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Solar now ‘cheaper than grid electricity’ in every Chinese city

carbonbrief.org

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Re: Solar now ‘cheaper than grid electricity’ in every Chinese city

#101

Post by roenxi »

navigatesol wrote: post #85
addicted wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you consider that governments spend trillions of dollars a year subsidizing fossil fuels (this is not an exaggeration), maybe that’s why it hasn’t been taken up despite it being cheaper? And because like any new technologies there are additional factors, such as fear of different and new, and entrenched interests pushing against the new efforts. https://www.vox.com/2019/5/17/18624740/fossil-fuel-subsidies...

> When you consider that governments spend trillions of dollars a year subsidizing fossil fuels (this is not an exaggeration) It is an exaggeration, and it's mostly on the consumption side, not production. Why does the OECD come up with $150-$200BB a year in subsidies? Why is the IEA estimate ~$400BB?: https://www.carbonbrief.org/explainer-the-challenge-of-defin... The IMF report says a whopping $4.6TT of the $5.2TT…

And not only are externalities not subsidies, but looking at what appears to be the original paper [0] it seems that fuels for on-road use area big focus.

Obviously, on-road fuel is not currently competing with solar panels.

[0] https://www.imf.org/~/media/Files/Publications/WP/2019/WPIEA...

Re: Solar now ‘cheaper than grid electricity’ in every Chinese city

#102

Post by AtlasBarfed »

piotr1212 wrote: post #49
perfunctory wrote: post #2

> “There’s also the fact that companies just can’t be bothered a lot of the time – there are roofs all over Europe where solar could probably save money, but people are not jumping to do it.” That's why believing in market forces alone is a little naive. There has to be a little nudge from the government.

I live in a large apartment building in the Netherlands, during the last home owners association meeting we discussed installing solar panels. The problem is the huge uncertainty the government creates. At the moment it is allowed to just deduct the amount of power you create from the amount you use and pay for the remainder. This way the government does not collect energy tax on the energy you create from your solar…

Why buy a car? Why leave the house? Why get a job? Why rent an apartment?

Anything can happen in 4 years.

Do you want to be part of the problem, or part of the solution?

Re: Solar now ‘cheaper than grid electricity’ in every Chinese city

#103

Post by B2oka »

Scoundreller wrote: post #89
llampx wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Charging an EV sounds like the best way of taking advantage of that.

Too bad the grid is too dumb to let end-users actually get these prices. And the distribution and transmission prices are usually fixed. But I think they should float with supply and demand too: the drivers of upgrades and failures are the peak-time users of capacity. That’s what we do with data, don’t know why we don’t do it with electrons.

Some developments of that here in the UK: https://www.ovoenergy.com/ev-everywhere/smart-charger

Re: Solar now ‘cheaper than grid electricity’ in every Chinese city

#104

Post by 0xffff2 »

AndrewDucker wrote: post #82
GarrisonPrime wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So...you think regulations should allow renters to modify someone else’s property, even if against the owners wishes? If a proposition for solar panels is actually realistic and a net positive, the owners should be easily convinced without resorting to force.

The owners would have to pay for the panels. They do not pay for the electricity used in the property. Therefore there is no way for it to be in their economic interests.

>Therefore there is no way for it to be in their economic interests.

I would certainly pay a bit more in rent for a place where my energy use was subsidized by panels.

Re: Solar now ‘cheaper than grid electricity’ in every Chinese city

#105

Post by piotr1212 »

AtlasBarfed wrote: post #102
piotr1212 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in a large apartment building in the Netherlands, during the last home owners association meeting we discussed installing solar panels. The problem is the huge uncertainty the government creates. At the moment it is allowed to just deduct the amount of power you create from the amount you use and pay for the remainder. This way the government does not collect energy tax on the energy you create from your solar…

Why buy a car? Why leave the house? Why get a job? Why rent an apartment? Anything can happen in 4 years. Do you want to be part of the problem, or part of the solution?

> Why buy a car?

To get to my job.

> Why leave the house?

To get to my job.

> Why get a job?

So I can buy food and I won't starve.

> Why rent an apartment?

No clue, renting does not make sense to me, I bought.

> Anything can happen in 4 years.

Yes and you have to take that into account, make a risk analysis, think about the consequences and decided if it is worth it. Especially for long term investments. The chance my government will change the subsidy is certain (already announced), the consequences still unknown but they can turn out really bad. The chance they will turn out bad is large now that the two climate skeptic parties + the party that chooses economy over climate have a majority in the polls.

> Do you want to be part of the problem, or part of the solution?

Most people just don't have the money to spend on a problem which will not affect them for the next 10 years, unless it will benefit them.

Re: Solar now ‘cheaper than grid electricity’ in every Chinese city

#106

Post by the_why_of_y »

navigatesol wrote: post #85
addicted wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you consider that governments spend trillions of dollars a year subsidizing fossil fuels (this is not an exaggeration), maybe that’s why it hasn’t been taken up despite it being cheaper? And because like any new technologies there are additional factors, such as fear of different and new, and entrenched interests pushing against the new efforts. https://www.vox.com/2019/5/17/18624740/fossil-fuel-subsidies...

