Solar and batteries can power the world • Hacker News Board

Re: Solar and batteries can power the world

#411

Post by wakawaka28 » Sat, Apr 04, 2026, 1:23 AM UTC

Retric wrote: post #108

germandiago wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So here I go: if it is so stupid, why it is not done yet? Try not to blame anyone. Do it rationally if you can, from your message I understand your opinion. I say this as a person that has lived in a developing country the last 15 years. It is not that simple IMHO...

The economics only changed recently and infrastructure lasts a long time. It’s the same reason EV’s make up a far larger share of new car sales than a percentage of overall cars, EV’s sucked 20+ years ago yet there are a lot of 20+ year old cars on the road. The US stopped building coal power plants over a decade ago but we still have a lot of them. Meanwhile we’ve mostly been building solar, which eventually means w…

Becoming completely dependent on imported tech for such basic needs is a BAD idea. The West cannot outcompete China on cost for these products at this time. And before you say subsidies, let me remind you that we are all going broke.

Re: Solar and batteries can power the world

#412

Post by subhobroto » Sat, Apr 04, 2026, 1:27 AM UTC

enslavedrobot wrote: post #406

subhobroto wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Public utilities and pension funds hate green energy, they are a major factor in west's pathetic performance when it comes to solar adoption vs China No this statement is absolutely wrong. Here's why: > west's pathetic performance when it comes to solar adoption vs China China is dominating energy because the CCP doesn't care what their citizens think. They need energy and they are doing everything they can do to g…

Totally agree that regulations and government interference are the reasons we don't have cheap solar panels. Those regulations and that interference result from the fact that in a distributed world the current utility bond value drops to zero. Utilities will not build infrastructure that makes their existing infrastructure lose value. I recently negotiated with a government owned utility on a large solar project. The…

> They are focused on giant transmission line projects and hydro

Is that because of the scale they need to achieve to support the investment?

> until I demonstrated that the project would never feed back to the grid

Financial greed aside, and I mentioned this previously, feedback at a large scale isn't free especially if the impedance of the grid cannot be predicted - the frequency or voltage or both would spike. Monitoring for these conditions are expensive and addressing them is even more expensive - the cheapest solution is you do a shutdown until things stabilize but this is kinda catch-22 because that itself might have its own cascading effects.

Let me ask you this - if you were to update a local neighborhood (like a block or two of 1000 homes) distribution station, that all have their own solar and battery, where the homes could independently power themselves for a day - what changes or upgrades would you make to ensure they can share load for that one day when the larger grid is suffering an outage?

Now would that cost and complexity be lower or higher if instead, nothing was changed at grid scale at all but each of the individual 1000 homes doubled their own capacity (let's say 30kWh a day if you're OK with that)?

Re: Solar and batteries can power the world

#413

Post by defrost » Sat, Apr 04, 2026, 1:29 AM UTC

wakawaka28 wrote: post #411

Retric wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The economics only changed recently and infrastructure lasts a long time. It’s the same reason EV’s make up a far larger share of new car sales than a percentage of overall cars, EV’s sucked 20+ years ago yet there are a lot of 20+ year old cars on the road. The US stopped building coal power plants over a decade ago but we still have a lot of them. Meanwhile we’ve mostly been building solar, which eventually means w…

Becoming completely dependent on imported tech for such basic needs is a BAD idea. The West cannot outcompete China on cost for these products at this time. And before you say subsidies, let me remind you that we are all going broke.

Once you have PV panels, they (on average) last 20+ years - that's not being dependant, particularly when PV panels can be mass produced anywhere.

( They do not use rare earths (inverters use trace amounts) )

China cornering rare earths (for now) is an "own goal" by every country that chose to let China (and to a lesser degree Malaysia) take a hit on the toxic by products of processing concentrates.

The US is easily capable of producing it's own rare earths, it's certainly not been backwards in asking Australia to do that for it.

Re: Solar and batteries can power the world

#414

Post by tzs » Sat, Apr 04, 2026, 1:35 AM UTC

declan_roberts wrote: post #9

ahhhhnoooo wrote: post #2

China understands this, parts of the EU understands this. The US is currently dead set on betting on the wrong technology, and it's going to put them so far behind. Imagine a world where people didn't care about labeling new things "woke", and instead could all sit down and say, "we're going to make major investments in next generation infrastructure to ensure our capacity and independence."

China burns significantly more coal than the USA and Europe combined and has no environmental laws standing in the way of their nuclear power plants. Imagine a world where people don't care about labeling new things as "regressive" or "anti-environmental"

> China burns significantly more coal than the USA and Europe combined [...]

And the USA burns more natural gas than China, and the USA burns more oil than China.

All this simply reflects both using the fossil fuels they have the most abundant, reliable, and cheap supply of when they need to burn fossil fuels.

