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I don't understand. Why is it that in every single discussion about power- and in particular, solar power- is the cost of land omitted ? This is literally the

I don't understand. Why is it that in every single discussion about power- and in particular, solar power- is the cost of land omitted ? This is literally the most important factor to consider as it is a very scare resource in some markets - nevermind that this would be a significant driver of cost for solar, as it requires massive amounts of land (and taxes). This is true for solar, wind, etc be built.

hector_vasquez 1y ago
PV is fairly unique in that land is not required. It can be installed over existing land uses such as rooftops, canals, parking.
Forgeties79 1y ago
Land is also spoiled and occupied for fossil fuel extraction, refinement, and distribution. And at least you can be within the near vicinity of solar panels without experiencing significant health issues, so we need to tabulate the very real public health costs too when comparing. I highly doubt there is a solar equivalent of “Cancer Alley” in the US. Another consideration is that we can slap solar panels on top of existing structures, which you cannot do with fossil fuel at any stage. I don’t doubt that the costs are considerable but if we’re going to go down that path we need to make sure it’s applied across the board here and I imagine the gap is not as bad as you’re implying. I’m going off my gut though so I could be entirely wrong.
- prepend 1y ago
  Land and exploration costs are definitely included in fossil fuel costs. I think most major solar projects include land and infrastructure so only comparing the costs of the panels is like comparing hydro only based on operating the dam, not building it.
  - hvb2 1y ago
    > Land and exploration costs are definitely included in fossil fuel costs. I think most major solar projects include land and infrastructure so only comparing the costs of the panels is like comparing hydro only based on operating the dam, not building it. Fossil the way we're running it now is only priced out based on burning it not dealing with its externalities either.
    - prepend 1y ago
      That’s true, but GP was talking about land and other direct costs, not externalities. Comparing solar cells without other direct costs is not sufficient for decision making.
  - ragequittah 1y ago
    What about the trillions of dollars per year in damages, health costs, etc. due to emissions?
    - Forgeties79 1y ago
      Exactly my point. People always want to be nit picky about solar and wind costs, which I agree we should be, but the same scrutiny hardly gets applied to the fossil fuel industry.
    - prepend 1y ago
      What about them? Include them in cost comparisons. The answer to this problem is more precise and complete comparisons, not fewer.
      - Forgeties79 1y ago
        > Include them in cost comparisons. Our point is that they aren't. Find a single study the fossil fuel industry funds, hell even accepts, that includes the longterm environmental and health costs. They’ll never agree it’s accurate. This ripples out to their proponents. We have a US president touting “clean coal” in 2025. What else is there to say? > Our Nation’s beautiful clean coal resources will be critical to meeting the rise in electricity demand due to the resurgence of domestic manufacturing and the construction of artificial intelligence data processing centers. https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/04/reinvigorating-americas-beautiful-clean-coal-industry-and-amending-executive-order-14241/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/04/rein...
- epistasis 1y ago
  You're very right to bring up how much land is needed for fossil fuel extraction and refinement. Take all that land that's currently used for fossil fuels, and replace its use with solar, and you're replacing pretty much 100% of the world's total energy demand, not just fossil fuel demand. (I need to find that citation again...)
DamonHD 1y ago
Because solar (for example) can often go on rooftops so not needing new land. And solar and wind are often good in remote areas where population is low and land is cheap.
- nonethewiser 1y ago
  That doesnt really seem to answer the question unless you are suggesting solar doesnt have any land costs? I completely understand that in some situations its effectively zero. But in aggregate?
  - DamonHD 1y ago
    If UK golf courses were turned over entirely to solar PV that would more than cover the ~30GW extra called for in the UK's Clean Power 2030 plan, IIRC. I would regard that as a huge improvement in use from areas that are otherwise often fairly sterile from a biodiversity point of view, and only get used by a fraction of the population. What is the 'cost' of those courses, vs PV, vs horrible climate change? But the point remains that very significant PV can be provided on already-in-use land from homes and warehouses to reservoirs and farm land agrivoltaics.
- IG_Semmelweiss 1y ago
  In good faith, rooftops are not the solar that is generally talked about, when we discuss solar as the cheapest form of energy. The solar discussed is massive investments into solar farm production. To your point, sure you can do "remote" - you still have to get a lot of power transmission lines to remote locations, and yes you still have to buy the land. Its not a 0 cost investment. But that's what the accounting looks like when discussing this topic. Its sloppy
  - DamonHD 1y ago
    We generally don't like to put our nukes (or coal plant) in the centre of cities even though that would reduce transmission costs, nor are major hydro resources often close to the areas that power from them goes to. So that is not unique to wind and solar even if sometimes amplified for them. Separate reports in the last couple of days suggest that both Norway and Germany could get ~25% of their total solar power from viable rooftop spaces, IIRC. And indeed one very positive feature of solar is that it IS safe to deploy AT load/demand centres, very much reducing costs and losses in the last 'distribution' mile. Solar also works when there is no grid locally, which is useful from rural UK to Africa. [1] https://www.pv-magazine.com/2025/10/03/rooftop-solar-could-generate-30-twh-of-electricity-in-norway/ https://www.pv-magazine.com/2025/10/03/rooftop-solar-could-g... [2] https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/rooftop-solar-housing-blocks-could-cover-over-quarter-new-capacity-2030-researchers https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/rooftop-solar-housing-b...
