7 ms·

Google R&D team's goal: Make renewables cheaper than coal "in a few years"

79 points by elbrodeur 15y ago

icefox 15y ago
Getting solar this summer (live in MA which has very nice tax deals) and one of the interesting things I noticed in the process was how much of the cost is the install. Saw one company that is making the install process significantly cheaper which results in a better win overall than if the cost of the cells were dropped by half. Same goes with the idea of transparent cells. Even if they have a very low rating they can go in every window and get installed for "free" when the new windows are installed making the payback much faster.
- brg 15y ago
  Do you have a breakdown of your own costs? Even in percentiles that would be interesting.
  - icefox 15y ago
    Yah I did a full breakdown and worked out all the numbers* to calculate the time period till payback (4-6 years) after which there will be some end large profit from the tail end of the MA SREC's and then small but continuous "profit" from very little to no electric bill (depending on my AC usage). After all the work I did my numbers were very close to the quotes I got. After the immediate state rebase + fed and state tax rebate I am only paying ~3cents/Watt Any particular number you want to know? Say the system costs 24K, MA does a straight rebate to the installer so you would only have to write a check for say 18K, and come next tax year get 6K from the fed and 1K from MA back so the 24K system would cost you ~12K. The SRECS pay that back between 3-7 years and that is guaranteed $300/MW till 2020 so by doing the install this summer I should pay it off around 2018 and have extra income until 2020. Oh and it doesn't count against property tax for 20 or 40 years (forget which). The main reason I am doing the switch is that it is a small investment that is _extremely_ stable with 1) a 100% return with interest in ~6 years on the electricity 2) increasing the value of the house by ~20K (more than post tax check!) and 3) will continue to generate electricity/tax free income for as long as I live in the house potentially the equivalent to the initial cost several times over. Not a bad small investment. * Electric usage est, electric cost growth est (power costs more every year in MA), sun hours (obtained from various government sites) est, SREC payback est, power est, angle of house and roof.
    - brg 15y ago
      Thanks for the detailed response. I'm surprised by how much of the cost is being deferred by subsidies, but maybe that will pay back in terms of spurring innovation.
  - roel_v 15y ago
    2675 kWh system (about 3/4 of the yearly use of a regular family in the Netherlands) costs 6379 euros (9346 USD as of now) + 1498 euros (2194 USD) for installation. The system is sold as 'DIY' though so it should be possible to install it yourself. Where I live there is a 1500 euro subsidy for the installation, putting the payback time (assuming constant energy costs) at around 7 years; with opportunity costs accounted at deposit account rates around 11. I haven't decided yet but I think it's already an OK investment (not great but OK), mostly because of the subsidy; without that it would require significant increases in energy costs over the next couple of years to make it attractive.
tomjen3 15y ago
The problem with this is always that they are "a few years away", or that we can run the entire economy from biofuels "in ten to twenty years". It has been going on for what, 20 years now? It is never going to change until we ignore them until they actually bring about their ideas.
- elbrodeur 15y ago
  It's expensive to make things cheap. Usually when something becomes cheap quickly it's because demand is high and producing that thing is less expensive. In the case of new energy sources, reaching parity with the grid is very difficult: Not only are technologies like coal already operating at scale, they are also subsidized by the government. If there was a strong public demand for renewables grid parity wouldn't be that far off. Unfortunately, we're a little too obsessed with other things at the moment, like politicians posting lewd photos online or which television shows to DVR.
- ebiester 15y ago
  Yes, but in the last 30 years, we've went from prohibitively expensive 4.5% efficency cells in 1954 and $1500/watt in 1955 to a test 500kW installation in 1977 to $9.00 in 2007 to, in an ideal situation, 8.5 cents per KWH today. http://inventors.about.com/od/timelines/a/Photovoltaics.htm http://inventors.about.com/od/timelines/a/Photovoltaics.htm http://greenecon.net/understanding-the-cost-of-solar-energy/energy_economics.html http://greenecon.net/understanding-the-cost-of-solar-energy/... http://www.reddit.com/r/Frugal/comments/hn7jn/while_were_on_the_subject_of_solar_power_i_am_a/c1wqx9g http://www.reddit.com/r/Frugal/comments/hn7jn/while_were_on_... We could start building a 100% solar/nuclear solution in the US today. The technology is there, and it would only be the construction time. Our energy costs would go up, but not significantly. However, if the technology keeps on this curve, unsubsidized solar will be cheaper than coal soon. We aren't doing this today because the power companies know that the curve is coming soon. Why invest prematurely, outside basic research projects?
