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Can solar costs keep shrinking?

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Re: Can solar costs keep shrinking?

#221

Post by epoxia »

Veedrac wrote: post #147
epoxia wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really, the over-cited LCOE of solar/wind does not account for the cost of (its increased need of) battery storage. As time of use does not align with the time of generation. Also, battery storage has its own ongoing costs with battery degradation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxlnBNVCfBQ

2019 was half a decade ago. You can tell solar+storage is cheaper than anything else except conditionally wind at least in the US because people have stopped building new generation capacity for anything else.

True, I didn't realize how much panel costs have declined since then[0]. Also tax incentives for renewables have doubled as well (rightfully so)[1].

[0] https://www.woodmac.com/press-releases/chinas-solar-producti...

[1] https://www.eia.gov/analysis/requests/subsidy/

Re: Can solar costs keep shrinking?

#222

Post by pjc50 »

kingkongjaffa wrote: post #209
caymanjim wrote: post #204

I spend four months of the year traveling in an RV. Two years ago, I budgeted over $6000 for my desired solar setup (at least 1200Ah of battery, at least 2400W of solar, plus various controllers and other components). It was expensive enough for me to hold off, and more importantly, I didn't have the space on my current RV for the solar panels. In just the two years since then, prices on batteries and panels have dro…

> I intend to buy undeveloped land far from civilization I'm always intrigued by this notion, I know plenty of Americans have this kind of plan, but it's never quite as remote as they think, because, y'know you're still in America somewhere. Unless you're thinking of somewhere in northern Canada. I'd love to know where is considered 'far from civilization' on the continental US.

Far from "civilization", but still surrounded by lawfulness so you don't have to deal with warlords taking your solar panels.

Re: Can solar costs keep shrinking?

#223

Post by flir »

pjc50 wrote: post #222
kingkongjaffa wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I intend to buy undeveloped land far from civilization I'm always intrigued by this notion, I know plenty of Americans have this kind of plan, but it's never quite as remote as they think, because, y'know you're still in America somewhere. Unless you're thinking of somewhere in northern Canada. I'd love to know where is considered 'far from civilization' on the continental US.

Far from "civilization", but still surrounded by lawfulness so you don't have to deal with warlords taking your solar panels.

Don't hate the player, hate the game.

Re: Can solar costs keep shrinking?

#224

Post by HPsquared »

bobthepanda wrote: post #189
kragen wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it would be much more, but the us imports 130% of the aluminum it consumes from places with lower energy costs: https://pubs.usgs.gov/periodicals/mcs2022/mcs2022-aluminum.p...

Bahrain and UAE being big aluminum smelters is a bit surprising.

Iceland too. It takes a few workers and a lot of energy. Very sensitive to market conditions though. Peaky.

Re: Can solar costs keep shrinking?

#225

Post by kitkat_new »

sharpshadow wrote: post #77
bryanlarsen wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The price of a commodity is equal to the highest of the lowest cost producers that can satisfy demand. Germany cannot satisfy demand with cheap renewables, so the marginal producer is expensive gas & nuclear. German electricity is expensive because gas is expensive in Germany. Electricity will be expensive in Germany until Germany completely stops using gas shipped in via container ship.

You got it right there Germany can’t satisfy demand with renewables and decided to cut itself of from coal and nuclear, brilliant right!? Cherry on top some powerful player blew up Nordstream forcing Germany to buy exorbitantly expensive LNG. Your argument to stop using LNG doesn’t work if you have many parts of industry build with gas infrastructure which can’t be replaced just like that.

> Cherry on top some powerful player blew up Nordstream forcing Germany to buy exorbitantly expensive LNG.

Germany was forced already before that, since Russia used the Gas to blackmail Germany

Re: Can solar costs keep shrinking?

#226

Post by Havoc »

Think these days we should really be talking more about storage than panels.

And I don’t mean lithium batteries. More things like molten salt and sand batteries - things that require a bit of planning and infra that is reliant on rare metals etc

Re: Can solar costs keep shrinking?

#227

Post by ZeroGravitas »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #88

OP suggests that land costs will soon dominate the equation. So no mention of orbital solar plants? Yes, somebody years ago published a study that said, Uneconomical! because lift costs, panel cost, transmission inefficiencies. All of those are now drastically changed, by orders of magnitude. It is not a matter of IF orbital solar is economical, but WHEN.

You're suggesting land costs are the key here, but orbital solar beaming energy down as microwaves to earth need giant antenneas similar in land area to a solar farm as recievers. So there is no land advantage to offset the other costs.

Re: Can solar costs keep shrinking?

#228

Post by ohthatsnotright »

flir wrote: post #223
pjc50 wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Far from "civilization", but still surrounded by lawfulness so you don't have to deal with warlords taking your solar panels.

Don't hate the player, hate the game.

Or change the rules of the game: https://www.businesstechafrica.co.za/energy/2023/08/21/broke...

Re: Can solar costs keep shrinking?

#229

Post by eigenspace »

sitkack wrote: post #192
jtbayly wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Misses the point of the article, which is to explore far beyond that cost.

It doesn't, this is a snapshot of the costs now, you know what they were 5 years ago you can extrapolate a curve. The costs are still falling and will continue to fall. I should be able to supply a data point of the cost of panels today without getting admonished as being off-topic, rtfm.

Yes it does miss the point. Panels are no longer the expensive part of solar. The expensive part is now things like labour, installation, and land acquisition, and bringing those costs down is going to be hard.

Re: Can solar costs keep shrinking?

#230

Post by empiricus »

rtkwe wrote: post #2

I'm having a hard time getting past the assumption in the article that energy use is tied directly to GDP per capita and that by not following the 7% growth of the Henry Adams Curve we're somehow below where we should/could be as a country. That embeds so many assumptions about the economy and where GDP comes from, the decoupling seems more likely to be from the transition from manufacturing and other energy heavy se…

You need energy to make things. Houses, roads, cars, food, many services. Basically without energy you are poor. Having energy is not enough, but it is necessary to be rich.
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