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It’s very cool to see what happens where there are simply so many residential solar installs. Power price goes negative during peak sunshine hours so they just

It’s very cool to see what happens where there are simply so many residential solar installs. Power price goes negative during peak sunshine hours so they just give it away. Solar installs benefitting everyone, even those who never got solar.

oliyoung 3mo ago
As an Australian, the lack of anxiety and guilt you get when you're using 10-12 hours of air conditioning in the middle of summer and not paying for a cent of it because your solar panels are covering is worth more than anything
- AtlasBarfed 3mo ago
  Why shouldn't that be true practically every consumer home in the world? Yes, grid scale deployments are cheaper, but I'm generally guessing a lot of the grid scale solar deployments do not price in the grid infrastructure adaptation costs, and I'm not even talking about grid storage. Consumer rooftop solar is fundamentally democratic: it reduces reliance on centralized institutions for power delivery, Make society a lot more resilient in bad weather and other emergency situations, insulates everyday people from wild variations and petroleum and other consumable energy availability. Combined with plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, it would enable electrification of 80 and 90% of daily driving without grid infrastructure costs.
  - brabel 3mo ago
    > Why shouldn't that be true practically every consumer home in the world? Here in Sweden nearly all of the electricity bill you pay is concentrated on the winter months when there is literally zero sunshine. Even then solar is popular here. I calculated that installing solar would take around 10 years or more to pay for itself, but I have very little hope to stay in the same house all that time so for me it seemed like a bad investment. That said, if you live in places where it’s sunny most of the time even in winter, like Australia, then solar is absolutely great, just don’t assume most places are like that.
    - ghiculescu 3mo ago
      10 year ROI is what I got quoted on a solar setup. I live in Queensland. It’s very sunny here.
      - brabel 3mo ago
        Wow your current electricity must be really expensive... or your solar setup is?? Also the calculation was done by the company selling it, I'm pretty sure that was far too optimistic.
        jazoom 3mo ago
        That actually sounds pessimistic to me. My ROI for 18kW solar plus 42kWh battery will be under 3 years. - Expensive electricity - Government subsidy for solar and battery - Much sunshine - 3 hours free charging daily Nearly $5000 yearly bill gone. $14000 installation cost post rebate.
        brabel 3mo ago
        With a calculation like that I'd buy solar in a heart beat! But as I said, my main concern is my winter bill, which I know by asking people who own solar in the region, is almost the same with solar since there's no sun at all (it's not that it's cloudy, it's that the entire day duration is like 4 hours - under which you barely feel any sun heat and in practice the solar output is exactly zero on the worst month and near zero for 4 or so months). Hence the very long ROI here, but I agree that for Queensland, 10 years would be a bit too long if you dimension the solar array properly.
      - AtlasBarfed 3mo ago
        You are mere hundreds of miles from cheap Chinese panel manufacturing. The Chinese are going to pump manufacturing oversupply for likely a decade more. 10 years roi is mass scale corruption
- dhotson 3mo ago
  Yeah totally, nice to be able to put the AC/heater on "for free". I even got a negative power bill once! In my specific case, I barely use much power so home solar covers basically all of the usage, my bill is dominated by the daily charge, so the usage component is practically irrelevant to me.
  - deleted 3mo ago
