5 ms·

I saw a tweet the other day that said that solar and batteries are growing so cheap that the combination will shortly be a good way to supply night-time power.

by Arnt 2y ago

I saw a tweet the other day that said that solar and batteries are growing so cheap that the combination will shortly be a good way to supply night-time power. I wouldn't have dreamed of it a few years ago.

toomuchtodo 2y ago
This [1] recent FT times piece indicates solar PV coming out of China is down to 10 cents/watt. This [2] other piece indicates LFP cells are down to $53/kwh. [1] https://www.ft.com/content/69e4cb33-3615-4424-996d-5aee9d1afe19 https://www.ft.com/content/69e4cb33-3615-4424-996d-5aee9d1af... | https://archive.today/11TFI https://archive.today/11TFI [2] https://about.bnef.com/electric-vehicle-outlook/ https://about.bnef.com/electric-vehicle-outlook/
- aero-glide2 2y ago
  If it's 10 cents per watt why are prices on Amazon still 6 times that? https://www.amazon.in/WAAREE-TOPCON-575-Bifacial-Performance/dp/B0CYH9FH17/ref=asc_df_B0CYH9FH17/ https://www.amazon.in/WAAREE-TOPCON-575-Bifacial-Performance...
  - toomuchtodo 2y ago
    https://www.alibaba.com/showroom/solar-panels.html https://www.alibaba.com/showroom/solar-panels.html
    - aero-glide2 2y ago
      Interesting, even with the 40% import duties (China to India), local prices still are very high. Im not sure how to explain why no one is using this arbitrage.
      - csomar 2y ago
        Usually the arbitrage is a mirage (though sometimes it's real). Many times there are hidden taxes in the form of government bribery and special red tapes that requires paying the relevant parties. You only find out this stuff when you start doing business as the details are not included in the manual.
  - pjc50 2y ago
    Tariffs? https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/india-may-cut-solar-panel-import-tax-make-up-domestic-shortfall-2023-05-30/ https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/india-may-cut-solar-...
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
  - criddell 2y ago
    Because that's what people are willing to pay.
  - Workaccount2 2y ago
    I have wondered this for years since the price for 200W panels stayed pretty flat for half a decade or more. Around $1/watt. It turns out that these calculations are for utility scale purchases. You need to be buying thousands of panels to realize them. That being said, I have noticed in the last year or so that you can find some pretty good individual panel deals, closer to $0.5/watt.
    - martinald 2y ago
      Just having a look in the UK and you can get 430W panels for £59.95 (excluding VAT, similar to sales tax) in bulk, marginally higher for smaller quantities. At current exchange rates that's $80, so 18c/watt? https://www.solartradesales.co.uk/8-33-solar-430w-full-black-30mm-mono-shingled-cell-solar-panel?cat=9698 https://www.solartradesales.co.uk/8-33-solar-430w-full-black...
- bamboozled 2y ago
  I have a theory. China is leading in solar and making it dirt cheap to undermine the USA and any other resource based economies without actually saying they're doing it. It's a perfect weapon really, make energy so cheap, reliable and efficient that it destroys the petro-dollar. As someone concerned about climate change, it's a wonderful thing but I think the hegemony should watch it and adapt.
  - Arnt 2y ago
    Yours is in the class of theories that presumes that some large group is perfectly organised, communicates perfectly and able to keep that ability secret.
    - dopidopHN 2y ago
      Like a single autocratic government.
      - Arnt 2y ago
