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Solar Just Hit a Record Low Price in the U.S

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Re: Solar Just Hit a Record Low Price in the U.S

#281

Post by another-one-off »

petersellers wrote: post #272
refulgentis wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're replying to a comment about the true cost of solar being the battery + the panels, asking why anyone would think of buying a battery. That's why.

That still doesn't answer their question. Why does the sun going down at night matter for people who are still tied to the grid?

If I move into a house with a grid connection only, I budget on power costs = cost of grid connection + grid power price.

If I move to a house with solar panels, I budget on power costs = cost of grid connection + X * grid power price + (1-X) * solar price (which is the capital cost of the panels smoothed out over their useful life).

The issue here is that I can't maneuver into a situation where my power price = solar price without sacrificing my ability to do anything after sundown without candles. Clearly, the true cost of power in a solar-enabled house is going to be higher than the cost of the solar panels.

Re: Solar Just Hit a Record Low Price in the U.S

#282

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

jartelt wrote: post #140
inputcoffee wrote: post #71

The true price of solar is the price to produce reliable, continuous energy. That requires something to smooth out the signal and store the energy, most probably a battery. The solar + battery price is also going down, though not as fast as the solar only piece. But that's the metric we should be following. When that hits $30 per MWh, it'll be game over.

This comment gets made in every single solar article put on HN. The true price of solar is what the market is willing to pay for it. If the solar was ruining the grid or was way more expensive than what it seems, we would not keep seeing solar installed at this pace and at these costs. We need to get out of the mindset that all power generators need to produce a steady amount of power 24/7. A flexible grid made of ma…

> but no one states that nuclear and coal should be more expensive as a result.

Yes, yes we are.

The correct calculation uses the capacity factor, not the name-plate capacity.

Re: Solar Just Hit a Record Low Price in the U.S

#283

Post by driverdan »

gibybo wrote: post #235
driverdan wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have 30kW of panels? That's a large system. Most people cna't fit that many. The more panels you get the lower the price gets per kWh.

I have found it to be surprisingly proportional. I'm sure it gets slightly cheaper per kwh with large systems, but not by a lot. I had quotes around $2.5/watt for 9 kW systems and $2.5/watt for 15 kW systems.

Fair point since $2.5/W is over two thirds installation. If you buy the panels and install them yourself you'd save a lot of money.

Re: Solar Just Hit a Record Low Price in the U.S

#284

Post by Latteland »

xahrepap wrote: post #45

Slightly off topic... Interesting thing about solar in Utah (maybe everywhere? Not sure about the specifics): Utah gives every land owner pollution credits. They're allowed to pollute X units worth per year or something like that. Depending on certain criteria you're allotted a certain amount of credits. The problem is, these credits are transferable. So if I, for example, don't pollute, I can sell my credits off to…

It netted us more solar power installed so that the next person will have it at a lower price through volume, encouraging cheaper s.p. for everyone else.

Re: Solar Just Hit a Record Low Price in the U.S

#285

Post by heisenbergs »

hueving wrote: post #279
jartelt wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comment gets made in every single solar article put on HN. The true price of solar is what the market is willing to pay for it. If the solar was ruining the grid or was way more expensive than what it seems, we would not keep seeing solar installed at this pace and at these costs. We need to get out of the mindset that all power generators need to produce a steady amount of power 24/7. A flexible grid made of ma…

>If the solar was ruining the grid or was way more expensive than what it seems, we would not keep seeing solar installed at this pace and at these costs. This completely ignores the fact that the people buying solar get subsidies and they aren't the ones paying for the burdened grid. In some states, distribution companies are paying retail prices back to solar producers. That means these people get to freeride on th…

This completely ignores the fact that every form of power generation is heavily subsidized, one way or another. For example, in the USA "some states" heavily subsidize fossil fuels by not raising any tax on gas. Somewhat of a nitpicking point you are raising here..

The point of the article is that in this case, even without subsidies solar would beat anything else. This is despite heavy import duties that were recently imposed.

Re: Solar Just Hit a Record Low Price in the U.S

#286

Post by maxerickson »

raven105x wrote: post #251
coryfklein wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. Without some alternative form of energy in the morning and evening we may have already reached the saturation point of solar energy. See the Duck curve [1]. Once the heavily regulated energy market has time to adjust to market conditions you are going to see this energy surplus during the day being adjusted for. Where solar panels make economic sense today they may not tomorrow when energy prices for mid-day…

Prices will not plummet due to oversupply, they will increase as demand decreases to increase profitability. Electricity prices reflect only one thing: how high they can be while still being "affordable". Even now, in most major cities, residential pricing is 10x-50x of business/industrial pricing ...in the same zip code. The cost of production of electricity is almost enitely irrelevant to its' pricing.