  - danielharan 15y ago
    Upvoted. Same with Wind. Learning curves are bringing costs down below that of coal and nuclear. Solar is already in plenty of niches - from highway signage to parking kiosks. Every niche helps increase production, which reduces price per unit. This is why I support subsidies - unlike for oil or nuclear, they're actually working to get costs down.
tomelders 15y ago
This stuff is the reason I'll never hate google the way I hate Microsoft. Ok, hate is a strong word, but I just don't like or trust microsoft. I think the world is a worse place because of it. I Think the world is a better place because of google, but there's still a healthy portion of sceptisim that comes with that feeling. The reason I mention this is because right now, it's all about google becoming the next Microsoft, but I don't think that's fair on google.
- InclinedPlane 15y ago
  I think your hatred of MS is misplaced. The world is almost certainly a better place because of them. Maybe not as better a place as possible, but certainly better. The "MS is evil" meme always struck me as an immature response to MS's imperfections, few companies have done as much to put computing power into the hands of people, and that has had an amazing impact on the world. As far as google, they'll lose more and more of the fire from their early days as they get bigger and older, but they still have a fairly strong ethical core for any company their size and I think that will help as they age.
  - lsd5you 15y ago
    I don't think you are giving enough credit to the companies and services that never were (because of Microsoft). Infact an uncharitable reading of what you've written would be that you assume no microsoft means some kind of industry void. It is certainly pretty disputable that computing adoption was in anyway accelerated by the exsistence of Microsoft since they have essentially been rent collecting and pushing up prices for everyone to join in.
    - michaelchisari 15y ago
      the companies and services that never were BeOS. Sweet lord, what BeOS could have been...
      - InclinedPlane 15y ago
Luyt 15y ago
The goal is very noble and I'm all for it, but there is this problem that the sun doesn't always shine and the wind doesn't always blow, and electricity isn't infinitely transportable, nor easily stored.
- yid 15y ago
  Interesting cadence to your comment, but the same could have been said of petroleum infrastructure before we had petroleum infrastructure.
- melling 15y ago
  Somewhere the sun is shining and the wind is blowing. I can guarantee that Google will have at least one data center somewhere will one of these two cases will hold true.
- elbrodeur 15y ago
  There are serious hurdles to decoupling ourselves from coal, but none of them are insurmountable. At least not hypothetically. :) One interesting idea I've heard in regards to storing electricity is using electric cars as batteries. Granted, this would require a massive retooling of our grid and our transportation system -- not to mention the question of where we will find all the resources to make so many batteries -- but it's still interesting. What's troubling to me is all the sensationalism surrounding nuclear, which seems to suffer from lots of near-religious objections. Nuclear is dangerous but even in the worst scenarios (like the Fukushima Daiichi plant) the damage is far less onerous than the continued operation of coal plants.
  - xal 15y ago
    all the batteries that we have ever build combined cannot store 10 minutes of the electricity that we currently use. We need order of magnitude breakthrough with batteries first.
    - rosser 15y ago
      An article posted to HN some time back: http://www.fastcompany.com/1708167/how-to-make-lithium-batteries-last-ten-times-longer-incorporate-a-plant-virus http://www.fastcompany.com/1708167/how-to-make-lithium-batte... Discussion: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1986640 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1986640 Summary: Infusing Li-based batteries with the Tobacco Mosaic virus could boost their storage capacity up to 10x. There's one order of magnitude...
6ren 15y ago
I think Gladwell is wrong. Historically, there have been many cases where researchers have been unaware of relevant work, because it was done in a different field. Search could improve there. If search is the quest for knowledge, then the scope for improvement is unlimited. Sinking to more consumer-oriented search, anticipating what you want before you know you want it is another (creepy) way for search to improve, that Google has specifically talked about.

