7 ms·

SolarCity has signed an agreement to acquire Silevo

162 points by ph0rque 12y ago

SEJeff 12y ago
This is one of the companies with Elon Musk helping drive the vision. They're going to go far.
kudithipudi 12y ago
The team @SolarCity and @Tesla continue to push the boundaries . I think this is going to change the landscape :)
jakozaur 12y ago
Silevo seems already have industry grade panels at 21% efficiency. That's quite a lot in home/utility panels: http://sroeco.com/solar/most-efficient-solar-panels http://sroeco.com/solar/most-efficient-solar-panels (13 - 17%) I can't find easily the price/W, but assuming they can produce panels at similar cost that's going to be huge.
- dangravell 12y ago
  Hmmm I might be wrong but I think that's a very specific test... they're only comparing 200W panels. SunPower make 20-21% efficient panels already.
  - alphydan 12y ago
    The current efficiency record for research panels is around 44.7% [1] but commercial companies are above 22% (Sanyo, Panasonic, etc) [2] [1] https://renooble.com/blog/2013/11/solar-panel-efficiency-new-world-record/ https://renooble.com/blog/2013/11/solar-panel-efficiency-new... [2] https://renooble.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/nrel_efficiency_chart.jpg https://renooble.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/nrel_ef...
    - dredmorbius 12y ago
      Greater efficiency comes with higher costs. The maximum theoretical efficiency of solar panels is about 85% of incident sunlight based on the physics of the photoelectric effect. I've been learning about efficiency and cost, and was told recently that many large-scale installations in unsecured location use 9% efficient thin-film technology simply due to cost. Having your 20%-40% high-value panels stolen doesn't net you benefit. And you're still working against other constraints: a maximum insolation at Earth's surface of around 1 kW/m^2, the local insolation rate (great tool from NREL for mapping that within the US: http://maps.nrel.gov/prospector http://maps.nrel.gov/prospector), panel spacing (you net about 55% area fill rate at 36 degrees latitude based on panel angle and avoiding overlap), inverter efficiency (about 90%), capacity factor (amount of time you're receiving full sunlight), and more. By the time you account for all of this, you're down to about 30W of that 1 kW you can actually deliver (time-averaged -- peak is closer to 97W). And if you want to allow for storage, you've got even more losses. Plants start looking pretty effective at 1-3% solar conversion rates, especially when you figure they build themselves at the same time. More on net solar potential: http://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/28cvgv/calculating_estimated_solar_energy_potential/ http://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/28cvgv/calculat...
chanced 12y ago
Somewhat interesting that this occurs weeks after the tariff increase on subsidized Chinese solar panels. I wonder how closely those two events are aligned beyond mere coincidence.
felixbraun 12y ago
> SolarCity was founded to accelerate mass adoption of sustainable energy. The sun, that highly convenient and free fusion reactor in the sky, radiates more energy to the Earth in a few hours than the entire human population consumes from all sources in a year. This means that solar panels, paired with batteries to enable power at night, can produce several orders of magnitude more electricity than is consumed by the entirety of human civilization. Elon shining through here. There is little doubt that SolarCity will be a huge deal.
- rlanday 12y ago
  There’s a non-sequiter in that statement: the authors jump directly from “the sun emits an enormous amount of energy” to “it is feasible to capture and store several orders of magnitude more electricity than is currently consumed by human civilization using only solar panels and batteries.” That is a huge, huge leap.
  - myhf 12y ago
    It's a huge, huge leap of multiplying the wattage of a solar panel by the number of solar panels manufactured and installed. Looks like it would take less than 1% of the land area of the earth to satisfy the electricity consumption of humanity many times over: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=electricity+consumed+%2F+%281kW+%2F+square+meter%29 http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=electricity+consumed+%2... It doesn't seem like much of a leap to propose covering 1% of the world with buildings or roads or farms, so solar panels should seem the same.
    - scotth 12y ago
      I've heard this suggested before, but seriously, 5.1 million square kilometers of solar panels? Seems to me that we're a long way off from that kind of undertaking.
      - maxerickson 12y ago
        The link is showing 2,000 square kilometers now. If you plug in a more reasonable value for watts (efficiency, night), it's still tens of thousands of square kilometers, not millions.
senthilnayagam 12y ago
good move. Tesla gigafactory would produce 50 GWh battery storage, they themselves need huge volumes of solar panels for their ever expanding charging stations network
startupfounder 12y ago
Take a step back. With 1GW of solar capacity production in NY by 2017, 50GWh of battery production in the southwest by 2020, Tesla's and SpaceX's manufacturing facilities in CA, Elon's distributed clean generation, storage and transportation empire is concentrated in the USA. All of these companies are becoming increasingly in control of their supply and distribution channels. What's next, is Musk going to use SpaceX to mine asteroids for their metals to build increasingly inexpensive clean transportation, batteries and solar hardware back here on earth?
- toomuchtodo 12y ago
  What did Dune say? "He who controls the Spice controls the Universe?" Carbon-based energy sources will not last forever, and even if they outlast us, using them will be catastrophic to the environment. Elon is positioning himself as the provider of plentiful, clean energy generation and storage to the world (not to mention the provider of mobility and space transport). Is it too early to compare him to Rockefeller?
  - hueving 12y ago
    >What did Dune say? "He who controls the Spice controls the Universe?" Carbon-based energy sources will not last forever, and even if they outlast us, using them will be catastrophic to the environment. That presupposes nothing can ever be done about the CO2 offset. >Is it too early to compare him to Rockefeller? That would be an insult to him. Standard Oil did some of the shadiest anti-competitive stuff that resulted in many of the laws to protect against monopolies today. I assume you've seen the famous octopus drawing[1]? That didn't become popular because people thought Standard Oil was giving a warm hug to society. The patent release alone shows his intentions are much difference from Rockefeller's. 1. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Standard_oil_octopus_loc_color.jpg http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Standard_oil_octopus_...
