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Global Solar Power Investment Will Top $1B per Day This Year

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Re: Global Solar Power Investment Will Top $1B per Day This Year

#51

Post by megaman821 »

jackmott42 wrote: post #34
standardUser wrote: post #7

I get a little frustrated that all of the people who crapped all over solar power can now simply sit there quietly as it becomes a major component of electricity generation and pay no price for spreading anti-solar propaganda at such a historically critical juncture. I always found it particularly grotesque coming from the HN crowd, where an audience of mostly engineers and entrepreneurs seemed to have no problem fin…

I have at times tried to explain realistic visions of what it takes for renewables to become, say, 75% of the grid and people have taken it as crapping on solar, because I describe how it will require trillion dollar scale storage solutions. But fossil fuels also require trillion dollar scale extraction solutions, so I don't see it as crapping on solar, it won't be easy but we will do it, I hope!

How can you accurately project costs of grid-scale store 1 or 2 decades into the future? It is an industry that is just starting out and projected to grow quite large. Profits and manufacturing labor account for greater than 50% of the battery costs now, so there is a good bit of room for prices to fall as manufacturing ramps up and the market becomes more competitive.

Re: Global Solar Power Investment Will Top $1B per Day This Year

#52

Post by oh_sigh »

standardUser wrote: post #7

I get a little frustrated that all of the people who crapped all over solar power can now simply sit there quietly as it becomes a major component of electricity generation and pay no price for spreading anti-solar propaganda at such a historically critical juncture. I always found it particularly grotesque coming from the HN crowd, where an audience of mostly engineers and entrepreneurs seemed to have no problem fin…

Well, anyone who believed in solar could have invested in solar-related technologies, and anyone who didn't believe in solar probably wouldn't invest.

So, if you put your money where your mouth is(/was), you could be reaping the benefits. FSLR is +260% and SEDG is +440% over 5 years.

Plus, something far more important than money, is that any time a solar-denier talks about anything forward looking in the future, you can rub their face in the fact that they mispredicted solar so badly.

Re: Global Solar Power Investment Will Top $1B per Day This Year

#53

Post by irrational »

thx-2718 wrote: post #45
standardUser wrote: post #7

I get a little frustrated that all of the people who crapped all over solar power can now simply sit there quietly as it becomes a major component of electricity generation and pay no price for spreading anti-solar propaganda at such a historically critical juncture. I always found it particularly grotesque coming from the HN crowd, where an audience of mostly engineers and entrepreneurs seemed to have no problem fin…

I've observed the same. However I've also found, at least older engineers, often to be oddly conservative despite a huge overlap with being Star Trek fans. Makes no sense. Maybe it's like the brain gets really efficient at solving problems in a specific way that it gets harder to see problems from another angle. Regardless it's a really exciting time to be an engineer.

I don’t understand the Star Trek reference. Can you elaborate?

Re: Global Solar Power Investment Will Top $1B per Day This Year

#54

Post by ftth_finland »

ed25519FUUU wrote: post #8

Careful of the municipal utility bait and switch! Here in Idaho they recently adjusted the net metering credit to greatly decrease the value of solar energy. They waited until there was a lot of solar adoption in the state, and then pulled the rug on solar owners under the guise of “making sure everyone pays their fair share”

In Finland, solar producers get the spot rate for their energy, which is fair.

The price can go negative, and it does.

Re: Global Solar Power Investment Will Top $1B per Day This Year

#55

Post by timerol »

oittaa wrote: post #21
timerol wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't characterize that as a bait-and-switch, but as adjusting to economic reality. When solar is <1% of penetration, a solar kWh is basically just as valuable as any other kWh. When solar gets over 10% of penetration, a solar kWh is worth much less than any other kWh - when the sun is shining, energy is plentiful. By the time you get to ~25% solar penetration, energy is almost free on a sunny day at noon, and m…

The whole "paying the fair share" is just propaganda from oil companies. I saw a great video about that recently which sums up the situation nicely. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPfpa2KqYk0

> Why is this important? Because the potential impact of net-metered solar on electricity prices doesn’t even become relevant until you reach higher levels of penetration, or roughly 10% and beyond.

I think what I said was in line with that video's conclusions, which seemed to be arguing for continued net metering in the eastern half of the country, and used CA as an example of when the current policy hits its limits.

