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For the first time, renewable energy generation beat out coal in the US

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Re: For the first time, renewable energy generation beat out coal in the US

#141

Post by Kon5ole »

simplicio wrote: post #63
jillesvangurp wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing that's often overlooked in statistics like this is roof top solar because it's just not that easy to account for. In places like Australia, where double digit percentages of homes have solar and where building codes are actually being changed to require solar panels, this is a non trivial amount that is putting a lot of pressure on energy suppliers to adapt. Effectively whole states are running on solar whe…

I don't really understand the advantage of rooftop solar over just putting the same number of solar panels in a field somewhere. Id think it would be a lot cheaper to install the panels in one-place then having to distribute them to a bunch of differently shaped and oriented roof tops, and cheaper to have a few large inverters instead of a bunch of small ones.

>I don't really understand the advantage of rooftop solar

I see many advantages, among them:

- You don't have to find new land; roofs are ideal for solar.

- No need for a huge project, financing, bureaucracy. Done in weeks.

- Costs are low and spread over tons of landowners instead of requiring fundraising and negotiations

- You can have literally thousands of workers busy creating solar power at the same time.

- You get geographic spread and will be less affected by clouds over your central solar plant.

- No single point of failure

- Less need for large and expensive long-distance powerlines

Rooftop solar puts the power to solve a problem in the hands of the people experiencing the problem and eliminates the need for a megaproject. This has turned out to be really powerful, rooftop solar has grown extremely quickly.

Re: For the first time, renewable energy generation beat out coal in the US

#142

Post by kragen »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #112
thehappypm wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Net metering is a bad deal for utilities, though. The “delivery” part of the cost of electricity is more than half; it accounts for the maintenance of the grid etc. People dumping energy into the grid doesn’t lower that cost.

Thank you for saying this out loud. Let me preface by saying that I am not a shill for big electricity companies. The cost of electricity, including green energy, and "net metering" needs to including the cost of transfer -- basically "big wires". Most people are delusional about the cost of transfer. One idea: Force generation and electricity transfer to be separate companies. Today, they are frequently a single com…

by 'transfer' do you mean distribution, transmission, or the kind of grid operation carried out by isos and rtos

with the right pricing incentives, rooftop solar ought to decrease the amount of transmission capacity required rather than increasing it, by generating the required power closer to the point of use

Re: For the first time, renewable energy generation beat out coal in the US

#143

Post by kragen »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #115
travisporter wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in the southeast and was quoted 35k for a 7kw Solar and 36k for two power walls. With tax credits,~50k

Just as a comparison, I did my own 6.7kWh ground mount array, so I can tell you that the materials costs (to a homeowner) for that were about US$13k. That was in 2020 - not sure how those costs have moved since then, but a significant part of the cost you're being quoted is labor.

i'd be interested in a rough breakdown of the costs if you happen to remember

solarserver's photovoltaik preisindex makes it seem like that's about 10 percent pv modules and the rest is either retail markup (or tariffs) or balance of system; is that true?

Re: For the first time, renewable energy generation beat out coal in the US

#144

Post by kragen »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #46
jillesvangurp wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but is that slowing down installations or just setting us up for a correction some time in the future when people install solar anyway? It seems to me that the market for rooftop solar is in any case supply constrained, not demand constrained. And I can't imagine this being very popular with homeowners or the politicians that represent them, regardless of their political color. So, there might be some backlash…

Correct. Legislation to disincentive rooftop solar works until battery economics improve sufficiently, at which point the install velocity accelerates because you can sidestep unfavorable net metering or time of day pricing. You’ll then consume your own solar during production, consume it from batteries when not producing, and relying on the grid for shortfall. The next fight will be the legal ability to disconnect f…

you could imagine governments charging a yearly tax for having solar panels installed, analogous to the property tax many charge on real estate

Re: For the first time, renewable energy generation beat out coal in the US

#145

Post by mkoubaa »

rapsey wrote: post #136
nroets wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should the US try to lead solar panel technology ? China has many talented engineers and plenty of venture capital. I'd prefer them to invest it in solar panel manufacturing and power electronics rather than social media, ai or Telco technology.

Chinese panels are cheap because they use slave labor to produce them.

