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

electrek.co

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

#351

Post by qwtel »

coryfklein wrote: post #215
ChuckMcM wrote: post #103

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…

> And that is why it is a huge problem for the power companies It is a problem, but not necessarily in the way you may be thinking. Peak residential power usage is in the evening when solar isn't available. Power companies therefore end up spinning down coal and natural gas during peak solar, then just spinning them back up again as the sun begins to set. [1] So you haven't replaced the coal and natural gas plants, y…

Sorry for the noob question, but isn't there always sun somewhere on the planet? Are electricity grids not globally connected, or would it be lost in transmission?

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

#352

Post by toomuchtodo »

ssmoot wrote: post #330
toomuchtodo wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Think about if Tesla vehicles were used instead of Powerwalls: https://i.imgur.com/oLBNeW4.png | https://i.imgur.com/pectzXn.png

Your car isn't at the house while solar is being produced though for many/most people right? This seems unrealistic.

Its probably sitting at your employer's lot. A lot that that would have charge stations.

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

#353

Post by daurnimator »

qwtel wrote: post #351
coryfklein wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And that is why it is a huge problem for the power companies It is a problem, but not necessarily in the way you may be thinking. Peak residential power usage is in the evening when solar isn't available. Power companies therefore end up spinning down coal and natural gas during peak solar, then just spinning them back up again as the sun begins to set. [1] So you haven't replaced the coal and natural gas plants, y…

Sorry for the noob question, but isn't there always sun somewhere on the planet? Are electricity grids not globally connected, or would it be lost in transmission?

They are not globally connected. And losses become significant after a thousand kms or so. You're not going to get to the electricity to the other side of the world where the sun is shining.

You need local storage. As much as is said about batteries, the only real solution here is hydro. Expect to see every viable valley start to get dammed over the next decade or so.

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

#354

Post by ldp01 »

femto wrote: post #340
Analemma_ wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's very efficient and it's a great solution overall; the only problem is there are only so many dams we can build, since each one requires drowning a valley.

Though you need less volume if it is only being used for overnight storage rather than long term rainfall storage. For example, to store enough energy to produce 1GW for 1 day (~10^5 seconds) with a head of 100m, use Pt=mgh to work out you need to store: m = 10^9.10^5 / (10*100) = 10^11 kg of water. = 10^8 m^3 This is not a big reserviour, being 1/20th of the size of Warragamba dam's reserviour (in Sydney). One valle…

Note that's a winter peak you're looking at.

The highest summer peak appears to have been just above 13GW. http://www.wattclarity.com.au/2016/02/highest-electricity-de...

However your point still stands I believe.

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

#355

Post by rdancer »

DennisP wrote: post #345
eru wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Instead (or rather in addition) to storing power, we can also get better at coordinating demand. There are already programs for industrial users to get electricity for much cheaper, if they can tolerate power cuts during peak demand. Those programs will become more and more rewarding to join and extend and automate as supply gets spikier.

That's great but then instead of increasing the effective capital cost of the generating plants, you're increasing the effective capital cost of the industrial facilities (by lengthening the time to pay off financing). It'd be interesting to see a study comparing the two options.

The incentives create a market in which the energy consumer and producer can trade in their existing inefficiencies. The market will decide where it is best to make the compromise, whereas before there were just wasteful externalities.

If you have an industrial process that can cope with intermittent power supply, it may be only slightly more expensive to design or build so that interruption of power won't result in interruption of production. If the overall cost increase is less than the decrease of energy costs due to incentives, there is no downside.

The energy producers likewise price the incentives so that their loss of revenue is lower than their cost savings.

Unless of course the market is created and operated by Enron, then we're all fucked.

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

#356

Post by esturk »

derefr wrote: post #275
pc2g4d wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Price electricity differently through the day according to its scarcity and people might eventually adjust their routines to reduce evening usage.

That seems backwards. The aggregate preferences and habits of humans should be seen as an incentivizing force for the creations of new technologies, not the other way around.

It doesn't have to incentivize new technologies. It could just as easily incentivize new business models. Imagine a laundromat that sells "FREE DRYING" during the day. Heck, I bet you a lot more people will do laundry during the day time. Similarly, power companies can give incentives for more day time power usage. A lot of people already follow night time power usage today so its no reason to think it wouldn't work.

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

#357

Post by [deleted] »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #103

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…

[deleted]

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

#358

Post by taneq »

amenghra wrote: post #236
S_A_P wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can validate. The problem with electricity is that there is no large scale storage like there is for other forms of energy like NG and Crude. Until someone comes along and figures out how to store electricity, this will continue to cause grief to power companies. Power plants are really just options, if the price per kWh is at a certain point then it makes sense to spin up or take down a plant and generate power. Add…

Some countries store energy by pumping water up a dam. Seems efficient.

Works great if you have the right geography.

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

#359

Post by imaginenore »

ldp01 wrote: post #354
femto wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Though you need less volume if it is only being used for overnight storage rather than long term rainfall storage. For example, to store enough energy to produce 1GW for 1 day (~10^5 seconds) with a head of 100m, use Pt=mgh to work out you need to store: m = 10^9.10^5 / (10*100) = 10^11 kg of water. = 10^8 m^3 This is not a big reserviour, being 1/20th of the size of Warragamba dam's reserviour (in Sydney). One valle…

Note that's a winter peak you're looking at. The highest summer peak appears to have been just above 13GW. http://www.wattclarity.com.au/2016/02/highest-electricity-de... However your point still stands I believe.

But the summer peak is due to air conditioning during the day, when there's tons of "free" solar energy.

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

#360

Post by Spooky23 »

eru wrote: post #337
epistasis wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being a manager at a large power company for 30 years is both an advantage and a disadvantage. For the past 30 years, the energy industry has changed incredibly slowly, so ones expectations of what is possible in the way of innovation is far far lower than it should be. The "duck curve" that your friend is referring to will be solved in a variety of ways, from wind to storage to HVDC interconnects to the rest of the…

Nuclear could be made cheaper (even with Uranium) by updating regulations. Fission plants are held to a much higher standards of safety in terms of eg decrease in quality adjusted life-years per Gigawatthour than any other form of producing electricity. Even solar. (Though most deaths and injuries from solar come from people slipping off their roof when installing residential capacity. If memory serves right.)

A nuclear plant today would cost something like $6B that's not a regulatory tweak.

The problem with nuclear is waste disposal (still not figured out, and a will be a problem for decades/centuries after the plant is closed) and amortization of billions of capital costs.

With the price disruption potential of other technology, it's a bad bet, and has been so for many years.

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