    [deleted]
- grey-area 3mo ago
  You should still feel some guilt for the heat pollution your air conditioning causes for those outside your house, esp. in an urban area.
  - CalRobert 3mo ago
    This is heat that would have escaped the house anyway
    - grey-area 3mo ago
      No, air conditioning units generate heat (that is how they cool!) and do contribute to local warming. Without AC the house reaches equilibrium with outside. With AC the house is cooled and that heat has to go somewhere.
      - scheeseman486 3mo ago
        They don't generate heat in the sense that heat is generated from nothing. If the AC is being powered by solar, then the energy that is powering the heat pump has already hit the earth and has become part of that system. The energy that would otherwise have hit the roofing and been radiated is more focused around the radiators, but as soon as that dissipates into the air the difference to the local climate isn't any different. If the roof was white and reflective then a lot more of that light would be reflected, but most roofing isn't. Your logic isn't really compatible with the laws of thermodynamics.
        grey-area 3mo ago
        Solar energy is not just infrared, and infrared is not what is used by PV solar. So not it’s not equivalent and anyway doesn’t in any way impact the extra heating effect of a new heat source on the ground. Instead of generate heat you could say they move heat if you like, from inside to outside.
        scheeseman486 3mo ago
dhotson 3mo ago
Yeah, it's been great to see the uptake of rooftop solar in Australia. One downside is that large scale solar projects aren't profitable any more. It kind of sucks for the investors that adopted green tech, that they aren't getting a good payoff. The good news is that co-located solar and battery projects are still profitable, but capital costs are higher and payback period of batteries aren't as good.
- rswail 3mo ago
  Co-located PV/BESS or Wind/BESS is the best grid solution anyway. The REZs with transmission infrastructure (subsidized by government) will also add to the return. The good thing is that even with over a decade of conservative government trying to kill it, renewables are now commercially the only choice for Australia and we will benefit from the rapid advances in storage as well. Grid level plants are starting to also incorporate synthetic condensers and other FCAS services to make our grid more resilient and reliable, even as our clapped out coal plants move closer to shut down.
- Leherenn 3mo ago
  What makes large scale solar no longer profitable? Distribution costs have outpaced the efficiency gains of the large scale installation?
  - dhotson 3mo ago
    Yeah, it's tricky because basically all solar arrays (rooftop and utility) all come online at more-or-less the same time so there's a huge influx of supply which drives the price down. You can get a sense of it if you look at the daily breakdown: https://explore.openelectricity.org.au/energy/nem/?range=1d&interval=30m&view=discrete-time&group=Detailed https://explore.openelectricity.org.au/energy/nem/?range=1d&... You can see the demand peaks around 12pm and 6pm. The price goes negative around 2pm most days, in which case, as a solar only operator you're losing money to generate power, so quite often there's curtailment. And then at 6pm, the sun is down so solar-only operators can't capitalise on the opportunity. So unfortunately it's just a very limited opportunity to make a profit on your investment each day. More demand during the peak generation time would help!
thinkcontext 3mo ago
"Free" electricity is an indication that the economics are out of balance. If the power provider isn't getting paid for those 3 hours, it means they'll need to be paid more at other times. It also means the grid needs to spend more on storage and less on new solar. Its cool if you have the ability to load shift but in general it means costs go up.

