Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The price of solar power just fell 50% in 16 months

electrek.co

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

431–440 of 448 posts

Re: The price of solar power just fell 50% in 16 months

#431

Post by pilom »

afarrell wrote: post #341
eru wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Instead (or rather in addition) to storing power, we can also get better at coordinating demand. There are already programs for industrial users to get electricity for much cheaper, if they can tolerate power cuts during peak demand. Those programs will become more and more rewarding to join and extend and automate as supply gets spikier.

Is there a way to coordinate demand without asking thousands of people to give Alice the ability to shut off their appliances?

Yes, industrial plants will turn off production (for instance at an aluminum smelting plant) in relation to the frequency of the grid. Grid frequency decreases slightly when demand starts outpacing "supply."

Re: The price of solar power just fell 50% in 16 months

#432

Post by andromeduck »

epistasis wrote: post #314
paulhart wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oncor solicited a study that showed that a mass install of Tesla Powerwall devices would be an economic solution to this problem [1], at which point all the generators lost their minds and lobbied the PUCT to prevent Oncor from destroying their market [2] (because of their position as a Transmission & Distribution Service Provider in the market, it would require a change in law for Oncor to be able to implement the p…

It's interesting to see the stark contrast between the naysayers that don't have information to back their claims (such as comments sibling to yours), and the people who have looked at current tech and made realistic assessments like Oncor and Brattle. A lot of people are willing to make confident, but very wrong, statements based on out of date information. It serves to protect entrenched interests and stop competit…

X is realistic and smart because it agrees with my opinion

You're amazing

Re: The price of solar power just fell 50% in 16 months

#433

Post by harryh »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #430
harryh wrote: post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I 100% agree with you about the difficulty of raising rates. But I don't think they'll continue to drop like they have over the past 30 years. I have a hard time imagining a world of -5% to -10% rates!

> I have a hard time imagining a world of -5% to -10% rates! A year ago I would've agreed with you, but with the ECB at -.04 and Japan at -0.02, I believe it more likely than previously.

Heh, fair enough. It's certainly very surprising to see rates below zero. So, indeed, I am much less certain about the future!

Re: The price of solar power just fell 50% in 16 months

#434

Post by DamnYuppie »

artmageddon wrote: post #154
DamnYuppie wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need to wait for Tesla, you can buy Lithium battery packs now. Heck even AGM or wet cell batteries work fine. I have about 800 ampH and I can do pretty much anything I want except run an AC off of it.

How much did it run?

Batteries were about $650.

Re: The price of solar power just fell 50% in 16 months

#435

Post by jessaustin »

pyre wrote: post #379
jessaustin wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear was only ever "viable" for political reasons. We had to have enough nuclear weapons to extinguish mammalian life nineteen times over. Eighteen times would have been pathetic. It was all a boondoggle anyway, so the war pigs were happy to spread a bit of cash on the civilian side...

There are nuclear plants that generate isotopes for medical purposes.

Those are not the same plants that generate power for the grid.

Re: The price of solar power just fell 50% in 16 months

#436

Post by epistasis »

andromeduck wrote: post #432
epistasis wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting to see the stark contrast between the naysayers that don't have information to back their claims (such as comments sibling to yours), and the people who have looked at current tech and made realistic assessments like Oncor and Brattle. A lot of people are willing to make confident, but very wrong, statements based on out of date information. It serves to protect entrenched interests and stop competit…

X is realistic and smart because it agrees with my opinion You're amazing

Thanks. But it's not realistic and smart because of that, it's realistic and smart because it examines the facts at hand and makes plans instead of handwaving. This is an important distinction.

Re: The price of solar power just fell 50% in 16 months

#437

Post by lisivka »

yourapostasy wrote: post #426
lisivka wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have space and money, you can create huge "gravity lamp" to store energy: lift up something massive using solar energy and electric motor, then it will slowly generate electricity at night using same motor as generator. Or you can use "molecular spring", which is very compact, for same purpose.

How close are we to actually manufacturing molecular springs? My understanding is our materials science and engineering is not up for making macroscopic molecular springs yet, and what I can Google up seems to indicate we nowhere near macroscopic scale springs.

Make container of highly porous material then fill it with a fluid which will avoid that material surface at molecular level. AFAIK, it is invented years ago.

Re: The price of solar power just fell 50% in 16 months

#438

Post by RutZap »

coryfklein wrote: post #215
ChuckMcM wrote: post #103

The aggressiveness of the price drops on solar is pretty amazing. I just lost one of the inverters on my grid-tie system after it had run trouble free for 13 years. So we're looking at the first "major" repair to the system I installed in 2003. And in 2003 my 5.2kW of panels on my roof cost $38,000 before subsidies and $19,000 after. 28 panels, two 2.5kW inverters, net about 4.2kW of generation. I priced out replacin…

> And that is why it is a huge problem for the power companies It is a problem, but not necessarily in the way you may be thinking. Peak residential power usage is in the evening when solar isn't available. Power companies therefore end up spinning down coal and natural gas during peak solar, then just spinning them back up again as the sun begins to set. [1] So you haven't replaced the coal and natural gas plants, y…

> Peak residential power usage is in the evening when solar isn't available. Power companies therefore end up spinning down coal and natural gas during peak solar, then just spinning them back up again as the sun begins to set.

Would it be possible (in an utopian world) to actually have a global power network and route electricity produced during the day in one area across multiple timezones to an area where the demand is greater and no available solar? e.g. Electricity produced in West Africa at noon to be delivered to .. Tokyo, where it would be 9PM.

I understand that politically this is almost impossible, but I am curious whether there are any technological impediments for this to be feasible.

Re: The price of solar power just fell 50% in 16 months

#439

Post by yourapostasy »

lisivka wrote: post #437
yourapostasy wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How close are we to actually manufacturing molecular springs? My understanding is our materials science and engineering is not up for making macroscopic molecular springs yet, and what I can Google up seems to indicate we nowhere near macroscopic scale springs.

Make container of highly porous material then fill it with a fluid which will avoid that material surface at molecular level. AFAIK, it is invented years ago.

Can you post a link to that please? When I search around starting with the Wikipedia [1] entry, I don't find a description of what you are describing.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molecular_spring

Re: The price of solar power just fell 50% in 16 months

#440

Post by warmwaffles »

ryanmarsh wrote: post #316
warmwaffles wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How long until you start seeing a return on investment? Right now my electricity bill for my home is ~100 a month in Texas. I would need to keep the same panels without maintenance fees for 33.33 years by your price point of 40k

$100 a month in the summer in Texas? You living in a shoe box in the panhandle or what? I spend $700 a month in August. Tell us your secret for real.

I live in a brand new home. Spray foam insulation. Keep the AC at around 74 year round. I also have natural gas running in to my house for my stove and water heater. All of my light bulbs are LED.
Post reply on HN