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Can solar costs keep shrinking?

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Re: Can solar costs keep shrinking?

#71

Post by sobellian »

Mistletoe wrote: post #50
sobellian wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are there today: https://ourworldindata.org/energy-gdp-decoupling

This always makes me uncomfortable though. How would we tell the difference between rampant scamming and fudging numbers and an economy where we all pass around Monopoly money to do services for one another? I pay you to mow my lawn and you pay me to mow your lawn. Are we creating GDP?

I'm not sure goods are quite immune from this objection. Industry turns out plenty of useless widgets. The Humane AI pin creates GDP!

Re: Can solar costs keep shrinking?

#72

Post by anonfordays »

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.

Re: Can solar costs keep shrinking?

#73

Post by rtkwe »

beembeem wrote: post #68
rtkwe wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think utility companies are entirely wrong to charge some flat rate for being connected to the grid, there are fixed costs with each customer and solar homes are not actually independent from the grid even if they're net neutral their night time power has to come from somewhere. Even if we get to enough residential solar to completely power the grid from solar and charge enough storage to last overnight there…

1) Those fixed costs go down with more distributed generation. No need for large solar farms in a different zip code if many customers have it on their roof. 2) Many/most utilities don't pay retail rates for excess power, so there's already profit built into the arrangement with solar customers. 3) You didn't address a utility charging monthly fixed fees based on income.

1) They go down but not to zero. Consider a hypothetical person with excess solar and a large power bank, they still cost money to serve and build reserve capacity for when events require them to pull from the grid.

2) They don't and there was a LOT of complaining about not getting paid full rates by early solar adopters.

3) I'm fine with it. The power grid is one of the natural monopolies where state operation makes more sense than the weird quasi private marketless mess we have now and progressive tax structures are normal there so I don't see as much problem with income related grid fees. Also higher income people will generally have larger grid demands meaning they need more excess capacity built in so they probably do cost more to serve.

Re: Can solar costs keep shrinking?

#74

Post by lotsofpulp »

Mistletoe wrote: post #50
sobellian wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are there today: https://ourworldindata.org/energy-gdp-decoupling

This always makes me uncomfortable though. How would we tell the difference between rampant scamming and fudging numbers and an economy where we all pass around Monopoly money to do services for one another? I pay you to mow my lawn and you pay me to mow your lawn. Are we creating GDP?

> How would we tell the difference between rampant scamming and fudging numbers and an economy where we all pass around Monopoly money to do services for one another?

It will show up as decrease in exports because other countries (or societies or tribes or whatever you want to call them) will want less of what your country is selling.

Which then shows up as decreasing purchasing power for things that you do want from other countries (i.e. you getting poorer).

Luckily for the US, that does not seem to be the case given the resilience of the purchasing power of the USD.

Re: Can solar costs keep shrinking?

#75

Post by hkgjjgjfjfjfjf »

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.

[dead]

Re: Can solar costs keep shrinking?

#77

Post by sharpshadow »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #47
sharpshadow wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look at Germany the next years. We gave up coal, nuclear and now gas. Have the highest prices for energy in the world and our industry is leaving. If we would have more energy we would get much richer and not more poor like right now.

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.

Re: Can solar costs keep shrinking?

#78

Post by BobaFloutist »

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.

I wonder to what extent we can make it unskilled, at least for a building with modern wiring. Plug-and-play solar panels and batteries sound scary, but not necessarily impossible to do safely.

Re: Can solar costs keep shrinking?

#79

Post by datacruncher01 »

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.

I think eventually the hardware will be so cheap it'll make more sense to use them as solar fences. Reduce the cost to install and maintain by 3-4x easily. Or DIY for practically nothing.
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