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Falling panel prices lead to global solar boom, except for the US
- umvi 1y agoHas storage been solved yet? In my experience US power companies hate crediting pushback to the grid because it all happens at the same time during peak sunlight hours and then customers get to use those credits at night and during the winter which the power company thinks is unfair. In Idaho at least the power companies were able to change the laws so that you get much fewer credits for solar panels on your roof which means they aren't great unless you can figure out how to store the generated energy inexpensively. Personally I like the idea of an electric car doubling as a house battery but so far I think only the F-150 lightning is capable of doing that.
- mannanj 1y agoPrius's can do it too, they are super efficient.
- xnx 1y ago> Has storage been solved yet? No, but it's cheaper than it ever was and panels are so cheap that they can have ROI even without storage. That said, grid solar makes the most financial sense if you're not in an off-grid location.
- Retric 1y agoCarful when saying it’s not cheaper, it’s generally profitable to add some batteries to a solar power plant. The economics on storage only kicks in after scaling the grid with a lot of solar, but adding solar to that point is itself profitable almost anywhere.
- jaggederest 1y agoI've always been confused by the insistence on storage. Saturate 100% of the daytime loads with solar, curtail at peak, it's still cheaper than just about any other source. Save all the hydro power, gas, and other standby sources for before and after sunset. Once you're curtailing a bunch of power during the daytime, then you can add storage as a no brainer bonus and stop curtailing.
- xnx 1y agoYes, and if peak solar generation exceeded demand, and were priced appropriately, I think we'd find that some workloads could be timeshifted (e.g. precooling homes).
- Retric 1y agoSaturation of daytime loads with solar kills nuclear by lowering its capacity factor or daytime pricing, which some people object to. It’s clearly a net win environmentally and economically, but for anyone who sees nuclear as part of a green future storage in some form is a massive requirement.
- rsynnott 1y ago> Saturation of daytime loads with solar kills nuclear If you exclude China, effectively no nuclear plants have been built in the last decade, and the existing fleet is aging out. "We shouldn't do this thing, because it might threaten that other thing that we don't do anymore" is a weird argument.
- Retric 1y agoIt’s not quite that extreme: https://www.worldnuclearreport.org/reactors.html https://www.worldnuclearreport.org/reactors.html But yea building nuclear is all about forecasting the future so most of the damage has already occurred here, still advocates are going to advocate even if what they say doesn’t make sense.
- Retric 1y ago> Has storage been solved yet? In general yes, grid solar + grid batteries are cheaper than any peaking power plants. So now 24/7 batteries + wind + solar generally outcompetes nuclear, coal, or natural gas on price as long as there’s no tariffs involved. This isn’t enough to make batteries + solar viable in Alaska but long distance transmission lines could solve that issue cost effectively.
- seanmcdirmid 1y agoSolar is actually viable in places like Alaska and Finland. It just isn't viable in the winter, but in the summer it is extra viable. Greenhouses (another form of solar) also work wonders in Alaska, and outside they can grow the biggest pumpkins you'll ever see anywhere.
- AnimalMuppet 1y agoOK, but nobody has enough batteries to store enough for the winter. Overnight? Sure. Winter? That's a whole different deal.
- seanmcdirmid 1y agoFirst, the only reason solar isn't so common in Alaska is that hydro is even easier to get power from, so your outback communities will often use small scale hydro instead of solar (especially in southeast Alaska). Communities in the north will use diesel generators in the winter (nothing else is viable). Again, I assume you are talking about off grid communities, which is basically all of them except a few cities (and most cities have their own grids disconnected from the rest, especially Southeast Alaska).
- cachius 1y agoThat's why you generate hydrogen during summer for gas power plants during winter.
- somanyphotons 1y ago
- reducesuffering 1y ago> In my experience US power companies hate crediting pushback to the grid because it all happens at the same time during peak sunlight hours and then customers get to use those credits at night and during the winter which the power company thinks is unfair. I'm pretty sure PG&E pays back something like only 5% of the generation of my solar panels. I'll end the year with $400 more generated than used, and I'll get a check for $20...
- more_corn 1y agoYes. Cheap batteries distribute storage at the end user location, flattening the demand curve and stabilizing the grid at economically viable prices.