hvb2 1y ago
Because land doesn't need to be vacant to develop solar? Residential or industrial rooftops are perfect examples. Heck, sound barriers along freeways etc are now even profitable
- numpad0 1y ago
  Residential rooftops in places like Asian cities are already >50x overcommitted. Land on Earth is a scarce resource. Basically it's only in the US west coast among developed countries has cheap surplus land for some solars.
  - DamonHD 1y ago
    Counter-examples: [1] https://www.pv-magazine.com/2025/10/03/rooftop-solar-could-generate-30-twh-of-electricity-in-norway/ https://www.pv-magazine.com/2025/10/03/rooftop-solar-could-g... [2] https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/rooftop-solar-housing-blocks-could-cover-over-quarter-new-capacity-2030-researchers https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/rooftop-solar-housing-b...
    - numpad0 1y ago
      Go look up US and Norway in the density list[1] before trying to use those countries as the mean average reference standard developed countries. Sort by density and scroll to the top and to bottom. Doing so also explains why EV drivers from basically nowhere else but from those countries appreciate the "full tank every morning" concept. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependencies_by_population_density https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependen...
      - DamonHD 1y ago
        I picked those two because they happened to come up in news items in the last 48h or so and were in my head. The UK also has a huge amount of roof-top PV potential, outside the very dense city cores, plus enough golf course space to cover all our PV needs and some I think. Spain and France and Italy are also doing well with PV and are nowhere near done.
toomuchtodo 1y ago
Because the land cost and amount needed is immaterial. Solar and wind actually contribute to the tax base where it is colocated, tax revenue that would otherwise not be provided (depending on jurisdiction). People overvalue land for some reason, most of the world is not Manhattan or Hong Kong. The US farms 60 million acres for corn and soybean for biofuels alone, for example, and of course that land is much more efficiently used if solar PV is installed for energy. https://elements.visualcapitalist.com/how-much-land-power-us-solar/ https://elements.visualcapitalist.com/how-much-land-power-us... https://www.weforum.org/stories/2021/10/solar-panels-half-the-world-roofs-electricity-research/ https://www.weforum.org/stories/2021/10/solar-panels-half-th... https://thebreakthrough.org/issues/food-agriculture-environment/is-utility-scale-solar-stealing-our-food-think-again https://thebreakthrough.org/issues/food-agriculture-environm... https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/solar/california-first-canal-array-project-nexus https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/solar/california-first-...
- IG_Semmelweiss 1y ago
  None of the links (and I checked) actually attempts to answer my point. its simple *Why is the cost of land ommitted ? * A link to "rooftops" is not an answer when its primary use case is a ROI that doesn't work out unless its measured in decades. Sloppy accounting. My initial answer was literally going to be a Billy Madison quote. Specifically, the reply to Principal Max Anderson to Billy's rambling answer. But that's offensive, so i will just state: you can do better!
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - toomuchtodo 1y ago
    In the US, the lease cost per acre is typically $1k-$5k/acre/year over a 20-25 year lease. Feel free to back that out per kWh based on 1MW of solar per ~5 acres and ~1,460 MWh per year based on the four peak sunlight hours a day per the national average. https://www.agweb.com/news/business/4-500-acre-plus-signing-bonus-what-solar-companies-are-now-offering-farmers-lease-the https://www.agweb.com/news/business/4-500-acre-plus-signing-...
epistasis 1y ago
Edit: your comment has changed a bit, so let me address the new sentence here: > I don't understand. Why is it that in every single discussion about power- and in particular, solar power- is the cost of land omitted ? You are incorrect that land costs are omitted; in fact I don't recall any sort of cost comparison that has ever omitted land costs, whether it's from Lazard or NREL or anywhere else. It's part of the CapEx, or as rent, or however it's modeled. NREL in particular looks at overall costs on completed and built systems. Further, the developers building these things know the land costs very well. Can you point to a discussion or paper where land cost was not included? If it's still an open discussion I'd love to add the high quality solar-is-cheapest studies that all include land costs. And as for this particular study: First, doesn't omit the cost of land. Secondly land is only the most important resource in very very few markets. Razing skyscrapers in Manhattan would be a bad idea. Instead of farming crops or the sun in Manhattan, it's done elsewhere and shipped in.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- pfdietz 1y ago
  In places like West Texas land is maybe 2% of the cost of a utility scale solar field. Even in Europe the cost of the solar equipment installed on land is much greater than the average cost of land.
nonethewiser 1y ago
It's also not clear if they factored in battery costs. They mention lithium battery costs have also decreased in cost but not clear if its included. Batteries are a requirement for consistently delivering solar power. You cant just flip the sun on and off.
- DamonHD 1y ago
