Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

ourworldindata.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 642 posts

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#161

Post by flukus »

blake1 wrote: post #151
eldaisfish wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Now renewables are cheaper. Yes, provided you ignore the cost of balancing an increasingly volatile grid, a volatility that is created by renewables. Also provided you ignore the cost to provide energy when said renewables aren't generating any. Claims to back up your statment, such as from Lazard, are horribly flawed because they use the metric of LCOE - levelised cost of energy - to claim that renewable energy is…

That volatility can be dealt with by distributing the renewables geographically. It’ll be sunny or windy somewhere. This requires overbuilding, which is currently cheaper that storage, and the average generation is highly predictable for day-ahead or hour-ahead trading. My rule of thumb is you can supply 70% of demand economically today without long distance transmission. Search for “overbuilding renewables,” e.g. ht…

> This requires overbuilding, which is currently cheaper that storage, and the average generation is highly predictable for day-ahead or hour-ahead trading.

We should also keep in mind that this isn't unique to renewables, all power sources have to overbuild because systems get taken offline for repair and maintenance regularly. Sometimes it's even weather dependent as well, in a recent heatwave France had to shutdown nuclear power stations because the river for cooling water was becoming too warm.

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#162

Post by r00fus »

xyzzyz wrote: post #117
mrDmrTmrJ wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great question! Here's what Germany did: They invested a vast amount in local renewables, at above market prices, that had the effect of dramatically driving down the global price of wind and solar. Because they radically expanded production capacity. Effectively, Germany gave the world a 'gift'! This had the long-term affect of dramatically increasing global solar + wind deployments (b/c prices fell) and transferrin…

> CA wholesale power prices are very low globally, while retail prices are sky high b/c PG&E is a monopoly combined with an inadvertent domestic terrorist organization. What "inadvertent domestic terrorist organization"? BTW, PG&E prices are set by California government.

PG&E practices the time honored tradition of stochastic terrorism through incompetence (avoiding maintenance commitments) and regulatory capture (to avoid the penalties).

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/03/18/business/pge-...

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#163

Post by zepearl »

gandalfian wrote: post #61

The Germans paid for it creating the market/industry. Vast amounts. Then the Chinese thought it looked like a good industry to be in and threw unbelievable money at developing manufacturing capacity. If the Germans keep voting green and being parsimonious savers then we may yet get cheap batteries and survive.

Personally I think (hope) that huge imports from foreign countries of energy-generation hardware (thinking especially about solar panels, not sure about the rest) won't last forever and internal production of such components will be somehow in/directly promoted, which might lead at some point to a stabilization of prices (because of less competitivity / more protectionism), at least for a while.

This thought being based on "energy" being a strategic resource for all nations, and no nation willingly wanting to become dependant on any other one in this context.

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#164

Post by jacobush »

mrDmrTmrJ wrote: post #109
99_00 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So basically German "failure", but global success? And everyone else who tries it will do better because Germans ate the costs?

"everyone else who tries it will do better because Germans ate the costs?" Yes on both your points. Sadly, German industry didn't get the benefit. Which makes it harder to convince the country to do stuff like this again. Very different from Tesla, where a bunch of silicon valley people ate the cost (e.g. VCs, roadster, 2012 model-S) and then many benefitted as they own stock.

They got a less fucked world. That’s good for Germans too, and we are blessed they are big enough to make a difference.

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#165

Post by yurishimo »

scsilver wrote: post #102
albertop wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rooftop solar still have 5+ years ROI. Recently utilities changed billing plans to make it even less attractive.

But even if you dont stay in the house, the next owner can use it. I expect most houses will be lived in for atleast 30 years if they are getting mortgaged.

I think the average home ownership in the US is 5-7 years. Depending on the size of your solar setup, you very well may not break even before moving for whatever reason.

That said, it does make sense if you do plan to stay for 10+ years I think. As new houses get built, hopefully with requirements for solar, the housing stock will eventually all be upgraded to include some form of solar generation. I would expect the price to further come down and the majority of homes in the 1st world to have residential solar of some form within the next 30 years.