- marcosdumay 1y agoThe most likely is that storage will never be "solved". We will run with 100% renewables for years, and there will still be people asking if storage has been solved already. We will just solve every large issue, and suffer lots of small issues. Also, if you are using your car as a battery, you can't use it as a car. It's more likely that you will have extra batteries at home so that you can charge your car when you want.
- darth_avocado 1y ago> Has storage been solved yet? If it wasn’t, parts of the country wouldn’t be invested in adding it. Recent discussion on HN on a similar topic: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45706527 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45706527
- triceratops 1y ago> unless you can figure out how to store the generated energy inexpensively Like solar panels, also tariffed.
- WaxProlix 1y agoRooftop solar is nice for resiliency and can have its place in a grid, but it's not cost effective. Grid-scale solar is what most folks are talking about when they say solar boom. Even in the somewhat backwards US, where Solar in total is ~340TWh, the majority (~250TWh?) comes from grid-scale interconnected solar and solar+battery installations. Hopefully this gap continues to grow as the Biden-era IRA fueled grid-scale solar projects mature through their design/build/deploy pipelines in the coming years. Thinking of national policy from a home owner perspective is expected, but it isn't always instructive. For the latter item, my Rivian has a relatively paltry 1500W inverter with standard 110W plugs in the back seat, truck bed, and gear tunnel, but I can use a rectifier/power supply to pull a constant 1kW, step that back to DC and feed it into my home's battery backup system. My whole house tends to use ~2kW at peak, and obviously can conserve in outages. So I get my normal 4kWh battery bank with solar hookups, but can splice the 141kWh Rivian battery in, too, for a good chunk of off-grid power.
- gertlex 1y agoI assume that the extra regular (daily?) cycling of the battery in your car would have a notable effect on your vehicle battery's longevity. (But I'm very fuzzy on how battery improvements in the past ~decade have applied to "cycle life", or really even what the cycle life means, e.g. is end of life when it's something like 70% of total original capacity?)
- GloriousKoji 1y agoPlaces in California has this problem too. Installing solar panels today could result in a larger electricity bill than not having them. Getting solar panels forces you onto a plan in which they charge more per kwh pulled from the grid. The surplus electricity is only credited at the generation cost which is only 1/4 the total cost per kwh. (Delivery costs is 3x the price of electricity). So if you want to go solar to save money you need both batteries and solar panels which is not an insignificant amount of money.
- namibj 1y agoNet metering is unrealistic. Maybe just force grid-connected solar installations that want credit (any size) and even those that just want to be grid-tied (beyond some small size like maybe 5 panels/2kW worth of MPPT) to use a registering meter that meters net energy for each like 15 min interval (that's the granularity we use in central Europe; I assume the US would have come to a similar choice of granularity), and bills energy according to market rate and appropriately handles connection capacity/transformer capex by like taking a histogram of those individual measurements or otherwise letting a few isolated bursts through while ensuring transformer capacity is paid for by those responsible for the (hypothetical, until it's not) transformer upgrade.
- tbrownaw 1y ago> *which the power company thinks is unfair" The way you worded this implies that you disagree. Are you aware of why wholesale prices aren't constant?
- jameslk 1y ago80% of the supply chain for solar is based in China[0]. As long as this is the case, it is unlikely there will be as much demand in the US for it due to new Cold War and bipartisan efforts to tariff solar panels from China The article seems to leave this important detail out, despite talking a lot about China 0. https://www.iea.org/reports/solar-pv-global-supply-chains/executive-summary https://www.iea.org/reports/solar-pv-global-supply-chains/ex... EDIT: it looks like the article does mention it, I just missed it: > The huge surfeit of production capacity in China, which produced about eight out of 10 of the world’s solar modules in 2024
- happosai 1y agoI didn't expect China to become the solution provider for global warming while USA contribution to the world is mostly climate change denial. Yet here we are...
- Freedom2 1y agoWhy not? China has/had the problem in their own backyard and we're likely acutely aware of the impact it has. Wouldn't that hasten their need to come up with alternative solutions? Meanwhile the US is full of hubris and can't see beyond their own nose.
- dylan604 1y agoThe fact that the US shifted their pollution away from something that causes obvious to anyone issues like acid rain to something that is more easily deniable makes it easy to deny climate change. The hole in the ozone layer stopped growing as well. Maybe it will take that level of problems to start in the US again for changes to happen??