> When you consider that governments spend trillions of dollars a year subsidizing fossil fuels (this is not an exaggeration) It is an exaggeration, and it's mostly on the consumption side, not production. Why does the OECD come up with $150-$200BB a year in subsidies? Why is the IEA estimate ~$400BB?: https://www.carbonbrief.org/explainer-the-challenge-of-defin... The IMF report says a whopping $4.6TT of the $5.2TT…

Externalities that aren't priced in are distorting markets and the price mechanism in the same way as subsidies. Estimation certainly looks tricky, but I'd hope they at least get the order of magnitude right.

Re: Solar now ‘cheaper than grid electricity’ in every Chinese city

#107

Post by perfunctory »

piotr1212 wrote: post #105
AtlasBarfed wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why buy a car? Why leave the house? Why get a job? Why rent an apartment? Anything can happen in 4 years. Do you want to be part of the problem, or part of the solution?

> Why buy a car? To get to my job. > Why leave the house? To get to my job. > Why get a job? So I can buy food and I won't starve. > Why rent an apartment? No clue, renting does not make sense to me, I bought. > Anything can happen in 4 years. Yes and you have to take that into account, make a risk analysis, think about the consequences and decided if it is worth it. Especially for long term investments. The chance m…

> Most people just don't have the money to spend on a problem which will not affect them for the next 10 years, unless it will benefit them.

With all due respect, the parent did not ask about the "most people". The question was about you.

Re: Solar now ‘cheaper than grid electricity’ in every Chinese city

#108

Post by philipkglass »

pjc50 wrote: post #92
hokkos wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is just that renewable forces you to have redundant power generation, massive grid infrastructure, and because they started to early had to pay a massive premium without having the luxury of having developed domestics champions for solar due to the irregular incentives and smaller market than china.

Not sure I buy this line of argument when comparing to the UK: https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/germanys-energy-c... versus https://www.energylivenews.com/2018/09/27/renewables-hit-rec... or https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/... The renewable fraction in both cases is just over 30%, but the UK has managed to phase out coal in favour of lower-carbon gas. UK prices average around €0.…

Germany has encountered resistance both to additional onshore wind projects and to the necessary transmission infrastructure for moving onshore wind power around the country:

https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/fighting-windmill...

https://www.dw.com/en/germany-protesters-oppose-suedlink-win...

There is less resistance to offshore wind projects and to small scale distributed solar. Both of these generating resources are more expensive than onshore wind farms.

Even in the matter of distributed solar, note that the peak installation rate was back in 2012:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_Germany#Generat...

Germany not only installed a lot of a particularly expensive kind of renewable capacity (distributed solar). It did most of that installation some time ago when it was even more expensive to install. And it did so in a very sunlight-constrained climate, so each kilowatt of capacity generates much less energy than in Italy, Spain, or the US. Since industry threatened to just relocate if higher electricity costs were passed on, residential and commercial electricity customers have borne the financial brunt of the renewable buildout while heavy industry was spared.

The UK did better by phasing out coal in favor of gas faster than Germany and not installing significant solar capacity until the hardware had become much cheaper. The UK's renewable additions were almost exclusively wind until 2011. The UK started deploying significant solar several years later than Germany:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_the_United_King...

Between deliberately choosing to pioneer solar PV installations in a low-sun country, phasing out nuclear power, and acting to placate the powerful domestic coal lobby, Germany has really spent a lot of money to accomplish a very modest degree of decarbonization.

Re: Solar now ‘cheaper than grid electricity’ in every Chinese city

#109

Post by azernik »

mc32 wrote: post #46
discordance wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By ideology do you mean daddy issues?

I think he’s referring to some who to this day believe in “nation building” and imposing democracy where it’s not ready to take root. Ostensibly this democracy would spread and we’d have fewer adversaries as more regimes aligned with internationalism and globalism.

Yup - specifically, the neoconservative philosophy that said that now that the USSR was gone, the US had the power and hence the responsibility to reshape world political power structures in whatever way it thought was right.

Re: Solar now ‘cheaper than grid electricity’ in every Chinese city

#110

Post by piotr1212 »

perfunctory wrote: post #107
piotr1212 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why buy a car? To get to my job. > Why leave the house? To get to my job. > Why get a job? So I can buy food and I won't starve. > Why rent an apartment? No clue, renting does not make sense to me, I bought. > Anything can happen in 4 years. Yes and you have to take that into account, make a risk analysis, think about the consequences and decided if it is worth it. Especially for long term investments. The chance m…

> Most people just don't have the money to spend on a problem which will not affect them for the next 10 years, unless it will benefit them. With all due respect, the parent did not ask about the "most people". The question was about you.

As I wrote, I live in a large apartment building with a large hoa. I just cannot put panels on the roof myself, the hoa needs to agree.

Our plan was to use the maintenance fund to fund the panels. Money from the fund is not needed for the next 10 years, when the bitumen roof will need to be replaced. By that time the panels should have returned on its investment. Now let's say the laws will change and the panels will not return their investment, then all of a sudden everyone needs to put in a few k for replacing the roof, which, most of my fellow residents don't have.

About me: If I would have to choice to buy panels which will not return on it's investment, I'd probably spend the money on an electric car, solar thermal collector, heat pump, insulation, shower heat ex-changer or anything else which has a better roi.

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