  No generator runs 100%. Not so long ago the UK nuke fleet was managing only about 60% caopacity factor. The grid system runs as a whole with generators backing one another up. The last two big load shedding incidents (since the turn of the century, ~500k people had power cut to keep the rest of the grid up) on the GB grid involved thermal generators tripping; the older one was nuke+coal, the newer one gas+wind. And in general we know when the sun is going down a long time in advance so grid operators can plan for it!
  - cesarb 1y ago
    > And in general we know when the sun is going down a long time in advance so grid operators can plan for it! This is even more important for solar eclipses: unlike normal sunrise and sunset which are gradual, the ramp in a solar eclipse is very steep, so the grid operator has to have enough reserve prepared in advance and ready to absorb the sudden decrease (and increase) in solar generation.
bryanlarsen 1y ago
It's been included in every one I've read. You're not going to find it in broad surveys like this one, because it's a survey. They'll average together the cost of hundreds of projects. But when you look at the projects individually that were the sources, land acquisition is part of the capital costs or land lease is part of the operating costs.
ajross 1y ago
What's the cite for solar requiring "massive amounts of land and taxes"? That doesn't square with the back of my envelope but I'd be willing to look at numbers.
dylan604 1y ago
Because the land is already owned for the most part?
floxy 1y ago
Why are we assuming that the cost of land isn't included in their LCoE calculation?
cycomanic 1y ago
Why are you saying land is not included in the cost calculations? I've not read this particular study, but every study looking at the cost of electricity generation I have seen in recent years, essentially looked at investment/returns which obviously includes land use cost. The reason why it's not a big topic, is because it's generally not a big contributor to overall cost, the main drivers being panels and construction. Incidentally, the main power sources where things are not included in the cost are nuclear (typically risk for major accidents is taken on by the government, as no insurance will do it, waste storage cost is often capped as well incalculations) and fossils (health effects of pollution, CO2...).
kragen 1y ago
The cost of land is usually omitted in casual discussions because it's not a significant driver of cost for solar. Quantitative cost breakdowns do include it. See for example https://www.eia.gov/analysis/studies/powerplants/capitalcost/pdf/capital_cost_AEO2020.pdf#page=175 https://www.eia.gov/analysis/studies/powerplants/capitalcost..., where the cost estimate for a US$200 million 150-megawatt-AC solar plant in 02019 (six years ago) included US$133,000 per year in land leasing costs, one fourth the cost of "module cleaning" and one sixth the cost of "preventative maintenance". However, not every single discussion does omit it. For example, we were discussing this yesterday at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45487268 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45487268 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45487197 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45487197, where my calculation was that even in solar-unfavorable places like the northern extreme of Germany, the cost of land barely reaches the same order of magnitude as the cost of the solar modules, even at today's record-low module prices. US$72 million of the US$200 million of the estimate mentioned above was the modules themselves, but today that would be closer to US$15 million. The atom of truth in your confused assertion is that solar farms do take up enormous amounts of land compared to other kinds of power plants. But, at current human energy consumption levels, it's still only a tiny amount of overall land. I'm assuming from your past submission history that you're in the US, because you mostly only post US politics stuff. The US generates about 4200 TWh electric per year, which is 480 gigawatts (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_of_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_of_the_Unit...). Under the 2000kWh/year/kWp conditions prevailing in the Californian Mojave Desert, parts of Arizona, and parts of New Mexico, according to https://solargis.com/resources/free-maps-and-gis-data?locality=usa https://solargis.com/resources/free-maps-and-gis-data?locali..., this would require about 2.1 terawatts (peak) of solar panels. A square meter of 22%-efficient solar panel produces 220 watts, peak, so this is about 9600 square kilometers, a 110-kilometer-diameter circle. (Although, if you don't leave spaces between the panels, you have to make them horizontal so they don't shade each other; in practice people set them further apart to use more land but less panels.) How big is that? It's almost 0.1% of the US, not counting the space between the panels. It's a little over twice the diameter of the VLA radio telescope in western New Mexico, a facility you might remember from the movie Contact. It's slightly larger than White Sands Missile Range (8300km²). It's 15 times the size of Lake Mead, which was created by Hoover Dam to generate electricity. It's about two thirds the size of California's Death Valley National Park (13'793km²). It would take up one eighth of the Navajo Reservation. Almost everywhere in the US has at least half that much sunlight. Suppose you wanted to site the panels near Springport, Michigan, for some reason. You only have 1200 kWh/year/kWp there, so you need 16000km². The panels would cover a ten-county area centered on Jackson County; they would reach Lansing, and might reach from Ann Arbor to Kalamazoo. In real life, it wouldn't be a good idea to put it all in one place like that, both because it's fragile and because it creates higher transmission-line losses; it's better to put the panels closer to where they're used, which implies spreading them apart. So probably 0.2% of every state. In an average-sized state like Iowa (145'746km²) it might be 300km², 20% of the size of an average-sized county like Hamilton County. To power the whole state. But try to keep perspective on the total amount of land we're talking about here: White Sands Missile Range, two thirds of Death Valley, or a small part of the Navajo Reservation to power the whole country.