Not fully true. There are incredibly competent manufacturing engineers living there. By a factor of at least 5 over the US

Re: For the first time, renewable energy generation beat out coal in the US

#146

Post by olddustytrail »

simplicio wrote: post #63
jillesvangurp wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing that's often overlooked in statistics like this is roof top solar because it's just not that easy to account for. In places like Australia, where double digit percentages of homes have solar and where building codes are actually being changed to require solar panels, this is a non trivial amount that is putting a lot of pressure on energy suppliers to adapt. Effectively whole states are running on solar whe…

I don't really understand the advantage of rooftop solar over just putting the same number of solar panels in a field somewhere. Id think it would be a lot cheaper to install the panels in one-place then having to distribute them to a bunch of differently shaped and oriented roof tops, and cheaper to have a few large inverters instead of a bunch of small ones.

An interesting selection of replies you got. Here's one that I'm sure Americans can appreciate:

If the panels are in a field somewhere, an energy company gets the money.

If the panels are on my roof, I get the money.

Re: For the first time, renewable energy generation beat out coal in the US

#147

Post by kragen »

acidburnNSA wrote: post #120
kragen wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i have the impression that gas produces something like 40 percent less co₂ per joule than coal? in some sense that's 'low carbon'

On paper that is sometimes true, and gas companies try to lean in hard on that. Gas can do 480 gCO2/kWh vs. coal's 800+. But when you include wellhead and pipeline losses of methane they end up looking almost exactly equal, according to many studies. So it's not really progress. Also, half the CO2 of coal is nowhere even close to acceptable. We need things that do about 1/20th the carbon of coal or less, so wind, sol…

amusing units

√(kilowatt hour / 480 g) = 2700 m/s

√(kilowatt hour / 800 g) = 2100 m/s

480 g is 60% of 800 g so i guess my vaguely remembered percentage was about right

wrt co₂ reduction i think carbon capture is probably going to be necessary

Re: For the first time, renewable energy generation beat out coal in the US

#148

Post by [deleted] »

photochemsyn wrote: post #106

This would have happened a bit earlier if the most efficient and long-lasting solar panels, monocrystalline silicon, had been developed by US manufacturers instead of by Chinese ones. All the tariffs applied by state and federal regulators on the import of these panels have been about slowing the rate of solar PV production in the USA on behalf of the fossil fuel and investor-owned utility sectors. https://www.pv-mag…

[deleted]

Re: For the first time, renewable energy generation beat out coal in the US

#149

Post by nforgerit »

nroets wrote: post #116
photochemsyn wrote: post #106

This would have happened a bit earlier if the most efficient and long-lasting solar panels, monocrystalline silicon, had been developed by US manufacturers instead of by Chinese ones. All the tariffs applied by state and federal regulators on the import of these panels have been about slowing the rate of solar PV production in the USA on behalf of the fossil fuel and investor-owned utility sectors. https://www.pv-mag…

Why should the US try to lead solar panel technology ? China has many talented engineers and plenty of venture capital. I'd prefer them to invest it in solar panel manufacturing and power electronics rather than social media, ai or Telco technology.

German speaking here. This position brought a lot of harm and made the German economy very fragile. The German business model in the last decades was based on cheap security (NATO), cheap gas (Russia) and a huge market to sell cars (China). And here we are in 2023, paying 100s of billions of tax money for (maybe) having a working army in a couple of years, a near collapsing economy bc of zeroed gas imports and a tightening market in China.

Still relying on boundless global trade in 2023 is just.. a funny position.

Re: For the first time, renewable energy generation beat out coal in the US

#150

Post by pastacacioepepe »

looping__lui wrote: post #130
pastacacioepepe wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The opposition agreeing - you mean like the Green party who wanted to end nuclear like forever? No, I mean pretty much everyone: 513 yes to 79 no. > abolish compulsory military service hard to believe? I guess we agree to disagree.

You need a viable military in an advanced and wealthy society. If you disagree you are imho naive. A military coup is one of the largest risks to any society. The “best” people to serve the military are the young people that stand to lose their country and have a million things that they get excited about - except going to war and fighting. A society itself needs to protect itself.

Coups always happen through a complicit or indifferent army. Having no army (except some small elite corps) seems the best way to prevent coups to me.

Also you don't need weapons and war to resist. It's much more effective to perform civil disobedience on a mass scale. Paralize the country and refuse to obey. Gandhi docet.

It's also what Ukraine should do instead of sacrificing entire generations of their men and women to protect some hundred square miles of land, destroying any value those lands might have in the process.

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