        It's an autocratic government that banned hiring Norwegians and then paid me to write open source code, which necessarily isn't an activity you can expect to keep secret. That's how well the government is able to impose its policies on its own branches. Don't expect magic feats from autocratic organisations.
    - bamboozled 2y ago
      Does it really even need to be a secret? I mean technically there is nothing to really cover up except encouraging or incentivizing manufacturing for "green tech". There's nothing even sinister about it. It could be as simple as China just sort of stumbled into this situation and realized what's happening and now they just have to foster and grow their solar and wind industries.
  - innagadadavida 2y ago
    The only hole in this theory is that solar currently doesn’t help with car and automobile usage.
- Tade0 2y ago
  In my region of the world(Eastern Europe) I've seen monocrystalline solar panels in stores for the equivalent $0.25/W, which is crazy considering that electricity here is around $0.20/kWh. I could use only a quarter of the generated energy and still break even on the panels in 5 years.
- conk 2y ago
  Yup, I just bought 60 kWh of LFP batteries. Total with shipping was $3100.
  - proee 2y ago
    Where did you buy from? Also, what is your end application?
  - thebruce87m 2y ago
    That’s insane. That’s the size of a decent EV battery.
  - lukealization 2y ago
    Hi there. Where did you purchase those from?
throwup238 2y ago
That’s already the case at grid scale in more expensive markets like California. We’ve been supplementing night time power generation with batteries for years now. Between 5 and 10pm yesterday, batteries supplied more than twice the power that our nuclear reactors did: https://www.caiso.com/todays-outlook/supply https://www.caiso.com/todays-outlook/supply The grid has become so expensive due to the cost of fire proofing infrastructure that residential installs are a no-brainer if you can find someone to do the install for a reasonable price. DIY is even cheaper.
- toomuchtodo 2y ago
  Additional context: https://www.energy.ca.gov/data-reports/energy-almanac/california-electricity-data/california-energy-storage-system-survey https://www.energy.ca.gov/data-reports/energy-almanac/califo... ("California Energy Storage System Survey Dashboard")
- pstrateman 2y ago
  > The grid has become so expensive due to the cost of fire proofing infrastructure Power in California was incredibly expensive long before any of the money was going towards fire proofing.
  - ChainOfFools 2y ago
    There are some very big outlier exceptions to this however. In a handful of markets (such as the city of Riverside) which are served by a nonprofit municipal power authority with its own generation and distribution, local rates are decoupled from the crises plaguing PGE (and to a lesser extent SDGE, etc). residential power costs are substantially lower for customers in these areas vs their immediate neighbors - out-of-pocket power bills are as little as half or a third of for-profit statewide utilities for the same sustained consumption during peak usage times.
- rasz 2y ago
  > twice the power that our nuclear reactors did Because California forced Nuclear suppliers to throttle down to "make room for renewables", no idea who thought this decision makes any sense.
opwieurposiu 2y ago
At 85°C, you can store around 10kWh of solar energy in an average sized water heater. This cut the power bill for my small house about in half. Fun project, I ended up making a simulator app with fancy graphs and stuff. https://www.pvh2o.com/ https://www.pvh2o.com/

