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The amount that cost continues to decrease is almost mind boggling. The manufacturing learning curve is truly providing exponential returns for decades now. Se

by zaroth 6y ago

The amount that cost continues to decrease is almost mind boggling. The manufacturing learning curve is truly providing exponential returns for decades now. Seems like the comparison is unfair (or at least, overly simplistic) unless you include the cost of enough storage to provide supply more in the general shape as the demand curve. Solar is great by providing the most generation during peak hours, and wind is a great compliment in that generation slacks during the day when solar is at its strongest. Combined in theory they can do a decent job covering the demand curve, until you hit a stretch of calm or cloudy days... If you included 24 hours of storage in the LCOE then solar and wind probably stop looking quite so cheap. But if you ignore the biggest innate trade-off then they become the cheapest energy around.

libertine 6y ago
>The amount that cost continues to decrease is almost mind boggling. The manufacturing learning curve is truly providing exponential returns for decades now. The problem is that in some countries - I'll mention mine, Portugal - it does not reflect on the price sold to the consumer. So something isn't adding up, most of public entities (from government to regulators) brag and preach that we're reaching milestones, and claim prices keep decreasing, yet electricity prices keeps increasing/stays the same. Therefore I assume someone is taking the value out of it, because the consumer is definitely not, or make it clear that the costs will only ever reflect on production, because storage/distribution is what sets the prices to consumers, and those are increasing.
- 7952 6y ago
  Renewables are weird in that most of the cost is up front. So a developer goes into debt and then uses an agreed price to pay off that debt over the lifetime of the site. But the marginal cost of the power generated is very low. So effectively the public are paying the developers mortgage, but never get to own the asset they are funding.
gwright 6y ago
> If you included 24 hours of storage in the LCOE then solar and wind probably stop looking quite so cheap. But if you ignore the biggest innate trade-off then they become the cheapest energy around. But this is the basic disconnect in the way that renewables are discussed. You can't ignore the intermittent nature of the renewables, which means you need other power generation on the grid to make up the difference, which means you have to include the costs of the backup or storage system in your analysis. It is easy to make things look cheap if you pretend the expensive parts aren't needed.

by zaroth 6y ago

libertine 6y ago

>The amount that cost continues to decrease is almost mind boggling. The manufacturing learning curve is truly providing exponential returns for decades now. The problem is that in some countries - I'll mention mine, Portugal - it does not reflect on the price sold to the consumer. So something isn't adding up, most of public entities (from government to regulators) brag and preach that we're reaching milestones, and claim prices keep decreasing, yet electricity prices keeps increasing/stays the same. Therefore I assume someone is taking the value out of it, because the consumer is definitely not, or make it clear that the costs will only ever reflect on production, because storage/distribution is what sets the prices to consumers, and those are increasing.

7952 6y ago
Renewables are weird in that most of the cost is up front. So a developer goes into debt and then uses an agreed price to pay off that debt over the lifetime of the site. But the marginal cost of the power generated is very low. So effectively the public are paying the developers mortgage, but never get to own the asset they are funding.

gwright 6y ago

> If you included 24 hours of storage in the LCOE then solar and wind probably stop looking quite so cheap. But if you ignore the biggest innate trade-off then they become the cheapest energy around. But this is the basic disconnect in the way that renewables are discussed. You can't ignore the intermittent nature of the renewables, which means you need other power generation on the grid to make up the difference, which means you have to include the costs of the backup or storage system in your analysis. It is easy to make things look cheap if you pretend the expensive parts aren't needed.