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Renewable Energy Is Suddenly Startlingly Cheap
- mbgerring 5y ago“Suddenly”? This has been an obvious trend for many years. Anyone paying even cursory attention to the cost curve of renewable energy could see this was coming.
- kragen 5y agoLots of people were pretty insistent on not seeing it, though. Here are my notes from 02008: https://dercuano.github.io/notes/solar-economics.html https://dercuano.github.io/notes/solar-economics.html Basically my conclusion (in amidst a lot of embarrassingly arrogant stuff) was that maybe silicon PV was going to get a lot cheaper, because I looked long and hard for any fundamental cost floor within an order of magnitude or so of where we were, and I couldn't find one. But even if silicon PV didn't, there were several plausible alternative technologies that could move in to fill the gap. As it turned out, silicon PV is now about 20 times cheaper than it was then.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- Centigonal 5y agoSorry, this is off-topic, but: it looks like you wrote on average a page or more of personal notes every day for 10 years, and then... put it all up on github? This is extremely fascinating to me. Why? Was it worth the effort?
- kragen 5y agoGithub is just a secondary or tertiary home for Dercuano; it's also on, for example, Zenodo: http://canonical.org/~kragen/dercuano http://canonical.org/~kragen/dercuano
- chrismorgan 5y agoMeta (since it’s your site): 26px is waaaaay too large a font size for body text; I zoomed out to ⅔ before it was comfortable. Even with a comparatively small font like you’re using, I’d say never go past 20px, and I’d suggest 18px as a better upper limit (only to be applied on larger-than-mobile devices, too). Also since I’m writing, I strongly recommend against adjusting letter-spacing except for in all-caps text. (You’ve spaced headings out.) It just makes text uglier and harder to read; the designer did it the way they did for a good reason in almost all cases. But the content I am enjoying!
- lukasb 5y agoDisagree, I loved the larger text.
- kragen 5y agoIf you dislike the CSS, you'll hate the PDF formatting I hacked together in a few days before my deadline: http://canonical.org/~kragen/dercuano http://canonical.org/~kragen/dercuano You're welcome to reskin Dercuano with a different stylesheet that you like better! You might have better taste than I do. I hope I get a chance to see it! I'm glad you're enjoying the content!
- newyankee 5y agoSomething tells me that if solar continues this decline (which is obviously much more difficult now) and achieves another 80% drop in price, it is possibly the biggest solution to most of the world's major problems impacting most of the world population (which lives in tropics). The oligopoly of energy industry by OPEC, Russia and few other countries has possibly impacted geopolitics more than anything else. The fights of today and future might all be about intellectual property on everything new and shiny that is discovered.
- kragen 5y agoI think you're being unrealistically optimistic, despite your extremely dystopian last sentence. People will continue to create suffering through ignorance, delusion, greed, and hatred even in the face of abundant energy—OPEC was founded in 01960, at which point the previous 50 years included the Holocaust, the Holodomor, the Great Leap Forward and the greatest famine in history, the Rape of Nanking, the worldwide rise of Fascism, two World Wars, the Bengal Famine of 01943, de-kulakization, the establishment of GULAG, the Great Depression, the first nuclear war, the destruction of Königsberg, the 01918 flu pandemic, the First Indochina War, the Chinese civil war, the Armenian genocide, the last 18 years of the American Indian boarding schools, the death marches of the Palestinians, the Partition of India, and some other incidents. Energy became immensely cheaper after Watt, and all of the above events happened in the world thus created. Making energy cheaper still won't solve most of the world's major problems impacting most of the world population.
- frosted-flakes 5y agoWhy are you writing years with five digits and a leading zero when the global convention is four digits, or informally, two digits?
- vages 5y agoIt’s a Long Now Foundation thing: in order for us to have a longer perspective on time, we should prefix years with 0
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- sp332 5y agoYes but trending toward something doesn't mean it has happened yet.