oliyoung 3mo ago

As an Australian, the lack of anxiety and guilt you get when you're using 10-12 hours of air conditioning in the middle of summer and not paying for a cent of it because your solar panels are covering is worth more than anything

AtlasBarfed 3mo ago
Why shouldn't that be true practically every consumer home in the world? Yes, grid scale deployments are cheaper, but I'm generally guessing a lot of the grid scale solar deployments do not price in the grid infrastructure adaptation costs, and I'm not even talking about grid storage. Consumer rooftop solar is fundamentally democratic: it reduces reliance on centralized institutions for power delivery, Make society a lot more resilient in bad weather and other emergency situations, insulates everyday people from wild variations and petroleum and other consumable energy availability. Combined with plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, it would enable electrification of 80 and 90% of daily driving without grid infrastructure costs.
- brabel 3mo ago
  > Why shouldn't that be true practically every consumer home in the world? Here in Sweden nearly all of the electricity bill you pay is concentrated on the winter months when there is literally zero sunshine. Even then solar is popular here. I calculated that installing solar would take around 10 years or more to pay for itself, but I have very little hope to stay in the same house all that time so for me it seemed like a bad investment. That said, if you live in places where it’s sunny most of the time even in winter, like Australia, then solar is absolutely great, just don’t assume most places are like that.
  - ghiculescu 3mo ago
    10 year ROI is what I got quoted on a solar setup. I live in Queensland. It’s very sunny here.
    - brabel 3mo ago
      Wow your current electricity must be really expensive... or your solar setup is?? Also the calculation was done by the company selling it, I'm pretty sure that was far too optimistic.
      - jazoom 3mo ago
        That actually sounds pessimistic to me. My ROI for 18kW solar plus 42kWh battery will be under 3 years. - Expensive electricity - Government subsidy for solar and battery - Much sunshine - 3 hours free charging daily Nearly $5000 yearly bill gone. $14000 installation cost post rebate.
        brabel 3mo ago
        With a calculation like that I'd buy solar in a heart beat! But as I said, my main concern is my winter bill, which I know by asking people who own solar in the region, is almost the same with solar since there's no sun at all (it's not that it's cloudy, it's that the entire day duration is like 4 hours - under which you barely feel any sun heat and in practice the solar output is exactly zero on the worst month and near zero for 4 or so months). Hence the very long ROI here, but I agree that for Queensland, 10 years would be a bit too long if you dimension the solar array properly.
    - AtlasBarfed 3mo ago
      You are mere hundreds of miles from cheap Chinese panel manufacturing. The Chinese are going to pump manufacturing oversupply for likely a decade more. 10 years roi is mass scale corruption
dhotson 3mo ago
Yeah totally, nice to be able to put the AC/heater on "for free". I even got a negative power bill once! In my specific case, I barely use much power so home solar covers basically all of the usage, my bill is dominated by the daily charge, so the usage component is practically irrelevant to me.
- deleted 3mo ago
  [deleted]
grey-area 3mo ago
You should still feel some guilt for the heat pollution your air conditioning causes for those outside your house, esp. in an urban area.
- CalRobert 3mo ago
  This is heat that would have escaped the house anyway
  - grey-area 3mo ago
    No, air conditioning units generate heat (that is how they cool!) and do contribute to local warming. Without AC the house reaches equilibrium with outside. With AC the house is cooled and that heat has to go somewhere.
    - scheeseman486 3mo ago
      They don't generate heat in the sense that heat is generated from nothing. If the AC is being powered by solar, then the energy that is powering the heat pump has already hit the earth and has become part of that system. The energy that would otherwise have hit the roofing and been radiated is more focused around the radiators, but as soon as that dissipates into the air the difference to the local climate isn't any different. If the roof was white and reflective then a lot more of that light would be reflected, but most roofing isn't. Your logic isn't really compatible with the laws of thermodynamics.
      - grey-area 3mo ago
        Solar energy is not just infrared, and infrared is not what is used by PV solar. So not it’s not equivalent and anyway doesn’t in any way impact the extra heating effect of a new heat source on the ground. Instead of generate heat you could say they move heat if you like, from inside to outside.
        scheeseman486 3mo ago

dhotson 3mo ago

Yeah, it's been great to see the uptake of rooftop solar in Australia. One downside is that large scale solar projects aren't profitable any more. It kind of sucks for the investors that adopted green tech, that they aren't getting a good payoff. The good news is that co-located solar and battery projects are still profitable, but capital costs are higher and payback period of batteries aren't as good.

rswail 3mo ago
Co-located PV/BESS or Wind/BESS is the best grid solution anyway. The REZs with transmission infrastructure (subsidized by government) will also add to the return. The good thing is that even with over a decade of conservative government trying to kill it, renewables are now commercially the only choice for Australia and we will benefit from the rapid advances in storage as well. Grid level plants are starting to also incorporate synthetic condensers and other FCAS services to make our grid more resilient and reliable, even as our clapped out coal plants move closer to shut down.
Leherenn 3mo ago
What makes large scale solar no longer profitable? Distribution costs have outpaced the efficiency gains of the large scale installation?
- dhotson 3mo ago
  Yeah, it's tricky because basically all solar arrays (rooftop and utility) all come online at more-or-less the same time so there's a huge influx of supply which drives the price down. You can get a sense of it if you look at the daily breakdown: https://explore.openelectricity.org.au/energy/nem/?range=1d&interval=30m&view=discrete-time&group=Detailed https://explore.openelectricity.org.au/energy/nem/?range=1d&... You can see the demand peaks around 12pm and 6pm. The price goes negative around 2pm most days, in which case, as a solar only operator you're losing money to generate power, so quite often there's curtailment. And then at 6pm, the sun is down so solar-only operators can't capitalise on the opportunity. So unfortunately it's just a very limited opportunity to make a profit on your investment each day. More demand during the peak generation time would help!

thinkcontext 3mo ago

"Free" electricity is an indication that the economics are out of balance. If the power provider isn't getting paid for those 3 hours, it means they'll need to be paid more at other times. It also means the grid needs to spend more on storage and less on new solar. Its cool if you have the ability to load shift but in general it means costs go up.