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Can solar costs keep shrinking?

unchartedterritories.tomaspueyo.com

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Re: Can solar costs keep shrinking?

#461

Post by flakeoil »

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.

Correct. And also the non-solar panel material. For example the aluminium support they use between the roof and the solar panels costs the same or more than the actual solar panels. When I asked for an offer two years ago the price of the solar panels was about 25% of the total cost.

The aluminium frame was 25%, labor 30% and putting up the scaffold 20%.

I hope thin film solar panels integrated in the actual roof material will become more common going forward as it removes the need for an aluminium frame, you get a new fresh roof, it's lighter, no holes are drilled in the roof etc.

Re: Can solar costs keep shrinking?

#462

Post by mbroncano »

medstrom wrote: post #460
murkt wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> LEO agency I know you didn’t mean Low Earth Orbit agency, but the thought is funny. If you’re not more than 1000+ km from the nearest satellite, you’re not in a remote area!

What does it stand for?

Law Enforcement Officer

Re: Can solar costs keep shrinking?

#463

Post by ibeff »

hiAndrewQuinn wrote: post #106
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.

What if I just bought a field and laid them on the ground, over some plastic or something? Sure, I might be giving up some efficiency gains by not swiveling towards the sunlight or something, but I have to imagine there's a "plug and play" option possible here.

I wish JUST ONE PERSON in the comments would read the gosh darn article.

Re: Can solar costs keep shrinking?

#464

Post by thebiss »

spywaregorilla wrote: post #200
tails4e wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The price to get solar installed in the US is insanely high compared to the cost of the materials. I've seen my extended family get quotes north of 40k for modest installs. I got a modest system with batter for around 9k in the EU, and id say I'd install the same for under 5k at today's prices.

11k for my house in MA net of a few thousand in subsidies last year. I don't think I really believe your quote of 40k. Does that even break even on energy bill savings?

Just look at the r/solar for similar quotes.

Here’s a $51k quote for 12kW with 5kW battery: https://www.reddit.com/r/solar/s/Fema45FkDx

Re: Can solar costs keep shrinking?

#465

Post by JackMorgan »

briffle wrote: post #401
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.

Crane, OR is I think the only public high school that boards its students in dorms during the week. Its geographic area is 7700sq miles. (The size of Massachusetts) It has 50-60 students. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crane_Union_High_School

If I remember correctly my students in Glenallen AK used to be bussed from up to 2.5 hours each way! I always have thought that was so silly to still have daily classes. Why not just once a week and the whole day is filled with socializing. Humans get an idea in their heads like "how school should be" and just can't let it go...

Re: Can solar costs keep shrinking?

#467

Post by alliao »

rtkwe wrote: post #2

I'm having a hard time getting past the assumption in the article that energy use is tied directly to GDP per capita and that by not following the 7% growth of the Henry Adams Curve we're somehow below where we should/could be as a country. That embeds so many assumptions about the economy and where GDP comes from, the decoupling seems more likely to be from the transition from manufacturing and other energy heavy se…

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/energy-use-per-person-vs-... is probably where the inspiration comes from...

Re: Can solar costs keep shrinking?

#468

Post by chgs »

kragen wrote: post #448
chickenbig wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> humans don't yet have the technology to exploit it economically $2,500/kW of capacity isn't too expensive, given the alternatives. https://www.latitudemedia.com/news/catalyst-the-cost-of-nucl... The recent batch of 11 reactors authorised by China are perhaps 2.8B USD each for 1.1GW plant (plus a high temperature gas reactor).

but 1.1 gigawatts of mainstream solar panels is 0.14 billion usd. $130 per kilowatt of capacity. even at the dismal 10% solar capacity factor achieved in very northerly countries like germany, the reactor is twice the price per average watt, and it needs to be installed far from the point of use—you can't buy a 440-watt nuclear reactor, so you need transmission, distribution, and transformers, all of which incur ener…

One larger cost you might think of with solar is land - but even in the U.K. where land isn’t exactly cheap leasing prices are about £1k an acre per year, and an acre will generate about 350MWh a year, so that’s well under 1 cent per kWh, so it’s lost in the noise.

https://www.fwi.co.uk/business/alternative-land-uses-leasing...

Re: Can solar costs keep shrinking?

#469

Post by Qwertious »

sharpshadow wrote: post #77
bryanlarsen wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The price of a commodity is equal to the highest of the lowest cost producers that can satisfy demand. Germany cannot satisfy demand with cheap renewables, so the marginal producer is expensive gas & nuclear. German electricity is expensive because gas is expensive in Germany. Electricity will be expensive in Germany until Germany completely stops using gas shipped in via container ship.

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 might better satisfy demand with renewables if it stopped shooting itself in the foot by blocking wind turbine locations due to NIMBYism.

Re: Can solar costs keep shrinking?

#470

Post by pfdietz »

KennyBlanken wrote: post #402
nl wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Many times, it really doesn't matter if you're 30 miles from anything, or 300. If your vehicle breaks down, how screwed are you? Do you have cell coverage to call for help? Will anyone be passing by to flag down, any time soon? How far away is the nearest LEO agency, fire department, ambulance? How far away is the nearest place for water, food, etc?

Reminds me of the Death Valley Germans.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Valley_Germans

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