- bob29 5y agoThe IEA didn't see it coming https://maartensteinbuch.com/2017/06/12/photovoltaic-growth-reality-versus-projections-of-the-international-energy-agency/ https://maartensteinbuch.com/2017/06/12/photovoltaic-growth-...
- wumpus 5y agoIt's worth clicking on that link -- they've totally screwed up predicting the future 10 years in a row. By a huge margin.
- Animats 5y agoBy 2020, they finally came around to recognizing that solar and wind are really happening. But they still think coal consumption will increase in China.
- ashtonkem 5y ago“We’ve always done it this way” is a hell of a drug.
- perl4ever 5y agoI couldn't read the article, it said I'd reached my free limit. But the reason I remember people saying the trend would plateau is because while the solar cells themselves can get cheaper, they questioned if the installation could. Kind of reminiscent of Amdahl's law. So I'm wondering if that proved not to be the barrier people thought.
- wcarss 5y agoWhat I've heard from some friends in the installation industry is that their work is dominated by large installation projects that will become huge money-makers for the owners in a reasonably short time frame, so it's worth the big up-front cost. The panels are quite expensive and the labour is not cheap, but when you're installing 50-100+ panels on a big box store roof, it seems the economics far more than works out, at current energy price and subsidy levels.
- N1H1L 5y agoNaah. Even HN still thinks nuclear will be here anyday, and it is misguided environmentalists keeping it chained.
- labster 5y agoThat’s not quite true, HN thinks fusion is still 20 years away.
- htrp 5y ago1980 called, said fusion was 20 years away too
- jjoonathan 5y agoNuclear provides 20% of our power today and would have provided 100% of our power today if we hadn't stopped building in the 80s and had merely kept up the pace. Congrats to solar on reaching 3% of our energy mix. I'm genuinely glad that science and industry finally figured out clean energy that met the approval of environmentalists. I don't think the billion or so tons of extra CO2 spent waiting for cheap solar were worth it, but what's done is done and we just have to live with the consequences.
- Jedd 5y ago> Nuclear provides 20% of our power today .. It does? I'm not finding any citations that support that. The largest figure I'm seeing is ~ 10% > ... and would have provided 100% of our power today if we hadn't stopped building in the 80s and had merely kept up the pace. Well if we'd embraced solar + wind + storage systems in the 80's or earlier, we'd be 100% solar / wind by now. Academic counter-factuals are often equal parts fascinating and depressing.
- jsnell 5y agoYou might be defining "our" differently. You're correct worldwide. The GP is probably correct if they're talking of their home country. Only 30 countries in the world have any nuclear powerplants, with a median of about 20%. e.g. US and Russia are at that level.
- addicted 5y agoIt’s yet another example of people really sucking at understanding exponential changes.
- giantg2 5y agoPretty obvious that if you have a very low variable cost to produce a product (electricity), then you can bid the lowest price to the market (so long as the fixed costs are reasonably similar in the long run).
- jbsimpson 5y agoSouth Australia is a fascinating case study of this in action - average prices in the middle of the day are actually negative.
- ajross 5y agoAs battery/storage deployment improves, this will balance out. Imagine a bunch of plugged-in EVs and home batteries ready to charge on demand in the middle of the day, etc...
- rasz 5y agoIn the middle of the day EVs are usually being used, or sit in company parking lot, not plugged into your home solar installation.
- ehnto 5y agoSouth Australia has been trialing that exact idea with smart wall sockets and grid connected devices. One such device is a grid aware hot water heater. If you will need the hot water at night or in the morning it doesn't matter when you heat it initially.
- dheera 5y agoIn California at least, the reality is it's still a luxury for the rich, i.e. landowners, property owners. I currently rent an apartment and a car and neither are clean energy, as much as I'd like them to be. No amount of protest will get my landlord to install solar panels on the roof, considering they won't even fix a smoke detector for 3 weeks; asking property management for an EV charging solution results in no response; EVs also haven't come out with a subscription or cost-effective long term rental model yet.