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#166

Post by dieortin »

manfredo wrote: post #130
eldaisfish wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Now renewables are cheaper. Yes, provided you ignore the cost of balancing an increasingly volatile grid, a volatility that is created by renewables. Also provided you ignore the cost to provide energy when said renewables aren't generating any. Claims to back up your statment, such as from Lazard, are horribly flawed because they use the metric of LCOE - levelised cost of energy - to claim that renewable energy is…

It's sad to see people downvote correct information. For context, the US consumes ~12TWh of electricity daily, so 500 GWh per hour. Global lithium ion battery production is around 300 GWh per year. While it's true this is projected to rise exponentially, the amount dedicated to storage is minuscule compared to the scale required to fulfill even one hour of energy storage [1]. This has prompted people to propose more…

> It's sad to see people downvote correct information.

I'm confused, there's no downvote button in HN.

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#167

Post by dredmorbius »

xyzzyz wrote: post #117
mrDmrTmrJ wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great question! Here's what Germany did: They invested a vast amount in local renewables, at above market prices, that had the effect of dramatically driving down the global price of wind and solar. Because they radically expanded production capacity. Effectively, Germany gave the world a 'gift'! This had the long-term affect of dramatically increasing global solar + wind deployments (b/c prices fell) and transferrin…

> CA wholesale power prices are very low globally, while retail prices are sky high b/c PG&E is a monopoly combined with an inadvertent domestic terrorist organization. What "inadvertent domestic terrorist organization"? BTW, PG&E prices are set by California government.

Look at PG&E's recent accident and incident record.

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#168

Post by lotsofpulp »

adrianmonk wrote: post #138
jes5199 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

in the past they were cheaper. Now renewables are cheaper. Right now, intermittent renewables actually drives up the cost of fossil fuels! Renewables do wacky things to the spot price of power - sometimes electricity is free or even has negative value, sometimes it's expensive. Ideally fossil fuel plants would only spin up when they could sell power at a profit, but they can't dispatch so quickly, so they end up sell…

> Ideally fossil fuel plants would only spin up when they could sell power at a profit Another effect is it makes these plants sit idle for periods of time. It costs a lot of money to build a power plant. Every hour it sits idle is an hour you're not getting any benefit out of the investment you made. So it takes longer to break even on your investment. (Possibly, as a consolation, the plant lasts longer or has lower…

In my experience, machinery experiences more wear and tear if you repeatedly turn it off and on than just letting it run constantly.

I’d expect a power plant to be the same with all the heat and whatnot.

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#169

Post by manfredo »

dieortin wrote: post #166
manfredo wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's sad to see people downvote correct information. For context, the US consumes ~12TWh of electricity daily, so 500 GWh per hour. Global lithium ion battery production is around 300 GWh per year. While it's true this is projected to rise exponentially, the amount dedicated to storage is minuscule compared to the scale required to fulfill even one hour of energy storage [1]. This has prompted people to propose more…

> It's sad to see people downvote correct information. I'm confused, there's no downvote button in HN.

There is you need a certain amount (200?) of karma to use it. Posts with negative votes have more lightly colored text. The above post no longer has negative votes so it's normal colored now.

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#170

Post by yurishimo »

hypertele-Xii wrote: post #28
albertop wrote: post #5

Too bad that low cost is invisible for the consumers. California has one of the most, if not the most, expensive electricity in spite of years of investment in renewables.

I live in Finland next to a hydroelectric dam. Electricity is, at worst, like 200 bucks a month. More than half the cost is transport. The dam is less than 15km out. What a ripoff. Privatizing the electric grid would make electricity cheaper, they said.

$200 max sounds nice. I paid that some months for a 900 sqft (83.6127 m2) apartment in the summer in Texas. I have family that have seen 3-400/month for their larger houses some months.

Granted, these are mass produced homes built in the 50s-80s for the most part before home construction got more strict about insulation and energy used to be a lot cheaper.

Post reply on HN