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Can solar costs keep shrinking?

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Re: Can solar costs keep shrinking?

#521

Post by zackmorris »

Solar panels cost less than windows:

89x44" for $221.40: https://www.portable-sun.com/products/canadian-solar-540w-bi...

96x48" for $544.00: https://1stwindows.com/retro/milgard2/trinsic/picture-window...

Those were the first that came up in search. I'm seeing other 500 W panels for $100-150 and windows for $1000-2000. But we can safely say that panels are less than half the cost of windows.

The increase in solar panel cost was from Trump's 30% solar tariff in 2018:

https://www.seia.org/research-resources/section-201-solar-ta...

The saddest thing about all of this for me is that we had the tech to manufacture inexpensive solar panels at scale in the 1980s. Just like any of us could design better computer vision sorters for recycling. We're stopped for protectionist geopolitical reasons so that people in entrenched industries don't lose their jobs.

I wish we could be honest about this, because it's what the next US presidential election is about. We can pretend that we live in a free market economy of winners and losers, or we can work together at a meta level above the zero-sum game Nash equilibrium that's leading us inexorably towards species extinction and global climate change:

https://medium.com/nori-carbon-removal/how-to-break-the-clim...

Re: Can solar costs keep shrinking?

#522

Post by tails4e »

thebiss wrote: post #464
spywaregorilla wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

That's obscene. Less than 10k of materials (and they can probably source it cheaper than a regular joe like me), 5k labour. 35k profit is a bit much....

Re: Can solar costs keep shrinking?

#523

Post by jmyeet »

fny wrote: post #518

The core realization of the article is that energy costs have increased 30-100%. This is inline broadly with inflation experienced post-COVID presumably due to all the helicopter money dumped on the economy. I suspect if these figures were revised for inflation, the same trends we've seen over the past ten years would persist.

There's a huge factor in the increase in energy costs during the pandemic that doesn't get talked about much, weirdly. It gets attributed to greedflation but it's actually far simpler.

In 2020, the Trump administration pressured OPEC to cut production by about 9.7 million barrels a day [1], roughly 10% of the world's production. This was a 2 year deal. Look at the 5 year chart [2] and you can see exactly where this deal starts and ends. This is further confirmed by looking at OPEC oil production [3].

[1]: https://www.reuters.com/article/economy/special-report-trump...

[2]: https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/crude-oil

[3]: https://ycharts.com/indicators/opec_crude_oil_production

Re: Can solar costs keep shrinking?

#524

Post by ben_w »

jessekv wrote: post #519
ben_w wrote: post #508

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the German one, yes. The UK kitchen didn't have one, and while I'm not 100% sure why — was handled by my rental agency, with me deferring to them entirely for whoever they suggested for the work and whatever design they suggested for the layout — I suspect it may have been too small. But the cost of a dishwasher is a small fraction of the rounding error, and I was rounding up quite a bit in both cases — even the (…

Germany has commoditised kitchen installation. Perhaps because kitchens are often not included with the apartment?

That causes kitchens here to be often modular and removable — I've literally seen someone take their kitchen sink with them on a tram here.

The kitchen I got here, is a permanent installation, because my partner didn't want the normal German style.

Re: Can solar costs keep shrinking?

#525

Post by ericd »

caymanjim wrote: post #359
ericd wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah makes sense (that 12V is just implied for RVs). I'm used to dealing with 48V, since I'm doing this for a house, and it seems like they specify batteries both ways in that world. I wonder who uses 24V. Anyway, thanks for explaining it.

I'm also not really sure why one would pick 24V for most applications. 12V makes sense for RVs, boats, etc. because a lot of devices are designed to operate directly off 12V. 48V makes sense for houses and solar installations, if for no other reason than smaller-gauge wires (and is a big reason I'm considering it; 00 gauge wires are enormous and unwieldy). But 24V? You're likely not running much natively off 24V, so…

Yeah, even with 48V, we're still rocking parallel 4/0 copper, it's still a lot of amperage to try to supply 15 kw at 48V. They are heavy. The ones we got from WindyNation were surprisingly flexible, though, which has made them a lot easier to work with.