hector_vasquez 1y ago

PV is fairly unique in that land is not required. It can be installed over existing land uses such as rooftops, canals, parking.

Forgeties79 1y ago

Land is also spoiled and occupied for fossil fuel extraction, refinement, and distribution. And at least you can be within the near vicinity of solar panels without experiencing significant health issues, so we need to tabulate the very real public health costs too when comparing. I highly doubt there is a solar equivalent of “Cancer Alley” in the US. Another consideration is that we can slap solar panels on top of existing structures, which you cannot do with fossil fuel at any stage. I don’t doubt that the costs are considerable but if we’re going to go down that path we need to make sure it’s applied across the board here and I imagine the gap is not as bad as you’re implying. I’m going off my gut though so I could be entirely wrong.

prepend 1y ago
Land and exploration costs are definitely included in fossil fuel costs. I think most major solar projects include land and infrastructure so only comparing the costs of the panels is like comparing hydro only based on operating the dam, not building it.
- hvb2 1y ago
  > Land and exploration costs are definitely included in fossil fuel costs. I think most major solar projects include land and infrastructure so only comparing the costs of the panels is like comparing hydro only based on operating the dam, not building it. Fossil the way we're running it now is only priced out based on burning it not dealing with its externalities either.
  - prepend 1y ago
    That’s true, but GP was talking about land and other direct costs, not externalities. Comparing solar cells without other direct costs is not sufficient for decision making.
- ragequittah 1y ago
  What about the trillions of dollars per year in damages, health costs, etc. due to emissions?
  - Forgeties79 1y ago
    Exactly my point. People always want to be nit picky about solar and wind costs, which I agree we should be, but the same scrutiny hardly gets applied to the fossil fuel industry.
  - prepend 1y ago
    What about them? Include them in cost comparisons. The answer to this problem is more precise and complete comparisons, not fewer.
    - Forgeties79 1y ago
      > Include them in cost comparisons. Our point is that they aren't. Find a single study the fossil fuel industry funds, hell even accepts, that includes the longterm environmental and health costs. They’ll never agree it’s accurate. This ripples out to their proponents. We have a US president touting “clean coal” in 2025. What else is there to say? > Our Nation’s beautiful clean coal resources will be critical to meeting the rise in electricity demand due to the resurgence of domestic manufacturing and the construction of artificial intelligence data processing centers. https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/04/reinvigorating-americas-beautiful-clean-coal-industry-and-amending-executive-order-14241/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/04/rein...
epistasis 1y ago
You're very right to bring up how much land is needed for fossil fuel extraction and refinement. Take all that land that's currently used for fossil fuels, and replace its use with solar, and you're replacing pretty much 100% of the world's total energy demand, not just fossil fuel demand. (I need to find that citation again...)

