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New Record Low Solar Price in Abu Dhabi – Costs Plunging Faster Than Expected

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Re: New Record Low Solar Price in Abu Dhabi – Costs Plunging Faster Than Expected

#51

Post by franciscop »

qoobaa wrote: post #28
pavanred wrote: post #25

May be a noob question, but if we can lay down cables for internet across the ocean floor connecting the entire world, why not lay down cables to connect all electricity grids. Half the earth always faces the sun. We shouldn't need batteries at all then, right? And we always have the traditional power stations (renewable and non-renewable) to augment the load. (At least in theory?)

It's a very good question. I always thought that it's because of technical difficulties when transmitting electricity over long distances, but it turns out we already do it well (HVDC). When you think about it on a continent scale: why not move all PV panels from Germany to sunnier regions of Europe like Spain or Portugal where you can generate twice more power with them (in average 200 W/m² instead of 100 W/m²). The…

In Spain we have ridiculous laws that make it unfeasible to a layman to have solar power installed in the houses. It would be quite ironic setting up solar panels for Germany with our current situation.

Re: New Record Low Solar Price in Abu Dhabi – Costs Plunging Faster Than Expected

#52

Post by ajuc »

Annatar wrote: post #3

This whole machination thing will collapse as soon as the solar panel prices, along with the inverter and battery costs drop low enough to be part of every house. Once everyone generates and stores their own electricity, the residential market will go away. This might be another 20 to 30 years off, but it is inevitable. And once factories start building Stirling engines and solar facilities into their designs, the in…

Even when everybody has own storage and power - networking it makes it cheaper and more reliable. It can be done bottom-up, by building small grids between neighbors and connecting them.

With a good automated system for calculating the net flows between people (maybe using bitcoin?) - it could develop into energy-network equivalent of internet. Only international and intercontinental links need support from big organizations and countries.

Re: New Record Low Solar Price in Abu Dhabi – Costs Plunging Faster Than Expected

#54

Post by nomercy400 »

known wrote: post #50

I heard that with latest solar panels we can convert 30% light to electricity;

They can get a bit higher I believe (40%) in small sizes, so a trick that is also applied is focussing all the sunlight in that small area, to improve conversion rate. There is still a thing called heat, making it a bit more complicated.

Re: New Record Low Solar Price in Abu Dhabi – Costs Plunging Faster Than Expected

#55

Post by porker »

Annatar wrote: post #3

This whole machination thing will collapse as soon as the solar panel prices, along with the inverter and battery costs drop low enough to be part of every house. Once everyone generates and stores their own electricity, the residential market will go away. This might be another 20 to 30 years off, but it is inevitable. And once factories start building Stirling engines and solar facilities into their designs, the in…

> Stirling engines

I'd like to see these more widely used. I keep an eye on http://cyclonepower.com/ (who use the Rankine cycle) but nothing ever seems to come of it.

Re: New Record Low Solar Price in Abu Dhabi – Costs Plunging Faster Than Expected

#56

Post by icebraining »

ekianjo wrote: post #23
euyyn wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plus if you offer me a place where I don't have to pay an electricity bill, I'm able to contribute that money towards a higher rent than otherwise.

I dont know where you live but in 3 different countries where i have lived till now the electricity bill was never high enough for me to take it in account for the choice of a place.

In Portugal you can get a 2 bedroom condo for 300€/month, but a family of three can easily pay 50€/month in electricity alone.

Re: New Record Low Solar Price in Abu Dhabi – Costs Plunging Faster Than Expected

#57

Post by lallysingh »

ivan_gammel wrote: post #35
mrpopo wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Power transmission on large distances is a very difficult subject. To put it simply, wires have a non-zero resistance to current, increasing with its length. For instance, Morocco plans to put solar panels in the Sahara. The solution that is considered in order to transmit power was that the solar station would charge batteries and the batteries would be carried by trucks.

Chemical energy storage looks interesting and it's not limited to batteries. Can be fuel as well. And it can be transferred via automated rail line (or even wire transport).

Battery sneakernet? EV trucks full of charged batteries going down the interstate across the country?

Re: New Record Low Solar Price in Abu Dhabi – Costs Plunging Faster Than Expected

#58

Post by ajuc »

visarga wrote: post #40
CptJamesCook wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Solar doesn't really compete with oil. It competes with coal, natural gas, and nuclear power to power homes.

Why can't solar be used to capture CO2 and produce fuel?

If you want to create fuel from sun and CO2 it's cheaper to farm some oil-heavy plants and produce biofuel from them. They grow solar cells from sun and air by itself :) It's magic-level nanotech :)

http://www.afdc.energy.gov/fuels/prices.html

Re: New Record Low Solar Price in Abu Dhabi – Costs Plunging Faster Than Expected

#59

Post by w_t_payne »

ivan_gammel wrote: post #35
mrpopo wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Power transmission on large distances is a very difficult subject. To put it simply, wires have a non-zero resistance to current, increasing with its length. For instance, Morocco plans to put solar panels in the Sahara. The solution that is considered in order to transmit power was that the solar station would charge batteries and the batteries would be carried by trucks.

Chemical energy storage looks interesting and it's not limited to batteries. Can be fuel as well. And it can be transferred via automated rail line (or even wire transport).

(Or pumped through pipes?)

Re: New Record Low Solar Price in Abu Dhabi – Costs Plunging Faster Than Expected

#60

Post by alex_duf »

narrator wrote: post #13
rogerdpack wrote: post #11

Before getting too excited, realize this is for solar in Abu Dhabi, where umm...they get tons of sunlight as it were :) Though his other graph "predicts" that solar in more temperate climes will equal natural gas in "2020?" http://rameznaam.com/2015/08/10/how-cheap-can-solar-get-very...

Another great thing about Abu Dhabi and solar is that they can use the extra solar power during the day to ramp up water desalination and store energy as clean water.

I wouldn't call that storage though, it's more of an efficient way of buying energy on a grid market.
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