Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Wind and solar generated more power than gas globally in April 2026

electrek.co

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

211–220 of 405 posts

Re: Wind and solar generated more power than gas globally in April 2026

#211

Post by MichaelNolan »

jphil529 wrote: post #201
_whiteCaps_ wrote: post #96

I just upgraded the solar system at my family's off-grid cabin. It's incredible how much battery technology has improved over the last 10 years. Everyone is getting tired of me checking the panel to see how many watts we're bringing in. Next project, install a shunt and get a Raspberry Pi talking to it over USB. And then I'll be able to build a Grafana dashboard. :)

Really curious about the difficulty of doing a self install with Solar. I'm moderately handy (built a Sauna from no plans) and confident with electrical. Any gotchas?

I just did an install to add solar and batteries to my shed to power lights and an AC. It was pretty easy. Hardest part was flattening the ground since I did a ground mount system. 5kw panels and 5kwh of batteries. $1000 for the panels, and $1,400 for the battery and inverter. $250 for the ground mount. Plus a bunch of miscellaneous expenses (tools, wires, permits, etc). It would be cheaper if I did it again since batteries and inverters seem to get cheaper every 6 months.

Check out https://m.youtube.com/c/WillProwse and https://diysolarforum.com/

Re: Wind and solar generated more power than gas globally in April 2026

#212

Post by bryanlarsen »

lstodd wrote: post #200
8note wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

germany is producing tons of solar energy though? can you be more specific and give 10 examples of german solar plants that produce ~0W electricity in a year? they might be a lot more productive than you think

Germany is producing some solar energy. This is of course indisputable. They paid for that by selling most of their industry to China because energy costs became unbearable. Was this the right tradeoff?

Without that solar / wind, Europe would be paying 100 million euros per day more for LNG. Electricity in Europe is expensive enough already, making it even more expensive by shunning the cheapest available form would be even harder on industry.

Re: Wind and solar generated more power than gas globally in April 2026

#213

Post by anukin »

Aurornis wrote: post #46
erelong wrote: post #9

I know some people who are adamantly against solar and wind (personally I like both but I can see some shortcomings - for example I have heard that ai datacenters are using gas at times because of its flexibility) So what are some of the best talking points to "sell" solar and wind to the unconvinced? Or will they just adopt it once it's seen everywhere?

I don’t know how you can be against solar unless you’ve been given some uninformed talking points. Are they against solar subsidies or other policy provisions? It’s hard to understand someone who is against passive energy collection.

The argument I have generally heard is consistent power output and grid availability 24x7 with solar is harder. So they augment with gas turbines. IMO augmenting it with nuclear is better.

Re: Wind and solar generated more power than gas globally in April 2026

#214

Post by cryptopian »

id34 wrote: post #21
erelong wrote: post #9

I know some people who are adamantly against solar and wind (personally I like both but I can see some shortcomings - for example I have heard that ai datacenters are using gas at times because of its flexibility) So what are some of the best talking points to "sell" solar and wind to the unconvinced? Or will they just adopt it once it's seen everywhere?

I recommend this video from YouTuber Technology Connections: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtQ9nt2ZeGM I appreciate his ability to talk renewables for almost an hour and barely mention climate change. This video has a bit of a twist ending, but he gives you a solid out before he becomes political if you're showing it to someone who won't be receptive to that messaging.

For those who don't have the time to watch, the biggest point he hammers home: fossil fuels are a single use energy source; renewables keep producing energy.

So long as you've built the infrastructure and kept it maintained, the energy continues to come. With fossil fuels, you have to build turbines, then you have to remove it from the earth, then you have to ship it to said turbines, then you burn it and it's gone.

Re: Wind and solar generated more power than gas globally in April 2026

#215

Post by matthewdgreen »

tialaramex wrote: post #40
dnautics wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it depends. some places it makes sense, some places it doesn't. it will be adopted when the money speaks. the good news is that money is a reasonably close proxy to "environmental benefit" (balancing the environmental costs of green infra production versus dirtiness of gas generation)

> some places it doesn't I can see this for wind, but not solar. PV turns sunlight into electrical energy. The whole damp rock gets sunlight on the outside, why not build panels anywhere? For wind yeah, if you live one of those boring flat places which gets tornadoes a wind turbine is definitely a bad idea, it won't make much energy and then a tornado turns it into scrap and possibly destroys nearby things with chunk…

I'm confused. Those boring flat places that get tornadoes have massive wind farms, because that's where wind blows. Tornadoes are not a major economic threat to wind farms. Have you been to the midwest? There's at least 40GW of wind capacity out there, and the wind farms are really something.