DamonHD 1y ago

Because solar (for example) can often go on rooftops so not needing new land. And solar and wind are often good in remote areas where population is low and land is cheap.

nonethewiser 1y ago
That doesnt really seem to answer the question unless you are suggesting solar doesnt have any land costs? I completely understand that in some situations its effectively zero. But in aggregate?
- DamonHD 1y ago
  If UK golf courses were turned over entirely to solar PV that would more than cover the ~30GW extra called for in the UK's Clean Power 2030 plan, IIRC. I would regard that as a huge improvement in use from areas that are otherwise often fairly sterile from a biodiversity point of view, and only get used by a fraction of the population. What is the 'cost' of those courses, vs PV, vs horrible climate change? But the point remains that very significant PV can be provided on already-in-use land from homes and warehouses to reservoirs and farm land agrivoltaics.
IG_Semmelweiss 1y ago
In good faith, rooftops are not the solar that is generally talked about, when we discuss solar as the cheapest form of energy. The solar discussed is massive investments into solar farm production. To your point, sure you can do "remote" - you still have to get a lot of power transmission lines to remote locations, and yes you still have to buy the land. Its not a 0 cost investment. But that's what the accounting looks like when discussing this topic. Its sloppy
- DamonHD 1y ago
  We generally don't like to put our nukes (or coal plant) in the centre of cities even though that would reduce transmission costs, nor are major hydro resources often close to the areas that power from them goes to. So that is not unique to wind and solar even if sometimes amplified for them. Separate reports in the last couple of days suggest that both Norway and Germany could get ~25% of their total solar power from viable rooftop spaces, IIRC. And indeed one very positive feature of solar is that it IS safe to deploy AT load/demand centres, very much reducing costs and losses in the last 'distribution' mile. Solar also works when there is no grid locally, which is useful from rural UK to Africa. [1] https://www.pv-magazine.com/2025/10/03/rooftop-solar-could-generate-30-twh-of-electricity-in-norway/ https://www.pv-magazine.com/2025/10/03/rooftop-solar-could-g... [2] https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/rooftop-solar-housing-blocks-could-cover-over-quarter-new-capacity-2030-researchers https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/rooftop-solar-housing-b...

hvb2 1y ago

Because land doesn't need to be vacant to develop solar? Residential or industrial rooftops are perfect examples. Heck, sound barriers along freeways etc are now even profitable

numpad0 1y ago
Residential rooftops in places like Asian cities are already >50x overcommitted. Land on Earth is a scarce resource. Basically it's only in the US west coast among developed countries has cheap surplus land for some solars.
- DamonHD 1y ago
  Counter-examples: [1] https://www.pv-magazine.com/2025/10/03/rooftop-solar-could-generate-30-twh-of-electricity-in-norway/ https://www.pv-magazine.com/2025/10/03/rooftop-solar-could-g... [2] https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/rooftop-solar-housing-blocks-could-cover-over-quarter-new-capacity-2030-researchers https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/rooftop-solar-housing-b...
  - numpad0 1y ago
    Go look up US and Norway in the density list[1] before trying to use those countries as the mean average reference standard developed countries. Sort by density and scroll to the top and to bottom. Doing so also explains why EV drivers from basically nowhere else but from those countries appreciate the "full tank every morning" concept. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependencies_by_population_density https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependen...
    - DamonHD 1y ago
      I picked those two because they happened to come up in news items in the last 48h or so and were in my head. The UK also has a huge amount of roof-top PV potential, outside the very dense city cores, plus enough golf course space to cover all our PV needs and some I think. Spain and France and Italy are also doing well with PV and are nowhere near done.