    - toomuchtodo 12y ago
      The only way to offset CO2 in the atmosphere is to: a) Move carbon-based energy use to renewables b) If possible, remove CO2 in the atmosphere and storing it in a stable state underground. Elon is definitely working really fucking hard on the first item. The second item is what I would class as planet-level terraforming, and is going to take more than just Elon (without some sort of additional technological breakthrough). Also, I was not insulting him by calling him Rockefeller. I was simply saying he's become a titan of industry. You might have a better comparison than I off the cuff.
api 12y ago
I found Elon's secret business plan! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale
kbenson 12y ago
I like the section on "Forward-Looking Statements". While I'm sure some will take it as weasel-words to cover his ass (and I suspect if it was absent many of these people would find something -anything- else to critique), I think it's just prudence. It comforts me to see a big announcement with a caveat, because I feel they are trying to be accurate instead of bombastic.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- 300bps 12y ago
  Forward Looking Statements are a boilerplate disclaimer that publicly traded companies typically include anytime they talk about anything other than historical fact. If they don't include them and their plans change, they are at serious risk of being sued by their shareholders. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forward-looking_statement http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forward-looking_statement
  - kbenson 12y ago
    I assumed as much (the SEC statement in it makes it fairly obvious). I almost threw in a few sentences about how I think if this is because the SEC, it's a very good side effect of informing investors. I think the effect a statement like this has on normal people reading is to allow the original article to inform and excite while also containing expectations. It can dampen the more excitable of the populace, as well as those who like to set them off. In all, regardless of why the statement is there, I think the fact that it is present is a good thing. I wasn't exactly assigning credit to Elon for it (the swipe at critics may have made it seem so), just talking in generalities.
torrenza 12y ago
Stock jumped 16% after that was released.
dang 12y ago
We changed the title to the first part of the lede, since it says what the article is about.
- tomp 12y ago
  Is this the new policy? Should we also post subtitles/ledes instead of titles, if they make the post more informative?
  - dang 12y ago
    I wouldn't call it a new policy, but sure: what I look at are document title, article title, top subtitle, and first sentence of the article, in that order. If the latter is significantly better than the article title, we sometimes use it, like we did here. A good HN title is accurate and neutral (the opposite of misleading and linkbait). Rewriting is bad; it's far better to use words that are already there than to make up words of one's own. Taking words out in order to fit the 80-char limit is ok. Editorializing and spin are right out. Faithfulness to the original content (unless it is misleading or linkbait) is paramount. I think that's about it.
jguimont 12y ago
What keeps them from installing their system in every states or even Canada?
revelation 12y ago
Quite interesting, particularly considering Elons name is there. Elon was quite adamant in talking about SolarCity that they concentrate on the consumer-facing business, not producing solar cells, which as he explained is just slightly refined pure silicon with connectors slapped on, very much a commodity business where state actors like China are essentially subsidizing the West for buying solar panels in a bid to crush solar panel competition. So he didn't want to get into that. Maybe, as with the Gigafactory, he sees an opportunity here. Here is Elon saying making solar panels is a bad idea: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHHwXUm3iIg#t=2960 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHHwXUm3iIg#t=2960
- jccooper 12y ago
  True. And yet, it's also a very Elon move: vertical integration, making a big bet on growth, and doing so domestically in spite of theoretically lower-cost foreign production. (You can see all those factors in Tesla and SpaceX.) Perhaps the Silveo technology convinced him that solar cells are not always commodity. And then he went with his usual instinct.
  - trhway 12y ago
    in vertically integrated business, even 2 times difference in the price of some basic parts/materials may not matter if that is just a fraction of the total price of the resulting product/service. If you own the high margin exit point like installation of the solar systems, you may be more worried about quality and the performance of the parts, stability of supply, etc... - the factors which can significantly affect your downstream high-margin part of the pipeline. Add to that that Musk is going to own battery component of the solar systems as well.
- tls 12y ago
  It's been recently reported that China will not be able to side step tariffs anymore. http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/06/04/us-usa-trade-solar-idUSKBN0EF08A20140604 http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/06/04/us-usa-trade-solar...
- marcell 12y ago
johnohara 12y ago
The 35% U.S. federal subsidies for solar energy are due to expire in 2016. That's an important consideration. Nice coup for New York and its rebranding strategy. Doesn't Sanyo have a big facility upstate? Unfortunately, in all of this, we never see a discussion about individual ownership and transfer of excess SREC's.
ape4 12y ago
I have a small amount of roof space so want to buy efficient panels.
- dredmorbius 12y ago
  Focus on cost, not efficiency, really. There's plenty of space for solar energy all told, on a net-metering or grid basis. Unless you've got an absolutely compelling need to generate the maximum amount of energy from a minimum space and/or weight (say: you're building a satellite or space probe), just seek to keep $/kW as low as possible over the anticipated life of your panels.

