of the price drops on solar is pretty amazing. I just lost one of the inverters on my grid-tie system after it had run trouble free for 13 years. So we're looking at the first "major" repair to the system I installed in 2003. And in 2003 my 5.2kW of panels on my roof cost $38,000 before subsidies and $19,000 after. 28 panels, two 2.5kW inverters, net about 4.2kW of generation. I priced out replacin…

How long until you start seeing a return on investment? Right now my electricity bill for my home is ~100 a month in Texas. I would need to keep the same panels without maintenance fees for 33.33 years by your price point of 40k

> How long until you start seeing a return on investment?

Why can't the utility companies do the financing (upfront investment), place them on our roofs, and get a little bit of the profit? Seems like a win-win situation.

And otherwise government, or specialized banks?

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