Re: Wind and solar generated more power than gas globally in April 2026

#216

Post by ApolloFortyNine »

DonsDiscountGas wrote: post #158
citrin_ru wrote: post #89

It's a good news but I didn't expect that coal is still on the 1st place and not really trending down. I though coal was largely replaced by gas years ago...

Nobody, anywhere, is building new coal power plants. Approximately all new power is wind and solar. Which is good. But there is still a lot of installed capacity. And until new solar is cheaper than existing coal (which will be awhile, maybe never) then coal only decreases as plants shut down.

China is. [1]

I don't get why people feel the need to just start lying when talking about renewables. It's probably a large reason why people are always skeptical of 'rewnewables are cheaper than x' claims.

[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/katharinabuchholz/2026/02/27/ch...

Re: Wind and solar generated more power than gas globally in April 2026

#217

Post by matthewdgreen »

belorn wrote: post #125
tialaramex wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> some places it doesn't I can see this for wind, but not solar. PV turns sunlight into electrical energy. The whole damp rock gets sunlight on the outside, why not build panels anywhere? For wind yeah, if you live one of those boring flat places which gets tornadoes a wind turbine is definitely a bad idea, it won't make much energy and then a tornado turns it into scrap and possibly destroys nearby things with chunk…

Just to add some numbers here, in Sweden the amount of energy you get from solar during the worst months are a single digit percentage, while consumption of energy during the same period doubles from the average. Consumption during the best solar months drops to about half. Solar works a bit better when consumption patterns is the opposite, and the output is more reliable.

Solar doesn't have to be colocated with consumption. There is a massive amount of available solar in Europe and North Africa, even in the winter, and HVDC (including underwater HVDC lines) makes this available.

Re: Wind and solar generated more power than gas globally in April 2026

#218

Post by bryanlarsen »

zahlman wrote: post #175
toomuchtodo wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Take a look at California. Their grid is routinely, daily, generating ~84% of its power from renewables [1] (with ~25GW of existing solar PV capacity, ~6GW of wind, and ~6GW of hydro). They are adding batteries rapidly [2] (with a goal of 52GW by 2045; they are 33% of the way there). They still have ~32GW of fossil gas generation capacity, but it is rarely used constantly at full capacity. They have plans for another…

> Take a look at California. Their grid is routinely, daily, generating ~84% of its power from renewables [1] (with ~25GW of existing solar PV capacity, ~6GW of wind, and ~6GW of hydro). > ... Not everywhere is California, but solar and batteries are the cheapest form of generation in 90%+ of the world [5]. ... Then why is electricity so expensive there compared to the US average?

It's not. California has the cheapest wholesale electricity prices in the country. It's the only place in the country with a wholesale rate below $100 / MWh, and California is way below $100.

https://cleantechnica.com/2026/05/30/california-lowest-whole...

Retail prices are of course super high in California, but that has nothing to do with generation.

Re: Wind and solar generated more power than gas globally in April 2026

#220

Post by mjamesaustin »

dimitrios1 wrote: post #79
Aurornis wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know how you can be against solar unless you’ve been given some uninformed talking points. Are they against solar subsidies or other policy provisions? It’s hard to understand someone who is against passive energy collection.

I am against it for one reason only, but it's very solvable, IMO, and it's the amount of space they take up. I live next to 200+ acres of solar farms. A part of me cries a little when I see so much beautiful land and trees cut down and these lifeless panels taking up so much space. We have so many buildings, and structures already (think parking decks, tops of apartments, homes, offices, even parking lots) that we co…

Technology Connections did the math on this and found that if you ONLY replaced fields used for ethanol production with solar panels, the amount of space would be enough solar panels to power the entire power grid in the US.
Post reply on HN