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Can solar costs keep shrinking?

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Re: Can solar costs keep shrinking?

#581

Post by lnsru »

raffraffraff wrote: post #420
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.

I think that "an hour to the nearest convenience" is far from civilization, but I'm Irish and this is a tiny country. Also, you could argue that, by definition, having a road and an RV kitted out with food, water and batteries is civilization. Even if I lived full time like that I'd feel like I owe some civilization somewhere, a tax. Who built this nice road? What hidden or socialised costs or subsidies went into kit…

I lived in an old house in a place which got developed into suburbs later for a while. Preparing hot water by burning wood, what one must prepare in advance was an adventure. Luckily there was a pile of wood from before. But doing this repeatedly isn’t for everybody. The place lost afterwards electricity in spring for whole 2 weeks. So no backup. Heating only by burning wood. There are so many fail safes to be implemented to live outside civilization that I don’t want to think about it. A gas and electricity powered fridge. Enough gas, enough firewood. Boiling all water from the well before using it. Digging regularly a new hole for a toilet. Having at least one spare for every critical piece of equipment. Electronic loves to fail suddenly and Amazon does not come with next day delivery.

Re: Can solar costs keep shrinking?

#582

Post by Retric »

chickenbig wrote: post #575
Retric wrote: post #506

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pure PV farms have minimal operational costs, nuclear has huge ongoing costs. For a more realistic comparison the operating costs of nuclear offset the cost of batteries for solar. So capital costs vs capital costs on a per Wh basis isn’t in favor of Solar it favors nuclear which has less flexibility. IE: 24 GWh per day of battery backed solar can dump half that power over 2 hours @ 6GW. 24GWh of nuclear IE a 1GWh re…

> Pure PV farms have minimal operational costs, nuclear has huge ongoing costs. https://www.iea.org/reports/projected-costs-of-generating-el... page 59 table 3.13a puts O&M for nuclear in the USA at about 12 USD/MWh plus just over 9 USD/MWh for fuel, and table 3.14 puts O&M for utility scale solar at around 6 USD/MWh or so. As for batteries, I think a few hundred USD/kWh is a reasonable guesstimate of cost (raw LiFeP…

I disagree with your quoted numbers. They aren’t current or inflation adjust to the same year, they also exclude several costs associated with nuclear such as insurance and setting money aside for decommissioning.

Ex: Your quoted fuel costs would be 0.9c/kWh in (2020 publish date) = 1.3c/kWh in 2024. O&M is often quoted as 4x fuel costs so 5.2kWh. “Fuel costs account for about 28% of a nuclear plant's operating expenses.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_of_nuclear_power_pla...

A battery system which costs 200$/kWh and does 5,000 cycles = 5c/kWh. (Not every kWh from a solar farm needs to be stored, but this is just a ballpark comparison.)

> At which point the transmission becomes the limitation; the grid operator probably wants a fairly stable flow of electricity through the wires to maximise utilisation

You’re missing the forest for the trees here. Utilization follows demand, a state with peak demand of 6GW is going to have transmission lines setup for 6GW. But comparing the options you have nuclear with 4x 1.5GW reactors averaging ~40% utilization or batteries backed by solar. Run the numbers and Solar wins by a landslide.

Re: Can solar costs keep shrinking?

#583

Post by oezi »

ponector wrote: post #543
oezi wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ikea will sell you kitchens for 4k including appliances and set everything up for 2k. In Europe. (without electricity and plumbing)

You forgot that in US kitchens are huge. Could be bigger than typical studio apartment in a crowded EU city.

True. 40k is the most I can think that 98% of people would ever spend on a kitchen in Europe.

Re: Can solar costs keep shrinking?

#584

Post by derriz »

Nimitz14 wrote: post #385
derriz wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germany has been the biggest exporter of electricity in the world for 8 of the last 10 years[0]. It consistently generates more than it consumes. It's been this way since around 2004. German wholesale electricity prices are relatively low by European standards - so far this year about 8th cheapest - about 13% cheaper than of France, for example[1]. This reflects the blended cost of production. Household prices are hi…

I clicked on [1] and it's showing Germany's prices to be significantly higher than that of France.

Sorry, my mistake.

My claim was based on averaging over the time-series - so the average wholesale prices since 2015 and not just the prices for 2024.

Over the extended period, French wholesale prices have been 12% higher on average than those in Germany.

Re: Can solar costs keep shrinking?

#585

Post by derriz »

pyrale wrote: post #248
derriz wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germany has been the biggest exporter of electricity in the world for 8 of the last 10 years[0]. It consistently generates more than it consumes. It's been this way since around 2004. German wholesale electricity prices are relatively low by European standards - so far this year about 8th cheapest - about 13% cheaper than of France, for example[1]. This reflects the blended cost of production. Household prices are hi…

The link you're using is from 2022, which is an outlier in terms of energy production. The issue is that Germany exports "waste" electricity. It almost always exports cheap power, and imports at high rates. In negative price events, you will almost always see Germany in the exporter list. For instance, today, France imported from Germany between 10:30 and 15:45, when market prices reached bottom, and exported to Germ…

The link provides 2022 imports and exports at the top of the page but if you scroll down includes balances going back to 1995.

