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Solar power is now the cheapest form of energy in almost 60 countries
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Re: Solar power is now the cheapest form of energy in almost 60 countries
#12$27.4 per mwh is as cheap as buring raw crude in Saudi Arabia.
Math: 1 BOE is 1.7 MW/h
Cost of getting 1 barrel out from the oilfield with all infrastructure costs amortized: $6
Accrued logistics costs to get the oil from the oilfield to the power station + powerplant operation cost/per unit of power: $8
Per BOE cost: $14
Cost per MW/h of generated electricity assuming 30% conversion efficiency (SA is a hot place): $14/1.7/.30 = $27.5
Re: Solar power is now the cheapest form of energy in almost 60 countries
#13Original source: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-12-15/world-ene...
Re: Solar power is now the cheapest form of energy in almost 60 countries
#14I work in solar, and here's my favorite climate change joke: "They say we won't act until it's too late... Luckily, it's too late!" Solar is no longer an experimental thing, and the industry is now focused on scaling. How can we deploy more solar faster? It's ridiculous how cheap panels have gotten, but a significant amount of the cost savings in the past few years is coming from soft cost (logistics, overhead, engin…
If the goal of solar power is to be able to justify spending ever more MWh in air conditioning, I think there is nothing clean in it.
Why? Clean power is clean power, regardless of what it's used for. The alternative is to make electricity expensive enough that people ration its usage, which will make us regress economically since the economy is effectively driven by energy.
Electric cars are well on their way to becoming mainstream, if that happens, A/C power usage will be insignificant compared to cars, whose charging loads dwarf residential A/C.
Re: Solar power is now the cheapest form of energy in almost 60 countries
#15I work in solar, and here's my favorite climate change joke: "They say we won't act until it's too late... Luckily, it's too late!" Solar is no longer an experimental thing, and the industry is now focused on scaling. How can we deploy more solar faster? It's ridiculous how cheap panels have gotten, but a significant amount of the cost savings in the past few years is coming from soft cost (logistics, overhead, engin…
I know next to nothing about Solar so pardon my ignorance, but what do you suppose the solar industry is looking for from the software industry?
Thanks for the comment! Gotcha, yes, it does take quite a bit of understanding of the dynamics and incentives of the industry to see how important software is to the industry. Here's a rundown of the problems that software can solve.
Front End and User Experience: Customer acquisition costs in the U.S. for distributed solar is extremely high. Think of cleantech sales like the insurance industry 20 years ago. Most of the sales are human-to-human, and take a lot of time and legwork. We need to follow the path of the insurance industry, and start automating the initial quote and feasibility analysis. A consumer interested in solar or batteries or thermostats or whatever, should be able to get a savings quote instantly and buy the product online without having to talk to anyone. It's a complex problem (you have to combine energy pricing data inputs, easy user experience, complex data science, and dynamic pricing calculations), but the insurance industry has solved it, so we should, too. Whenever you go to Home Depot, you should be able to get a free energy audit with recommendations for what energy products would save you what. Software like this is how you scale energy efficiency and distributed energy resources.
Data Science and High Scalability: Intermittent power from solar and wind will become a huge chunk of the grid's power. What happens when the sun doesn't shine or the wind doesn't blow? How do we keep the lights on? Storage? Demand response? It's going to be an extremely complex operation that will require much more complex software to be able to optimize deploying storage and demand response. If you want to do software in machine learning and NP optimization, grid operations is a place that needs it yesterday.
IoT and Security: All of the new distributed energy resources (solar, storage, demand response, HVAC) are internet connected. The firmware and cloud software that run these resources are now a critical part of grid operations. If there's anything we've learned on HN, IoT software is complete shit when it comes to security. Beefing up the software security of all these resources is critical to keeping the lights on. That's all software and efficient protocols.
The next Google will be an energy company.
Edit: Shameless plug. If you're in the bay area and interested in getting involved in the cleantech software sector, check out the Powerhouse solar startup incubator (https://powerhouse.solar/) and my energy events calendar (https://bayareaenergyevents.com/). Just start showing up!
Re: Solar power is now the cheapest form of energy in almost 60 countries
#16I work in solar, and here's my favorite climate change joke: "They say we won't act until it's too late... Luckily, it's too late!" Solar is no longer an experimental thing, and the industry is now focused on scaling. How can we deploy more solar faster? It's ridiculous how cheap panels have gotten, but a significant amount of the cost savings in the past few years is coming from soft cost (logistics, overhead, engin…
I know next to nothing about Solar so pardon my ignorance, but what do you suppose the solar industry is looking for from the software industry?
