8 ms·

It’s not sustainable. Solar panel producers are going to be in big trouble in 8-10 years I think.

by davedx 2y ago

oezi 2y ago
In the 8 to 10 years panels will be even cheaper. Probably half of today. The price trajectory is still falling.
- GaggiX 2y ago
  >Probably half of today. A 410W solar panel at 29€? I really doubt that honestly. Cheaper than plywood.
  - Retric 2y ago
    Efficiency going up is one way to reduce instillation costs which grid scale solar really cares about. 470W + even cheaper inverters seems likely.
  - DaoVeles 2y ago
    This is not shade on the original comment. But I do find it funny when economists that extrapolate out to infinity. Comely divorced from the real world materials and ecology.
  - oezi 2y ago
    Economies of scale baby. Another 10x more in production another 30% less in price.
    - coldtea 2y ago
      >Economies of scale baby. That's what they said about regular electric grid power too - that it "soon" would be so cheap as to be unmetered. That was half a century ago and it didn't pan out...
      - samatman 2y ago
        The reasons for this are entirely political. Technology, left to its own devices, would have followed the usual maturity curve on fission power, which would be universal, ubiquitous, abundant, and cheap. Solar power has neither the geopolitical problems nor the squishy 'environmentalist' ick factor of fission. There's no reason not to expect another halving or two of PPP dollar per Watt to follow.
  - bufferoverflow 2y ago
    Thin-film solar panels will be much cheaper than that. They will be printed in huge quantities.
Retric 2y ago
I can see why 8-10 years looks like a wall in terms of how much total solar we want. However panels age which costs ~1% of capacity per year even before they need to be replaced, and global electricity demand tends to increase 2+%/year. So the more solar you install the more you need to install every year just to keep providing the same percentage of total electricity. On top of this lower prices mean you it's still worthwhile even if a larger percentage of output gets wasted. Similarly, as storage gets cheaper (inflation adjusted) there's going to be more demand to cheaply charge it thus raising the demand for panels.
DaoVeles 2y ago
This is a controversial hypothesis that is merely from a idiot, being myself. I don't truly believe this but it something I have throught about. Energy costs are THE driving force of prices. The cost of materials is essentially the energy it takes to squire/process/ship them. If energy was free, we would just dig up random patches of dirt and sift it for every material we wanted even in trace amounts. But its not because unfortunately, we are still primarily a fossil fuel economy for many reasons (legacy, price, chemical properties) and their cheap price relative to labour is acting as a subsidie to renewables pricing. So if the availability of fossil fuels deminishes it seemed logical that the price of inputs goes up and so too would renewable manufacturing. We would then see an inverted bell shaped curve on pricing over time. I have long suspected we would see this trend of lowering prices revert around the 2020s. So far I have been pleasantly wrong. But fossil fuels like almost all minerals is fighting an uphill battle on availability and ore quality as we used the best stuff first. The US isnt fracking at the pace it is because they just wanted a laugh. It is due to the primary "conventional" stuff couldnt keep up. But that is a whole different issue. If renewables were offsetting fossil fuel usage, this wouldnt be a problem but it is merely being added on top of it. Thus Jevons paradox in full swing. If we can over come that then this whole idea can be thrown in the recyling bin. When we can make a solar panel with the outputs of a solar panel, then that is the escape velocity moment. And I don't just mean counting the joules and ignoring the energy fungability. I am much more optimistic about this in the last few years but im not sure we are there yet. It is looking reasonable now.
- deadfoxygrandpa 2y ago
  there is a name for this "hypothesis" and other people have worked on the idea. it's called the "energy theory of value"
  - jauntywundrkind 2y ago
    Core belief of Howard Scott's Technocracy Now movement, > At the core of Scott's vision was "an energy theory of value". Since the basic measure common to the production of all goods and services was energy, he reasoned "that the sole scientific foundation for the monetary system was also energy", and that by using an energy metric instead of a monetary metric (energy certificates or 'energy accounting') a more efficient design of society could be made https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technocracy_movement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technocracy_movement If nothing else it's a fascinating lens to view modernity through.
plorkyeran 2y ago
In 2011 solar panel producers were in trouble because China was flooding the market with panels sold below cost, which prompted a new set of tariffs. Those panels were around $1/watt in 2022 dollars. Since then, price per watt has apparently dropped _85%_. It's an industry that's been driving down prices at an absolutely bonkers rate the entire time it's existed, and any time a company falls behind on that they're immediately in very deep trouble. I think it's basically impossible to make predictions about what an industry like that will be in 8-10 years.

