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‘Insanely cheap energy’: solar power continues to shock the world

theguardian.com

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Re: ‘Insanely cheap energy’: solar power continues to shock the world

#301

Post by pridkett »

rad_gruchalski wrote: post #58
pridkett wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not as far off as you might think - even for individual homeowners. I’ve got a far from ideal house with a 8.4KWh solar array on my roof and 3x Tesla Powerwalls in my basement. Yesterday I produced 43KWh of electricity and exported 27KWh to the grid. The only reason I’ve needed grid connectivity in the last nine days has been to export power. In essence, I’m largely off grid from March through October. Now, this…

How much would you pay for electricity / month if you did not have any of that?

In the 12 months prior my electric bill averaged $140/mo at an average rate of $0.23/KWh (includes supply and delivery - split about 1:2).

Re: ‘Insanely cheap energy’: solar power continues to shock the world

#302

Post by pridkett »

throwawayboise wrote: post #56
pridkett wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not as far off as you might think - even for individual homeowners. I’ve got a far from ideal house with a 8.4KWh solar array on my roof and 3x Tesla Powerwalls in my basement. Yesterday I produced 43KWh of electricity and exported 27KWh to the grid. The only reason I’ve needed grid connectivity in the last nine days has been to export power. In essence, I’m largely off grid from March through October. Now, this…

$22,000 would pay my electric bills for about 12 years, not even factoring in opportunity cost. What are the ongoing maintenance costs/total cost of ownership over 12 years of such a system? As far as Powerwalls go, I'd definitely want something like that in an outbuilding and not in my house. Last thing I want to do is wake up at 3:00am with a raging battery fire in my basement.

There's some places where you can't put the Powerwalls indoors. In CT where I live it's just fine. I did add in a fire suppression system in my basement when I had them installed. This was not a requirement and was included in my overall cost figure provided. It's a big red thingy in between the rafters that goes "boom" when there's a fire. That's a technical term.

Re: ‘Insanely cheap energy’: solar power continues to shock the world

#303

Post by AtlasBarfed »

dzhiurgis wrote: post #278
Ma8ee wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because if you want to do it at scale it’s cheaper to install some GW on a field somewhere than bothering with roofs of privately owned residential buildings.

I totally agree, but my partner says - fields for forests, not for stock or solar. We can totally pull it off using roofs, but I agree it costs more and is not possible for some. Lithuania has this solar share that you can buy - the only option for most people as they live in apartments, but you do get dicked by monthly maintenance fee.

Yes, it's cheaper for utility scale solar because the environmental cost of dedicating land to an industrial purpose is ignored.

In the case of solar it is still preferable to do fields of solar to replace carbon-emitting power generation though.

But I do think governments should subsidize rooftop solar to within shouting distance of "utility" solar.

Heck I think they should be subsidizing solar and storage regardless of location. Once tech curves make existing utility installations obsolete in a few decades, then maybe move them back to rooftop.

Re: ‘Insanely cheap energy’: solar power continues to shock the world

#304

Post by supermatt »

dzhiurgis wrote: post #279
supermatt wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To install on your roof - 7-8 years in lithuania. There is a ~20% subsidy for up to 10kW systems. Alternatively, pending a change in the law, there are solar fields where you can purchase panels (also eligible for subsidy) and pay an annual maintenance fee. In this case it is around 6-7 yrs.

Annual fees on those farms make no sense... We've got a quote for €6k - €2.5k subsidy for 8KW system. We use a ton of power - which is a main factor how quickly you get your money back.

What doesn’t make sense about it?

We were planning to get 18kW system installed on roof, but to get sign off from power grid we would need to upgrade our power lines at great expense (we are end of line rural), so I am wondering about using solar farm for additional capacity (when it’s available).

Interested in your thoughts.

Re: ‘Insanely cheap energy’: solar power continues to shock the world

#305

Post by zamadatix »

kragen wrote: post #213
zamadatix wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's also the confounding matter of physical size - a prefecture level "city" like Wuxi is going to be nearly 20x the physical area of Birmingham (10x the size including the surrounding area) so holding a million people at the time doesn't mean it's necessarily a big population center even before comparing to what's "normal" in the country.

Wuxi, at 5.03 million people (6.6 million in the prefecture it governs) has about three times the population of Birmingham, England (1.1 million inhabitants, 3.7 million in the metropolitan era). The Wuxi prefecture covers 4600 km², the Birmingham area 600 km², a ratio of about 8:1; the cities proper are 1640 km² (the five districts of Wuxi with the 5 million population, excluding Jiangyin and Yixin) and 268 km² (Bir…

I think you're missing the guy moved there in 2000 not 2010 or 2019. Birmingham, probably a smaller city in it's own right anyways (England doesn't really have "big city" outside London), has probably not grown any significant amount in 20 years. I wouldn't be surprised if Wuxi more than doubled.

