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Australia has so much solar that it's offering everyone free electricity

electrek.co

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Re: Australia has so much solar that it's offering everyone free electricity

#221

Post by uecker »

teemur wrote: post #64
willvarfar wrote: post #3

Ignoring the politics, we have to say that China has done the world collectively as a whole a major service in strategically developing and mass producing super cheap solar panels.

Don't forget Germany. If you look at the amount of PV built in Germany early this century and make some admittedly strong assumptions about learning curve, one could argue the Energiewende, then usually called failure, singlehandedly accelerated PV development by decades. I don't recall Germany ever credited on that.

It has been called a "gift to the world". https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/14/science/earth/sun-and-win...

But since then there was an endless stream of negative press especially in English speaking countries against German energy policies, so not much of this positive comments are still remembered.

Re: Australia has so much solar that it's offering everyone free electricity

#222

Post by quickthrowman »

testing22321 wrote: post #196
quickthrowman wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your friend is not the last person that will own that house, forcing a utility connection is a good thing for future owners. The same reasoning is why building codes exist, nobody really cares if you want to live in a substandard dwelling (aside from your mortgage insurer) but basically every house has more than one owner over time. Building codes mean when you buy a house, you can be reasonably certain there aren’t…

Have you ever lived in an off grid house? Friends have a full sized off grid house in the Yukon since 2010. Every modern convenience, stunning location. Never a single power outage in all those years. How many power outages have you had? Off grid is not somehow sub standard.

No, but I have a very good idea of what it costs to procure, install, operate, and maintain a 24kW or 48kW generator. About 30-40 grand if you’re adding a sizable diesel day tank or propane tank.

Once it’s installed, you’ve got fuel deliveries plus regular maintenance and monitoring. You’re looking at thousands of dollars a year to operate your own generator for a 100A or 200A service. If you’re already installing a propane tank for heating then the costs can be spread between heating and power generation but it’s still a sizable investment.

Generators are nowhere near as reliable as you’re making them out to be. Maintaining and fueling one is a hassle that the vast majority of people would rather not deal with.

Re: Australia has so much solar that it's offering everyone free electricity

#223

Post by Manabu-eo »

energy123 wrote: post #83
jl6 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's hope someone can do the same for grid-scale seasonal storage. "Excess" solar electricity won't be free in (noon, summer) if you can easily bank it for (night, winter).

A second solution is to overbuild so you have enough even in winter. Easier to do near the equator. A third solution is to pipe it across timezones using HVDC and accept some level of efficiency loss and some geopolitical risks. A fourth solution is to mix lots of wind, which performs better in winter and cancels out the lower insolation. Realistically it's going to be all of the above, with the balance determined by…

Related to overbuilding, vertically mounted solar panels can help flatten the generation curve during the day, and may perform better than "optimally tilted" panels on winter, especially where snow might otherwise be a problem.

Re: Australia has so much solar that it's offering everyone free electricity

#224

Post by dfex »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #79
somanyphotons wrote: post #69

With free power for 3 hours a day, I'd skip installing solar and I'd buy a ~30kwh battery (2x Ruixu Lithi2-16) and a big inverter. Charge the batteries in the free time and then use the stored power the rest of the day.

Australia will give you a 30% discount on that purchase, they have a fund of 2.3 Billion Australian dollars available for this purpose called the Cheaper Home Batteries program.

My subsidised 48kWh battery is getting installed in two weeks - and I can't wait.

I have also upgraded to a 20kW inverter (I have ~10kW of panels on the roof) so I can import or export twice as fast and I will be switching to a provider that offers wholesale pricing. Getting a guaranteed 3 hours of free power a day for charging (even in winter) is just going to be the icing on the cake.

Based on back of the envelope calculations, the battery should be paid off in about 5-6 years during which time I will have paid zero for electricity (outside of a $25/month access charge).

