7 ms·

Isn't the price of a KW of solar panels similar to the price of a KW of nuclear power these days? I wonder what hinders us to replace the roofs of all houses w

• jacobp100 2y ago
  Solar is much cheaper than nuclear. Italian new builds need to add solar panels. Nuclear isn’t a bad option too. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket
  • ossobuco 2y ago
    Sure, but given that hypothetical new nuclear plants would become effective in a decade or more from now, and that we already have an energy crisis, one would expect Italy to first ramp up the fastest option (solar).
    • tigroferoce 2y ago
      Italy (and others) could (and should) do both. Only thinking in terms of cost is short vision IMO. What happens if in 20/30 years you need to dramatically ramp up the energy generation (maybe everyone will drive electric, maybe house heating will be electric, maybe someone will come up with a new tech that requires a huge amount of energy, ...) and you already covered most of the roofs? or panels and batteries are at their end of life and you need massive investments just to keep up with the status quo? I woulnd't go in a fight with a fist tied behing my back, and global warming is one of the biggest fights we must face.
      • ossobuco 2y ago
        I didn't say we shouldn't do both, just that since we are already in an energy crisis, ramping up solar very quickly should be a priority, compared to nuclear plants. Nuclear plants will improve the lives of our children, solar will improve our own lives. The problem is that I'm not hearing anything about solar investments from the Italian government. Another great move would be to stop the warmongering and to start buying gas from Russia, while we work on solar and nuclear.
      • dalyons 2y ago
        I agree in spirit, but given the massive cost premium of nuke power and the impossibility of insurance, the only way new nukes are going to get built in the west is via state guarantees /subsidies. That means higher taxes, or forcing citizens to pay much higher power rates for ~50 years. Both will be very unpopular, especially as green power continues to get cheaper and cheaper
  • datadeft 2y ago
    The major point here is that nuclear is controllable energy type while solar is not. So comparing only the price is apples to oranges comparison. Most human energy consumers need energy with a fixed rate and all physical metrics withing a tight margin. To prouduce that with only solar energy is impossible. This means you have to build other energy sources into the grid like gas turbines to be able to control the grid. So if you really want to compare energy prices than you have to look into the TCO. https://www.reddit.com/r/energy/comments/11q58pe/price_trends_of_wind_and_solar_vs_nuclear_over/ https://www.reddit.com/r/energy/comments/11q58pe/price_trend...
    • jacobp100 2y ago
      Solar + batteries is still cheaper than nuclear
      • datadeft 2y ago
        In what timeframe? Solar panels last 20-25 years. Nuclear power plants last for 50+ years and use fraction of the space that solar. It is hard to believe that the TCO is lower. Usually people just looking at the price in the short term and comparing that. Batteries are a whole different can of worms. Super toxic and you need a high volume of those because the energy density is much lower. https://energyeducation.ca/encyclopedia/Energy_density https://energyeducation.ca/encyclopedia/Energy_density
        • wkat4242 2y ago
          Space isn't really an issue. There's many places that are no good for building but are great for solar, like mountainsides. Besides, if the Netherlands can have solar then Italy can too. It's much less densely populated. And nuclear lasts 50+ years with constant maintenance, which is really expensive.
          • troupo 2y ago
            > no good for building but are great for solar, like mountainsides. And what's the cost of building on a mountainside, and how much is maintenance? > Besides, if the Netherlands can have solar then Italy can too How much solar are they building in comparison to other sources? > And nuclear lasts 50+ years with constant maintenance, which is really expensive. Unlike solar panels built on mountainsides which are not suitable for other types of buildings?
• frafra 2y ago
  Price != cost/value. You can produce cheap electricity at noon, which would have little value.