Re: Can solar costs keep shrinking?

#526

Post by Qwertious »

BatFastard wrote: post #295
pfdietz wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, the emittance of the panels at thermal wavelengths is important. What you want is a panel that converts wavelengths shorter than the bandgap cutoff at high efficiency, reflects near and mid IR at longer wavelengths, but has high emissivity in the far IR at wavelengths where the atmosphere isn't too opaque.

Could you convert electricity into a infrared laser and beam the energy into space?

You can skip the solar panel entirely and just lay out mirrors, or just spray the ground with white paint.

Re: Can solar costs keep shrinking?

#527

Post by jahnu »

SubjectToChange wrote: post #414
PaulKeeble wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are very much there already, Solar and Wind are both cheaper than Natural gas which is itself is cheaper than Coal. Solar is around 5 cents a KWH whereas Nuclear is more like 15 cents a KWH. The prices of Wind and Solar are being set by Gas at the moment as well and at some point that pricing will detach once more batteries are in place. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source

The intermittency is a huge problem. Grid scale batteries and/or pumped hydro are laughably inadequate for bridging the gap. Wind and solar energy is only cheap when they aren’t responsible for maintaining baseload capacity on the grid. Simply consider the case of China. They install and export more solar PV than anyone else in the world, and they are aggressively building out wind as well. It is literally impossible…

Those plans are to some degree a consequence of a conservative outlook when they were initially approved mixed with local politicians fearing a backlash in a cold winter if there is even a short period with a power shortage. This happened a couple of winters ago in some regions of China and is part of the reason for the coal power plant build spree they went on. Have a search for news on the coal power plant news in 2023. However, these plants turn out to not be really needed and are idle a lot and approvals are plummeting for new coal plants in 2024 already and I would expect to see the same for nuclear soon as renewables continue to prove their reliability and as battery storage continues to grow massively.

That said the growth in renewables will still take some years to make a big dent in coal in China so the nuclear power is welcome!

Re: Can solar costs keep shrinking?

#528

Post by idiotsecant »

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.

Or drill a well like most rural people already do...

Re: Can solar costs keep shrinking?

#529

Post by foobarian »

nothercastle wrote: post #375
caymanjim wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alas, houses appreciate, cars depreciate, and RVs are just worthless. I exaggerate, but RV depreciation is absolutely nothing like auto depreciation. They lose 25% driving off the lot and another 25% per year (numbers out my ass, but correct order of magnitude). The cost certainly would the most make sense on gigantic $300k class As, which also conveniently have space for lots of panels and lots of batteries. And ind…

They are built so terribly most are worthless after 20 years and start to have major issues at 10. Also add that the first 2 years they are constantly in the shop for repairs while the warranty is still available

I know some people that like to buy used trailers and then spend tons of their time fixing and complaining about leaks, rotted vinyl, etc.

Re: Can solar costs keep shrinking?

#530

Post by foobarian »

caymanjim wrote: post #296
kragen wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this is awesome! i do have one quibble, though, and it's a big one. in the last two years, prices on mainstream solar panels (monocrystalline with warranty) have fallen from €0.25 per peak watt to €0.12 per peak watt; low-cost panels have fallen from €0.17 per peak watt to €0.07 per peak watt.† technically that is 'fallen by 25% or more' because it's fallen by almost 60%. 2400 watts of solar should cost you 290 us do…

400W solar panels cost $200-250. So 2400W will cost me roughly $1800. There are discounts if you can buy in bulk, but I don't have room for more than 6-8 panels at most. Like all things, the raw material cost is trivial. There are the tariffs you mention (I just skimmed your link, and don't speak German), but there's also economy of scale, packaging, logistics, etc. I'm sure I could get 400W panels for as little as $…

Just wanted to clarify, are all these panels equal in size? Is there a "standard" solar panel format? It would be easy to otherwise get a much cheaper panel providing the same output if it was just a bit larger. It might be fine for ground installations but in your case space is at a premium
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