9 ms·

Can't believe all the comments so far and no one feels the need to justify their opinion with numbers. Drives me nuts. You are correct, according to National

Can't believe all the comments so far and no one feels the need to justify their opinion with numbers. Drives me nuts. You are correct, according to National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL), rooftop solar is over twice as expensive as utility scale solar[0]. The NREL estimate is helpful in that it details the components of the cost. And, as you would expect, the hardware and labor costs are lower for utility scale because of, well, scale, but the dominating difference is soft costs (land, marketing, profit, overhead, etc). Its worth noting, soft costs for residential solar are significantly lower elsewhere in the developed world (DE, AU) mainly because permitting and marketing are much easier. [0] https://www.nrel.gov/news/program/2018/costs-continue-to-decline-for-residential-and-commercial-photovoltaics-in-2018.html https://www.nrel.gov/news/program/2018/costs-continue-to-dec...

PuffinBlue 7y ago
that report puts a 76,800 square foot foundation (so perhaps triple that for total land usage) at $250,000. Is that anywhere remotely in the realms of reality for an area that might actually get permitted and connected at the other assumptions they've made? It wouldn't be in my country (UK).
- cr0sh 7y ago
  Not sure if it's still the largest, but this plant is a few hours drive away from where I live in Phoenix: https://www.forbes.com/sites/uciliawang/2014/04/29/behold-the-worlds-largest-solar-panel-power-plant-in-arizona/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/uciliawang/2014/04/29/behold-th... That's 2400 acres and it's up and running - so I assume permitted and connected to the grid. But I don't know the the total cost to compare things - I'd assume rather cheap, because Yuma is...not a "destination" (outside of maybe a stopover for the dunes).
- Reason077 7y ago
  UK solar farms generally don’t own the land they’re on, but pay a lease or license fee to the landowners. A UK comparison would be the proposed Cleve Hill Solar Park in Kent, which will also have on-site battery storage. At 350MW it is almost as large as this LA project.
brownbat 7y ago
I'm a big fan of that study. It suggests there may be an opportunity for a company to push rooftop solar for big strip malls and other large footprint single owner buildings - they aren't utility scale, but the install efficiencies make them pretty competitive. The incentives would be tricky, since the owners are less likely to be paying for utilities than the leaseholders...
- qserasera 7y ago
  If a moderate sized location goes out of business would solar panels have decent resale value?
  - hutzlibu 7y ago
    Well, the prizes for new panels are still falling. And the cost of moving them might be too high.. But even used solar panels will be in demand.
  - namibj 7y ago
    Unless you need to demolish, you want to keep them in-place.
    - bartimus 7y ago
      Why would we not want to move them elsewhere?
      - riffraff 7y ago
        They would make the property more valuable when you sell it.
      - pjc50 7y ago
        The panels stay generating even if the shop below has closed. The building remains owned by someone who has a financial interest in keeping them running.
- floatrock 7y ago
harry8 7y ago
Great post, thanks for the numbers link. I've never heard of land being referred to as a "soft cost" before! I'm having trouble making sense of them in terms of the cost differential between something like (say) a coal fired electricity plant (and/or nuclear) including (say) 20 year running costs, vs a solar & battery power plant of equivalent scale including the cost of purchasing the land required to build each. There may be better comparison assumptions, maybe lives of plants are different for example but I think that would be a good place to start looking at a comparison. Is per watt DC the right measure? (Probably it is but I'd like to see the justification, given the use of high voltages at scale - again I'm not the expert to know.) One would assume from there for a power generating utility company the cost of sales, marketing, billing, etc would all be the same regardless of how you generate it. Entirely separate to that one could estimate the additional goodwill available for solar over coal or nuclear in advertising "we're clean, we're green, just look at our stunningly beautiful field of photovoltaics." Which must have /some/ value. I wonder if the sun-chasing required in choosing the location makes getting the power from the plant to the grid more expensive? Numbers would help. I'm also having trouble making sense of the listed "soft cost" numbers for residential. Land is already purchased so cost is zero, use what you generate so sales also zero, zero tax, zero net profit and nobody values the overhead of their time for these things, for which assumptions are critical if you do (but definitely a nice saving on the power bill you pay with /after tax/ dollars) - These assumptions I just listed are obviously wrong in that chart but why??? No explanation for numbers that don't add up when you apply obvious assumptions about what you do know makes us all suspicious, right? They really should fix that so it's obviously right, clear, honest and direct in a field I think we can all agree is marred by a veritable mountain of BS and propaganda. I'm absolutely not saying this is BS, nor am I saying it's wrong or propaganda - just I don't understand the numbers on the chart and /can't/ from what is actually there. That sucks for me trying to understand it but maybe I'm not supposed to understand these numbers because they're designed for someone else who has the necessary context. Is providing that context too hard?
- pjc50 7y ago
  To dig deeper, go to the PDF: https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy19osti/72399.pdf https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy19osti/72399.pdf > Land is already purchased so cost is zero, use what you generate so sales also zero, zero tax, zero net profit and nobody values the overhead of their time for these things Their basis: "We model a 6.2-kW residential rooftop system using 60-cell, multicrystalline, 17.2%-efficient modules from a Tier 1 supplier and a standard flush mount, pitched-roof racking system" So what they've done is effectively get quotes for installing their sample system and then divide by its power output. Sales tax, profit etc are added to the bill the customer pays the installer. Other tables give a more detailed breakdown.
nachteilig 7y ago
Hey, could you please point me at some stats relating to the costs being lower, especially in Germany? Very interesting topic for me and I couldn’t find it in the study. Thanks!