  • jonplackett 2y ago
    Isn’t this a pretty much solved problem though? Just add a battery to your house? Batteries are just going to get better - especially over a 10y time span
    • simion314 2y ago
      >Isn’t this a pretty much solved problem though? Just add a battery to your house? In winter the days are short, the sky can be covered in clouds for an entire week, the solar panels can be covered in snow also. I have solar panels but I do not have a way to export my data to show you the summer vs winter GIANT difference. So people like me with solar need the other people in the area not to all go for solar, then we will need to find a way to burn the excess. Is the same with a country, we can't store the energy from summer for winter and also resist for say 2 weeks of snow and clouds. The EU market might be so in demand that the rich countries will bid for the energy and the poor will have to burn their things to survive. I am wondering if it would happen that with so many solar roofs we will either have to pay for people to use my energy or I will need to actually throw the excess in the ground safely somehow.
      • ben_w 2y ago
        > In winter the days are short, the sky can be covered in clouds for an entire week, the solar panels can be covered in snow also. I have solar panels but I do not have a way to export my data to show you the summer vs winter GIANT difference. Short days, but still enough to make a lot of juice in Italy. Scotland and Scandinavia get issues, but Italy's basically OK for winter: https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=%28sunrise%2C+Rome%2C+21+Dec+2024%29%2C+%28sunset%2C+Rome%2C+21+Dec+2024%29 https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=%28sunrise%2C+Rome%2C+2... And: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S096014812100029X https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S09601... > we can't store the energy from summer for winter and also resist for say 2 weeks of snow and clouds You, personally, can't store 2 weeks of energy (though it's closer than you may expect, 1 person-week of Italian average electrical consumption is ~= 1 EV battery*). But you personally don't have to, transmission to another part of the country (or continent) has a huge impact on how much storage you need. Basically, this problem is known, it's not all that difficult to work around — everything on the scale of "national power supply" is expensive and has pros and cons, PV isn't particularly remarkable in the scale or cost of those pros and cons even with current solutions and assuming no R&D effort can improve the trade-offs, they're just different than the pros and cons of the other options. * https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=%28%28%28300+terawatt-hours+%2F+1+year%29+%2F+population+Italy%29+*+1+week+*+1+person%29+in+kWh https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=%28%28%28300+terawatt-h...
• ossobuco 2y ago
  Probably the fact that we should first admit we have something to learn from China?
  • ReptileMan 2y ago
    China spans couple of timezones, Italy is a boot.
• pfdietz 2y ago
  > Isn't the price of a KW of solar panels similar to the price of a KW of nuclear power these days? Solar panels are down to something like $0.20/W, a factor of 50 cheaper than a nuclear power plant. Solar panels are only a fraction of the cost of a solar installation though. Utility-scale solar is around $1/W, a factor of 10 below nuclear. Adjusting for capacity factor, solar is still several times cheaper than nuclear (and has lower operating cost).
  • patall 2y ago
    And takes weeks to plan and set up. Compared to decades.
• FredrikSE 2y ago
  Well, solar and wind are only usable when it is sunny or windy. The only way to make solar or wind power sustainable is to have ways to store the energy, like hydroplants or hydro pump stations. Right now, they are sabotaging the economy to build sustainable sources.
  • baliex 2y ago
    If you add storage to the network you can store the surplus renewable generation for later dispatch, Europe's largest just went online: https://archive.is/p9qsS https://archive.is/p9qsS
    • Numerlor 2y ago
      To my understanding the use of nuclear would be to reduce the ammount of spread out battery stations that'd have to cover the base load when cloudy / at night. There'd also be less overbuilding of solar as you have to build for winter weather and day length instead of summer if solar is supposed to cover everything
      • pfdietz 2y ago
        Covering winter with renewables would use longer term storage than batteries, for example hydrogen.
    • cinntaile 2y ago
      Their math is a bit off though... 300MW is not enough for 3.1 million households. That's 97W per household for like 2 hours.
• patall 2y ago
  Apples to oranges. But in italy, solar with batteries may already be cheaper. Or geothermal energy. But, hey, they want to do a study and the study will find that out too.
