6 ms·

It should be noted that those low costs for solar installations are not including consumer rooftop solar. The consumer rooftop solar cost is usually one of the

• iknowstuff 1y ago
  Totally. Grid solar and grid battery installations are gonna rock the world but rooftop solar is too bespoke and labor intensive. It goes directly against the benefit of solar’s mass manufacturing
• devjab 1y ago
  This is true. A lot of the older panels are also rather inefficient and come with a rather poor lifespan. It's part of the reason I don't personally have any form of solar despite working in the industry. Technology is catching up on the solar panel front though. French Heliup are producing panels which are only 5kg per square meter. Which makes them significantly easier to install on roof-tops. I imagine I'll eventually have solar panels on my roof, but I'll likely wait another decade for battery tech to also be more viable.
  • SoftTalker 1y ago
    I would have to cut down so many trees around my house to get effective sunlight on the roof more than a few hours a day. Plus my roof is pitched east/west so at best I have half the roof in sunlight for half the day. I do have quite a bit of clear space behind the house, so I could consider a system that sits on the ground. I just like paying the utility every month and not having to worry about owning, maintaining, and repairing my own infrastructure though. As it is now, if anything goes wrong upstream of the meter, that's not my responsibility.
  • colechristensen 1y ago
    Why don't you do a small installation where your generation does not exceed your usage so storage considerations are moot?
    • jgilias 1y ago
      Because you mostly end up generating when you don’t need the power, and need the power when you’re not generating. If the way things are structured in your country let you draw the same amount of kWh that you’ve put into the network, that works. Where I live they recently changed to buying the solar at market prices. When the sun is up during sunny months that’s zero or close to that. So you pretty much need the battery installation too. My neighbour got a solar + battery installation, and it works well enough!
      • colechristensen 1y ago
        by >a small installation where your generation does not exceed your usage I meant explicitly a small system where the moment to moment generation generally did not exceed moment to moment usage. >the way things are structured in your country In the US things are structured per utility which varies widely by state, city, or even neighborhood and they have many different kinds of rules.
    • devjab 1y ago
      Mainly that I've yet to follow through on my 5+ year old plan on building a small greenhouse and using solar for water pumping. For most use cases it's a fairly bad "business case" compared to simply buying the power you need. If anything, you would probably be better off setting up a storage sollution to buy power when it's cheap, and then using it when power is expensive, compared to actually setting up power generation yourself. If I had a good area for them which wasn't some form of rooftop I might have. Rooftop installations are very expensive in Denmark because they are too heavy to be installed without building a lot of support. Even my carport would basically need to be an entirely different structure with a custom foundation to support a roof of solar panels. Which you can absolutely do, but it would be decades before it was worth it.
• ZeroGravitas 1y ago
  Australian rooftop solar is the cheapest consumer energy in history. This is despite the hardware and salaries being roughly equal to the US where the cost is about 3 times more. So it's not wise to extrapolate from US prices. And in general, you should check your electricity bill to see how much is actually for generation vs transmission.
• nicoburns 1y ago
  > Also, in almost all cases, the home installation doesn’t have enough battery power to actually last through inclement weather That's true today, but I bet it won't be in 5 years time. Around this year or last year batteries have hit a price point where they make financial sense for ordinary people, and in a couple of years you'd be mad not to have them if you have rooftop (and somewhere to put the batteries of course). > Any subsidies for solar power should go to utility grade solar. At this point, it should probably go towards storage, grid capacity, or things like EV charging infrastructure. Solar generation doesn't need it. > The consumer rooftop solar cost is usually one of the most expensive ways you can generate electricity This may well be true, but there are positive externalities: - It has reduced land use compared to other energy generation methods - Power is produced near the point of use, reducing transmission requirements - Most of the cost is labour for installation which creates jobs Given that rooftop solar usually pays for itself despite being less cost-efficient that other forms of solar, I see no reason to discourage it.
  • matthewdgreen 1y ago
    All new construction should have it, at least. The cost differential for building a new home's roof and outfitting that roof with solar just isn't high enough to justify doing it differently. Plus it improves cooling/heating costs and protects the roofing materials from direct sunlight.
    • opo 1y ago
      >All new construction should have it, at least. Yea, I have never actually seen any estimates of the cost when adding panels to new construction, but it sure seems like a reasonable idea.
