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‘Insanely cheap energy’: solar power continues to shock the world

theguardian.com

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Re: ‘Insanely cheap energy’: solar power continues to shock the world

#231

Post by kilotaras »

apatheticonion wrote: post #182
toomuchtodo wrote: post #2

Relevant quote: "Every time you double producing capacity, you reduce the cost of PV solar by 28%." Current worldwide PV manufacturing capacity is roughly 165 GW [1] [2], with a utility scale price close to $0.01/kWh [3]. Manufacturing capacity is doubling every ~4 years. Global PV capacity in service is ~600 GW. IEA Average global annual capacity additions in main and accelerated cases, 2023-2025: https://www.iea.or…

Let's run the numbers! - Every 4 years our production doubles - Meaning every year our production capacity increases by .5 (or 5 times every decade). - The first year (2020) starts at 165GWh capacity production - The total energy use of the world (in 2013) was 157,000 TWh. - Annual growth in energy demand was 40% between 1990 and 2008. - 20% for the US - 150% for China Let's calculate solar energy generation capacity…

> Meaning every year our production capacity increases by .5 (or 5 times every decade).

Change is geometric (i.e. fixed percentage), not linear (i.e. fixed number).

This gives 18.92% yearly increase (instead of .5), but 5.6568x increase in decade (instead of 5x).

By 2060 this gives 169 TWh (instead of 103), and 200 in 2061.

We would also expect energy growth to level of at US/EU level once it reaches them, there's no reason to expect Asia to sustain it's energy growth indefinitely.

Don't get me wrong: solar is still not enough, storage is big elephant in the room, and we should build nuclear yesterday. It's just not as bleak as your comment made it out to be.

Re: ‘Insanely cheap energy’: solar power continues to shock the world

#232

Post by TomGullen »

bostik wrote: post #221
xavriley wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One reason is issues with property ownership. In the U.K. a company could do this but if the original customers were to see the house, they’d have no legal means of compelling the new owners to take up the arrangement. At least that’s what I understand.

The plural of anecdote is not data, but I can provide some figures. There is currently a push in London to get households install solar panels, and I expressed interest in getting a set installed to our house. Sadly, the finances don't add up. Our house is not exactly small, and optimistically you could fit 10 PV panels on the roof. At least according to the quote I received, but having scouted installations in the n…

Also applied for local authority buy together scheme, have a south facing roof but math came out the same, around 10y payback. Was a shame as I recall number being similar years ago. Would love to get solar but need to see it down in the 5y range to pull trigger I think.

Re: ‘Insanely cheap energy’: solar power continues to shock the world

#233

Post by yetihehe »

irrational wrote: post #146
seriousquestion wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds great. What kind of heating system?

Natural gas furnace. I probably would have gone electric if we had installed the furnace after the solar panels went in. But, our natural gas bill is so small that I don’t really worry about it.

If that furnace is "smart" enough, you could add electric heater as additional external heat source. My wood pellet furnace has such options, but I think that if I simply added some electric heater into main loop, it would just work less (it can change it's output power from 24kW down to 7kW or just turn off burner if main loop is hot enough).

Re: ‘Insanely cheap energy’: solar power continues to shock the world

#234

Post by jillesvangurp »

jacobolus wrote: post #70

> "[in 2000] Shi agreed and ended up settling in the small city of Wuxi" A bit of a tangent, but it’s always strange to me when people describe Chinese or Indian cities with millions of residents as "small". Wuxi had >1 million people in 2000, and today has like 3.5 million (6.5 million in the prefecture). This article makes it sound like a minor town in a remote province, but Jiangsu has about the same population as…

I used to have a Chinese colleague who when asked where he came from would answer that he was from "A small town, you wouldn't know it. Only 3M people". He was right; I had never heard of it.

I guess in China, which has multiple mega cities, that is indeed a bit unremarkable. It's all relative.

Re: ‘Insanely cheap energy’: solar power continues to shock the world

#235

Post by perilunar »

ShakataGaNai wrote: post #166
richwater wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much was your system?

Not OP but in NorCal (BayArea) is about $3/what. My 9.4kw system is generating about 55kwh a day right now. Because of the mild weather we've had, the last day we used more net power from the grid (than we produced) was March 18.