  • amarcheschi 2y ago
    Geothermal energy is already exploited in italy. About 1/3rd of Tuscany energy production happens thanks to geothermal, which is also used for heating purposes [1] There are also new plants in the making [2] Being tuscanian, I visited the museum or geothermal energy in larderello once, the area of larderello is quite uncanny, in some parts the ground is literally fuming steam. There's also a smell of rotten eggs lol https://www.enelgreenpower.com/stories/articles/2024/10/geothermal-energy-tuscany-sustainable-development#:~:text=With%20nearly%206%20billion%20KWh,the%20renewable%20energy%20produced%20there. https://www.enelgreenpower.com/stories/articles/2024/10/geot... https://www.lanazione.it/cronaca/geotermia-patto-regione-enel-la-toscana-b7a538f6 https://www.lanazione.it/cronaca/geotermia-patto-regione-ene...
    • stavros 2y ago
      Are you sure it was Larderello? Are you sure it wasn't... hell?
      • amarcheschi 2y ago
        It definitely resonates a lot, especially since that area has been known for centuries for that type of geothermal activity. I don't know whether Dante visited larderello, but next time I meet a local guide I'll ask them
  • est31 2y ago
    Italy is one of the best countries in the EU to do solar in. https://solargis.com/resources/free-maps-and-gis-data?locality=europe https://solargis.com/resources/free-maps-and-gis-data?locali...
• surgical_fire 2y ago
  It doesn't matter. As far as I am concerned, self sufficiency comes before price concerns. Nuclear is very safe and reliable. By all means, EU countries should keep investing in Solar, Wind, Geotermal, etc. but that should be done alongside Nuclear.
  • willvarfar 2y ago
    > Nuclear is very safe and reliable. How do we stop fukushima-like disasters?
    • stavros 2y ago
      Mainly by not building reactors designed in the 1960s.
      • Ekaros 2y ago
        Better and more modern designs with sensible passive features and so on will solve a lot of the problems compared to these ancient plants.
        • pfdietz 2y ago
          These more modern designs don't solve the primary problem of nuclear, which is cost.
          • mpweiher 2y ago
            That is not really the case. Nuclear power is extremely cost effective, even with the current plants. The individual plants are currently expensive, because they are large and produce huge amounts of power. Since that means you only have a fairly small number of plants, that means the risk is higher than preferable. However, even with existing designs, building a common design multiple times and overlapping the build times brings down risk, build-time and costs tremendously. The German Konvois were built for DM 5.8 billion in less than 6 years, and we were just getting started. China is currently building their version of the passively safe Westinghouse AP-1000, the CAP-1400, in 5 years for $ 3.5 billion.
• ben_w 2y ago
  > Isn't the price of a KW of solar panels similar to the price of a KW of nuclear power these days? Solar with battery backup is about that, globally, on average. But: the averages have sufficiently broad variance that there's places where one wins, and places where the other wins. PV+battery is between 75-140 USD/MWh; whereas new nuclear is, depending on who I ask, any of 81-82, 65, or 141–221 USD/MWh.
  • throwaway48476 2y ago
    There's no reason to believe nuear couldn't benefit from economies of scale.
    • ben_w 2y ago
      Everything seen so far does not suggest it will improve. SMRs might, possibly, change that — we shall have to see. I have nothing against SMRs, but they're novel, and I've seen a lot of novel ideas that seem interesting, go nowhere.
      • throwaway48476 2y ago
        Almost all nuclear plants in the west were built in the 70s and 80s. The number built since is miniscule so of course the costs are going to be huge, they're one off projects.
        • ben_w 2y ago
          True but irrelevant. The construction of new reactors now is unlikely to be in numbers greater than back then. (Unless new ones are SMR, which is why there's now business interest in SMRs. They may well have numbers large enough to cut costs).
          • deleted 2y ago
            [deleted]
          • throwaway48476 2y ago
• wonderwonder 2y ago
  Government can centralize the cost of nuclear. All goes to 1 contractor who builds it. With solar, every house is a different size so each house will have a different cost. Pretty hard political sell to tell your voters you are going to give more to the rich because they have bigger houses. Totally makes sense from a "well they use and pay for more power" perspective but a really hard sell politically. Plus renters get nothing.
