3 ms·

$4000 a KW does sound expensive for renewables but it doesn't say how much of the $4.7 billion was spent to build 1.2gw so you can't really tell anything.

jillesvangurp 6y ago
You price per KWH, not per KW. This facility is going to stay up and running for a few decades. That's a lot of KWH. 8760 hours per year basically works out to about 45 cents per KWH in the first year. 22.5 cents for for two years. And so on. Of course, it's solar so you need to average it out across night day and cloudy days. But it probably works out to 1-3 cents per KWH over the life time of the facility; just like other recent solar bids.
- gandalfian 6y ago
  KW of solar panels produces roughly 1000kwh a year. So if it cost 4000 dollars for a KW of solar that's about 4 dollars a kWh for only first year or 20c over twenty years very crudely. But as I said it probably didn't cost 4000 dollars a KW as the article gives no details. It would make more sense to think of renewable costs as price per kWh but it's way too complicated and individualized for casual conversation.
  - jillesvangurp 6y ago
    It depends a lot if you are putting these on your roof in Germany or whether you are buying in bulk for some grid setup in Dubai. But 3-4kwh per day per kw of solar panel sounds about right for a lot of places in more Northern regions (i.e. not California). I think that is about right for places like the UK. It's more in the summer and less in the winter and you have to account for cloudy days too. Closer to the equator, it might be closer to 6-7kwh or even better. Places like Dubai or California get a lot of sun throughout the year and a setup like this would have the panels positioned optimally presumably. So, I'd guesstimate at least 3-5 cents per KWH is a reasonable expectation for this setup. Recent bids are actually closing in on 1 cent per kwh. E.g. there was a Portuguese bid for 1.3 dollar cents per kwh last summer. I'm sure that probably has been undercut since then by someone. And Portugal is pretty far North compared to California, most of which would be at the same latitude as Sub Saharan Africa. So, potentially I am low-balling it. Probably in the next few years we will get sub 1 cent bids happening with some regularity. https://cleantechnica.com/2020/08/30/new-record-low-solar-price-bid-1-3%C2%A2-kwh/ https://cleantechnica.com/2020/08/30/new-record-low-solar-pr...
- harg 6y ago
  I think op is pricing correctly (installed capacity rather than energy generated). A typical domestic solar installation in the UK costs around £6000 for a 4kW system, which works out at around £1500 per kW installed capacity. This makes the Apple's schemes seem pretty expensive in comparision, especially as one would expect large schemes to benefit from economies of scale. But, as mentioned, we don't know how much of the fund has directly gone into building renewable energy schemes so it's not a fair comparison.
conradev 6y ago
Utility-scale solar is around $1/W on average, so it does sound a bit expensive: https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/doe-officially-hits-sunshot-1-per-watt-goal-for-utility-scale-solar https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/doe-officially-... I wonder what the mix of projects was

jillesvangurp 6y ago

You price per KWH, not per KW. This facility is going to stay up and running for a few decades. That's a lot of KWH. 8760 hours per year basically works out to about 45 cents per KWH in the first year. 22.5 cents for for two years. And so on. Of course, it's solar so you need to average it out across night day and cloudy days. But it probably works out to 1-3 cents per KWH over the life time of the facility; just like other recent solar bids.

gandalfian 6y ago
KW of solar panels produces roughly 1000kwh a year. So if it cost 4000 dollars for a KW of solar that's about 4 dollars a kWh for only first year or 20c over twenty years very crudely. But as I said it probably didn't cost 4000 dollars a KW as the article gives no details. It would make more sense to think of renewable costs as price per kWh but it's way too complicated and individualized for casual conversation.
- jillesvangurp 6y ago
  It depends a lot if you are putting these on your roof in Germany or whether you are buying in bulk for some grid setup in Dubai. But 3-4kwh per day per kw of solar panel sounds about right for a lot of places in more Northern regions (i.e. not California). I think that is about right for places like the UK. It's more in the summer and less in the winter and you have to account for cloudy days too. Closer to the equator, it might be closer to 6-7kwh or even better. Places like Dubai or California get a lot of sun throughout the year and a setup like this would have the panels positioned optimally presumably. So, I'd guesstimate at least 3-5 cents per KWH is a reasonable expectation for this setup. Recent bids are actually closing in on 1 cent per kwh. E.g. there was a Portuguese bid for 1.3 dollar cents per kwh last summer. I'm sure that probably has been undercut since then by someone. And Portugal is pretty far North compared to California, most of which would be at the same latitude as Sub Saharan Africa. So, potentially I am low-balling it. Probably in the next few years we will get sub 1 cent bids happening with some regularity. https://cleantechnica.com/2020/08/30/new-record-low-solar-price-bid-1-3%C2%A2-kwh/ https://cleantechnica.com/2020/08/30/new-record-low-solar-pr...
harg 6y ago
I think op is pricing correctly (installed capacity rather than energy generated). A typical domestic solar installation in the UK costs around £6000 for a 4kW system, which works out at around £1500 per kW installed capacity. This makes the Apple's schemes seem pretty expensive in comparision, especially as one would expect large schemes to benefit from economies of scale. But, as mentioned, we don't know how much of the fund has directly gone into building renewable energy schemes so it's not a fair comparison.

conradev 6y ago

Utility-scale solar is around $1/W on average, so it does sound a bit expensive: https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/doe-officially-hits-sunshot-1-per-watt-goal-for-utility-scale-solar https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/doe-officially-... I wonder what the mix of projects was