PuffinBlue 7y ago

that report puts a 76,800 square foot foundation (so perhaps triple that for total land usage) at $250,000. Is that anywhere remotely in the realms of reality for an area that might actually get permitted and connected at the other assumptions they've made? It wouldn't be in my country (UK).

cr0sh 7y ago
Not sure if it's still the largest, but this plant is a few hours drive away from where I live in Phoenix: https://www.forbes.com/sites/uciliawang/2014/04/29/behold-the-worlds-largest-solar-panel-power-plant-in-arizona/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/uciliawang/2014/04/29/behold-th... That's 2400 acres and it's up and running - so I assume permitted and connected to the grid. But I don't know the the total cost to compare things - I'd assume rather cheap, because Yuma is...not a "destination" (outside of maybe a stopover for the dunes).
Reason077 7y ago
UK solar farms generally don’t own the land they’re on, but pay a lease or license fee to the landowners. A UK comparison would be the proposed Cleve Hill Solar Park in Kent, which will also have on-site battery storage. At 350MW it is almost as large as this LA project.

brownbat 7y ago

I'm a big fan of that study. It suggests there may be an opportunity for a company to push rooftop solar for big strip malls and other large footprint single owner buildings - they aren't utility scale, but the install efficiencies make them pretty competitive. The incentives would be tricky, since the owners are less likely to be paying for utilities than the leaseholders...

qserasera 7y ago
If a moderate sized location goes out of business would solar panels have decent resale value?
- hutzlibu 7y ago
  Well, the prizes for new panels are still falling. And the cost of moving them might be too high.. But even used solar panels will be in demand.
- namibj 7y ago
  Unless you need to demolish, you want to keep them in-place.
  - bartimus 7y ago
    Why would we not want to move them elsewhere?
    - riffraff 7y ago
      They would make the property more valuable when you sell it.
    - pjc50 7y ago
      The panels stay generating even if the shop below has closed. The building remains owned by someone who has a financial interest in keeping them running.
floatrock 7y ago

harry8 7y ago

Great post, thanks for the numbers link. I've never heard of land being referred to as a "soft cost" before! I'm having trouble making sense of them in terms of the cost differential between something like (say) a coal fired electricity plant (and/or nuclear) including (say) 20 year running costs, vs a solar & battery power plant of equivalent scale including the cost of purchasing the land required to build each. There may be better comparison assumptions, maybe lives of plants are different for example but I think that would be a good place to start looking at a comparison. Is per watt DC the right measure? (Probably it is but I'd like to see the justification, given the use of high voltages at scale - again I'm not the expert to know.) One would assume from there for a power generating utility company the cost of sales, marketing, billing, etc would all be the same regardless of how you generate it. Entirely separate to that one could estimate the additional goodwill available for solar over coal or nuclear in advertising "we're clean, we're green, just look at our stunningly beautiful field of photovoltaics." Which must have /some/ value. I wonder if the sun-chasing required in choosing the location makes getting the power from the plant to the grid more expensive? Numbers would help. I'm also having trouble making sense of the listed "soft cost" numbers for residential. Land is already purchased so cost is zero, use what you generate so sales also zero, zero tax, zero net profit and nobody values the overhead of their time for these things, for which assumptions are critical if you do (but definitely a nice saving on the power bill you pay with /after tax/ dollars) - These assumptions I just listed are obviously wrong in that chart but why??? No explanation for numbers that don't add up when you apply obvious assumptions about what you do know makes us all suspicious, right? They really should fix that so it's obviously right, clear, honest and direct in a field I think we can all agree is marred by a veritable mountain of BS and propaganda. I'm absolutely not saying this is BS, nor am I saying it's wrong or propaganda - just I don't understand the numbers on the chart and /can't/ from what is actually there. That sucks for me trying to understand it but maybe I'm not supposed to understand these numbers because they're designed for someone else who has the necessary context. Is providing that context too hard?

pjc50 7y ago
To dig deeper, go to the PDF: https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy19osti/72399.pdf https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy19osti/72399.pdf > Land is already purchased so cost is zero, use what you generate so sales also zero, zero tax, zero net profit and nobody values the overhead of their time for these things Their basis: "We model a 6.2-kW residential rooftop system using 60-cell, multicrystalline, 17.2%-efficient modules from a Tier 1 supplier and a standard flush mount, pitched-roof racking system" So what they've done is effectively get quotes for installing their sample system and then divide by its power output. Sales tax, profit etc are added to the bill the customer pays the installer. Other tables give a more detailed breakdown.

nachteilig 7y ago

Hey, could you please point me at some stats relating to the costs being lower, especially in Germany? Very interesting topic for me and I couldn’t find it in the study. Thanks!