79 points by elbrodeur 15y ago

Getting solar this summer (live in MA which has very nice tax deals) and one of the interesting things I noticed in the process was how much of the cost is the install. Saw one company that is making the install process significantly cheaper which results in a better win overall than if the cost of the cells were dropped by half. Same goes with the idea of transparent cells. Even if they have a very low rating they can go in every window and get installed for "free" when the new windows are installed making the payback much faster.

brg 15y ago
Do you have a breakdown of your own costs? Even in percentiles that would be interesting.
- icefox 15y ago
  Yah I did a full breakdown and worked out all the numbers* to calculate the time period till payback (4-6 years) after which there will be some end large profit from the tail end of the MA SREC's and then small but continuous "profit" from very little to no electric bill (depending on my AC usage). After all the work I did my numbers were very close to the quotes I got. After the immediate state rebase + fed and state tax rebate I am only paying ~3cents/Watt Any particular number you want to know? Say the system costs 24K, MA does a straight rebate to the installer so you would only have to write a check for say 18K, and come next tax year get 6K from the fed and 1K from MA back so the 24K system would cost you ~12K. The SRECS pay that back between 3-7 years and that is guaranteed $300/MW till 2020 so by doing the install this summer I should pay it off around 2018 and have extra income until 2020. Oh and it doesn't count against property tax for 20 or 40 years (forget which). The main reason I am doing the switch is that it is a small investment that is _extremely_ stable with 1) a 100% return with interest in ~6 years on the electricity 2) increasing the value of the house by ~20K (more than post tax check!) and 3) will continue to generate electricity/tax free income for as long as I live in the house potentially the equivalent to the initial cost several times over. Not a bad small investment. * Electric usage est, electric cost growth est (power costs more every year in MA), sun hours (obtained from various government sites) est, SREC payback est, power est, angle of house and roof.
  - brg 15y ago
    Thanks for the detailed response. I'm surprised by how much of the cost is being deferred by subsidies, but maybe that will pay back in terms of spurring innovation.
- roel_v 15y ago
  2675 kWh system (about 3/4 of the yearly use of a regular family in the Netherlands) costs 6379 euros (9346 USD as of now) + 1498 euros (2194 USD) for installation. The system is sold as 'DIY' though so it should be possible to install it yourself. Where I live there is a 1500 euro subsidy for the installation, putting the payback time (assuming constant energy costs) at around 7 years; with opportunity costs accounted at deposit account rates around 11. I haven't decided yet but I think it's already an OK investment (not great but OK), mostly because of the subsidy; without that it would require significant increases in energy costs over the next couple of years to make it attractive.

tomjen3 15y ago

The problem with this is always that they are "a few years away", or that we can run the entire economy from biofuels "in ten to twenty years". It has been going on for what, 20 years now? It is never going to change until we ignore them until they actually bring about their ideas.

elbrodeur 15y ago
It's expensive to make things cheap. Usually when something becomes cheap quickly it's because demand is high and producing that thing is less expensive. In the case of new energy sources, reaching parity with the grid is very difficult: Not only are technologies like coal already operating at scale, they are also subsidized by the government. If there was a strong public demand for renewables grid parity wouldn't be that far off. Unfortunately, we're a little too obsessed with other things at the moment, like politicians posting lewd photos online or which television shows to DVR.
ebiester 15y ago
Yes, but in the last 30 years, we've went from prohibitively expensive 4.5% efficency cells in 1954 and $1500/watt in 1955 to a test 500kW installation in 1977 to $9.00 in 2007 to, in an ideal situation, 8.5 cents per KWH today. http://inventors.about.com/od/timelines/a/Photovoltaics.htm http://inventors.about.com/od/timelines/a/Photovoltaics.htm http://greenecon.net/understanding-the-cost-of-solar-energy/energy_economics.html http://greenecon.net/understanding-the-cost-of-solar-energy/... http://www.reddit.com/r/Frugal/comments/hn7jn/while_were_on_the_subject_of_solar_power_i_am_a/c1wqx9g http://www.reddit.com/r/Frugal/comments/hn7jn/while_were_on_... We could start building a 100% solar/nuclear solution in the US today. The technology is there, and it would only be the construction time. Our energy costs would go up, but not significantly. However, if the technology keeps on this curve, unsubsidized solar will be cheaper than coal soon. We aren't doing this today because the power companies know that the curve is coming soon. Why invest prematurely, outside basic research projects?
- danielharan 15y ago
  Upvoted. Same with Wind. Learning curves are bringing costs down below that of coal and nuclear. Solar is already in plenty of niches - from highway signage to parking kiosks. Every niche helps increase production, which reduces price per unit. This is why I support subsidies - unlike for oil or nuclear, they're actually working to get costs down.

