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

All the electricity you'll need for 40 years

innerpathing.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 131 posts

Re: All the electricity you'll need for 40 years

#21

Post by ccozan »

spacesanjeet wrote: post #14
sdk77 wrote: post #8

It's nice to have solar panels, I have them too and while they do generate even more electricity than I need, they do so in around 6 to 7 months peaking in July. So in winter, it's grid power and in summer I might need to pay to feed in the surplus. This is in the Netherlands. It's kind of sad to see all that electricity unused in summer, and knowing I could have enough for all of the winter if only there was some wa…

Isn't there a way to sell the unused solar power to the grid in summers and during winters the grid sends back the power needed to you at a discounted price?

or you get a battery. Is just great. I have 3.5kw solar power witha 9kwh battery. Very very seldom it switches to power line. And this is in south Germany, maybe a bit sunnier than north but still - it rains a lot/cloudy, sun is sparse.

Re: All the electricity you'll need for 40 years

#22

Post by bitmasher9 »

spacesanjeet wrote: post #14
sdk77 wrote: post #8

It's nice to have solar panels, I have them too and while they do generate even more electricity than I need, they do so in around 6 to 7 months peaking in July. So in winter, it's grid power and in summer I might need to pay to feed in the surplus. This is in the Netherlands. It's kind of sad to see all that electricity unused in summer, and knowing I could have enough for all of the winter if only there was some wa…

Isn't there a way to sell the unused solar power to the grid in summers and during winters the grid sends back the power needed to you at a discounted price?

If every household did this we would have massive problems. We would still need a base load amount in the winter, and in the summer there would be an over abundance. The price of electricity would swing between essentially free in the summer to higher than normal in the winter, because the cost of operating base grid power would be about same but they would need to cover all operating costs during the winter.

Re: All the electricity you'll need for 40 years

#23

Post by itishappy »

sdk77 wrote: post #8

It's nice to have solar panels, I have them too and while they do generate even more electricity than I need, they do so in around 6 to 7 months peaking in July. So in winter, it's grid power and in summer I might need to pay to feed in the surplus. This is in the Netherlands. It's kind of sad to see all that electricity unused in summer, and knowing I could have enough for all of the winter if only there was some wa…

> ... in summer I might need to pay to feed in the surplus.

You're allowed to just disconnect solar panels. It's free and does not damage them.

Re: All the electricity you'll need for 40 years

#24

Post by toomuchtodo »

candiddevmike wrote: post #3

This seems like a "green brag" without much substance. Great that this person is privileged enough to afford solar panels, I guess. Nothing to be learned here though: no wire diagrams, placement schematics, or BoM. Just someone telling everyone how green they are.

The idea is the important part. The details (wiring schematics and so on) are not. The cost of solar is rapidly approaching where you’re prepaying for your energy for the rest of your life with a few thousand dollars. You can get solar panels for 10 cents/watt today, for example. That price will potentially continue to decline (historically, price has declined ~20% for every global doubling of PV manufacturing capacity).

churchill’s comment provides a similar example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41965228 (2.7 year payback in Nigeria, cheaper per kWh than utility rate of 12 cents/kWh)

The engineering of energy abundance and democratization of energy globally continues. That’s the story.

https://ourworldindata.org/data-insights/solar-panel-prices-...

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/solar-pv-prices

https://www.pv-tech.org/solar-lcoe-continues-to-decrease-glo...

Re: All the electricity you'll need for 40 years

#25

Post by titanomachy »

sdk77 wrote: post #8

It's nice to have solar panels, I have them too and while they do generate even more electricity than I need, they do so in around 6 to 7 months peaking in July. So in winter, it's grid power and in summer I might need to pay to feed in the surplus. This is in the Netherlands. It's kind of sad to see all that electricity unused in summer, and knowing I could have enough for all of the winter if only there was some wa…

> need to pay to feed back in the surplus

Why not have the panels disconnect themselves in this case? Is this too small an expense to justify the cost of additional hardware to manage switching on and off?

Re: All the electricity you'll need for 40 years

#27

Post by bitmasher9 »

indigoabstract wrote: post #10

Looking at the posted pictures, it seems like they're living in heaven. Good to know the panels will be good for at least 40 years. Still, I'm kind of left wondering, where will they be in 40 years. Can life really be so predictable?

You can imagine a high probability that someone will be in the home enjoying the power generated.

Re: All the electricity you'll need for 40 years

#29

Post by sdk77 »

itishappy wrote: post #23
sdk77 wrote: post #8

It's nice to have solar panels, I have them too and while they do generate even more electricity than I need, they do so in around 6 to 7 months peaking in July. So in winter, it's grid power and in summer I might need to pay to feed in the surplus. This is in the Netherlands. It's kind of sad to see all that electricity unused in summer, and knowing I could have enough for all of the winter if only there was some wa…

> ... in summer I might need to pay to feed in the surplus. You're allowed to just disconnect solar panels. It's free and does not damage them.

Sure. Of course. Not being allowed to disconnect them would be ridiculous. But do you want to keep an eye on the market every day, and run to the breaker to turn on an off your inverter? No. So you need a solution for that. Then a battery is much more interesting.

Re: All the electricity you'll need for 40 years

#30

Post by skybrian »

ccozan wrote: post #21
spacesanjeet wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't there a way to sell the unused solar power to the grid in summers and during winters the grid sends back the power needed to you at a discounted price?

or you get a battery. Is just great. I have 3.5kw solar power witha 9kwh battery. Very very seldom it switches to power line. And this is in south Germany, maybe a bit sunnier than north but still - it rains a lot/cloudy, sun is sparse.

It seems like that works for daily cycles, but isn't that very expensive storage for one cycle a year, which is what you need to save energy for winter?
Post reply on HN