4 ms·

The interesting thing with projections like this is that the further out they are, the less likely they are to factor in ongoing changes in the market. 2028 is

The interesting thing with projections like this is that the further out they are, the less likely they are to factor in ongoing changes in the market. 2028 is close enough that this is probably ballpark right. But I would not be surprised if this is still off by a couple of tens of percents. A lot of this stuff is cost driven. The reason solar keeps out pacing projections historically is that this cost keeps going down. As it does, demand keeps going up and manufacturers step up to fill that demand. Current projections are based on current levels of cost and investment. Some of these projections maybe take a little bit of learning effects into account but it's hard to speculate on this and model it correctly. Right now it's worthwhile to put solar on your roof but it's a big investment, a lot of hassle, and only attractive with subsidies and tax incentives. True for home owners and companies. The vast majority don't yet have solar on their roofs. What happens if the price drops by 10x? That won't happen overnight obviously. But if you look a the research in this area, a 10x cost reduction is long term not unreasonable to expect. And it might happen a lot sooner than some people seem to expect. For example, there are already organic processes that don't involve things like expensive ovens, precisely machined silicon wafers, etc. Those are things that make production really expensive. A 10x price drop makes solar an absolute no-brainer. You'd have to incentivize people to not buy solar to prevent them from wanting that on their roofs and any other surface you can think of. And that's just solar. As people will no doubt bring this up, we need lots of storage as well. And the good news there is that there are a lot of battery chemistries and other storage technologies either already proven and in production (e.g. sodium ion) or otherwise extremely likely to result in 10x cost reductions. We're heading for a future where energy is going to be dirt cheap, clean, and plentiful. IMHO this is going to transition us slowly to post scarcity society. A lot of stuff is bottle necked on energy.

apienx 3y ago
> But I would not be surprised if this is still off by a couple of tens of percents. They're predicting a 200% increase in 5 years. Being only a couple of tens of percents off would be quite remarkable IMHO.
pyrale 3y ago
> We're heading for a future where energy is going to be dirt cheap, clean, and plentiful. You're confusing an s-curve with a hockey stick curve here. It's understandable as long as you're in the first half of the curve, but there is always an inflection at some point.
- Gwypaas 3y ago
  New built renewables cost the same as the operations and maintenance of existing fossil and nuclear power generation. The world will become an interesting place when renewables start being paid off since their marginal cost is pretty much zero.
- jillesvangurp 3y ago
  I don't think I'm confused. I'm merely extrapolating current trends. Are you hoping it's an s-curve or asserting it is?
  - AnimalMuppet 3y ago
    It's always an s-curve eventually. The question is, how far off is the point where it quits being exponential? If it's far enough off, "it's an s-curve eventually" doesn't matter - or at least doesn't matter now.
  - pyrale 3y ago
    It's an assertion. With power becoming cheaper and cheaper, incentive to invest in innovation gradually tapers off, and a technology becomes stable and mature. Another aspect within the power industry, as renewable production becomes less and less of a bottleneck and other problems such as grid management and storage become the key challenge to being able to enjoy stable power, investment will be redirected to these aspects of providing electricity. In Europe, we see countries reaching half their production in renewables, and already this creates challenges on the current electricity market structure. 10 years from now, at the current pace, pioneering countries will be past the point where production is the problem they need to solve. Countries coming after them will still drive some innovation, sure. We may also see faster-than-expected electrification. So in this horizon, hockeystick predictions might still hold. But the combination of these mechanism basically defeats the prospect of power becoming "too cheap to meter", or dirt-cheap.
danmaz74 3y ago
AFAIK the cost of a new solar installation is already dominated by installation, inverter, and other expenses that don't follow the reduction in cost of solar cells.
- bryanlarsen 3y ago
  The cost of a home solar installation is dominated by regulatory costs in the US -- you can put solar on your roof in Australia for about a third of the price in the US. Industrial solar plants will follow that cost curve a lot better than roof installations. As an example, panels are cheap enough that it's now cheaper to use more panels and less mounting hardware and just lay them flat on the ground: https://electrek.co/2022/12/12/texas-solar-farm-flat-on-the-ground/ https://electrek.co/2022/12/12/texas-solar-farm-flat-on-the-...
  - jillesvangurp 3y ago
    Panel cost is still pretty significant though. It's not cheap There are also solutions for people with balconies or small apartments that are very easy to install and use that don't require any specialized services because they don't mess with your existing infrastructure. Just hang some panels from your balcony, plug them into some standalone battery and plug whatever you want powered into that. There's room for quite a bit of innovation in this space.
pjc50 3y ago
10x drop in panels is concievable, although by that point the transportation cost starts to dominate. But the balance-of-system costs (permitting, working on roof, inverter) are harder to make big dents in.
Someone 3y ago
> What happens if the price drops by 10x? That won't happen overnight obviously. That won’t happen at all, at least not in the foreseeable future. https://www.forbes.com/home-improvement/solar/cost-of-solar-panels/ https://www.forbes.com/home-improvement/solar/cost-of-solar-...: “The average cost to install solar panels per watt is between $0.90 and $1.50 per watt for the materials and an additional 25% for the labor. This means you’ll spend anywhere between $1.10 and $1.90 per watt in total.“, so even if all hardware became free, we’re ‘only’ looking at a price drop of 80%. Because a lot of the hardware cost isn’t the solar cells proper, I think predicting a price drop of 50% already is fairly optimistic. > We're heading for a future where energy is going to be dirt cheap, clean, and plentiful. That, I think is true.
- ben_w 3y ago
  > Because a lot of the hardware cost isn’t the solar cells proper, I think predicting a price drop of 50% already is fairly optimistic. Perhaps optimistic, perhaps pessimistic. Things can change on a dime if the politicians can make a campaign pledge along the lines of: "I went to Europe the other day. Know what I saw in the budget supermarket? Solar. Complete system people can put on their apartment balconies for about a dollar per watt. Standard unit costs about the same as a family's weekly shop, and then they get free energy for the next 25 years." (The 150W balcony units Lidl sell for €219 are in the middle of your price range; this is just to demonstrate that it's possible to cut out the middle-man).
- bryanlarsen 3y ago
  Home roof installations are going to be a rounding error compared to industrial solar installations, and the price of those will follow the price drop of panels a lot more closely.