"The future is already here – it’s just not very evenly distributed." - William Gibson

Re: Australia has so much solar that it's offering everyone free electricity

#225

Post by lazyeye »

nosianu wrote: post #167
lazyeye wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article was about Australia, not China. Incidentally it was also Australia that invented the modern solar panel.

> The article was about Australia, not China. And??? The parent commenter wrote about the manufacturer of said solar panels, going outside the frame of that article to something related but still relevant, given that that article surely is meant to stimulate a more general discussion.

Seems like every 2nd post on HN, regardless of the actual content, becomes an argument between advocates for the US and China. In the case of China it's particularly egregious as they get to use US platforms to push their cause, whilst China blocks all foreign foreign access their own platforms. It's tiresome.

Re: Australia has so much solar that it's offering everyone free electricity

#226

Post by maxglute »

willvarfar wrote: post #3

Ignoring the politics, we have to say that China has done the world collectively as a whole a major service in strategically developing and mass producing super cheap solar panels.

Never going to happen but there should be some sort of global emission accounting standard to factor in exporting goods that reduce emissions (over lifetimes), vs not, i.e. a barrel of oil burned should count at producer side the consumer side.

Re: Australia has so much solar that it's offering everyone free electricity

#227

Post by yread »

hylaride wrote: post #112
antonymoose wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember some old tidbit about the American westward expansion, most railroad projects failed and went bankrupt and were sold for pennies on the dollar to the ultimate owners. Something sad about that, really.

A lot of them got built with per-mile subsidies and cashed out via shoddy construction. The ones that focused on long-term financial sustainability more often did fine, but it is a lesson in perverse incentives (though some would argue that afterwards cheap overbuilt lines facilitated much faster and more extensive westward expansion of people).

> shoddy construction

Just today there was a newsletter from Construction Physics about Strap Rail. Literally wooden rails with a iron plate strapped on top put in the mud. Only in the US, 10 times cheaper. But more expensive to maintain and gone in years instead of decades for normal iron rails though.

Re: Australia has so much solar that it's offering everyone free electricity

#228

Post by WheatMillington »

marcosdumay wrote: post #81
byefruit wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

7.3% return, not bad. As battery prices drop it will get even better.

It's not 7.3% return rate. There's some depreciation you need to add there.

If you're going to depreciate the battery then your return will be substantially greater than 7.3%. You can't use BOTH the capex AND the depreciation as your denominator, choose one.

Re: Australia has so much solar that it's offering everyone free electricity

#229

Post by breve »

maxglute wrote: post #220
breve wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> China has done the world collectively as a whole a major service I doubt the Uyghurs would agree: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-57124636 https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/in-broad... https://sustainabilitymag.com/articles/gb-energy-blocks-use-... https://www.greenmatch.co.uk/blog/solar-companies-linked-to-...

Most of them would. These are labour-rural-transfer programs thats been going on in PRC for poverty alleviation for 20+ years that retards in west twisted into slave labour. The entire coerced labour propaganda are bunch of country bumpkin Uyghurs getting enrolled in poverty alleviation programs where they're paid close to median wage, i.e. 2x+ typical subsistent agri income. This is equivalent to US starting a jobs…

Sure. Slavery is freedom.

Re: Australia has so much solar that it's offering everyone free electricity

#230

Post by maxglute »

breve wrote: post #229
maxglute wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of them would. These are labour-rural-transfer programs thats been going on in PRC for poverty alleviation for 20+ years that retards in west twisted into slave labour. The entire coerced labour propaganda are bunch of country bumpkin Uyghurs getting enrolled in poverty alleviation programs where they're paid close to median wage, i.e. 2x+ typical subsistent agri income. This is equivalent to US starting a jobs…

Sure. Slavery is freedom.

It's slavery in the same sense as DoD recruiters use underhanded means to get kids with no prospects to sign up for military. Except those kids get sent in GWOT to kill Muslims for a few tours whereas when XJ bureaucrats hit quota they get more solar panels.
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