It’s not sustainable. Solar panel producers are going to be in big trouble in 8-10 years I think.

by davedx 2y ago

It’s not sustainable. Solar panel producers are going to be in big trouble in 8-10 years I think.

oezi 2y ago

In the 8 to 10 years panels will be even cheaper. Probably half of today. The price trajectory is still falling.

GaggiX 2y ago
>Probably half of today. A 410W solar panel at 29€? I really doubt that honestly. Cheaper than plywood.
- Retric 2y ago
  Efficiency going up is one way to reduce instillation costs which grid scale solar really cares about. 470W + even cheaper inverters seems likely.
- DaoVeles 2y ago
  This is not shade on the original comment. But I do find it funny when economists that extrapolate out to infinity. Comely divorced from the real world materials and ecology.
- oezi 2y ago
  Economies of scale baby. Another 10x more in production another 30% less in price.
  - coldtea 2y ago
    >Economies of scale baby. That's what they said about regular electric grid power too - that it "soon" would be so cheap as to be unmetered. That was half a century ago and it didn't pan out...
    - samatman 2y ago
      The reasons for this are entirely political. Technology, left to its own devices, would have followed the usual maturity curve on fission power, which would be universal, ubiquitous, abundant, and cheap. Solar power has neither the geopolitical problems nor the squishy 'environmentalist' ick factor of fission. There's no reason not to expect another halving or two of PPP dollar per Watt to follow.
- bufferoverflow 2y ago
  Thin-film solar panels will be much cheaper than that. They will be printed in huge quantities.

Retric 2y ago

I can see why 8-10 years looks like a wall in terms of how much total solar we want. However panels age which costs ~1% of capacity per year even before they need to be replaced, and global electricity demand tends to increase 2+%/year. So the more solar you install the more you need to install every year just to keep providing the same percentage of total electricity. On top of this lower prices mean you it's still worthwhile even if a larger percentage of output gets wasted. Similarly, as storage gets cheaper (inflation adjusted) there's going to be more demand to cheaply charge it thus raising the demand for panels.

DaoVeles 2y ago

This is a controversial hypothesis that is merely from a idiot, being myself. I don't truly believe this but it something I have throught about. Energy costs are THE driving force of prices. The cost of materials is essentially the energy it takes to squire/process/ship them. If energy was free, we would just dig up random patches of dirt and sift it for every material we wanted even in trace amounts. But its not because unfortunately, we are still primarily a fossil fuel economy for many reasons (legacy, price, chemical properties) and their cheap price relative to labour is acting as a subsidie to renewables pricing. So if the availability of fossil fuels deminishes it seemed logical that the price of inputs goes up and so too would renewable manufacturing. We would then see an inverted bell shaped curve on pricing over time. I have long suspected we would see this trend of lowering prices revert around the 2020s. So far I have been pleasantly wrong. But fossil fuels like almost all minerals is fighting an uphill battle on availability and ore quality as we used the best stuff first. The US isnt fracking at the pace it is because they just wanted a laugh. It is due to the primary "conventional" stuff couldnt keep up. But that is a whole different issue. If renewables were offsetting fossil fuel usage, this wouldnt be a problem but it is merely being added on top of it. Thus Jevons paradox in full swing. If we can over come that then this whole idea can be thrown in the recyling bin. When we can make a solar panel with the outputs of a solar panel, then that is the escape velocity moment. And I don't just mean counting the joules and ignoring the energy fungability. I am much more optimistic about this in the last few years but im not sure we are there yet. It is looking reasonable now.

deadfoxygrandpa 2y ago
there is a name for this "hypothesis" and other people have worked on the idea. it's called the "energy theory of value"
- jauntywundrkind 2y ago
  Core belief of Howard Scott's Technocracy Now movement, > At the core of Scott's vision was "an energy theory of value". Since the basic measure common to the production of all goods and services was energy, he reasoned "that the sole scientific foundation for the monetary system was also energy", and that by using an energy metric instead of a monetary metric (energy certificates or 'energy accounting') a more efficient design of society could be made https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technocracy_movement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technocracy_movement If nothing else it's a fascinating lens to view modernity through.

plorkyeran 2y ago

In 2011 solar panel producers were in trouble because China was flooding the market with panels sold below cost, which prompted a new set of tariffs. Those panels were around $1/watt in 2022 dollars. Since then, price per watt has apparently dropped _85%_. It's an industry that's been driving down prices at an absolutely bonkers rate the entire time it's existed, and any time a company falls behind on that they're immediately in very deep trouble. I think it's basically impossible to make predictions about what an industry like that will be in 8-10 years.