Re: Solar and batteries can power the world

#415

Post by wakawaka28 » Sat, Apr 04, 2026, 1:43 AM UTC

defrost wrote: post #413

wakawaka28 wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Becoming completely dependent on imported tech for such basic needs is a BAD idea. The West cannot outcompete China on cost for these products at this time. And before you say subsidies, let me remind you that we are all going broke.

Once you have PV panels, they (on average) last 20+ years - that's not being dependant, particularly when PV panels can be mass produced anywhere. ( They do not use rare earths (inverters use trace amounts) ) China cornering rare earths (for now) is an "own goal" by every country that chose to let China (and to a lesser degree Malaysia) take a hit on the toxic by products of processing concentrates. The US is easily…

20 years is not great for those. Extreme weather can also shred them. It's fine to have some, but I sure as hell don't want to be dependent on that.

Re: Solar and batteries can power the world

#416

Post by therealdrag0 » Sat, Apr 04, 2026, 1:45 AM UTC

gpm wrote: post #159

balderdash wrote: post #128

Just my 2c but I think the biggest thing we could do is to reduce the regulatory burden, cost, and complexity associated with installing roof mounted solar. This should be something that can be approved and installed in a week, and should be a half the price (put another it should have a double digit roi) . Right now all of the economics of home solar are consumed by regulation/complexity and the contractors / solar…

At the consumer scale the biggest thing we could do is follow the german model of panels that can be plugged into an outlet and installed in an hour by any homeowner (with the same capacity limits and requirements on the panels electronics to protect the grid/line workers during power outages). That said I'm pretty sure that grid-scale solar is the future of most solar energy, not home solar. It's just cheaper to do…

Balcony solar legislation is well underway in dozens of states. But the capacity is still very small. Like 10% of a household.

Re: Solar and batteries can power the world

#417

Post by defrost » Sat, Apr 04, 2026, 1:48 AM UTC

wakawaka28 wrote: post #415

defrost wrote: post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once you have PV panels, they (on average) last 20+ years - that's not being dependant, particularly when PV panels can be mass produced anywhere. ( They do not use rare earths (inverters use trace amounts) ) China cornering rare earths (for now) is an "own goal" by every country that chose to let China (and to a lesser degree Malaysia) take a hit on the toxic by products of processing concentrates. The US is easily…

20 years is not great for those. Extreme weather can also shred them. It's fine to have some, but I sure as hell don't want to be dependent on that.

Gotcha, you prefer to be daily dependent on fossil fuel delivery rather than get new panels every 20 years, particularly given you're in a country seemingly incapable of manufacture and minerals processing.

That's certainly a position.

Re: Solar and batteries can power the world

#418

Post by declan_roberts » Sat, Apr 04, 2026, 2:01 AM UTC

gpm wrote: post #175

declan_roberts wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes 30 kWh battery is considered large. It takes up a full 6 slot 2u rack in my garage and cost around $8k. In the context of OP's goals it's larger than what 99% of people in the world will ever have.

Approximately 1% of people in the world currently have an EV with a more than 30 kWh battery... and we're very early in the adoption curve of EVs and other large batteries.

Owning an electric vehicle is a lot different than having a house wired with solar panels and a battery and inverter.

Re: Solar and batteries can power the world

#419

Post by declan_roberts » Sat, Apr 04, 2026, 2:04 AM UTC

Faaak wrote: post #97

declan_roberts wrote: post #5

The article is just wrong. And only mentions energy used for heating in passing. Heating requires MASSIVE amounts of energy. I should know bc I have a whole house battery and solar system (almost 30 kWh battery and 24kW solar). It keeps the lights on, but not heating. I live in a mild climate. The reality is that battery/solar requires major quality of life and activity time shifting trade-offs.

Heat pumps help quite a lot, thanks to Carnot's law

Heat pump efficiency noticeably drops off after 25°F. Which is when you really start to need it!

Re: Solar and batteries can power the world

#420

Post by declan_roberts » Sat, Apr 04, 2026, 2:06 AM UTC

daneel_w wrote: post #308

declan_roberts wrote: post #5

The article is just wrong. And only mentions energy used for heating in passing. Heating requires MASSIVE amounts of energy. I should know bc I have a whole house battery and solar system (almost 30 kWh battery and 24kW solar). It keeps the lights on, but not heating. I live in a mild climate. The reality is that battery/solar requires major quality of life and activity time shifting trade-offs.

Gonna go off on a limb and guess that you live in North America where the state of the art in single-family homes is double-pane windows and thin outer walls made of cardboard and pressboard, clad with "luxurious" vinyl siding. I mean no offense to you guys. It is what it is.

My home is less than 5 years old and has the highest R-value fiber insulation I could find before moving to spray foam.

People just really underestimate how much energy it takes to produce heat, and how little energy a solar system produces in the winter. Double whammy!