- joquarky 1y agoWe are distracted by bread and circuses. Soon to be just circuses.
- netsharc 1y agoThere was already an op-ed writer during Dubya's admin (remember when he was the dumbest president?) writing how their denial and non-investment in green tech was going to lead to China to be leaders in that space. Sigh, without the Brooks Brothers "riot", the guy people insulted for talking about climate change would've been president...
- mmooss 1y agoAs I wrote elsewhere, the US government and economy are now essentially a private equity takeover for a large segment of wealthy business: Squeeze out as much money as possible short term - including by issuing debt againts its assets, slashing and burning any costs regardless of ROI and with no regard for the future, and leave the bankrupt husk for someone else to deal with. The treatment of fossil fuels and renewables fits: Block the obviously more economical and better long-term solution in order to shovel money toward the entrenched wealthy. That it sabotages the future due to climate change and economic inefficiency doesn't seem to be a significant factor to them. I forgot, one of the entrenched corporate wealthy told us that climate change isn't a big deal, and we should send money to his and his friends for solutions. I'm not anti-business; in fact, quite the opposite: These policies block a free market and the brilliant new businesses that can thrive and deliver solutions to everyone.
- seanmcdirmid 1y agoIf only Musk didn't turn out to be such a twitt, Tesla was really supposed to be part of the solution but somehow Musk managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. The future is pretty much in China now as far as green energy tech and consumption goes. Two bad elections and the US has basically lost world leader status in just over a decade.
- bigyabai 1y agoMusk chronically over-promised and terminally under-delivered. There was no world where he didn't end up being a twit, just one where we aren't stupid enough to fall for his lies. Tesla, in particular, boils down to how Americans respond to marketing. We love the idea of buying organic, environmentally-friendly technology that makes us part of the solution. It doesn't matter if Congolese children are dying in the cobalt mines to make EV-grade lithium ion batteries, us Americans need to virtue signal with our wallet. Buy the latest iPhone, save up for a Tesla, it's all part of the new-age jewelry we wear to make ourselves feel worth something. It was damn good marketing.
- embedding-shape 1y ago
- softwaredoug 1y agoBy not aligning economically to other country's markets, US companies are in a real pickle. Imagine you're a US car manufacturer. You see EVs growing around the world, and stagnating in the US. Do you: (a) Double-down on investments in EVs (billions of USD!), even with a soft US market for EVs, hoping you might compete globally. (b) Become a parochial, US-only, business hoping to squeeze what you can out of a gradually shrinking industry When other countries subsidize consumers to buy EVs, and the US does not, it effectively creates a self-own trade barrier for domestic companies.
- forgotoldacc 1y agoThe US seems to be at risk of becoming a Japanese style economy in the coming years. As in they focus on tech that sells well locally, but is of no interest outside the country. And that can work for their economy and is a nice way to package protectionism. But eventually, people years down the road see how much better tech is in the outside world and jump to it and never look back. Then your own industry starts to drown and is only held up by a class of elderly people afraid of change. Examples are the strange Japanese flip phones and the computers with CF card and floppy drives with a 1.5 ghz single core CPU selling for twice the price of a MacBook Pro. With BYD selling globally now, and Boeing losing its reputation, American vehicles of all sorts are at risk.
- softwaredoug 1y agoAnd the sad thing this will just lead to a vicious cycle of protectionism for these companies. Their quality will decline. They’ll be more expensive than global products. US consumers will be the ones that suffer
- adventured 1y agoThe primary risk that China's auto industry poses is to Japan, South Korea, and the few parts of Europe with large scale auto manufacturing. The US domestic auto industry was hollowed out decades ago. Germany's domestic auto industry is just starting to be hollowed out, that process is in the early days. China's auto rise will ravage European manufacturing, not US manufacturing. Auto manufacturing is a small share of the US industrial base, it's a large share of the German industrial base for example. Boeing and Airbus will both lose large chunks of their global airplane business to cheaper Chinese competition over the coming decades. It's definitely not exclusive to Boeing. The US airline market is far more lucrative than the European airline market, US carriers like Delta are very profitable and can more or less be forced to not buy from China.
