Why did renewables become so cheap so fast? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#221

Post by epistasis » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 1:44 AM UTC

yurishimo wrote: post #165

scsilver wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This seems to assume that solar panels do nothing for resale value. However there is definitely value for the next homeowner to save $50-$100/month in expenses.

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#222

Post by sbeller » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 1:46 AM UTC

nordsieck wrote: post #186

rossdavidh wrote: post #145

All true, but I think they're missing the real issue here. Renewables (esp. solar and wind) are, yes, dropping in cost exponentially, and this means they are currently zooming past fossil fuels in terms of affordability. There's an issue in regards to batteries, but that also seems to be on a learning curve that makes it better every year, so that won't buy fossil fuels much more time. Now, instead of rooting for tha…

> It means that countries which rely on fossil fuels for their economy, are going to see the same kind of crushing economic decline that, say, the UK coal industry has. > What do you suppose happens when, for example, Saudi Arabia can no longer feed itself? It just peacefully and gently starves to death? First, I think you have to segregate between different kinds of fossil fuels. Coal is the worst. From what I under…

> In theory, naval propulsion is more amenable to electrification than aviation, but that'll be tricky to do economically; that is another area that petroleum could have a long useful life in.

Over the last couple years / decades, ships went slower and slower on average as to save fuel (fuel became more expensive as well as environmental regulation on how much a ship may emit, which correlates to fuel intake).

So some people in the naval industry propose going back to using wind power, either via traditional sailing or more elaborate schemes (via electricity generation as an intermediary).

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#223

Post by epistasis » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 1:47 AM UTC

99_00 wrote: post #24

This is the source they are using: https://www.lazard.com/perspective/levelized-cost-of-energy-... Does lazard include subsidies in their numbers or not? I can't figure it out. I'm having trouble making sense of the lazard report, but to me it seems that it does, and ourworldindata.org is using their numbers while claiming they are without subsidies.

Every slide will say unsubsidized or subsidized; generally Larard reports focus only on the unsubsidized cost.

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#224

Post by aaronblohowiak » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 1:47 AM UTC

nordsieck wrote: post #186

rossdavidh wrote: post #145

All true, but I think they're missing the real issue here. Renewables (esp. solar and wind) are, yes, dropping in cost exponentially, and this means they are currently zooming past fossil fuels in terms of affordability. There's an issue in regards to batteries, but that also seems to be on a learning curve that makes it better every year, so that won't buy fossil fuels much more time. Now, instead of rooting for tha…

> It means that countries which rely on fossil fuels for their economy, are going to see the same kind of crushing economic decline that, say, the UK coal industry has. > What do you suppose happens when, for example, Saudi Arabia can no longer feed itself? It just peacefully and gently starves to death? First, I think you have to segregate between different kinds of fossil fuels. Coal is the worst. From what I under…

Does plastic production necessarily emit co2?

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#225

Post by hcurtiss » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 1:48 AM UTC

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…

As a guy who's staffed permitting efforts for major linear corridors, I'm here to tell you that building out that kind of transmission infrastructure is a pipe dream. At least in the western US, the NIMBYs and enviros are too powerful.

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#226

Post by bausano_michael » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 1:50 AM UTC

jhallenworld wrote: post #191

You know what's amazing? Farmers in rural Pakistan choosing to prefer solar to irrigate their crops (panels + VFD/inverter + 10 HP 3-phase motor): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfNgF0WTeCM Or grinding wheat: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_G2evJOiU9I The comments in these video are all about how much does it cost, what is your contact number, etc. Clearly this is a sea-change. Also amazing that they all have cell…

That reminds me of an article linked few months back about opium farming: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-53450688

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#227

Post by vel0city » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 1:51 AM UTC

HenryKissinger wrote: post #189

bosswipe wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A powerful Saudi Arabia has not been a force for good in the world so I don't know why I'm supposed to worry about it.

The land itself isn't going anywhere. The sands of Saudi Arabia won't sink below the sea. The physical country will still exist. But what kind of government, what kind of state, can afford to govern that space and provide for its people, without oil revenue?

From certain perspectives it hasn't been that great of a state even with massive oil incomes. It will probably continue to be a state with massive wealth inequality and repressive government theocracy. It'll just have more social unrest to possibly change the status quo. Maybe people will really start to demand change there.

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#228

Post by epistasis » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 1:51 AM UTC

the_economist wrote: post #6

BurningFrog wrote: post #3

So fossil fuels, at least for power generation, is already obsolete. Fantastic! Since the power plant replacement cycle is much slower than for phones, it will take a while to propagate the shift, but it is already inevitable.

There's still the problem of what to do between 4pm and 8 am on a day without wind, which means we won't be able to shut down too many power plants until cheap energy storage exists.

Energy storage is already cheap enough to provide this for a few hours in the evening, as long as it's guaranteed that the battery get to discharge (and get paid) daily. In the ERCOT market, one of the markets that's most open to new, independent entrants reusing to make money, the interconnection queue has more GW of storage than natural gas.

The much trickier problem is storage that's only needed once a week, once a month, or once a year. That's where we don't have batteries, yet.

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#229

Post by hassancf » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 1:52 AM UTC

jhloa2 wrote: post #209

vbezhenar wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From my perspective those costs are massive. I'm considering building a whole house from bricks which will cost $30-$40k. I probably won't spend $15k for electricity for all of my life. I don't understand western economy. You've got extremely costly electricity and you're claiming that solar power is good. It might be true for you, but it won't ever come to me at those prices. I'm paying $0.03 for kW⋅h. I'm spending…

The average cost of residential electricity in the US is just under $0.12/kWh. A $6/mo electricity bill is pretty much unheard of around here. My electricity bill is around $50/mo and we only have 2 people living in the house. It would still take me ~25 years at my current rates and usages to break even, but the economics might work out better if you have a higher occupancy residence.

I think energy companies factor in distribution costs and a bunch of other costs beyond pure energy cost per kWh, hence the hefty price.

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#230

Post by nordsieck » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 1:52 AM UTC

sbeller wrote: post #222

nordsieck wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It means that countries which rely on fossil fuels for their economy, are going to see the same kind of crushing economic decline that, say, the UK coal industry has. > What do you suppose happens when, for example, Saudi Arabia can no longer feed itself? It just peacefully and gently starves to death? First, I think you have to segregate between different kinds of fossil fuels. Coal is the worst. From what I under…

> In theory, naval propulsion is more amenable to electrification than aviation, but that'll be tricky to do economically; that is another area that petroleum could have a long useful life in. Over the last couple years / decades, ships went slower and slower on average as to save fuel (fuel became more expensive as well as environmental regulation on how much a ship may emit, which correlates to fuel intake). So som…

> So some people in the naval industry propose going back to using wind power, either via traditional sailing or more elaborate schemes (via electricity generation as an intermediary).

I've seen proposals to use wind power as an auxiliary source. I have yet to see serious proposals to convert to solely wind power.