  • opo 1y ago
    >...Around this year or last year batteries have hit a price point where they make financial sense for ordinary people, The LCOE of battery systems for residential systems is still incredibly high according to the Lazard report - an unsubsidized cost maybe 3 - 10 times more expensive than grid batteries. >...Given that rooftop solar usually pays for itself despite being less cost-efficient that other forms of solar, If that is the case, then less well off rate payers shouldn't have to subsidize their wealthier neighbors. If it does require subsidies, then that money should go to where it will do the most good in decarbonizing the grid - not as a giveaway to wealthier home owners. >I see no reason to discourage it. Who said anything about discouraging it? I certainly wouldn't want to discourage it.
• epistasis 1y ago
  The high cost of rooftop solar in the US is mostly a regulatory choice. From tariffs driving up prices significantly, to completely scattered permitting processes city-to-city, to wild swings in utility policies that make solar a good-to-bad decision overnight, it all drives costs up. So the only solar installers who survive are those who are able to swoop in when the utility policies change and can drive customer acquisition super quickly ($$$), and have massive permitting office experience that lets them deploy. That all costs a lot of money and drives out competition from the space. So we pay something like 3x-5x for residential solar in the US versus Australia. Because we choose to as a society. Also, I heartily disagree that utility scale solar is obviously cheaper. Transmission and distribution costs are the biggest cost on the grid, and utility scale solar needs to pay for that whereas residential solar drives down T&D costs. We definitely need a lot of utility scale solar, but if we want cheaper electricity we need to incentivize tons of residential solar so that we can keep our grid costs lower.
  • ericd 1y ago
    Well, very few in the US realize that residential solar in the US is 3x the price it is in Australia, let alone that a lot of it caused by regulatory structures, so it’s hard to say it’s a conscious choice we’ve made… But yeah, would be great if we could do something about it. There are some baby steps - Maryland passed a law last year to force adoption of uniform permitting process via NREL’s SolarApp+, hopefully that’ll make a dent.
  • opo 1y ago
    >...Also, I heartily disagree that utility scale solar is obviously cheaper. Transmission and distribution costs are the biggest cost on the grid, and utility scale solar needs to pay for that whereas residential solar drives down T&D costs. If we are really at the point where distribution costs for utility solar make it cost anywhere near the cost of consumer rooftop solar, we have a real problem. If that is true, we probably need a different approach to decarbonize the grid. I don't think you are right.
    • epistasis 1y ago
      You'll need to show your numbers, I don't follow what sort of reasoning could arrive at needing a different approach for decarbonizing the grid. Average US consumer costs are $70/MWh for transmission [1], out of $130/MWh total averaged across all consumer types [2]. However, those are average prices, residential consumers pay far higher prices, especially for the T&D side. New utility scale solar is $38-$78/MWh unsubsidized [3, page 8], at $1.15-$1.6/W. [3, page 34]. Meanwhile, residential solar is $2.5/W to $3.5/W [4], meaning it's only twice as expensive as utility scale solar. All told, that means that residential solar cost is roughly equal to the cost of utility scale + T&D. (While searching the web, several results claimed that residential solar typically costs $0.06-$0.10/kWh, or $60-$100/MWh, but that seems too low, and I'm guessing is from old data when it was cheaper to residential builds...) All this ignores storage, etc. But residential solar shaves off the highest peak of demand from air conditioning on the hottest days, so every time I see a neighbor install solar I cheer because I know that it's less justification for the utility to build out more T&D for the rest of the power needs. [1] https://thundersaidenergy.com/downloads/us-electric-utilities-transmission-and-distribution-costs/ https://thundersaidenergy.com/downloads/us-electric-utilitie... [2] https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.php?t=table_5_03 https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.ph... [3] Main report PDF at https://www.lazard.com/news-announcements/lazard-releases-2025-levelized-cost-of-energyplus-report-pr/ https://www.lazard.com/news-announcements/lazard-releases-20... [4] many sources, this hasn't changed much in years, one random top web hit is here: https://www.ecoflow.com/us/blog/california-solar-panel-costs-2500-sq-ft https://www.ecoflow.com/us/blog/california-solar-panel-costs...
• Tade0 1y ago
  That hugely depends on the region. In my corner of the world the scheme is net-billing, so homeowners are selling energy at wholesale prices. My friend has a 10kW setup combined with a 10kWh battery. Main adjustment he made was prevent the heat pump from keeping the water hot during the night, as that was just wasting energy. After this adjustment his electricity bills halved despite only really selling energy in the peak of the summer season. The savings translate to a 10-year return on investment before subsidies.
