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Can solar costs keep shrinking?

unchartedterritories.tomaspueyo.com

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Re: Can solar costs keep shrinking?

#391

Post by KennyBlanken »

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…

> If you're looking for some inexpensive land that can be fairly remote you might do worse than Cochise county AZ

It's pretty hard to do worse than "the very small amount of water is being sucked dry because there are no regulations around water use." Once the water table compacts, it never comes back...

> Rooftop water collection for water.

It's one of the dries parts of the country. Good fucking luck.

A growing number of people in AZ and NV have to have water trucked in, and that is insanely expensive.

Re: Can solar costs keep shrinking?

#392

Post by kragen »

stephen_g wrote: post #330
ericd wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious, why do people use Ah for batteries, given that there's 3 different common server rack battery voltages (12, 24, 48)? Is 12 just assumed for RVing?

Amp hours are what the batteries are specified in, right down to cells that are 1.5V, 2V, 3.9V etc.. Yes, once they're in system you want to know kWh capacity of the system as a whole, but it makes sense that people think of what's written on the batteries first.

caymanjim knows his units, but the general public is so ignorant that it's common to hear people confusing a 1200-amp-hour battery with a 1200-(cold-cranking-)amp battery. even people who built a multi-voltage electrical system for their rv. the struggle is real

Re: Can solar costs keep shrinking?

#394

Post by verisimi »

bee_rider wrote: post #181
verisimi wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it a free market though? Or are solar, wind, etc being funded by the government? Or is gas being taxed in a way that solar is not (yet)?

There isn’t a free market for energy really, it is a global marketplace and the government of every major player puts their thumb on the scale. Governments are investing in solar because they want to be ahead in the renewable economy, where energy literally just falls from the sky. Is that a subsidy? I guess. It is also a good strategic move. Are petrochemicals taxed or subsidized? I have no idea, it is a big tangled…

Wouldn't the answer be to provide a simple number for the cost of a thing (oil, solar, wind, etc), that removes the government subsidies/taxes from the equation.

Otherwise, you can tax what you don't like to oblivion or subsidise what you do like until it appears viable, but in neither case are you getting a true picture of the cost. The subsidies/tax moves a simple cost question, into the murky world of politics and society and opinion.

We are only pretending to discuss costs if the social infrastructure is determining taxes/subsidies.

Re: Can solar costs keep shrinking?

#395

Post by csomar »

credit_guy wrote: post #364
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.

I continue to be radically pro-nuclear (but I'm also pro-solar and pro-wind). Especially given Elon's example with SpaceX, how you can drop the cost of some technology by a factor of 10 or 100. Elon's idea was that the floor on the price of something is the cost of the raw materials. Everything else can be optimized. The cost of a nuclear power plant is most likely one thousand times the cost of the raw materials. Ca…

You make the ultimate point. In a "sane?" world, once nuclear has been discovered, every country should have gone the way of France or the Soviet Union. Build nuclear everywhere with over-capacity built-in.

The problem is, once Chernobyl happened (which might have bankrupted a struggling USSR), every country became wary of nuclear as some hidden costs are now more apparent. The Fukushima disaster didn't help either: Even if you run your plant just fine, a strong earthquake can turn it into a nuclear bomb.

So we are back to basics, collecting photons from far away. Using quantity instead of sci-fi stuff. It's quite safe too, at least the panels themselves.

Re: Can solar costs keep shrinking?

#396

Post by m463 »

anonfordays wrote: post #72

Soon (if not already) the largest costs associated with solar installations will be the labor. It's expensive to get people on roofs and electricians to reconfigure panels, install transfer switches, etc. The equipment could be free and it would still cost thousands for the skilled trades to install.

I think it's more important to lower roadblocks as opposed to costs for solar.

It seems australia removed a lot of roadblocks and solar is very popular.

Re: Can solar costs keep shrinking?

#397

Post by m463 »

nostrademons wrote: post #135
anonfordays wrote: post #72

Soon (if not already) the largest costs associated with solar installations will be the labor. It's expensive to get people on roofs and electricians to reconfigure panels, install transfer switches, etc. The equipment could be free and it would still cost thousands for the skilled trades to install.

This is one of the forces driving the shift from rooftop solar to utility-scale installations. A residential installation needs guys up on a roof to install the panels, and then custom wiring for each house. A solar farm can use robots to install tens of thousands of panels cheaply. There are unfortunate side effects to this, even besides the attacks on net metering that have cut financial returns for existing solar…

> A solar farm can use robots to install tens of thousands of panels cheaply.

Doesn't matter if it doesn't bring down the cost of electricity. For example in california PG&E will still charge a substantial "delivery fee".

Re: Can solar costs keep shrinking?

#398

Post by m463 »

mercutio2 wrote: post #176
marssaxman wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's an apartment building here in Seattle which has solar panels mounted flat on its west-facing wall (602 12th Ave). The panels were apparently cheap enough that they did not care about maximizing daylight exposure and simply installed them in the easiest place. Quite a change this is from what I remember when I had solar panels installed on my roof eleven years ago!

West-facing is pretty close to revenue maximizing, with current consumption peaks in the early evening.

I remember asking a friend who understood solar what angle was best to capture the most energy. He told me "you don't aim for the sun, you aim for PG&E"

Re: Can solar costs keep shrinking?

#399

Post by whynotminot »

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…

I certainly understand political and cultural considerations when moving to a place. But since you seem to be trying to stay away from anyone wherever you settle, I’m a little surprised the politics and culture of a place would matter much to your circumstances.

Re: Can solar costs keep shrinking?

#400

Post by gniv »

oakesm9 wrote: post #116
datacruncher01 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think eventually the hardware will be so cheap it'll make more sense to use them as solar fences. Reduce the cost to install and maintain by 3-4x easily. Or DIY for practically nothing.

There’s an Undecided video on this exact topic https://youtu.be/LqizLQDi9BM?si=nnWVU-Espt7a6VDv

This is fantastic! Somehow I hadn't heard about vertically mounted solar panels until now but it sounds great. There are so many advantages to vertical mounts I would expect them to become the norm.
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