From the little experience I have with solar what I've noticed is that its mostly a hardware issue. Storage is the biggest cost now. Which is why you see things like the gigafactory. We've got the ability to produce electricity from wind and solar down pretty good. There are efficiencies to improve but storage is the main block. My experience with batteries is that lithium ion on a large scale is still too expensive and there are quality issues. For that reason I use lead acid batteries in my home. They are a tenth the cost and a proven and reliable technology. Meaning if I use them correctly they can last for five to seven years.
I know people who use lithium ion in their home and either they built them or spent a lot of money on them. In most cases the system has not lived up to its promises and from a cost perspective still isn't quite there. If I were to upgrade now it would be to AGM batteries which are similar to lead acid but easier to manage.
If I were smart enough not to get electrocuted I'd be playing around with this stuff more. Not sure how much software is in that though.
One area where software would be helpful is potentially with the distributed grid stuff. You have a large set of panels in a neighborhood that create power shared to everyone. It seems there's a lot to keep track of with something like that. Solar city has a pretty good lock on things until the consumer understands it's a terrible deal for them. They are leasing the solar panels to you and bolting them into your roof. it would be like leasing your water heater except 100x more expensive. We went with a local installer for our system and saved money and had a great experience. the vc people don't have the potential of making tons of money like in solar city's case.
Re: Solar power is now the cheapest form of energy in almost 60 countries
#17I work in solar, and here's my favorite climate change joke: "They say we won't act until it's too late... Luckily, it's too late!" Solar is no longer an experimental thing, and the industry is now focused on scaling. How can we deploy more solar faster? It's ridiculous how cheap panels have gotten, but a significant amount of the cost savings in the past few years is coming from soft cost (logistics, overhead, engin…
It doesn't seem like there is a ton of need for software in solar, but I could be wrong. It seems to me that solar technology is mostly in line of something like a power semiconductor. You need lots of people who understand semiconductor physics and process to manufacture the panels. Then an EE puts is all together. There is software at all of those steps, but it seems to be more of a cost than the primary product.
You're right, there isn't a lot of software in the solar panels themselves (they are indeed just a semiconductor). However, that's not where the costs are. Only about 34% of the cost of a solar installation is actual hardware. 64% of the installed cost is customer acquisition, overhead, engineering, labor, etc[1]. These are all costs that can be optimized with software.
For example, my startup focuses on automating the initial energy cost data collection for customers so they can get instant energy savings analyses. The customer acquisition gain we unlock shaves about 5-10% off of the overall installed cost of solar and energy efficiency products.
Don't think of the solar industry as a technology problem. Think of it as a scaling problem. Scaling is all about software.
Re: Solar power is now the cheapest form of energy in almost 60 countries
#18Question: how many solar panels would you need to power a large steel producing company?
Re: Solar power is now the cheapest form of energy in almost 60 countries
#19I work in solar, and here's my favorite climate change joke: "They say we won't act until it's too late... Luckily, it's too late!" Solar is no longer an experimental thing, and the industry is now focused on scaling. How can we deploy more solar faster? It's ridiculous how cheap panels have gotten, but a significant amount of the cost savings in the past few years is coming from soft cost (logistics, overhead, engin…
The PV panels are mostly a solved problem and firmly in the realm of physics, chemistry, and semiconductors. This field is dominated by research institutes like Fraunhofer ISE, and startups that spin off from its researchers, but to play in this field requires a very unique set of domain expertise.
Methods like load management, demand response, and other ways of dealing with the mismatch between momentary generation and demand -- sometimes lumped into the catch-all term 'smart grid' -- lie at the intersection of data science, algorithms, public policy, and infrastructure. The parts are inseparable: this is a field very reliant on meatspace and subject to the whims of the economy, nature, and the political process.
This is a lot of factors to base your profit on (in case of a startup). And while employment at energy companies is stable and moderately lucrative, the fruits of one's labor are subtle and not immediately observable by the general public, while at the same time being fairly high-stakes. This limits the field's appeal.
Re: Solar power is now the cheapest form of energy in almost 60 countries
#20I work in solar, and here's my favorite climate change joke: "They say we won't act until it's too late... Luckily, it's too late!" Solar is no longer an experimental thing, and the industry is now focused on scaling. How can we deploy more solar faster? It's ridiculous how cheap panels have gotten, but a significant amount of the cost savings in the past few years is coming from soft cost (logistics, overhead, engin…
>>What would convince you to start a cleantech software (i.e. cleanweb) startup? The most successful startups are founded by those who possess domain knowledge. Without that, most software engineers trying to found a startup in another technical field (i.e. energy) wouldn't even know where to begin.
True, so perhaps it would be better to ask you to join the cleantech industry as an employee first? Then, when you have learned the ropes and pain points, quit and start a company to solve that pain point.