  • pfdietz 1y ago
    Even this is a subsidy. Your friend was benefiting from the presence of the grid even when they weren't pulling energy from it. They still had the ability to pull energy from it when they did need. If enough people go that route then the grid will start selling this right and charge you even if you don't use it.
• OtherShrezzing 1y ago
  I think you’re missing the real-politik of rooftop installations. The person installing the panel has a few square meters of empty and unproductive space, over which they have exclusive construction rights. And which is already connected to a grid, with capacity to absorb its production, physically close to the consumers of its output. That combination of factors is fairly rare in most of Europe & North America - especially when you’re looking for multiple contiguous kilometres of land for utility scale solar. There’s a lot of that type of land out in Texas and Australia, but there’s much less of it in the Scottish Highlands.
  • ericd 1y ago
    Yep, and electrical distribution is frequently a bottleneck, and electrification initiatives (EVs, heat pumps) and data center buildouts are causing that to a larger and larger issue - colocating generation and usage seems very helpful for this.
• deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
• Kon5ole 1y ago
  It's not as bad as all that. Solar "subsidies" are almost universally tax credits, meaning the only money involved is the money paid by the homeowners. So, for society, rooftop solar is by far the cheapest option. It costs the rest of us nothing, the homeowners pay for it. Money is also not limited, it is in fact created by the banks when someone takes a loan, for example to put solar on their roofs. Meaning there is no money lost from society that could instead be used to build utility solar, just because someone puts solar on their roofs. If your county borrows money to make utility solar, that money is also created by the bank then and there. Also note that you are quoting last years Lazard report. Solar is way cheaper in this year's report. It will probably be even cheaper in the next one.
  • 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 1y ago
    A tax credit does mean that other taxpayers somewhere are paying for it, though
    • omikun 1y ago
      That only works if the budget is balanced or the debt is paid off.
      • WillPostForFood 1y ago
        It is either today's or tomorrow's taxpayer.
    • Kon5ole 1y ago
      No it just means the person paying gets a discount on the tax, nobody else pays anything extra for that. If the tax credit results in an increase of solar panel installations it’s still a net gain for society, even just financially.
      • Huppie 1y ago
        While technically correct, assuming a balanced budget means less tax revenue will have to be offset either by reducing government expenses or raising taxes for everyone, so in practice all taxpayers 'pay for' a tax credit.
• rstuart4133 1y ago
  > Also, in almost all cases, the home installation doesn’t have enough battery power to actually last through inclement weather I've posted this several times here, but I think it's worth responding to claims like this, as they are plain wrong. I had a house with a 4.8kWh battery, and 6.6kW of panels. Just our overnight consumption was over 4.8kWh, so I purchased a generator "in case". Later during a period of high rainfall, we got flooded in for a week. The authorities cut off the power because of risks, so no power for a week. It was a once in a decade rain event, so "inclement weather" understates it. In that week I learnt what a little adaption can do to your electricity consumption. We never used the generator. We did stopped bulk heating water, and of course all house heating / cooling was turned off. That was about the only life style changes from memory - well perhaps no 2 hour roasts in the oven. Turns out even in inclement weather the sun does peek through occasionally, and when it does you can do high power consuming activities like wash clothes. It also turns out solar panels don't shut off under overcast conditions, they just drop to about 20% capacity - which means for us they output 1kW most of the day. And that turns out to be more than enough to charge the 4.8kWh battery, and that battery more than enough to power the refrigerators, lights, computers, TV's, fans, and microwave overnight. 4.8kWh is stuff all of course. Yet it suffices to get you through during a once in a decade event. We've built a new house now, and have 40kWh battery (oddly cost us the same as the 4.8kWh). We also have 32kW panels. They will generate 6.4kW during inclement weather. Do you see the implications of this? If the electricity bill doesn't remain in credit, we will just disconnect. Why wouldn't it remain in credit you ask? It's because you can't sell power when the sun is shining where I live, as the solar duck curve forces the price to go negative. There is a $2/day flat cost for being connected to the grid, even if you draw nothing. So we have to sell $2 of electricity every day for being connected to remain viable. I think perhaps we will, but only because of the battery. When the grid suffers some outage the price spikes by a factor of around 100. That almost never happens when the sun is shining of course, because the solar over capacity just shoulders the load. But when those coal fired generators trip during the night (which they regularly do), you get to make some real money from the battery capacity.