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Can solar costs keep shrinking?

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Re: Can solar costs keep shrinking?

#231

Post by sandworm101 »

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.

>> thinking of somewhere in northern Canada.

Canada is vast and in some places very rugged. "Remote" and "northern" are not related terms. Just look at BC on google maps. Look at the bit of vancouver island that is south of the US border. That is some very remote terrain, but is no way northern. Then scan up into the BC coast. Just a few hundred miles from downtown Vancouver and not a single road to be found. Or start at Whistler and pan west. Hundred of miles of mountains with nothing more than the occasional logging road.

Re: Can solar costs keep shrinking?

#232

Post by conradev »

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.

America can get extremely remote and so you can choose how remote you want to go. Here is a journalist from Manhattan meeting folks living off-grid in Colorado: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/11/28/what-going-off...

Not to mention Slab City: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slab_City,_California

Infrastructure-wise, roads come before water or electricity, and so plenty of the United States has a road but no power or water. This can even be standard for those who are near civilization.

Re: Can solar costs keep shrinking?

#233

Post by ben_w »

sitkack wrote: post #198
tails4e wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The price to get solar installed in the US is insanely high compared to the cost of the materials. I've seen my extended family get quotes north of 40k for modest installs. I got a modest system with batter for around 9k in the EU, and id say I'd install the same for under 5k at today's prices.

A kitchen remodel in a high income city in the US is 75k-100k for something basic. The lopsidedness of US prices for light construction projects is a huge problem.

And there I was, thinking spending ~£€10k each for two kitchens recently was extravagant.

Re: Can solar costs keep shrinking?

#234

Post by jmyeet »

Solar power is the future. The drop in price in the last 20 years is absolutely wild. The charts in this article show this. What's encouraging is that it's pretty steady progress. It's hard to predict when or where that ends.

Batteries continue to get cheaper (also covered). This matters too because storing energy solves the base load "problem". Batteries aren't the only way to store energy either. There continue to be advances in the so-called "power-to-gas" technology, where you essentially use excess power to make fuel, usually from CO2 in the air. This isn't currently economic but it continues to get cheaper. It also provides an upper ceiling on how expensive gas can get.

The LCOE of nuclear in particular is damning [1]. Every single commercial nuclear power reactor has been built with government subsidies too so it doesn't seem like government support is the issue. There are still too many unsolved problems.

Solar is the only method of direct power generation. I think every other method inovles turning a steam turbine. There are no moving parts. They can be installed on everything from wristwatches to power stations to satellites.

[1]: https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/pdf/electricity_generation....

Re: Can solar costs keep shrinking?

#235

Post by nicoburns »

happyopossum wrote: post #127
glenstein wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>decentralization does not work. This is not quite true, because the vast majority of solar generation is consumed on site, avoiding the transmission and distribution costs of delivering electrons that would normally be necessary. Which is just one of a whole motley of dynamics working in favor of solar at larger scales: the arc of solar generation over a 24hr period almost perfectly coincides with actual market dema…

> the vast majority of solar generation is consumed on site I don't believe this is true for a vast swath of residential solar. In spite of HN's love of remote work, a lot of homes are mostly or completely empty during the day, with energy use ramping up in the evenings as people return home. This results in homes 'selling' electricity to the grid during the day, and buying it back in the evening and overnight.

That's true in many (but by no means all) cases now, but it's a short term problem. Home batteries with capacity for a day or more's usage are on track to hit affordability in the next 5 years, which will remove this problem.

There is also a lot of scope for demand shifting. For example, timing washer and dryer runs during the day when people are out. Or running AC during the day (even if nobody is home!) so that it doesn't have to work so hard in the evening.

Re: Can solar costs keep shrinking?

#237

Post by Scoundreller »

happyopossum wrote: post #122
Scoundreller wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I regularly bring this up: modern fridges are generally continuous drive (which means they run off DC at some level anyway). And they run all the time(ish). Waiting for a (mass-)manufacturer to build one with a 48VDC input that anyone can self-install a solar panel and plug-in but switches to a mains-fed 48VDC source as required. Doesn’t need a battery (the fridge/freezer is one!), gets you some operation during outa…

> modern fridges run all the time(ish). Genuinely curious - when did this become a thing? I have a couple of relatively recent fridges (less than 10 yrs old, and same model still sold today) that constantly cycle on/off, and spend more time off than they do on. I'd imagine a variable speed system (like are available in inverter-based heat pumps today) could be designed to run nearly constantly, but the variability of…

From what I’ve seen, they’re usually marketed as “inverter fridges”.

And yeah, at least the fan turns off when you open the door, and I’d imagine if you put a bunch of ice into the fridge, it wouldn’t need to run at all for a while.

Meanwhile my local electric code (Ontario Canada) still requires a dedicated circuit for the fridge, which will now basically hum along at 1-2amps and never brownout/trip a circuit. What a waste.

Re: Can solar costs keep shrinking?

#238

Post by ben_w »

pfdietz wrote: post #171
philipkglass wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what sense were they over-optimistic? The OP said "I also remember around 1975 getting all excited about solar and getting told that costs were dropping so fast that in five years solar would be cheaper than power produced from coal or natural gas." That would mean PV cost parity with coal-generated electricity in the early 1980s. Actual PV cost declines have been remarkable but they didn't go that quickly.

Yeah, I have to question OP's memory there. No way that could have been said in good faith.

Their memory may well have been perfect, as public speakers and newspapers do get things wrong every so often.

One show I watched as a kid, Blue Peter, introduced Thrust SSC as a car that would go faster than the speed of light. (Or perhaps my memory of that is wrong, too…)

Re: Can solar costs keep shrinking?

#239

Post by hinkley »

empiricus wrote: post #230
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.

But sometime in the 90’s if not sooner a lot of us started valuing items that had a lower embodied energy as a ratio of the usefulness of the product.

We want things that are the same but less intense, or that are much better at a fractional increase in input.

And we really need it if we want a planet worth living on fifty years from now. So to ignore this desire is dangerous.

Re: Can solar costs keep shrinking?

#240

Post by caymanjim »

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.

> I'd love to know where is considered 'far from civilization' on the continental US.

There are many interpretations and levels of remoteness.

In my case, I want to be away from the sights and sounds and crowds of anything that would be considered urban or suburban. My prime criteria is that I don't want to see another person unless I choose to. I don't want to see a road with cars on it, I don't want to see another house or any other man-made structure that isn't mine. Ideally I don't want to hear anyone else either, but I accept that I may hear things in the distance.

I don't want to be a complete hermit, and I'm not a survivalist looking to be 100% self-sufficient. I want a small-to-midsized town about 30-60 minutes away. Something with a grocery store, gas station, and a post office or other place to receive deliveries. I don't want to be more than an hour away from doctors' offices or a hospital or urgent care. I don't want to be trapped by snow for weeks at a time.

Saying "far from civilization" was a stretch. What I really mean is I don't want to have people all around me. And I don't want to be anywhere near cities and suburban sprawl. I don't want neighbors in any meaningful sense.

Places I'm considering are Maine, Montana, northern Wisconsin, Upper Peninsula Michigan. I would absolutely consider parts of Canada, particularly northern BC. I don't have an easy path to Canadian citizenship, though. Before my Canadian girlfriend passed away last year, we had been planning to look for a secluded lakeside cabin or undeveloped land in BC.

My requirements are dense forest (desert/plains states are right out) and water (lake or canoeable river) on the property itself. I can live with other people using the water, so long as it's not motorboats and a party scene.

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