tomelders 15y ago

This stuff is the reason I'll never hate google the way I hate Microsoft. Ok, hate is a strong word, but I just don't like or trust microsoft. I think the world is a worse place because of it. I Think the world is a better place because of google, but there's still a healthy portion of sceptisim that comes with that feeling. The reason I mention this is because right now, it's all about google becoming the next Microsoft, but I don't think that's fair on google.

InclinedPlane 15y ago
I think your hatred of MS is misplaced. The world is almost certainly a better place because of them. Maybe not as better a place as possible, but certainly better. The "MS is evil" meme always struck me as an immature response to MS's imperfections, few companies have done as much to put computing power into the hands of people, and that has had an amazing impact on the world. As far as google, they'll lose more and more of the fire from their early days as they get bigger and older, but they still have a fairly strong ethical core for any company their size and I think that will help as they age.
- lsd5you 15y ago
  I don't think you are giving enough credit to the companies and services that never were (because of Microsoft). Infact an uncharitable reading of what you've written would be that you assume no microsoft means some kind of industry void. It is certainly pretty disputable that computing adoption was in anyway accelerated by the exsistence of Microsoft since they have essentially been rent collecting and pushing up prices for everyone to join in.
  - michaelchisari 15y ago
    the companies and services that never were BeOS. Sweet lord, what BeOS could have been...
    - InclinedPlane 15y ago

Luyt 15y ago

The goal is very noble and I'm all for it, but there is this problem that the sun doesn't always shine and the wind doesn't always blow, and electricity isn't infinitely transportable, nor easily stored.

yid 15y ago
Interesting cadence to your comment, but the same could have been said of petroleum infrastructure before we had petroleum infrastructure.
melling 15y ago
Somewhere the sun is shining and the wind is blowing. I can guarantee that Google will have at least one data center somewhere will one of these two cases will hold true.
elbrodeur 15y ago
There are serious hurdles to decoupling ourselves from coal, but none of them are insurmountable. At least not hypothetically. :) One interesting idea I've heard in regards to storing electricity is using electric cars as batteries. Granted, this would require a massive retooling of our grid and our transportation system -- not to mention the question of where we will find all the resources to make so many batteries -- but it's still interesting. What's troubling to me is all the sensationalism surrounding nuclear, which seems to suffer from lots of near-religious objections. Nuclear is dangerous but even in the worst scenarios (like the Fukushima Daiichi plant) the damage is far less onerous than the continued operation of coal plants.
- xal 15y ago
  all the batteries that we have ever build combined cannot store 10 minutes of the electricity that we currently use. We need order of magnitude breakthrough with batteries first.
  - rosser 15y ago
    An article posted to HN some time back: http://www.fastcompany.com/1708167/how-to-make-lithium-batteries-last-ten-times-longer-incorporate-a-plant-virus http://www.fastcompany.com/1708167/how-to-make-lithium-batte... Discussion: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1986640 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1986640 Summary: Infusing Li-based batteries with the Tobacco Mosaic virus could boost their storage capacity up to 10x. There's one order of magnitude...

6ren 15y ago

I think Gladwell is wrong. Historically, there have been many cases where researchers have been unaware of relevant work, because it was done in a different field. Search could improve there. If search is the quest for knowledge, then the scope for improvement is unlimited. Sinking to more consumer-oriented search, anticipating what you want before you know you want it is another (creepy) way for search to improve, that Google has specifically talked about.