20:1 would be "Wuxi City" (i.e. prefecture where the 6.5 million comes from) as a whole to Birmingham the traditional "city proper" westerners would think. Looking at the actual data on that... 4628/268=17.2x - not bad for a swag :).

Again my point isn't "Birmingham is big stronk western city put puny Asian city shame" it's probably 3 fold at this point:

1) If you put Birmingham the city proper in urban China people would be saying it's a small city.

2) What people call a "city" in the west is usually vastly smaller than some of the places with "city" in the name in China, as such googling "population of city" and comparing it to familiar "population of city" is just going to confuse people more than help them understand how big these places are.

3) Wuxi is going to be a lot smaller in 2000 when the story was taking place than today, western cities don't have that kind of powerhouse growth anymore where you have to think when the event happened not just where.

.

Maybe you still disagree with my conclusion, and that's fine, mostly I wanted to get these 3 concepts out there regardless where the reader ends up on the matter.

Re: ‘Insanely cheap energy’: solar power continues to shock the world

#306

Post by MrPatan »

kragen wrote: post #262
oblio wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, but: pfffft! Pedantry of the nth level. On the other hand, 64k of RAM ought to be enough for everyone :-D

Which contributes more to the conversation: using a silly date format and calculating how many times bigger Wuxi is than Birmingham and how its growth and historical development relates to the overall boom in renewable energy, or derailing a thread about renewable energy by posting "I have no idea what your point is" and "Pedantry of the nth level"? Which one produces a conversation you'd rather be involved in? (16-b…

The medium is the message.

Look, if you and I are talking about the population of Birmingham, but instead of speaking normally you are signing your comments to the tune of "Never gonna give you up", I'm not going to reply to anything about Birmingham. I'm going to go "Uh, what's with the singing, are you OK?"

I think you got what you wanted, which was to show to everybody how cool you are with your long now dates, and the conversation is exactly where you wanted it. You're welcome, happy to serve!

I couldn't resist the bait, I'm just a man.

Re: ‘Insanely cheap energy’: solar power continues to shock the world

#307

Post by pfdietz »

AtlasBarfed wrote: post #303
dzhiurgis wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I totally agree, but my partner says - fields for forests, not for stock or solar. We can totally pull it off using roofs, but I agree it costs more and is not possible for some. Lithuania has this solar share that you can buy - the only option for most people as they live in apartments, but you do get dicked by monthly maintenance fee.

Yes, it's cheaper for utility scale solar because the environmental cost of dedicating land to an industrial purpose is ignored. In the case of solar it is still preferable to do fields of solar to replace carbon-emitting power generation though. But I do think governments should subsidize rooftop solar to within shouting distance of "utility" solar. Heck I think they should be subsidizing solar and storage regardles…

Or because that environmental cost isn't actually large (if it were large, what would that do to the cost of agriculture and food?)

Re: ‘Insanely cheap energy’: solar power continues to shock the world

#308

Post by pfdietz »

Gibbon1 wrote: post #181
conradev wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My favorite part of PV is that you can scale it to fit any power generating capacity, from a residential roof all the way up to a 50MW farm. It’s fairly linear, too, in terms of land usage and cost, which makes it easy to understand.

The other thing to is the massive redundancy with solar. Friend mine worked on installing a giant GE Gas Turbine for a power plant. They fired it up and it threw its blades. And it was down for 9 months. Doesn't really happen with solar.

This means PV can be installed with some level of sloppiness and inattention to detail that would be ruinous on a large integrated power plant, like a nuclear power plant. I bet this also reduces labor costs by reducing the level of training and expertise required.

Re: ‘Insanely cheap energy’: solar power continues to shock the world

#309

Post by pfdietz »

Tade0 wrote: post #255
ivanhoe wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is never any skepticism about the technology, the safety, the long term impact (as you would have if someone was setting up a nuclear or gas power plant). They simply “get it” This is also a bad thing, because there are some real issues with PV panels too: leaking toxic materials, recycling problems, environmental side-effects because you need to mine for rare earths and critical metals, etc. It's far from be…

Correction: Crystalline silicon solar cells, the most popular type today, require no rare earths. The most expensive and rare element in them is silver - used for the reflective layer underneath.

Silver is used in the front contact wires, not a reflective layer.

Re: ‘Insanely cheap energy’: solar power continues to shock the world

#310

Post by pfdietz »

ivanhoe wrote: post #294
Tade0 wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correction: Crystalline silicon solar cells, the most popular type today, require no rare earths. The most expensive and rare element in them is silver - used for the reflective layer underneath.

yes, if you don't count in the inverter and charger controller units and the batteries used as part of a common setup... I've got a degree in electrical engineering, but as I've said, I really don't feel competent enough to go into any discussion on a degree of actual threat, if any, as looking into all the side-effects of some tech is really complex task far above my pay grade and it's super easy to overlook somethi…

How are rare earth elements used in any of those? I think you're just repeating a propaganda lie about PV.
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