apienx 3y ago

> But I would not be surprised if this is still off by a couple of tens of percents. They're predicting a 200% increase in 5 years. Being only a couple of tens of percents off would be quite remarkable IMHO.

pyrale 3y ago

> We're heading for a future where energy is going to be dirt cheap, clean, and plentiful. You're confusing an s-curve with a hockey stick curve here. It's understandable as long as you're in the first half of the curve, but there is always an inflection at some point.

Gwypaas 3y ago
New built renewables cost the same as the operations and maintenance of existing fossil and nuclear power generation. The world will become an interesting place when renewables start being paid off since their marginal cost is pretty much zero.
jillesvangurp 3y ago
I don't think I'm confused. I'm merely extrapolating current trends. Are you hoping it's an s-curve or asserting it is?
- AnimalMuppet 3y ago
  It's always an s-curve eventually. The question is, how far off is the point where it quits being exponential? If it's far enough off, "it's an s-curve eventually" doesn't matter - or at least doesn't matter now.
- pyrale 3y ago
  It's an assertion. With power becoming cheaper and cheaper, incentive to invest in innovation gradually tapers off, and a technology becomes stable and mature. Another aspect within the power industry, as renewable production becomes less and less of a bottleneck and other problems such as grid management and storage become the key challenge to being able to enjoy stable power, investment will be redirected to these aspects of providing electricity. In Europe, we see countries reaching half their production in renewables, and already this creates challenges on the current electricity market structure. 10 years from now, at the current pace, pioneering countries will be past the point where production is the problem they need to solve. Countries coming after them will still drive some innovation, sure. We may also see faster-than-expected electrification. So in this horizon, hockeystick predictions might still hold. But the combination of these mechanism basically defeats the prospect of power becoming "too cheap to meter", or dirt-cheap.

danmaz74 3y ago

AFAIK the cost of a new solar installation is already dominated by installation, inverter, and other expenses that don't follow the reduction in cost of solar cells.

bryanlarsen 3y ago
The cost of a home solar installation is dominated by regulatory costs in the US -- you can put solar on your roof in Australia for about a third of the price in the US. Industrial solar plants will follow that cost curve a lot better than roof installations. As an example, panels are cheap enough that it's now cheaper to use more panels and less mounting hardware and just lay them flat on the ground: https://electrek.co/2022/12/12/texas-solar-farm-flat-on-the-ground/ https://electrek.co/2022/12/12/texas-solar-farm-flat-on-the-...
- jillesvangurp 3y ago
  Panel cost is still pretty significant though. It's not cheap There are also solutions for people with balconies or small apartments that are very easy to install and use that don't require any specialized services because they don't mess with your existing infrastructure. Just hang some panels from your balcony, plug them into some standalone battery and plug whatever you want powered into that. There's room for quite a bit of innovation in this space.

pjc50 3y ago

10x drop in panels is concievable, although by that point the transportation cost starts to dominate. But the balance-of-system costs (permitting, working on roof, inverter) are harder to make big dents in.

Someone 3y ago

> What happens if the price drops by 10x? That won't happen overnight obviously. That won’t happen at all, at least not in the foreseeable future. https://www.forbes.com/home-improvement/solar/cost-of-solar-panels/ https://www.forbes.com/home-improvement/solar/cost-of-solar-...: “The average cost to install solar panels per watt is between $0.90 and $1.50 per watt for the materials and an additional 25% for the labor. This means you’ll spend anywhere between $1.10 and $1.90 per watt in total.“, so even if all hardware became free, we’re ‘only’ looking at a price drop of 80%. Because a lot of the hardware cost isn’t the solar cells proper, I think predicting a price drop of 50% already is fairly optimistic. > We're heading for a future where energy is going to be dirt cheap, clean, and plentiful. That, I think is true.

ben_w 3y ago
> Because a lot of the hardware cost isn’t the solar cells proper, I think predicting a price drop of 50% already is fairly optimistic. Perhaps optimistic, perhaps pessimistic. Things can change on a dime if the politicians can make a campaign pledge along the lines of: "I went to Europe the other day. Know what I saw in the budget supermarket? Solar. Complete system people can put on their apartment balconies for about a dollar per watt. Standard unit costs about the same as a family's weekly shop, and then they get free energy for the next 25 years." (The 150W balcony units Lidl sell for €219 are in the middle of your price range; this is just to demonstrate that it's possible to cut out the middle-man).
bryanlarsen 3y ago
Home roof installations are going to be a rounding error compared to industrial solar installations, and the price of those will follow the price drop of panels a lot more closely.