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Solar panels are a commodity and they are getting cheaper. That will continue regardless of which political party is in charge. Moving the solar supply chain t

Solar panels are a commodity and they are getting cheaper. That will continue regardless of which political party is in charge. Moving the solar supply chain to be domestic is a massive undertaking. First Solar, one of the stronger US companies, will be at at 50/50 manufacturing in the US versus not: "We inaugurated our new $1.1 billion Alabama facility, which when, fully scaled, adds 3.5 gigawatts of vertically integrated nameplate solar manufacturing capacity. The start of commercial operation at the Alabama facility, along with our under construction Louisiana facility, which remains on track to begin operations in the second half of 2025, keeps us on course to achieve our projection of over 14 gigawatts of annual U.S. nameplate capacity and over 25 gigawatts of global nameplate capacity by 2026." https://www.fool.com/earnings/call-transcripts/2024/10/29/first-solar-fslr-q3-2024-earnings-call-transcript/ https://www.fool.com/earnings/call-transcripts/2024/10/29/fi... You are correct that it will take investment to continue to build factories here instead of Malaysia or India, but the factories will be built regardless.

epistasis 2y ago
My specific fear is that connecting those cheap solar panels to the grid will be the hard part. I have no doubt that they will continue to plummet in price, and than new innovative installation methods will continue to cause installation prices to drop, etc. etc. The technology for a 100% renewable energy system for all of humanity is about 90%-95% there, the biggest impediment is political and not technical now. (Hard-to-decarbonize areas like industry is close but not there yet, and we can do all the other areas while new solutions are found for cement, chemicals, etc.)
- ViewTrick1002 2y ago
  My personal view is that rooftop solar and home batteries are putting a price roof on what people accept their electricity bills to cost. As the solar and storage costs continue to plummet even if you can’t sell electricity to the grid we will increasingly see more and more homes with near zero electricity usage for much of the year. No matter how much you attempt to force fossil fuels down these people throats there’s nothing you can do if people simply don’t pull energy from the grid. Then the expensive facilities sit unused. Offloading these costs on the voters will quickly become politically untenable.
  - epistasis 2y ago
    There's plenty that they can do to block solar for people that don't completely disconnect from the grid. And in some places it's illegal to disconnect from the grid, they can force that too. To block solar, some states are putting high fees on base connections, and low per kWh costs. If the grid-connection fees subsidize the per-kWh generation fees, it breaks the economics of lowering your consumption from the grid with your own generation.

epistasis 2y ago

My specific fear is that connecting those cheap solar panels to the grid will be the hard part. I have no doubt that they will continue to plummet in price, and than new innovative installation methods will continue to cause installation prices to drop, etc. etc. The technology for a 100% renewable energy system for all of humanity is about 90%-95% there, the biggest impediment is political and not technical now. (Hard-to-decarbonize areas like industry is close but not there yet, and we can do all the other areas while new solutions are found for cement, chemicals, etc.)

ViewTrick1002 2y ago
My personal view is that rooftop solar and home batteries are putting a price roof on what people accept their electricity bills to cost. As the solar and storage costs continue to plummet even if you can’t sell electricity to the grid we will increasingly see more and more homes with near zero electricity usage for much of the year. No matter how much you attempt to force fossil fuels down these people throats there’s nothing you can do if people simply don’t pull energy from the grid. Then the expensive facilities sit unused. Offloading these costs on the voters will quickly become politically untenable.
- epistasis 2y ago
  There's plenty that they can do to block solar for people that don't completely disconnect from the grid. And in some places it's illegal to disconnect from the grid, they can force that too. To block solar, some states are putting high fees on base connections, and low per kWh costs. If the grid-connection fees subsidize the per-kWh generation fees, it breaks the economics of lowering your consumption from the grid with your own generation.