- Proven 5y agoIf no one wants to pay the costs for you, maybe it's not that cheap? TFA is paywalled so I can't see what kind of nonsense is in it but the subtitle says now it's all up to politicians. Why would it be up to them? It renewable energy is so incredibly cheap, greedy capitalists like Musk would be making billions from it on their own. Are they? No, they need State's help to plunder the unwilling taxpayer to pay for this incredibly good deal. Because you can't coerce your landlord the way Biden can coerce the US taxpayer, you'll have to wait until uncle Joe does the hard work for you.
- tryonenow 5y agoDon't you think it's a little hyperbolic to call the middle class rich?
- dave5104 5y ago> asking property management for an EV charging solution results in no response California has a law requiring your landlord to allow you to install an EV charging station if you want it. It's out of your pocket, and doesn't really seem attractive to me as a renter to "invest" in a space I'm only renting. But if you're a long term renter and really want to make the EV switch, you are allowed to do so. https://www.kts-law.com/electric-vehicle-charging-stations-for-california-landlords/ https://www.kts-law.com/electric-vehicle-charging-stations-f...
- perl4ever 5y agoWhose property is the charging station? I always assumed if I improved my apartment my landlord has an incentive (in theory) to evict me and rent it to someone else for more.
- sesuximo 5y agoGreat! I hope we do make big investments in renewable sources of electricity. But this article glosses over two biggish issues: - we can’t rely on intermittent power source without grid scale batteries (which we don’t cheaply have) - fossil fuel land use is exaggerated since it is double counted (e.g. you might drill for oil on a farmed field) and since it can be cheap, remote land. Solar land use is usually single purpose and near the users (so typically more expensive/useful land).
- scotth 5y agoCan livestock live under solar installations?
- chris1993 5y agoIt seems quite possible if they fix the issue of having panels too close to the ground. https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2020-08-25/parkes-solar-panel-sheep-trial-early-positive-results/12581756 https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2020-08-25/parkes-solar-pa...
- jagger27 5y agoI'm sure some would appreciate the shade. Most "free-range" chickens actually live in big enclosed warehouses so they might appreciate some fresh air under solar panels. Grazing animals probably wouldn't work very well.
- sp332 5y agoNo, growing plants out in the sun is much more efficient than capturing the light with a solar panel and then growing the plants elsewhere.
- nerdponx 5y agoBut growing plants in arid sunny regions requires a lot of irrigation, which might offset the benefits of maximizing solar efficiency.
- jbsimpson 5y agoThis has been clear for a while. The real challenge for grid operators at the moment is system security - we need sufficient storage to ensure that supply and demand are consistently balanced.
- flkweflerh 5y agoOh really? Tell that to all the Californians that have to pay out the ass for their imported electricity.
- betwixthewires 5y agoIn a big fan of solar energy, the idea that I can power my whole life with sunlight is great. But I do wonder, is anyone championing solar as a solution to environmental damage actually taking stock of the impact? With oil and gas, you drill a little hole in the ground. Once it is burned, it is in the air, mostly short lived pollutants, besides carbon dioxide, which can be sequestered and even turned into food by plants. With solar (and the batteries needed to store energy), you've got pit mines, heavy metals in local water, all sorts of toxic byproducts of production, and then the production is dependent on surface area. I do think climate change has sucked all the air out of the room with regard to the environmental movement and not enough is being done to fight all these other negative impacting behaviors, and I wonder if we aren't in at least as bad a boat with solar and batteries.
- satya71 5y agoYou can’t just burn the oil. You have to build the engines, turbines, exhaust. It’s not clear cursorily that mining for making panels and batteries is worse than fossil power.
- perl4ever 5y agoGlobal problems are more of a priority than local problems. Electronics are and will be produced anyway, even if we didn't pursue solar.