Is that a single family dwelling?

If so, at 9.4 kW / 55 kWh per day, I would bloody hope you are exporting to the grid. That is an extreme amount of energy for a single family.

Re: ‘Insanely cheap energy’: solar power continues to shock the world

#236

Post by pjc50 »

xavriley wrote: post #191
dane-pgp wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I tell them they will break even in a few years Then why don't more companies offer to become your electricity provider and install the solar panels for free? They could say "We promise that your energy bills will be cheaper this year than last year (as long as you don't use more energy), and within a few years you'll own the panels and can switch to a different electricity provider."

One reason is issues with property ownership. In the U.K. a company could do this but if the original customers were to see the house, they’d have no legal means of compelling the new owners to take up the arrangement. At least that’s what I understand.

It's possible to attach all sorts of third-party obligations onto property ownership; this is called "burdens" in Scottish property law, I forget the equivalent English term, possibly "lien" in American?

A special historical example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chancel_repair_liability

Re: ‘Insanely cheap energy’: solar power continues to shock the world

#237

Post by the_why_of_y »

ineedasername wrote: post #97
greenearth1 wrote: post #10

This is why pushing for free markets is the most effective solution for combating fossil fuel dependencies.

The development of solar has been heavily subsidized by governments, so there isn't really a free marker success story here. If anything it's a story of how well long term interests, tethered to Nation-state level wealth via taxation, can work hand in hand with market forces.

The development of fossil fuels has been even more heavily subsidized by governments, to the tune of USD 5.2 trillion in 2017, up from USD 4.7 trillion in 2015.

https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WP/Issues/2019/05/02/Glo...

How do you suggest any other source of energy compete in this kind of market?

Re: ‘Insanely cheap energy’: solar power continues to shock the world

#238

Post by pjc50 »

bostik wrote: post #221
xavriley wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One reason is issues with property ownership. In the U.K. a company could do this but if the original customers were to see the house, they’d have no legal means of compelling the new owners to take up the arrangement. At least that’s what I understand.

The plural of anecdote is not data, but I can provide some figures. There is currently a push in London to get households install solar panels, and I expressed interest in getting a set installed to our house. Sadly, the finances don't add up. Our house is not exactly small, and optimistically you could fit 10 PV panels on the roof. At least according to the quote I received, but having scouted installations in the n…

I had mine installed seven years ago and have nearly broken even just on the feed-in-tariff subsidies alone. There have been no additional maintenance or repair costs.

The unaffordability of UK property is a separate question.

Re: ‘Insanely cheap energy’: solar power continues to shock the world

#239

Post by edhelas »

mkingston wrote: post #80
edhelas wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that you don't see how much land you actually need. Maybe in America there is plenty of space, but in Europe it's way more difficult. To replace one nuclear reactor, you need ~ half of Paris in solar panel. And still need energy "at night". Yes heating water, or cooling places are nice. But your trains ain't gonna work "only when there is sun". If you need backup at one moment, you need 0C0² backup and basica…

Half of Paris city or half of Paris metropolitan area ? Where the former is inconsequential on the scale of France, and the latter is merely small.

Paris city :) This a lot, but not that much.

Re: ‘Insanely cheap energy’: solar power continues to shock the world

#240

Post by CodeGlitch »

bostik wrote: post #221
xavriley wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One reason is issues with property ownership. In the U.K. a company could do this but if the original customers were to see the house, they’d have no legal means of compelling the new owners to take up the arrangement. At least that’s what I understand.

The plural of anecdote is not data, but I can provide some figures. There is currently a push in London to get households install solar panels, and I expressed interest in getting a set installed to our house. Sadly, the finances don't add up. Our house is not exactly small, and optimistically you could fit 10 PV panels on the roof. At least according to the quote I received, but having scouted installations in the n…

I too looked into this a few years ago and was quoted 11 years to get my money back... Which didn't make financial sense at the time. Perhaps if it was more like 4 years I might consider it.

The UK has a lot of cloud cover so I do wonder if we should stick with wind power which is doing really well with the off shore installations.

Plus nuclear... For the rare times the wind doesn't blow.

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