81–90 of 311 posts
Lifepo4 (lithium iron phosphate) batteries for the home are pretty cheap as of today. Power storage for residential use in a 48v metal rackable linkable system with battery management system (BMS) is $89/kwh shipped/duty paid from reputable chinese suppliers CATL/Seplos etc. You have to wait for sea shipping, add $30/kwh if you want to buy it in the US today. From the same suppliers sodium batteries are currently $13…
When you say $89/kwh, are you talking about just cells, or assembled packs? I’m just about to buy a 5kw Lifepo4 server rack battery from EG4 for a diy project. It’s closer to $220/kwh This is what I’m planning to buy, but you know something better I’d love to take a look. https://signaturesolar.com/eg4-lifepower4-lithium-battery-48...
I have always had good experiences with signature solar. My inverters are EG4 and I am very happy with their product after trying A LOT of others. I think the primary reasons for the price difference is that you are purchasing US inventory (it's already here), it's preassembled and warrantied as a unit, they provide pretty decent support and their battery packs use 100ah cells instead of 280ah+ cells. So you are buying ~3x as many BMSs, connecting cable ($$$$) and cases for the same power.
Their rackable units are not light but can be moved by a capable person without too much fuss. A fully loaded 280ah unit in it's case is over 250lb so you really need a lift cart or such. The 280ah units and now maybe 320ah are more economical.
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>I purchased pallets of used panels for more or less the cost of transportation ($34 per panel 270w) For comparison, I've seen pallets of new 24 410w panels at 58€ per panel (transportation included), hopefully I'll see similar deals in the future when I will ready to jump into solar. Edit: I'm mostly worried because I don't know how sustainable the industry is when you can buy solar panels at such dirt cheap prices.
It’s not sustainable. Solar panel producers are going to be in big trouble in 8-10 years I think.
However panels age which costs ~1% of capacity per year even before they need to be replaced, and global electricity demand tends to increase 2+%/year. So the more solar you install the more you need to install every year just to keep providing the same percentage of total electricity.
On top of this lower prices mean you it's still worthwhile even if a larger percentage of output gets wasted. Similarly, as storage gets cheaper (inflation adjusted) there's going to be more demand to cheaply charge it thus raising the demand for panels.
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All of the quotes and interactions I had with the local solar installers were reminiscent of the used car lot if not outright fraud. I was able to do what was permissible myself and a regular licensed electrician did the rest. The equipment is UL listed. There was some learning curve but I found the diysolarforum.com to be a pretty good resource to learn what I didn't know. I ran the whole setup standalone for about…
What voltage are you running your solar strings at? I was wondering what would happen if the loose cable was a cable from the solar panels instead of the low voltage battery.
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How do you get through winter? I’m asking in good faith, I‘m using a PV installation myself and cannot see how I could realistically get off the grid.
Over provision the panels by a good margin and have them at a more southerly angle (for northern hemisphere). You can play around on nrel pvwatts to see what configuration produces the most even expected monthly output: https://pvwatts.nrel.gov/pvwatts.php Most solar charge controllers allow a certain amount of PV overprovisioning.
This blog post is all over the place. The 2030 price projections are taken from extrapolations of Lithium battery costs, but he’s assuming Sodium chemistry batteries will take over and become ubiquitous at rock bottom prices. The first Sodium batteries barely became available within the past year. He’s also treating batteries like the only component of the system. The associated charging, inverter, and physical struc…
I agree not the same downward curve, but it also has been on the downward curve, although different. Learning rate is rather a common phenomenon.
Estimating the learning curve of solar PV balance–of–system (2018) estimates 11% learning rate for BOS compared to 20% learning rate for module.
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>I purchased pallets of used panels for more or less the cost of transportation ($34 per panel 270w) For comparison, I've seen pallets of new 24 410w panels at 58€ per panel (transportation included), hopefully I'll see similar deals in the future when I will ready to jump into solar. Edit: I'm mostly worried because I don't know how sustainable the industry is when you can buy solar panels at such dirt cheap prices.
It’s not sustainable. Solar panel producers are going to be in big trouble in 8-10 years I think.
Energy costs are THE driving force of prices. The cost of materials is essentially the energy it takes to squire/process/ship them. If energy was free, we would just dig up random patches of dirt and sift it for every material we wanted even in trace amounts. But its not because unfortunately, we are still primarily a fossil fuel economy for many reasons (legacy, price, chemical properties) and their cheap price relative to labour is acting as a subsidie to renewables pricing. So if the availability of fossil fuels deminishes it seemed logical that the price of inputs goes up and so too would renewable manufacturing. We would then see an inverted bell shaped curve on pricing over time. I have long suspected we would see this trend of lowering prices revert around the 2020s. So far I have been pleasantly wrong.
But fossil fuels like almost all minerals is fighting an uphill battle on availability and ore quality as we used the best stuff first. The US isnt fracking at the pace it is because they just wanted a laugh. It is due to the primary "conventional" stuff couldnt keep up. But that is a whole different issue.
If renewables were offsetting fossil fuel usage, this wouldnt be a problem but it is merely being added on top of it. Thus Jevons paradox in full swing. If we can over come that then this whole idea can be thrown in the recyling bin.
When we can make a solar panel with the outputs of a solar panel, then that is the escape velocity moment. And I don't just mean counting the joules and ignoring the energy fungability.
I am much more optimistic about this in the last few years but im not sure we are there yet. It is looking reasonable now.
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In the 8 to 10 years panels will be even cheaper. Probably half of today. The price trajectory is still falling.
>Probably half of today. A 410W solar panel at 29€? I really doubt that honestly. Cheaper than plywood.
470W + even cheaper inverters seems likely.
Lifepo4 (lithium iron phosphate) batteries for the home are pretty cheap as of today. Power storage for residential use in a 48v metal rackable linkable system with battery management system (BMS) is $89/kwh shipped/duty paid from reputable chinese suppliers CATL/Seplos etc. You have to wait for sea shipping, add $30/kwh if you want to buy it in the US today. From the same suppliers sodium batteries are currently $13…
Sorry what? Currently I'm happy to buy 5 kWh units for €1300.
Claims of 10 euros/kwh, months of energy storage:
https://thenextweb.com/news/startup-sand-battery-funding-pol...
How big a battery can you make when it’s made from sand?
The trick with grid is that because you’re building at scale, you can give the benefits to many in one shot and you can build it out of town. Think Australia’s original big battery from Tesla in 90 days vs. messing with installing lots of little ones in houses, with all the maintenance, education and dangers that brings.