by Arnt 2y ago

toomuchtodo 2y ago

This [1] recent FT times piece indicates solar PV coming out of China is down to 10 cents/watt. This [2] other piece indicates LFP cells are down to $53/kwh. [1] https://www.ft.com/content/69e4cb33-3615-4424-996d-5aee9d1afe19 https://www.ft.com/content/69e4cb33-3615-4424-996d-5aee9d1af... | https://archive.today/11TFI https://archive.today/11TFI [2] https://about.bnef.com/electric-vehicle-outlook/ https://about.bnef.com/electric-vehicle-outlook/

aero-glide2 2y ago
If it's 10 cents per watt why are prices on Amazon still 6 times that? https://www.amazon.in/WAAREE-TOPCON-575-Bifacial-Performance/dp/B0CYH9FH17/ref=asc_df_B0CYH9FH17/ https://www.amazon.in/WAAREE-TOPCON-575-Bifacial-Performance...
- toomuchtodo 2y ago
  https://www.alibaba.com/showroom/solar-panels.html https://www.alibaba.com/showroom/solar-panels.html
  - aero-glide2 2y ago
    Interesting, even with the 40% import duties (China to India), local prices still are very high. Im not sure how to explain why no one is using this arbitrage.
    - csomar 2y ago
      Usually the arbitrage is a mirage (though sometimes it's real). Many times there are hidden taxes in the form of government bribery and special red tapes that requires paying the relevant parties. You only find out this stuff when you start doing business as the details are not included in the manual.
- pjc50 2y ago
  Tariffs? https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/india-may-cut-solar-panel-import-tax-make-up-domestic-shortfall-2023-05-30/ https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/india-may-cut-solar-...
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- criddell 2y ago
  Because that's what people are willing to pay.
- Workaccount2 2y ago
  I have wondered this for years since the price for 200W panels stayed pretty flat for half a decade or more. Around $1/watt. It turns out that these calculations are for utility scale purchases. You need to be buying thousands of panels to realize them. That being said, I have noticed in the last year or so that you can find some pretty good individual panel deals, closer to $0.5/watt.
  - martinald 2y ago
    Just having a look in the UK and you can get 430W panels for £59.95 (excluding VAT, similar to sales tax) in bulk, marginally higher for smaller quantities. At current exchange rates that's $80, so 18c/watt? https://www.solartradesales.co.uk/8-33-solar-430w-full-black-30mm-mono-shingled-cell-solar-panel?cat=9698 https://www.solartradesales.co.uk/8-33-solar-430w-full-black...
bamboozled 2y ago
I have a theory. China is leading in solar and making it dirt cheap to undermine the USA and any other resource based economies without actually saying they're doing it. It's a perfect weapon really, make energy so cheap, reliable and efficient that it destroys the petro-dollar. As someone concerned about climate change, it's a wonderful thing but I think the hegemony should watch it and adapt.
- Arnt 2y ago
  Yours is in the class of theories that presumes that some large group is perfectly organised, communicates perfectly and able to keep that ability secret.
  - dopidopHN 2y ago
    Like a single autocratic government.
    - Arnt 2y ago
      It's an autocratic government that banned hiring Norwegians and then paid me to write open source code, which necessarily isn't an activity you can expect to keep secret. That's how well the government is able to impose its policies on its own branches. Don't expect magic feats from autocratic organisations.
  - bamboozled 2y ago
    Does it really even need to be a secret? I mean technically there is nothing to really cover up except encouraging or incentivizing manufacturing for "green tech". There's nothing even sinister about it. It could be as simple as China just sort of stumbled into this situation and realized what's happening and now they just have to foster and grow their solar and wind industries.
- innagadadavida 2y ago
  The only hole in this theory is that solar currently doesn’t help with car and automobile usage.
Tade0 2y ago
In my region of the world(Eastern Europe) I've seen monocrystalline solar panels in stores for the equivalent $0.25/W, which is crazy considering that electricity here is around $0.20/kWh. I could use only a quarter of the generated energy and still break even on the panels in 5 years.
conk 2y ago
Yup, I just bought 60 kWh of LFP batteries. Total with shipping was $3100.
- proee 2y ago
  Where did you buy from? Also, what is your end application?
- thebruce87m 2y ago
  That’s insane. That’s the size of a decent EV battery.
- lukealization 2y ago
  Hi there. Where did you purchase those from?

throwup238 2y ago

That’s already the case at grid scale in more expensive markets like California. We’ve been supplementing night time power generation with batteries for years now. Between 5 and 10pm yesterday, batteries supplied more than twice the power that our nuclear reactors did: https://www.caiso.com/todays-outlook/supply https://www.caiso.com/todays-outlook/supply The grid has become so expensive due to the cost of fire proofing infrastructure that residential installs are a no-brainer if you can find someone to do the install for a reasonable price. DIY is even cheaper.

toomuchtodo 2y ago
Additional context: https://www.energy.ca.gov/data-reports/energy-almanac/california-electricity-data/california-energy-storage-system-survey https://www.energy.ca.gov/data-reports/energy-almanac/califo... ("California Energy Storage System Survey Dashboard")
pstrateman 2y ago
> The grid has become so expensive due to the cost of fire proofing infrastructure Power in California was incredibly expensive long before any of the money was going towards fire proofing.
- ChainOfFools 2y ago
  There are some very big outlier exceptions to this however. In a handful of markets (such as the city of Riverside) which are served by a nonprofit municipal power authority with its own generation and distribution, local rates are decoupled from the crises plaguing PGE (and to a lesser extent SDGE, etc). residential power costs are substantially lower for customers in these areas vs their immediate neighbors - out-of-pocket power bills are as little as half or a third of for-profit statewide utilities for the same sustained consumption during peak usage times.
rasz 2y ago
> twice the power that our nuclear reactors did Because California forced Nuclear suppliers to throttle down to "make room for renewables", no idea who thought this decision makes any sense.

opwieurposiu 2y ago

At 85°C, you can store around 10kWh of solar energy in an average sized water heater. This cut the power bill for my small house about in half. Fun project, I ended up making a simulator app with fancy graphs and stuff. https://www.pvh2o.com/ https://www.pvh2o.com/