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Can solar costs keep shrinking?

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Re: Can solar costs keep shrinking?

#341

Post by mallets »

SirHumphrey wrote: post #190
mjamesaustin wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I question your assumptions about grid storage. The cost of storage has been plummeting alongside the cost of solar, and battery lifespans are a non-issue when capacity is not a factor. A battery storage facility that has lost 30% of its capacity after 10 years of operation is still functional with that lower capacity. Compare this to something like a car that has much more limited function with a lowered capacity.

Ok, but why then, if storage is not a big problem of solar power, the US has 179 gigawatts of installed solar capacity with rated power of all grid storage on the US grid being 31.6 GW, of that only 4.8 GW being battery storage. [2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_the_United_Stat... [2] https://css.umich.edu/publications/factsheets/energy/us-grid...

Costs are falling and installs are rapidly increasing? It didn't make sense to build them so far due to limited renewables on grid, you need to regularly produce (a lot) more than load. Like in CA.

And Pumped hydro is great wherever it's possible, don't see why it needs to be pitted against BESS.

Re: Can solar costs keep shrinking?

#342

Post by refurb »

WillAdams wrote: post #307
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.

Yeah, it's kind of sad how pervasive roads/trails are: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-42104894 With more than 14,000 of them, it's not possible to be more than 115 or so miles from one: https://www.rd.com/article/farthest-away-from-mcdonalds/

Why is that sad? These can be logging trails you’d need to squint to actually see in the brush.

And 115 miles? That’s a huge distance.

Re: Can solar costs keep shrinking?

#343

Post by nl »

conradev wrote: post #232
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.

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 pow…

Slab City is 100 miles from San Diego and only 160 miles from Los Angeles! That's not remote - remote should be classified using a decreasing population density over distance function.

Remote is somewhere like Nullarbor, which is 183 miles from Ceduna (population https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nullarbor,_South_Australia

Re: Can solar costs keep shrinking?

#344

Post by redandblack »

caymanjim wrote: post #334
hattmall wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are you looking at such cold places for the off grid living? Lots of remote forested areas in Georgia and Alabama, but I can also understand opposition to the heat. I would give a lot consideration to TN and NC mountains.

Politics and culture play an outsized part. If I could easily move to Canada I would. Barring that, I'm more inclined to stick to blue states than red states. Montana is a bit of an outlier in my list. Cannabis legality is a factor (Wisconsin is the oddball here), but increasingly less so as I expect that problem to go away within a few years nationwide (and certainly in Wisconsin). Climate is a big factor. I grew up…

Underscoring MY personal politics/cultural views, I just returned from a NC trip and was thinking it will take another decade of development for social change to take hold. Just insane amount of economic development is happening there, and hopefully the younger crowd will be more open for changes. I noticed that there was a lot of mobility into NC, not just the northern states that has been well documented, but also from TN, AL, GA, FL and even TX

Coming back to NJ, a neighbor mentioned that they are still fighting the civil war in the south, which the media seems to also resonate well.

Just a based view from a NJ resident

Re: Can solar costs keep shrinking?

#345

Post by aegis4244 »

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…

If you're looking for some inexpensive land that can be fairly remote you might do worse than Cochise county AZ. The county has an opt out permit program as long as you have at least 4 rural acres. You can build whatever you want, no permits, no inspections. There are some restrictions. No bank will give you a mortgage, can't sell or rent it out within 2 years. You can live in your RV while you build, for 2 years I think, with a 3 year extension possible. Lots of sun for solar. Rooftop water collection for water. There are some septic options, composting, or traditional. All legal. A few dozen people on youtube building all kinds of off grid natural buildings. They get together once in a while, let you tour their build, ask questions. A little snow in the winter, not many days above 100F. 4000+ feet elevation. Fiber laid in some surprisingly rural areas. No paved roads type areas. Weird, but cool.

I did the full time RV bit in a class A. Hated it. Too small to live in, too big to travel in. Hate that black tank. Had to leave great camping spots once a week to dump and get more water, or hook up to some sort of developed campgrounds. Sucked. Regret not going for a small schoolie to travel in, large house on 5 acres to live in. That's the new plan, anyway. Best of luck.

Re: Can solar costs keep shrinking?

#346

Post by shusaku »

EcommerceFlow wrote: post #37

I used to be radically pro-nuclear, but after seeing some of the data of solar growth and realizing we could just scale things up (like building iphones), I'm fully on board with the Elon strategy of solar + powerbanks for storage.

As the article mentions, labor is now the dominate cost for solar. In poor countries where labor costs are cheap (panel costs still need to go down for this case), we’re going to lift an insane number of people out of poverty using cheap solar. That was never an option with nuclear (who wants an unstable regime managing a power plant?)

Re: Can solar costs keep shrinking?

#347

Post by calmbonsai »

kragen wrote: post #166
calmbonsai wrote: post #161

Yes. For a detailed (verbal) analysis, see Patio11's podcast (also featuring Casey Handmer quoted in this article): https://www.complexsystemspodcast.com/episodes/solar-economi...

wouldn’t you say that the article itself also contains a detailed (verbal) analysis? betteridge's law aside, it agrees with you

True. I didn't realize that Patio11's podcast links had built-in transcripts so my additional description was superfluous.

Re: Can solar costs keep shrinking?

#348

Post by jacobolus »

nl wrote: post #343
conradev wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 pow…

Slab City is 100 miles from San Diego and only 160 miles from Los Angeles! That's not remote - remote should be classified using a decreasing population density over distance function. Remote is somewhere like Nullarbor, which is 183 miles from Ceduna (population https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nullarbor,_South_Australia

That's not remote: there's a paved road that goes there! Remote should be somewhere that requires weeks of travel by sailboat or camel to get to.

Re: Can solar costs keep shrinking?

#349

Post by narrator »

irrational wrote: post #329
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.

I once drove from Oregon to Death Valley on the east side of the Cascades/Sierras. We were driving at highway speeds for most of a day and saw almost nobody. Just nothing and nobody as far as the eye could see for hundreds and hundreds of miles. This isn’t even very unique. Vast swaths of the American west are just empty.

There's no water in the dryer parts of the Mojave unless you're near big rivers like the Colorado or the rivers that feed into Phoenix or get it piped in from somewhere. You can't easily live anywhere permanently without a good water source.

Re: Can solar costs keep shrinking?

#350

Post by gcanyon »

aegis4244 wrote: post #345
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…

If you're looking for some inexpensive land that can be fairly remote you might do worse than Cochise county AZ. The county has an opt out permit program as long as you have at least 4 rural acres. You can build whatever you want, no permits, no inspections. There are some restrictions. No bank will give you a mortgage, can't sell or rent it out within 2 years. You can live in your RV while you build, for 2 years I t…

Average rainfall 11 to 41 inches per year -- more than I expected in AZ. Still, to have reasonable water year-round for 2 people you'd need to collect across maybe 10,000 square feet? That's not a small installation.
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