toomuchtodo 1y ago

Because the land cost and amount needed is immaterial. Solar and wind actually contribute to the tax base where it is colocated, tax revenue that would otherwise not be provided (depending on jurisdiction). People overvalue land for some reason, most of the world is not Manhattan or Hong Kong. The US farms 60 million acres for corn and soybean for biofuels alone, for example, and of course that land is much more efficiently used if solar PV is installed for energy. https://elements.visualcapitalist.com/how-much-land-power-us-solar/ https://elements.visualcapitalist.com/how-much-land-power-us... https://www.weforum.org/stories/2021/10/solar-panels-half-the-world-roofs-electricity-research/ https://www.weforum.org/stories/2021/10/solar-panels-half-th... https://thebreakthrough.org/issues/food-agriculture-environment/is-utility-scale-solar-stealing-our-food-think-again https://thebreakthrough.org/issues/food-agriculture-environm... https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/solar/california-first-canal-array-project-nexus https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/solar/california-first-...

IG_Semmelweiss 1y ago
None of the links (and I checked) actually attempts to answer my point. its simple *Why is the cost of land ommitted ? * A link to "rooftops" is not an answer when its primary use case is a ROI that doesn't work out unless its measured in decades. Sloppy accounting. My initial answer was literally going to be a Billy Madison quote. Specifically, the reply to Principal Max Anderson to Billy's rambling answer. But that's offensive, so i will just state: you can do better!
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- toomuchtodo 1y ago
  In the US, the lease cost per acre is typically $1k-$5k/acre/year over a 20-25 year lease. Feel free to back that out per kWh based on 1MW of solar per ~5 acres and ~1,460 MWh per year based on the four peak sunlight hours a day per the national average. https://www.agweb.com/news/business/4-500-acre-plus-signing-bonus-what-solar-companies-are-now-offering-farmers-lease-the https://www.agweb.com/news/business/4-500-acre-plus-signing-...

epistasis 1y ago

Edit: your comment has changed a bit, so let me address the new sentence here: > I don't understand. Why is it that in every single discussion about power- and in particular, solar power- is the cost of land omitted ? You are incorrect that land costs are omitted; in fact I don't recall any sort of cost comparison that has ever omitted land costs, whether it's from Lazard or NREL or anywhere else. It's part of the CapEx, or as rent, or however it's modeled. NREL in particular looks at overall costs on completed and built systems. Further, the developers building these things know the land costs very well. Can you point to a discussion or paper where land cost was not included? If it's still an open discussion I'd love to add the high quality solar-is-cheapest studies that all include land costs. And as for this particular study: First, doesn't omit the cost of land. Secondly land is only the most important resource in very very few markets. Razing skyscrapers in Manhattan would be a bad idea. Instead of farming crops or the sun in Manhattan, it's done elsewhere and shipped in.

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
pfdietz 1y ago
In places like West Texas land is maybe 2% of the cost of a utility scale solar field. Even in Europe the cost of the solar equipment installed on land is much greater than the average cost of land.

nonethewiser 1y ago

It's also not clear if they factored in battery costs. They mention lithium battery costs have also decreased in cost but not clear if its included. Batteries are a requirement for consistently delivering solar power. You cant just flip the sun on and off.

DamonHD 1y ago
No generator runs 100%. Not so long ago the UK nuke fleet was managing only about 60% caopacity factor. The grid system runs as a whole with generators backing one another up. The last two big load shedding incidents (since the turn of the century, ~500k people had power cut to keep the rest of the grid up) on the GB grid involved thermal generators tripping; the older one was nuke+coal, the newer one gas+wind. And in general we know when the sun is going down a long time in advance so grid operators can plan for it!
- cesarb 1y ago
  > And in general we know when the sun is going down a long time in advance so grid operators can plan for it! This is even more important for solar eclipses: unlike normal sunrise and sunset which are gradual, the ramp in a solar eclipse is very steep, so the grid operator has to have enough reserve prepared in advance and ready to absorb the sudden decrease (and increase) in solar generation.

