Solar power has begun to transform the world’s energy system • Hacker News Board

Re: Solar power has begun to transform the world’s energy system

#131

Post by djaychela » Thu, Jul 10, 2025, 6:50 AM UTC

bot403 wrote: post #105

zmmmmm wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think the article still doesn't address the mismatch between solar energy production and consumption, which needs to be filled by storage mechanisms There's going to be a beautiful synergy here between electric vehicles and solar. Because an EV battery is already easily enough to power most houses through 14-16 hours of darkness, so if it can be a sink for solar during the day it can then be a source during the n…

I can't see how this could be true. Many people will need to drive the ev to work during the day, and if you discharge it at night then when are you really charging? It may be true for some who WFH often or in some cases, but not enough EVs will be able to discharge overnight for a v2g battery revolution.

You're not left with a flat battery at the end of the night. Many vehicles are combined in intelligent systems which work together to ensure that the vehicles have the energy they need (which is easy to set in all the systems I've seen) but provide enough grid support to make this work.

Remember that even my little town car (Renault Zoe) has a 52kWh battery.... which would run my house for five days. So the energy stored in these systems can be considerable.

The people doing these things have thought a lot about it. Take a look at this video - it's a bit 'puff piece' but shows what one way of doing it looks like:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKItLGPdN0k

Re: Solar power has begun to transform the world’s energy system

#132

Post by ErigmolCt » Thu, Jul 10, 2025, 6:53 AM UTC

While the US is busy trying to revive the oil-soaked 20th century, places like Namibia are leapfrogging straight into a distributed, solar-powered future with YouTube tutorials... It's like watching the fossil era get out-hustled in real time.

Re: Solar power has begun to transform the world’s energy system

#133

Post by ErigmolCt » Thu, Jul 10, 2025, 6:54 AM UTC

Biologist123 wrote: post #53

This was a great positive start to the day. Thanks whoever posted that. One point curious in its omission is whether the growth of renewables outpaces the depletion of our carbon budget. Presumably that’s the critical metric in all of this. [Edit: I ran this question through ChatGPT and the initial (unvalidated) response wasn’t so exciting. This obviously put a dampener on my mood. And I wondered why people like McKi…

Solar and wind are booming, but fossil fuels aren't shrinking nearly as fast in absolute terms

Re: Solar power has begun to transform the world’s energy system

#134

Post by ErigmolCt » Thu, Jul 10, 2025, 7:00 AM UTC

arh5451 wrote: post #24

Nice article explaining solar energy policy. I think the article still doesn't address the mismatch between solar energy production and consumption, which needs to be filled by storage mechanisms. Also would have been nice to have a critical look at how the Chinese were able to corner the Solar market via state sponsored means.

Storage is the elephant in the solar-powered room

Re: Solar power has begun to transform the world’s energy system

#135

Post by Mashimo » Thu, Jul 10, 2025, 7:05 AM UTC

bot403 wrote: post #105

zmmmmm wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think the article still doesn't address the mismatch between solar energy production and consumption, which needs to be filled by storage mechanisms There's going to be a beautiful synergy here between electric vehicles and solar. Because an EV battery is already easily enough to power most houses through 14-16 hours of darkness, so if it can be a sink for solar during the day it can then be a source during the n…

I can't see how this could be true. Many people will need to drive the ev to work during the day, and if you discharge it at night then when are you really charging? It may be true for some who WFH often or in some cases, but not enough EVs will be able to discharge overnight for a v2g battery revolution.

I think peak energy usage is in the morning and afternoon / early night when people are at home.

Would be stella if people could charge during noon. I don't know how feasible that is.

Re: Solar power has begun to transform the world’s energy system

#136

Post by thomascountz » Thu, Jul 10, 2025, 7:07 AM UTC

pfdietz wrote: post #106

thomascountz wrote: post #102

> ...people are now putting up a gigawatt’s worth of solar panels, the rough equivalent of the power generated by one coal-fired plant, every fifteen hours. This is amazing! Whether you believe photovoltaics are the most efficient form of green energy production or not, you cannot argue the impressive economics behind them. Successful engineering has to meet the market at the end of the day.

> are the most efficient form What does this even mean?

You got me. It was a honeypot of a term, "efficiency."

The point is, it depends on how you define it. Engineers may say efficiency is determined by the properties of the photovoltaic cells themselves. Economists may argue it's cost per kilowatt. Politicians may say it's how quickly we can construct solar farms...

Re: Solar power has begun to transform the world’s energy system

#137

Post by p2detar » Thu, Jul 10, 2025, 7:10 AM UTC

Barrin92 wrote: post #25

coldspoon95 wrote: post #9

[flagged]

China is literally making energy that cheap using solar. They add about an entire United Kingdom's worth of solar energy every year (about 270 TWh), that's 100x(!) of what they add in nuclear capacity (which is almost nothing). Even in China solar and renewables are rendering the nuclear sector obsolete. (afaik they're canceling about a third or half of running projects) And paraphrasing Bruno Maçães from his latest…

China is a beast in solar. Truly amazing work. That being said not only are they not canceling any nuclear projects, they announced close to 10 more just in 2025. They are building both and with a great pace.

Re: Solar power has begun to transform the world’s energy system

#138

Post by energy123 » Thu, Jul 10, 2025, 7:16 AM UTC

ryukoposting wrote: post #29

> offering a plausible check to not only the climate crisis but to autocracy. Instead of relying on scattered deposits of fossil fuel—the control of which has largely defined geopolitics for more than a century—we are moving rapidly toward a reliance on diffuse but ubiquitous sources of supply. A lot of this article was clearly written with rose-colored glasses on, but this might be the silliest line of all. The auth…

You're right. We should quickly buy millions of solar panels from China and put them in a strategic reserve to future proof our energy needs and secure decades-long energy independence from China. We should also subsidize domestic production ASAP.

Re: Solar power has begun to transform the world’s energy system

#139

Post by pzo » Thu, Jul 10, 2025, 7:21 AM UTC

good article I just don't know why author prefer to spell all numbers using words rather than digits. It's very mentally taxing for me to read, e.g:

>> of twenty-one thousand respondents in twenty-one countries, found that sixty-eight per cent favored solar energy, “five times more [...]

could be just:

>> of 21,000 responders in 21 countries, found that 68% favored solar energy, "5x more [...]

Re: Solar power has begun to transform the world’s energy system

#140

Post by energy123 » Thu, Jul 10, 2025, 7:21 AM UTC

p2detar wrote: post #126

Kon5ole wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Yeah, but if your intent is to support industry by having cheap energy costs that works out for you Short-term perhaps, but pretending that something expensive is cheap doesn't really work in the long run. Investments are supposed to be an initial cost upfront that pays off later. Like building roads, bridges and such. For energy, an investment would be to take the cost of a renewable infrastructure, energy storage,…

I’m honestly not sure I understand. All electricity export charts I see show France as a net exporter of electricity and by a huge margin. What am I missing?

Nuclear works, it's just more expensive. We can quibble over other things (land use, nuclear waste, nuclear proliferation, embedded carbon, energy independence, social licensing, construction time, local insolation levels and seasonality), but 90% of the equation is just cost. Nuclear is damn expensive compared to wind and solar.

When France and Germany built their nuclear, solar and wind was too expensive. But it's changed now. Nobody should decomission nuclear plants that already exist, because the fixed costs are already paid for, but building new ones doesn't make economic sense.