- dieortin 5y agoUnless you cut those plants that sequestered CO2 and bury them very deep, the CO2 will eventually be released again. We introduced a ton of extra carbon to the cycle, and taking it out isn’t easy.
- betwixthewires 5y agoWell, it gets sequestered into the process and spends most of it's time as biomass. Keep in mind, every ounce of that carbon was once part of the carbon cycle on earth that was sequestered due to tectonic forces.
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- henearkr 5y agoSo, thanks to cheap renewables, now, instead of a dying planet and an expensive BTC, we'll have a dying planet and a cheap BTC? Or will we be smart enough to chose to what use we put our energy?
- shiftpgdn 5y agoBitcoin is .003% of global energy consumption. Ammonia generation is 20%.
- endisneigh 5y agoThese sort of stats are useless without cost benefit analyses.
- trophycase 5y agoSuppose that 0.00015% of all ammonia production goes to chemical weapons manufacturing. Boom, analysis complete.
- adrianN 5y agoDo you think that making fertilizer that literally feeds the world is comparable to bitcoin?
- henearkr 5y agoYour comment is just whataboutism: You point out other ways to improve our energy consumption to avoid touching to your beloved crypto mining. While it could be both.
- iamgopal 5y agoOk it’s in vicinity of 5 percent and not 20 percent, still quite large, And ammonia used for what ? Fertiliser?
- sien 5y agoFrom : https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/07/ammonia-renewable-fuel-made-sun-air-and-water-could-power-globe-without-carbon https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/07/ammonia-renewable-fu... The emissions add up: Ammonia production consumes about 2% of the world's energy and generates 1% of its CO2. 2% not 20%
- thedogeye 5y agoUnless you count the cost of the fossil fuel infrastructure that you still require for the hours and days when the sun doesn't shine or the wind doesn't blow. Then renewables are extremely expensive.
- stewbrew 5y agoWhen does the wind not blow? Where do you live?
- MeinBlutIstBlau 5y agoI work at a power company and while it can be cheap, in places like the Midwest, it's very unreliable. Solar? On average were budget for getting 10% max power generation out of single sided panels and about 25% for double sided. Wind? Prone to malfunctions and can get wrecked during tornados. But on good days they do well. Aside from that, still very unreliable when you have 5mph winds on a Friday night when energy need is at its highest. Renewables got a long way to go. Storage is barely feasible right now and is the largest reason why it just can't work. This isn't a "Debbie downer" speaking here, these are facts. Green energy cannot support the infrastructure we've created right now. We could revert society to adapt to needing less power, but you're more likely capable of overthrowing the US government than have people be okay with using 30% if their max power usage nowadays.
- bombcar 5y agoGiven that wind and solar are effectively “free” when they’re running I expect we will see energy usage climb to consume the available power.
- adrianN 5y agoYou can generate at least 50% of the electricity with hardly any storage at all, more if you integrate heat and transportation in the network. The world is very far from the levels of renewables were storage is strictly necessary, which is why there is not very much storage being built right now. There is no real need to reduce energy consumption. We have plenty of space to build solar panels and wind turbines. But primary energy consumption will naturally go down a bit when you replace ICEs (30% efficient or so?) with EVs (80% efficient or so?) and oil and gas heaters with heat pumps (2 4 times as efficient). Of course electricity consumption will be way larger.
- xupybd 5y agoAre you sure about that we could get as high as 50% without storage? I was under the impression that storage is the crucial missing piece?
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- justnotworthit 5y agoI'm waiting on a good answer to the end-of-life disposal issue. I've only heard a vague "it's worth it overall", but I'd rather not see the mined minerals be lost.
