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Solar is now cheaper than some coal, says India energy minister

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Re: Solar is now cheaper than some coal, says India energy minister

#211

Post by sitkack »

netcan wrote: post #79
kristopolous wrote: post #2

This is called Swanson's law: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swanson%27s_law "The future is solar" isn't some hippy fantasy, it's a sincere market projection. Apparently, a robust, distributed, decentralized, sustainable power grid is unbelievably the actual long-term direction of free-market forces.

There is some other interesting economics at play. Solar is more suitable for local, small scale production for a few reasons including relative costs and the way those costs are distributed (capital cost vs variable cost). That in itself is interesting for all sorts of reasons, many of them applying to countries like India with infrastructure difficulties. About 7 years ago I visited Cow Bay, north of Cairns, Austra…

The same thing has played out in mobile telecom vs wired. The 3rd world has leap frogged those who had to move from wired to wireless. For residential, micro grids are a totally viable solution where bulk storage happens at what would have been the substation. Generation happens at the edges and point of use, storage happens on a block or neighborhood level. Absolutely required load at night can be pretty low.

Re: Solar is now cheaper than some coal, says India energy minister

#212

Post by TheLogothete »

Osiris30 wrote: post #173
TheLogothete wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't do the math because there are no baselines. Talking about capex reduction in percentages doesn't tell me the overall picture. You also talk about energy prices, but are those prices subsidized? All the talk about solar energy is making unfair comparisons and people are eating it up because it aligns with their wishful thinking. Just take as an example this article. The minister said that solar energy might be…

No, not at all. see my comment here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11520789 Solar and wind is for the majority not subsidized in India. What you are referring to is the Min of New and Renewable Energy offering a VGF "viability gap funding" for certain very large projects termed UMPPs (Ultra Mega Power Plants) of 1000-4000MW. These are few and take-up has been poor due to the execution complexities. India is add…

>Apart from the US and its PTC structure, most of the huge capacity additions happening in wind and solar in Europe, Asia, Africa, China and India are happening from pure private unsubsidized auctions for power.

I don't want to enter into debates about the rest of the comment, but this is demonstratebly false in Europe from my experience as a EU citizen keeping an eye on funding programs and public discourse.

A quick google search says that the 2012 EC report on energy subsidies concluded close to 15 billion euros in subsidies for solar alone. The report DOES NOT include tax credits and DOES NOT include preferential lending support.

In addition, German citizen's bills have skyrocketed to the 2nd place (behind Denmark) because of solar power. German business refuses to eat up the solar power as part of a package because it will make them uncompetitive. This sentiment echoes around Europe, so I suggest you check your facts.

I don't even want to START on Chinese equipment manufacturers, many of whom face bankruptcy after the government dialed back on subsidies.

In all honesty, your opinion seems completely false based on the evidence I've seen.

Re: Solar is now cheaper than some coal, says India energy minister

#213

Post by jernfrost »

I don't know how things work in India, but it seems to me that big government backed projects in India don't quite work out.

The great thing about solar is NOT depending on government. If government puts the right regulation in place, that allows people to locally build solar cells on their houses, farms etc then that it where the great potential for solar power is. Not being dependent on central authorities doing their job.

Solar scales down so much better than coal and that is its real advantage for developing countries with weak governments and lots of red tape.

Re: Solar is now cheaper than some coal, says India energy minister

#214

Post by CyberDildonics »

downandout wrote: post #119

"Solar energy prices hit a new record low in January with the auction of 420 megawatts in Rajasthan at 4.34 rupees a kilowatt-hour. In comparison coal tariffs range between 3-5 rupees/kWh." So the headline here is, as is usually the case with articles in this space, misleading at best. It's slightly cheaper than the highest-end coal, but dramatically more expensive - nearly 1.5X more - than the lower end. Overall, it…

Why would bring up batteries? Solar for the moment isn't about all or nothing electricity, it is about cost and if it beats coal in the cost per kw/hr then that is electricity that doesn't need to be generated by coal.

Re: Solar is now cheaper than some coal, says India energy minister

#215

Post by hackuser »

jernfrost wrote: post #213

I don't know how things work in India, but it seems to me that big government backed projects in India don't quite work out. The great thing about solar is NOT depending on government. If government puts the right regulation in place, that allows people to locally build solar cells on their houses, farms etc then that it where the great potential for solar power is. Not being dependent on central authorities doing th…

> it seems to me that big government backed projects in India don't quite work out

> The great thing about solar is NOT depending on government

We have these theories on the one hand, and the evidence of solar's success in India as a government program on the other. I'll take empirical evidence over hypothesis.

