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Can solar costs keep shrinking?

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Re: Can solar costs keep shrinking?

#381

Post by DaoVeles »

caymanjim wrote: post #366
DaoVeles wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There a few people I know who live off grid, they all say the same thing. The longer you are out there the closer to 100% you will be challenged for your stuff. Be it a semi-local crazy, warlord, gypsies or cult few have heard of - they all want resources that are closer than the alternative and they are aware that you are the only defense. Another factor of this living is that once the honeymoon period wears off, th…

This is certainly a concern. I'm early 50s now and have no medical issues or physical limitations (ok, aside from fatness). I'm pretty handy. I can fix what needs fixing. My tolerance for problems and delays is high. But it won't be long before I start falling apart and will want to be closer to medical resources for myself and service providers for my stuff. I'm not looking for a forever home. I figure I might live…

I know a couple that lived off grid and made it work for a long while. They only had to give it up in their early 80's after several decades on location. Not a bad way to be. The thing that did them in was failing health and they needed to be closer to medical centers.

Re: Can solar costs keep shrinking?

#382

Post by astronautameya »

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.

Everyone with this fantasy reserves the right to uniquely define 'remote' as they see fit.

For someone it could be defined as minimal human interaction, for others it could be a function of distance from the nearest urban/ suburban center. For most, it would be some combination of these two.

I've backpacked to some very remote places around the world, but it's hard to beat the USA (western half), Canada, Russia (east of Moscow) and Australia (anywhere not on the coast).

Re: Can solar costs keep shrinking?

#384

Post by lakis »

kkfx wrote: post #56
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.

It doesn't work like that. The California failure is a good example. So far energy storage can just do a day-to-day backup for homes and some non-energy-intensive business activities, for others just few hours. No more. At grid scale storage is only a quick buffer to compensate renewables fluctuations waiting for classic power plants to regulate their output. Even at current Chinese prices a re-backed grid is just a…

> The California failure is a good example What California failure? Take a look at record battery discharging for CAISO https://www.gridstatus.io/records/caiso?record=Maximum%20Bat...

Do you notice anything? The records keep falling ever summer. The battery discharge per day went up by 100% in the last year.

I do not see any bending of the curve. California is the perfect example of building enough batteries can solve the duck curve problem. Even in Texas, with the government actively against renewables and batteries, you see record been set for battery storage all the time https://www.gridstatus.io/records/ercot?record=Maximum%20Pow... Texas quadruple the battery storage in the last year. Difference between California and Texas. California is about 3 years ahead of Texas. When the economics are so much cheaper, battery power is build .

Re: Can solar costs keep shrinking?

#385

Post by Nimitz14 »

derriz wrote: post #211
sharpshadow wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You got it right there Germany can’t satisfy demand with renewables and decided to cut itself of from coal and nuclear, brilliant right!? Cherry on top some powerful player blew up Nordstream forcing Germany to buy exorbitantly expensive LNG. Your argument to stop using LNG doesn’t work if you have many parts of industry build with gas infrastructure which can’t be replaced just like that.

Germany has been the biggest exporter of electricity in the world for 8 of the last 10 years[0]. It consistently generates more than it consumes. It's been this way since around 2004. German wholesale electricity prices are relatively low by European standards - so far this year about 8th cheapest - about 13% cheaper than of France, for example[1]. This reflects the blended cost of production. Household prices are hi…

I clicked on [1] and it's showing Germany's prices to be significantly higher than that of France.

Re: Can solar costs keep shrinking?

#386

Post by ElSucioDan »

gcanyon wrote: post #350
aegis4244 wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Probably more than that since the rain is all concentrated around the months of July and August. Would need to store for the rest of the year too.

Re: Can solar costs keep shrinking?

#387

Post by throwup238 »

jtbayly wrote: post #129
throwup238 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's already the case, even with commercial solar. There's a startup called Erthos [1] that has figured out that it's cheaper to just throw the panels on the ground, saving the labor and material cost for the supports. There was an HN thread on it a few years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33926683 [1] https://erthos.com/

This and the parent comment are all addressed in the article.

To be fair, no one’s ever accused me of reading the articles before commenting :-)

Re: Can solar costs keep shrinking?

#388

Post by kragen »

narrator wrote: post #349
irrational wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

you just need to drill 60 meters down: https://ca.water.usgs.gov/mojave/mojave-morongo-hydrographs....

once you're established you can collect rainwater. https://ca.water.usgs.gov/mojave/ says:

> Most areas of the basin floor receive 4 to 6 inches of precipitation per year, although annual precipitation can be greater than 40 inches in the southern and eastern San Bernardino and the San Gabriel Mountains (Lines, 1996). Recharge to the groundwater system from direct infiltration of precipitation is minimal.

in modern units "4 inches" is 100 millimeters, so that's about 3 nanometers per second

each person needs about 6 liters of water per day (burning man recommendation, including hygiene, dishwashing, etc., but not garden irrigation) or 70 microliters per second. 70 microliters divided by 3 nanometers is about 20 square meters, so even in the desert you don't need a large catchment to keep your cistern full. this isn't the atacama

if you want to be far from civilization in america, though, the atacama is pretty good for that. parts of patagonia might be better and do have rain

Re: Can solar costs keep shrinking?

#389

Post by opo »

tfourb wrote: post #247
opo wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>... With government incentives… Money is fungible and not unlimited. A dollar given to you by your neighbors in their taxes to subsidize you would have gone much, much further if the money would have been spent to build solar by your power utility.

That might be the case but the fact is that these incentives exist and eligible home owners that don’t use them are in effect throwing money away. Also, it can be politically and technically expedient to provide incentives, even if it is not the theoretically most efficient use of that money. For example if it increases acceptance for renewables in the broader population or jump starts an industry (as it has in Germa…

You don't need to use tentative phrases like "That might be the case", or "even if it is not theoretically most efficient use of that money". As the page on statista.com states:

>Rooftop solar photovoltaic installations on residential buildings and nuclear power have the highest unsubsidized levelized costs of energy generation in the United States. If not for federal and state subsidies, rooftop solar PV would come with a price tag between 117 and 282 U.S. dollars per megawatt hour. …

https://www.statista.com/statistics/493797/estimated-leveliz...

It is understandable that anyone getting free money thinks it is good. But if the less well off people (renters, etc.) learn that they are paying more for power to subsidize wealthier residents (when that money could have gone a lot further if spent on other solar projects) - don't you think that might lower enthusiasm for government subsidizing the move away from fossil fuels? This sort of reverse Robin Hood policy hurts everyone in the long run.

Re: Can solar costs keep shrinking?

#390

Post by kragen »

caymanjim wrote: post #273
m463 wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think RVs that you can live/remote work in while traveling are interesting. (I'm speaking about large class A RVs like an apartment with washer/dryer etc...) But as solar becomes more prevalent, I don't see why they don't design RVs more around solar. It has only been recently that I've seen "all electric" type RVs. Before that, most RVs were hybrid propane/electric or diesel/electric, for example gas stoves, dual…

I do well in my tiny (20') RV for four months a year. It was a little cramped when I had a girlfriend with me, but still cozy. This is my third summer doing this. The first two summers, I wasn't working. This summer I'm working full-time remote (dev). It has its challenges. I plan to upgrade to a much larger 5th wheel trailer, likely in two years, with all the creature comforts you mention. Part of the reason solar i…

i very much appreciate you sharing your knowledge!
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