- wyattpeak 5y agoWhat specifically are you waiting on? It's not hard to find information on the recyclability on PV cells (e.g. [1]). They're eminently recyclable, although they're mostly made of glass which isn't exactly high-value. Particular policy isn't going to be a global discussion, it's going to be jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction, and will likely follow similar lines to all recycling discussion. PV cells aren't made of especially rare minerals, so it's not likely to be a high-priority issue. That's perhaps disappointing, but given that's our default for pretty much all recycling, it's no great reason to worry about one particular technology. [1] https://www.greenmatch.co.uk/blog/2017/10/the-opportunities-of-solar-panel-recycling https://www.greenmatch.co.uk/blog/2017/10/the-opportunities-...
- qqqwerty 5y agoYou might be waiting for a long time. While solar panels are rated for 20-30 years, there is some evidence that they can last much longer. And considering the vast majority of panels in existence today have been manufactured in the last 5 years, it will be quite a while before recycling panels is a major concern.
- anovikov 5y agoRegistration process is broken. Upon entering the email, it sends me a mail link in which leads to the same page, and it again asks to register. Tried that loop twice... Hard to imagine such a big publication's website to be simply broken with no way to register.
- cbmuser 5y agoIt doesn’t matter whether the production of renewable energy is cheap as long as it cannot be produced on demand. A lot of people seem to think that market prices are determined by production costs but that isn’t the case. Market prices are determined by supply and demand and that’s where renewables (except for hydro power) are very bad at. This is why Germany has the highest electricity prices worldwide. Because it has a large share of wind and solar meaning that a large portion of the electricity is not supplied on demand: > https://www.globalpetrolprices.com/electricity_prices/ https://www.globalpetrolprices.com/electricity_prices/ So stating that producing renewable electricity is cheap is rather irrelevant as long as the electricity cannot be produced on demand.
- brainless 5y agoI agree with pricing being dependent on supply and demand. But I do not think Germany is a good example. I love Germany for many reasons and have lived there but pricing is not one of these reasons. Cellular, home Broadband, 4G LTE, Bank fees, that weird radio tax, and just about everything that is run by corporations is expensive compared to many other nations. Are energy prices higher in every country that has more renewable sources than not?
- akvadrako 5y agoThere is a decent correlation. See the 4th image: https://euanmearns.com/the-causes-of-the-differences-between-european-and-us-residential-electricity-rates/ https://euanmearns.com/the-causes-of-the-differences-between...
- brainless 5y agoI think what people fail to see is that renewable is not just solar or just wind or just hydro. It is a mix of these that will get us there. Each has pros and cons and we need prices for the whole group to come down. And they are, at a very sharp rate. Just that it may not be visible in every part of the world. I am very hopeful that our grids will be powered by a mix of renewables that cover most hours in a 24 hour cycle with some mix of energy storage. Also, as individuals, we are buying more of our own generation and storage needs, which I feel is great for reaching to places that the grid has not be able to.
- rswail 5y agoI expect that within 10 years, our (Australia) grids will be entirely renewable with hydro-pump/battery storage for base load. Australia has the highest penetration of household solar (20%) and that is unlikely to slow. Coal generators are already almost a stranded asset and gas plants for FCAS are obsolete.
- rswail 5y agoI just signed up for amberelectric.com.au (no connection other than satisfied customer). Where I live we have a wholesale market that bids every 30m and a retail market that basically provides a fixed kWh price to consumers, with a maximum rate set by the government. Amber provides consumption (and feed-in) at the wholesale rates, with a fixed $15/month fee. The price is mostly at the AUD 0.10 - 0.20 / kWh during the day currently (its winter here) and as of right now (16:00 AEST), it's showing that 40% of the source is renewables (on a cloudy day) The price has peaks at 07:00-09:00 and 17:00-19:00 and the renewables drop when the sun goes down, but on average wind days, it drops to ~20% from 40%. Household solar is booming in Australia, to the point where governments are now rebating battery storage instead of solar panels, because the grid can't handle the inflow during solar peak. It's almost at the point where it would be worthwhile to have a household battery that uses grid energy during the day to charge. In the meantime, our federal government wants to spend AUD660m on an unneeded gas peaker plant that is estimated to only be needed 2% of the time.