What electric companies have rates like that? In the Midwest it is like a factor of 2 for energy, maybe (residential energy in urbanized areas around here is $0.10-$0.15 per kW-h, with a day charge of ~$0.50).

Re: Solar Just Hit a Record Low Price in the U.S

#287

Post by aoeusnth1 »

gibybo wrote: post #275
aoeusnth1 wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm including the 30% tax rebate and assuming solar panel installations will be 50% cheaper in 30 years which is pretty conservative given their price history. Microinverters last 25 years.

Still not seeing $59k. 2.3 * 30.000 * 0.7 = $48,300 (30% tax credit) 2.3 * 30.000 * 0.5 = $34,500 (50% cheaper) Total = $82,800 Regardless, adding up the cost of the second one in 30 years doesn't make sense for calculating kWh prices, depreciation and cost of capital are the only factors that matter and you are only including one of those.

Sure, looking at my spreadsheet I also discounted the cost by the same interest rate after 30 years, (1/1.04)^30.

Agreed that including the second system doesn't really make much sense, but I wanted a quick-and-dirty estimate without having to individually discount each year's production (as you would if you had a finite time horizon).

Re: Solar Just Hit a Record Low Price in the U.S

#288

Post by ChuckMcM »

danans wrote: post #273
ChuckMcM wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthship#Thermal_performance I've visited a couple of these places, they are pretty neat.

It's a dream of mine to build an earthship-like house some day. But before that I would like to figure out how far I much I can cost-effectively retrofit my existing conventional house to be more passively heated and cooled. I'm surprised that architects don't propose passive heating/cooling on new builds and major renovations. I guess clients typically don't demand it.

To my original comment on this, the economics are generally not visible to people. If you tell someone "We can build it one way and it will cost $200 sq/ft that will be energy efficient, or another way at $100 sq/ft that will require 25% more energy to keep warm/cool" and the person will make the false comparison of "wow it would cost 100% more to build and I would only get an improvement of 25% in my power costs?"

(those are all made up numbers but I have had the exact discussion with a builder when I added on a room and insisted it was at least as insulated as the rest of the house, the builder thought it a waste of money, I knew that I expected to have the room for 25 years or more and that the lower energy costs would be a net win.)

Re: Solar Just Hit a Record Low Price in the U.S

#289

Post by jonknee »

swebs wrote: post #86
preparedzebra wrote: post #65

The internal combustion engine seems to have been milked for all the efficiency our current materials can get out of it, while new materials and economies of scale in solar tech keep pushing prices lower. However, material science could also revolutionize the efficiency of engines and make them cost competitive with solar again. Solar-ification seems to be the trend, but it is not guaranteed.

>However, material science could also revolutionize the efficiency of engines and make them cost competitive with solar again I doubt it. We've passed peak oil and have resorted to expensive techniques like fracking to collect the scraps. Meanwhile, even if no advances in solar panels occur in the future, the price of power produced by solar will only go down as more panels are added to the grid. The biggest hurdle n…

> We've passed peak oil

That is not true

Re: Solar Just Hit a Record Low Price in the U.S

#290

Post by opo »

mrb wrote: post #246
Max_aaa wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Typically peak residential energy use is actually early morning and evening. And those tend to be the worst times for solar. Solar is great for businesses and schools, well basically anything that operates mainly or totally during the day.

Residential-only energy use is irrelevant. What matters is peak grid usage (ie. residential+industrial) and it is actually mid-day—perfect for solar. For example the UK's real time grid monitoring system clearly shows this peak on the weekly chart: https://i.imgur.com/wTIt5tg.png (source: http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/ )

A weekly chart like that isn’t really granular enough to show that.

This chart is a few years old, but it shows that the peak demand was in the early evening:

https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=830

The peak demand will also vary at different locations and times of year. As the wikipedia article states:

>...It depends on the demography, the economy, the weather, the climate, the season, the day of the week and other factors. For example, in industrialised regions of China or Germany, the peak demands mostly occur in day time, while solar photovoltaic system can help reduce it. However, in more service based economy such as Australia, the daily peak demands often occur in the late afternoon to early evening time (e.g. 4pm to 8pm).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_demand

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