Re: Global Solar Power Investment Will Top $1B per Day This Year

#56

Post by UberFly »

BugsJustFindMe wrote: post #12
standardUser wrote: post #7

I get a little frustrated that all of the people who crapped all over solar power can now simply sit there quietly as it becomes a major component of electricity generation and pay no price for spreading anti-solar propaganda at such a historically critical juncture. I always found it particularly grotesque coming from the HN crowd, where an audience of mostly engineers and entrepreneurs seemed to have no problem fin…

> I always found it particularly grotesque coming from the HN crowd, where an audience of mostly engineers and entrepreneurs seemed to have no problem finding impossible problems that could never be solved and would therefore render solar useless on a large scale. I guess your lesson here is that most people who call themselves engineers aren't by any meaningful definition. Don't expect individual creativity from a b…

Your crapping on engineers blast-radius is too broad here.

Re: Global Solar Power Investment Will Top $1B per Day This Year

#57

Post by constantcrying »

standardUser wrote: post #7

I get a little frustrated that all of the people who crapped all over solar power can now simply sit there quietly as it becomes a major component of electricity generation and pay no price for spreading anti-solar propaganda at such a historically critical juncture. I always found it particularly grotesque coming from the HN crowd, where an audience of mostly engineers and entrepreneurs seemed to have no problem fin…

Are there any news in regards to recycling or operation length?

Solar obviously "works" if it has the surrounding infrastructure, like storage and weather. Hopefully green energy subsidies can end soon.

Re: Global Solar Power Investment Will Top $1B per Day This Year

#58

Post by danans »

ianai wrote: post #26
vasco wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My imagination still prefers nuclear! I don't mind solar projects but think it's a big mistake to not invest in nuclear.

My state proposed a grid battery solution that would have provided power for the entire state for up to 1-2 days IIRC. They didn’t approve it, but the budget wasn’t astronomical. I honestly wonder if the worry about off hours use is a little overblown. Infrastructure has a history of both being expensive up front and funded. Imagine if the US didn’t have highways and trying to explain all the impacts to the GDP that…

> My state proposed a grid battery solution that would have provided power for the entire state for up to 1-2 days IIRC. They didn’t approve it, but the budget wasn’t astronomical. I honestly wonder if the worry about off hours use is a little overblown.

Which state?

Currently, the production scale battery tech that's available (LiIon, LFP), isn't really cost effective for multi-day backup. It's used for very short term (second to hour) and expensive demand response services (substituting for traditional natural gas peaker plants).

The cost/kWh needs to be about an order of magnitude lower to make economic sense for multi-day backup. It's coming, however. There are several contender technologies: metal air, flow, and sodium ion. All of those have much better cost and safety characteristics than Li-ion, while trading off the energy density (which doesn't matter in grid scale stationary storage).

Re: Global Solar Power Investment Will Top $1B per Day This Year

#59

Post by jackmott42 »

constantcrying wrote: post #57
standardUser wrote: post #7

I get a little frustrated that all of the people who crapped all over solar power can now simply sit there quietly as it becomes a major component of electricity generation and pay no price for spreading anti-solar propaganda at such a historically critical juncture. I always found it particularly grotesque coming from the HN crowd, where an audience of mostly engineers and entrepreneurs seemed to have no problem fin…

Are there any news in regards to recycling or operation length? Solar obviously "works" if it has the surrounding infrastructure, like storage and weather. Hopefully green energy subsidies can end soon.

Hopefully fossil fuel subsidy ends before green ones do, they are much more expensive.

Re: Global Solar Power Investment Will Top $1B per Day This Year

#60

Post by prai1SE »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #25
standardUser wrote: post #7

I get a little frustrated that all of the people who crapped all over solar power can now simply sit there quietly as it becomes a major component of electricity generation and pay no price for spreading anti-solar propaganda at such a historically critical juncture. I always found it particularly grotesque coming from the HN crowd, where an audience of mostly engineers and entrepreneurs seemed to have no problem fin…

If the past trend in climate change denial is any guide, they'll just continue to crap on it, even as they are repeatedly proved dramatically wrong. Though some recent attempts to pivot to "we aren't rolling out renewables fast enough because of environmentalists" suggest a few rats jumping from the sinking ship as reality bites hard.

Having been somewhat active in my uni days in „environmentalists“ orgs (eg Greenpeace), I think being blamed by everybody is part of the game as an activist. The reward is knowing that one has had an impact in pushing the needle a tiny bit.

And now it slowly emerges that the decades of activism have started to pay off now that we see more amd more stats about surging PV/Wind deployment and them providing already significant chunks of electricity needs in Europe (where I‘m from) and globally.

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