Re: Solar is now cheaper than some coal, says India energy minister

#216

Post by hackuser »

murukesh_s wrote: post #8

“I sincerely believe that what the West is doing in this respect is anti-development and anti the fight against climate change,” he said, accusing rich countries of charging too much for clean technology." I really don't believe any country is sincere towards climate change. Every country puts their economy before others. So expecting another economy to help you is a foolish assumption.

> Every country puts their economy before others. So expecting another economy to help you is a foolish assumption.

Wealthy nations have been helping poorer ones for generations. Major institutions are devoted to it, such as the World Bank, World Health Organization, UNICEF, PEPFAR, and many, many more.

The world isn't entirely altruistic, of course, but there's a trendy notion these days, a sort of Ayn Randian (or Objectivist) idea, that it's entirely, unavoidably selfish, which is just as unrealistic.

Also, note that India is offering to help poorer nations with solar power, for free.

Re: Solar is now cheaper than some coal, says India energy minister

#217

Post by stevejones »

dogma1138 wrote: post #168
Osiris30 wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11524691 Why does solar always need batteries? These are not "advances". India is adding 20k MW of solar and 10k MW of wind p.a. China is at 20+20. US at 20+20. Europe at 20+20. 30% of all new power capacity additions globally will be from renewables for the foreseeable future. Probably more. This is without "batteries". Without subsidies. The need for "baseload", "storage…

>The need for "baseload", "storage", or "the sun doesn't always shine and the wind doesn't always blow" are red herrings. They are not relevant. They aren't red herrings they are poor excuses when used as a reason to not to expand renewable but they aren't without their merit. We need to improve energy storage considerably to be able to push renewables to be actually a major part of the electric grid. A a major part…

One advantage of solar is the requirement for an electrical grid is lessened, when photovoltaics get cheap enough the requirement for a grid is eliminated.

Re: Solar is now cheaper than some coal, says India energy minister

#218

Post by Retric »

ageofwant wrote: post #178
Osiris30 wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Misinformed. Please see my comment at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11524691 and these links would be helpful http://www.nrel.gov/analysis/re_futures/ http://cleantechnica.com/2016/03/02/base-load-power-is-a-myt... http://cleantechnica.com/2014/08/08/rmi-blows-lid-baseload-p... http://rameznaam.com/2016/01/31/how-far-can-renewables-go-pr...

Solar power is great, but it will not flood the Sahara and the Simpson Desert, nor pump gigatons of C02 from the oceans or melt the oort asteroids into giant glass ball habitats for the billions of earth creatures that will live there one day. For that we need something a bit more energy dense. When the first commercial fusion reactor is sold, the vast majority of "renewable" installations will immediately become red…

Solar can do all of those things. The most useful thing to do with ort cloud objects is to get them closer to a star for cheap energy. Once you get the ball rolling it's easy to beam power out to the ort cloud.

PS: Remember there is no night in space. So that's 4 * (149,597,870,700) ^2 * 1.3kw for billions of years. After the stars die, then we can start using all that saved up hydrogen.

Re: Solar is now cheaper than some coal, says India energy minister

#219

Post by ageofwant »

Retric wrote: post #218
ageofwant wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Solar power is great, but it will not flood the Sahara and the Simpson Desert, nor pump gigatons of C02 from the oceans or melt the oort asteroids into giant glass ball habitats for the billions of earth creatures that will live there one day. For that we need something a bit more energy dense. When the first commercial fusion reactor is sold, the vast majority of "renewable" installations will immediately become red…

Solar can do all of those things. The most useful thing to do with ort cloud objects is to get them closer to a star for cheap energy. Once you get the ball rolling it's easy to beam power out to the ort cloud. PS: Remember there is no night in space. So that's 4 * (149,597,870,700) ^2 * 1.3kw for billions of years. After the stars die, then we can start using all that saved up hydrogen.

Sure, but you have to concede that it is much more convenient having a small sun in your basement than having to deal with concentrating the energy from the giant ball in the sky. Especially if your halfway to Alpha Centauri. In which case the giant ball is little more than a bright star.

But, I'll be happy with your scenario too.

Re: Solar is now cheaper than some coal, says India energy minister

#220

Post by jessaustin »

witty_username wrote: post #198
noisy_boy wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are correct that every country puts their economy before others. However, India is not asking another economy to help them. India can develop its solar energy sector by itself. The west accuses the developing countries to be big polluters since they use less environmentally-friendly means of energy production. Then when countries like India try to subsidize the domestic solar energy market, WTO accuses them of il…

India is subsidizing only local solar panels, that's the issue. I think if all solar panels were subsidized, then that would be fine.

Thanks, this clarifies the intentions of the politicians. They couldn't care less about solar; they just want to help out their cronies. If they subsidized all panels, the Indian firms would probably go out of business while the average Indian got better, cheaper panels from the world leader, China.
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