2022 is not an outlier in this regard - on an aggregate basis Germany has been the biggest net exporter of electricity in the world over the last 20 years.

Nothing "waste" about it, the imports and exports in the link are priced in USD, so if your thesis is true, then it would mean even bigger _volumes_ of electric exports.

Re: Can solar costs keep shrinking?

#586

Post by locallost »

jenadine wrote: post #481
locallost wrote: post #452

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a huge number of myths. Grid is not really my expertise, not at all, but I hear this a lot, it's challenging to get a reliable grid. At the same time I read an interview with the CEO of 50Hertz [1], one of Germany's grid operators who says, we can do 70-80% renewables easy and managed the solar eclipse a lot easier than even we thought. And data backs it up, Germany has one of the more reliable grids in the…

It is certainly possible, just more expensive. And I'm just saying that one shouldn't mix cost of production and price for the consumer. It is easier to size the network when the current flows basically in one single direction from power plant to users. When the production is decentralised, you need more transmission lines. You also get more losses in the transmission if you go through more substations. Big turbines…

I am a big fan of residential solar, but objectively I don't think it's a big story outside of Europe. In the US it's dwarfed by utility scale installations, which are then also one way only. The grid cost issue specific to the US, the way I understood it, is that proposed additions to the grid go through an interconnection queue and get slapped with the costs for grid upgrades if their project is approved and they are the first in that area. And that this is less of a cost for a large plant that anyway has more choice where to place it, and more of an issue for a much smaller renewables installation where the location is less flexible and the combination of smaller capacity and grid costs might make the project not feasible. The opponents of solar or renewables in general then like to say that these integration costs are high for renewables, but actually it's more of a regulatory issue and you could do things differently and share the costs among several projects in the same area. Here is a good podcast with a transcript on the issues: https://www.volts.wtf/p/whats-the-deal-with-interconnection

There's also the case that rooftop solar preferably gets used locally and not fed in to the grid. So there you actually remove a lot of inefficiencies and costs because in the case of rooftop solar being consumed locally, there is nothing to transmit in the grid in either direction. So overall, my layman view of the situation is that the high grid costs are an overblown issue, especially because you would need to upgrade the grid anyway if everyone charged their car and electricity came from large plants only.

Re: Can solar costs keep shrinking?

#587

Post by JoeAltmaier »

ianburrell wrote: post #145
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #88

OP suggests that land costs will soon dominate the equation. So no mention of orbital solar plants? Yes, somebody years ago published a study that said, Uneconomical! because lift costs, panel cost, transmission inefficiencies. All of those are now drastically changed, by orders of magnitude. It is not a matter of IF orbital solar is economical, but WHEN.

Cheap solar panels mean that orbital solar will never be economical. Orbital solar made sense back when solar panels were super expensive so made sense to use them continuously. Solar panels are so cheap now that people are setting them on the ground. 400W solar panel costs $200 and weighs 40 lbs. If Starship gets down to $100/lb, that is $4000 to put a panel in space. There are thin film panel that weight way less b…

Land; emminent domain; night all work in favor of orbital solar.

Every number you mention is going in the right direction to favor orbital.

Don't imagine space-solar will look (or weigh) anything at all like a terrestrial model.

Re: Can solar costs keep shrinking?

#588

Post by JoeAltmaier »

thfuran wrote: post #336
0cf8612b2e1e wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would need to see some supporting napkin math on how that makes financial sense. Something on the ground, accessible by Joe the handyman is always going to be cheaper than anything launched into space. To balance that out is going to require some huge win. Availability, efficiency, etc. Solar input in orbit is higher than what is received at ground, but similar order of magnitude. I am not sure there are real world…

>Solar input in orbit is higher than what is received at ground, but similar order of magnitude. On a sunny day, it's only something like 30% brighter above the atmosphere IIRC. I guess you beat cloud cover (assuming you can deliver it to ground through the clouds efficienly), but I agree it doesn't seem worth it.

9X brighter

Re: Can solar costs keep shrinking?

#589

Post by WillAdams »

refurb wrote: post #410
WillAdams wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Invasive species for one thing --- folks aren't nearly as careful about checking their vehicles as they ought to be. Not huge enough when you're considering how the McDonald's have driven out little hole-in-the-wall places and that the presence of such a fast food restaurant requires a busy highway, or a reasonably dense population center.

Invasive species? Most of these trail aren't even used?

If they weren't used, they would quickly grow over and disappear.

Re: Can solar costs keep shrinking?

#590

Post by grecy »

_yb2s wrote: post #493
grecy wrote: post #443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you give me an example?I have explored a lot of remote places and never found anything nearly that remote

The California Sierras, Death Valley, the Mojave desert, and of course Baja (obv not in the lower 48) have remote trails that can take days to get to- not so much because they’re actually extremely far away but because the trails are slow going and difficult. There are trails where average speeds in a vehicle are slower than walking, but you can’t really hike them either - at least without pack animals- because there…

Interestingly, I’ve spent time in all the places you mention. Keep in mind more people live in Southern California than all of Australia. The places you mention are busy, and not really remote. I’d be willing to bet you can drive out of the most remote on your list to a gas station in well under 10 hours. Probably 5
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