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US solar plant costs fall another 30 per cent in one year

reneweconomy.com.au

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Re: US solar plant costs fall another 30 per cent in one year

#111

Post by addHocker »

adrianN wrote: post #108
ccozan wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about building something similar to a space power station that loads huge batteries, then gravitationally launches them towards ground, while on the other side an automated system launches rockets with empty batteries that docks to the power station?

Step 1: Build a space elevator Step 2: ... Step 3: Profit!

Launch Loop or Space Fountain are superior. Even the Laser Transmitted Energy solution is. Why? Because they do not have such tremendous costs to install and do not rely on hypothetical yet to develop substances.

Re: US solar plant costs fall another 30 per cent in one year

#112

Post by marvin »

sounds wrote: post #23
ggm wrote: post #12

The non-decline in the associated costs for individual installs has to be thought about. If this is a true reflection of unavoidable costs, home installs are unlikely to break a cost barrier, and won't make substantive differences in centralized generation. If on the other hand they are mutable costs, and can be brought down, then microgrids and local power has more chance of becoming something of substance. The bigg…

Inflation-adjusted residential costs according to nrel.gov are shown in the chart on page vi of https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy17osti/68925.pdf The raw costs, not adjusted for inflation: Q1 2014: $4.52/W total for $1.03/W modules [0] Q1 2015: $3.09/Wdc total for $0.70/Wdc modules [1] Q1 2016: $2.93/Wdc total for $0.63/Wdc modules [2] Q1 2017: $2.80/Wdc total for $0.35/Wdc modules [3] Conclusion: Even if the modules cost…

Tesla's approach of taking the solar installation and "baking it into" changing the roof is very interesting in this regard, long-term. A labor-intensive job is done in parallel with another labor-intensive job, with a good amount of overlap.

Re: US solar plant costs fall another 30 per cent in one year

#113

Post by majewsky »

Yumz- wrote: post #109
tomjakubowski wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sadly, there appears to be many environmentalists and conservation people against large desert solar arrays claiming it threatens habitat of whatever lives there. Can you cite a significant environmental group that completely opposes all large desert solar projects for this reason? Otherwise this reads like a rather unfair characterization. In a recent case [1], the Sierra Club successfully argued that a planned so…

Endangered species need to go extinct. We are committing a high level universal crime by intervening in life's natural hygiene process.

That's just as unbalanced a view as "endangered species may never go extinct". The difference is whether they go extinct because of maladaptation to the natural environment or because of maladaptation to human influence on the natural environment. No reasonable person would argue against the first thing, but many argue against the second thing.

Re: US solar plant costs fall another 30 per cent in one year

#114

Post by hanoz »

bjelkeman-again wrote: post #75
shandor wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is fascinating if true. Do you gave any sources, I'd be really interested in reading more on the matter.

This gives a good overview. What people miss is that during the summer the sun is up all the time. (In the winter, not so much.) And average cloud cover is also accounted for. http://re.jrc.ec.europa.eu/pvgis/countries/europe/EU-Glob_op...

That diagram suggests Northern Sweden to Southern Europe is 50%, not 80%, which sounds more plausible.

Re: US solar plant costs fall another 30 per cent in one year

#115

Post by wickawic »

Yumz- wrote: post #109
tomjakubowski wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sadly, there appears to be many environmentalists and conservation people against large desert solar arrays claiming it threatens habitat of whatever lives there. Can you cite a significant environmental group that completely opposes all large desert solar projects for this reason? Otherwise this reads like a rather unfair characterization. In a recent case [1], the Sierra Club successfully argued that a planned so…

Endangered species need to go extinct. We are committing a high level universal crime by intervening in life's natural hygiene process.

It's a bit disingenuous to call extinction caused by human activity "nature's hygiene process".

Re: US solar plant costs fall another 30 per cent in one year

#116

Post by caf »

russdill wrote: post #76
icefox wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For what it is worth I do to. It is amusing to get to tell them I already have solar at which point they look up and then walk away. But think about it... What kind of margin pays to have someone walk door to door? That is the kind of waste that the system has not yet rung out and why residential costs don't seem to be going down as much as they should. As long as all of the installers don't drive their costs down th…

That's it! I just need to install fake panels on my roof!

The numbers bandied around make it look like fake panels wouldn't be appreciably cheaper than real ones.

Re: US solar plant costs fall another 30 per cent in one year

#117

Post by ju-st »

kodfodrasz wrote: post #104
bjelkeman-again wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This gives a good overview. What people miss is that during the summer the sun is up all the time. (In the winter, not so much.) And average cloud cover is also accounted for. http://re.jrc.ec.europa.eu/pvgis/countries/europe/EU-Glob_op...

Do I understand correctly that the wishful thinking value of 75% photovoltaic conversion efficiency is plotted in the diagram?

It means the conversion factor of yearly yield in kWh to installed PV in kWp. "Yearly sum of solar electricity generated by 1 kWp system". It's not about the physical PV efficiency.

Re: US solar plant costs fall another 30 per cent in one year

#118

Post by Retric »

dx034 wrote: post #84
hwillis wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Emphatically, this. 21 is the page with the breakdown: only 10.7% of the cost is in installation labor! Percentage-wise, not counting the module itself, the biggest culprits are profit(14% vs 7%), supply chain adding 17%, and sales adding 14%. Installation is actually lower as a percent of overall cost. Profit and sales are usually higher for direct to consumer, but supply chain is the biggest single cost at 42 cents…

Sales should become cheaper as volume goes up and the market becomes more mature. But supply chain with 17% looks very high for non-perishable goods. They need to be handled with care but this could surely be brought down? Or anyone here who knows why they make up that much of the cost?

Part of this cost is the rapid panel depreciation which increases complexity or causes loss when inventory drops in value.

Re: US solar plant costs fall another 30 per cent in one year

#119

Post by redcalx »

addHocker wrote: post #72

Imagine if we could do solar in space.. infinite area- no soil wasted, the power transmitted as a ray of death... oh, so this is why we do not do solar in space.

Technically it's not infinite. The sun emits about 10^26 Watts of solar radiation energy produced from the nuclear fusion of about 4*10^6 tonnes of hydrogen per sec, i.e. a 100% efficient dyson sphere would capture that much energy at most.

Re: US solar plant costs fall another 30 per cent in one year

#120

Post by redwood »

s0rce wrote: post #32
redwood wrote: post #8

Flying recently from Phoenix to San Jose I was amazed by the size of the solar arrays I saw in the desert. I wasn't sure that that was what they were; but I found some of them on Google maps satellite after and confirmed it (cool time we live it). Good news is that there's so much more room to build more!!! Edit here if anyone's curious: https://goo.gl/maps/SjzWw9b2dSH2 Edit 2 - as an aside, when I first saw, I could…

Sadly, there appears to be many environmentalists and conservation people against large desert solar arrays claiming it threatens habitat of whatever lives there. It probably does have an impact but at this point unless population declines or energy use dramatically decreases I think we need to focus on minimizing human impact on the environment and not stopping everything that isn't completely harmless.

Very true, but this tends to be an issue mostly in California. That's why it's quite surprising that states like Arizona, Nevada, Utah, NM and Texas haven't started getting into this in a big way. I think it's just a matter of time. Especially since they can sell their power to California for a big profit.
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