  • est31 2y ago
    Indeed rooftop solar is something that rich people benefit from the most: it's a fun gimmick that people who own houses can use to dodge taxes and network fees. The most cost effective solar deployments are larger industrial setups due to the economics of scale. From a national economy point of view, rooftop solar makes less sense. Someone still needs to pay for the network after all, it just gets onto someone else's shoulders.
    • Ekaros 2y ago
      The direction where market must go on that is clear. Higher standing charges for grid connection, more variable market rates. And maybe also more variable transfer rates. Meaning that roof top solar will get less economical as true costs will shift to times when energy is pulled from the grid. Home batteries will shift some of this, but if you want power after they are dark and everyone else want it too it will be expensive.
• bsza 2y ago
  Personally, I will install batteries in my cellar when they no longer spontaneously burst into flames that are impossible to put out. But this shouldn’t even be a requirement as long as you can feed it into the grid.
  • bee_rider 2y ago
    Look into LiFePO4 batteries
  • bmelton 2y ago
    LiCoO2 / NMC aren't the popular chemistries any more. LiFePo4 is a remarkably stable chemistry, with extremely low risks of fire. In the unlikely event that they do catch fire, they are extinguishable with water. Nothing has zero risk, but there are much more stable chemistries available than those that formed this (rational) opinion.
    • bsza 2y ago
      That's reassuring to know, thank you for pointing that out. I didn't get the impression this was already solved since you still keep hearing about battery fires, but hopefully this means that will be a thing of the past soon. I would still skip this step and let it be the power company's problem though, simply because at ~400 USD / kWh they don't seem very cost efficient for off-peak storage (at least in my country).
      • bmelton 2y ago
        To be sure, they're a cost -- but at least in America, LiFePo4 batteries are practically being given away right now -- 100Ah@12V for ~$100 US. I suspect these are the "let's make hay before the tariffs hit" prices, but there are a lot of unpronounceable brands making surprisingly high quality products in the space. As for off-peak storage, these would allow you to replace a Tesla powerwall for ~$600-750 US. I don't know your country, or its peaks (or valleys) but on my sailboat, off-peak is night time or cloudy days, and in sunny climes, 600ah gets me nigh infinite power. Without clear skies, I'm limited to ~4-5 days of normal consumption. (Not trying to nudge you off your position at all, just sort of reflecting/remarking at how practicable this all is at the moment.)
• kevsamuel 2y ago
  Where and when? For how long? Does it include dealing with wastes? Does it include powerlines, maintenance and land? It's not a universal answer.
• himinlomax 2y ago
  What's the price of solar power at night?
  • deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  • rstuart4133 2y ago
    I can give you a real answer: about USD$0.20/kWh. We are off grid, just purchased solar + batteries that will supply all power needs, including running aircon and hot water at night. That's the purchase price, amortised over 10 years assuming our current daily usage. The reality is our anticipated power usage will go up with electric cars and the system is speced to cope, and parts will last over twice the 10 years. I suspect your question was purely retorical. You weren't fishing for an answer is effectively "cheaper than I can buy electricity from the local coal fired utility", but that is the reality. Nuclear costs about twice that. Notice I'm paying retail. If you are going to compare wholesale prices to the $0.20 you typically have to multiply them by 3.
  • adrianN 2y ago
    Batteries cost something like $150/kWh and live for a few thousand cycles, so power from batteries costs a couple of cents more than the power used to charge the batteries.
• pjc50 2y ago
  Never mind the cost, it has taken the UK over a decade from initial decision to not yet completing Hinkley Point C. Nuclear is really slow to build. You can get a solid decade of carbon-free electricity out of solar panels in that time. Panels today. Batteries as available. Nuclear eventually - maybe. (people will respond with "what about SMRs", to which I will ask "what's the shortest time from decision to online that a SMR project has achieved?")
• boringg 2y ago
  Different products -- nuclear provides grid stability, power quality and dedicated baseload power. Rooftop solar provides some residential power but not helpful for the grid at large -- requires upgrades to the local infrastructure and decreases reliability. All manageable but people constantly think of power in terms of how much is $/kwh - there is soo many more important qualities to powering the grid than strictly cost.