bryanlarsen 1y ago

It's been included in every one I've read. You're not going to find it in broad surveys like this one, because it's a survey. They'll average together the cost of hundreds of projects. But when you look at the projects individually that were the sources, land acquisition is part of the capital costs or land lease is part of the operating costs.

ajross 1y ago

What's the cite for solar requiring "massive amounts of land and taxes"? That doesn't square with the back of my envelope but I'd be willing to look at numbers.

dylan604 1y ago

Because the land is already owned for the most part?

floxy 1y ago

Why are we assuming that the cost of land isn't included in their LCoE calculation?

cycomanic 1y ago

Why are you saying land is not included in the cost calculations? I've not read this particular study, but every study looking at the cost of electricity generation I have seen in recent years, essentially looked at investment/returns which obviously includes land use cost. The reason why it's not a big topic, is because it's generally not a big contributor to overall cost, the main drivers being panels and construction. Incidentally, the main power sources where things are not included in the cost are nuclear (typically risk for major accidents is taken on by the government, as no insurance will do it, waste storage cost is often capped as well incalculations) and fossils (health effects of pollution, CO2...).

kragen 1y ago

The cost of land is usually omitted in casual discussions because it's not a significant driver of cost for solar. Quantitative cost breakdowns do include it. See for example https://www.eia.gov/analysis/studies/powerplants/capitalcost/pdf/capital_cost_AEO2020.pdf#page=175 https://www.eia.gov/analysis/studies/powerplants/capitalcost..., where the cost estimate for a US$200 million 150-megawatt-AC solar plant in 02019 (six years ago) included US$133,000 per year in land leasing costs, one fourth the cost of "module cleaning" and one sixth the cost of "preventative maintenance". However, not every single discussion does omit it. For example, we were discussing this yesterday at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45487268 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45487268 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45487197 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45487197, where my calculation was that even in solar-unfavorable places like the northern extreme of Germany, the cost of land barely reaches the same order of magnitude as the cost of the solar modules, even at today's record-low module prices. US$72 million of the US$200 million of the estimate mentioned above was the modules themselves, but today that would be closer to US$15 million. The atom of truth in your confused assertion is that solar farms do take up enormous amounts of land compared to other kinds of power plants. But, at current human energy consumption levels, it's still only a tiny amount of overall land. I'm assuming from your past submission history that you're in the US, because you mostly only post US politics stuff. The US generates about 4200 TWh electric per year, which is 480 gigawatts (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_of_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_of_the_Unit...). Under the 2000kWh/year/kWp conditions prevailing in the Californian Mojave Desert, parts of Arizona, and parts of New Mexico, according to https://solargis.com/resources/free-maps-and-gis-data?locality=usa https://solargis.com/resources/free-maps-and-gis-data?locali..., this would require about 2.1 terawatts (peak) of solar panels. A square meter of 22%-efficient solar panel produces 220 watts, peak, so this is about 9600 square kilometers, a 110-kilometer-diameter circle. (Although, if you don't leave spaces between the panels, you have to make them horizontal so they don't shade each other; in practice people set them further apart to use more land but less panels.) How big is that? It's almost 0.1% of the US, not counting the space between the panels. It's a little over twice the diameter of the VLA radio telescope in western New Mexico, a facility you might remember from the movie Contact. It's slightly larger than White Sands Missile Range (8300km²). It's 15 times the size of Lake Mead, which was created by Hoover Dam to generate electricity. It's about two thirds the size of California's Death Valley National Park (13'793km²). It would take up one eighth of the Navajo Reservation. Almost everywhere in the US has at least half that much sunlight. Suppose you wanted to site the panels near Springport, Michigan, for some reason. You only have 1200 kWh/year/kWp there, so you need 16000km². The panels would cover a ten-county area centered on Jackson County; they would reach Lansing, and might reach from Ann Arbor to Kalamazoo. In real life, it wouldn't be a good idea to put it all in one place like that, both because it's fragile and because it creates higher transmission-line losses; it's better to put the panels closer to where they're used, which implies spreading them apart. So probably 0.2% of every state. In an average-sized state like Iowa (145'746km²) it might be 300km², 20% of the size of an average-sized county like Hamilton County. To power the whole state. But try to keep perspective on the total amount of land we're talking about here: White Sands Missile Range, two thirds of Death Valley, or a small part of the Navajo Reservation to power the whole country.