- jasonthorsness 1y agoLots of articles about how solar panels are even less expensive than traditional fence panels; it's incredible. If I had a suitable property I would be installing them even in Seattle area where it's cloudy and dark for a significant part of the year (summers are pure sun though!).
- Someone1234 1y agoSlight aside, but fence panels in the US have a monopoly problem: Most of the manufacturers got taken over, consolidated, and owned by private equity. That's why they're so expensive. Animal vets, plumbers, HVAC, and other industries too.
- ZeroGravitas 1y agoCosting less per square meter than plywood was the most recent comparison that stopped me in my tracks.
- shipman05 1y agoOne reason for this that often goes unmentioned is the shale gas/fracking boom that made the US the world's #1 energy producer. That macro-level development allows the current administration to act as it does. If gas was less plentiful, more expensive, or primarily sourced from unstable regions, the economic math would be against them already. Western Europe and China do not have large fossil fuel reserves. For them, switching to green energy sources is not just an economic bonus, it's also a national security imperative. Domestic sources of cheap, plentiful energy helped the US economy grow beyond expectations over the past decade, but it might prove to be a short-term boon that leads to long-term issues if the rest of the world's economy pivots away from fossil fuels.
- downrightmike 1y agoWhich is even more stupid, because more solar means they can sell more gas/oil to everyone else including gas starved Europe. City gas was actually the first industry that proved the more you make, the more people demand. If we make more power, we will use it. Then consider that AI datacenters as big as NYC will need as much power as possible.
- alephnerd 1y ago> more solar means they can sell more gas/oil to everyone else A glut in supply drives prices down. Oil extraction and refining doesn't have constant costs, as it is heavily dependent on geography as well as the physical characteristics of oil itself. This is why there was a 3 way gas price war between the US, Saudi Arabia, and Russia in the 2010s.
- ponector 1y ago>> sell more gas/oil to everyone else Not really they can sell gas to anyone else. One cannot simply ship natural gas overseas. LNG is a thing, but export facilities have limited capacity.
- reenorap 1y agoPG&E's most transparent fraud is by forcing people to move everything to electricity and then forcing them to use less electricity, and then complaining they aren't making enough money so that they raise electricity rates. Last year, PG&E raised rates 6 times. I'm now paying double the per kWh rates from only 4 years ago. PG&E now wants to charge solar panel owners $100+/month just for the privilege of being connected to the grid. This is on top of their $0.41-54/kWh they already charge, the highest in the nation. PG&E is a government-supported scam that is charging people whatever prices they want with no protection from our politicians because they are all on the take.
- rconti 1y agoI would expand our solar installation as we expand our house over the next few months, but PG&E would force us into a less advantageous electricity scheme if we add panels, so shrug
- jeffbee 1y agoNEM eligibility is controlled by CPUC, not PG&E
- reenorap 1y agoThe CPUC is fighting on behalf of PG&E. It is headed by Newsom's buddy and they have let PG&E raise prices without pushback.
- jeffbee 1y agoNewsom is the governor of California and has been for quite a while. The President of CPUC was the long-time climate advisor to Jerry Brown and Deputy Attorney General under Schwarzenegger. The constitution guarantees PG&E rates that offer a return on investment. It's silly to try to make it a personalist conspiracy.
- reenorap 1y ago
- christkv 1y agoChina is dumping panels in Europe as they have immense overproduction of panels and their building industry has cratered (reducing internal demand massively). The Chinese government is facilitating this dumping with tax credits and other forms of subsidies to keep them from having to close up shop.
- nharada 1y agoNo matter how fast you run, you won't win a race where you're just going back and forth nonstop. It really does feel like the US is completely hosed when it comes to energy (and thus, industrial relevance broadly). Every 4 years we make a bigger bet in the opposite direction of the last, and meanwhile the entire world moves on without us. At least now it feels like no matter what the US does we'll make progress on climate goals as a species, even if in 50 years the US is still building coal plants and criminalizing home solar.
- vondur 1y agoIn California getting solar doesn’t pay off. You have to install battery backup to reduce your energy bill now.
- vondur 1y agoIn California getting solar doesn’t pay off. You have to install battery backup to reduce your energy bill now. People here aren’t happy about it.