162 points by ph0rque 12y ago

SEJeff 12y ago

This is one of the companies with Elon Musk helping drive the vision. They're going to go far.

kudithipudi 12y ago

The team @SolarCity and @Tesla continue to push the boundaries . I think this is going to change the landscape :)

jakozaur 12y ago

Silevo seems already have industry grade panels at 21% efficiency. That's quite a lot in home/utility panels: http://sroeco.com/solar/most-efficient-solar-panels http://sroeco.com/solar/most-efficient-solar-panels (13 - 17%) I can't find easily the price/W, but assuming they can produce panels at similar cost that's going to be huge.

dangravell 12y ago
Hmmm I might be wrong but I think that's a very specific test... they're only comparing 200W panels. SunPower make 20-21% efficient panels already.
- alphydan 12y ago
  The current efficiency record for research panels is around 44.7% [1] but commercial companies are above 22% (Sanyo, Panasonic, etc) [2] [1] https://renooble.com/blog/2013/11/solar-panel-efficiency-new-world-record/ https://renooble.com/blog/2013/11/solar-panel-efficiency-new... [2] https://renooble.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/nrel_efficiency_chart.jpg https://renooble.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/nrel_ef...
  - dredmorbius 12y ago
    Greater efficiency comes with higher costs. The maximum theoretical efficiency of solar panels is about 85% of incident sunlight based on the physics of the photoelectric effect. I've been learning about efficiency and cost, and was told recently that many large-scale installations in unsecured location use 9% efficient thin-film technology simply due to cost. Having your 20%-40% high-value panels stolen doesn't net you benefit. And you're still working against other constraints: a maximum insolation at Earth's surface of around 1 kW/m^2, the local insolation rate (great tool from NREL for mapping that within the US: http://maps.nrel.gov/prospector http://maps.nrel.gov/prospector), panel spacing (you net about 55% area fill rate at 36 degrees latitude based on panel angle and avoiding overlap), inverter efficiency (about 90%), capacity factor (amount of time you're receiving full sunlight), and more. By the time you account for all of this, you're down to about 30W of that 1 kW you can actually deliver (time-averaged -- peak is closer to 97W). And if you want to allow for storage, you've got even more losses. Plants start looking pretty effective at 1-3% solar conversion rates, especially when you figure they build themselves at the same time. More on net solar potential: http://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/28cvgv/calculating_estimated_solar_energy_potential/ http://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/28cvgv/calculat...

chanced 12y ago

Somewhat interesting that this occurs weeks after the tariff increase on subsidized Chinese solar panels. I wonder how closely those two events are aligned beyond mere coincidence.

felixbraun 12y ago

> SolarCity was founded to accelerate mass adoption of sustainable energy. The sun, that highly convenient and free fusion reactor in the sky, radiates more energy to the Earth in a few hours than the entire human population consumes from all sources in a year. This means that solar panels, paired with batteries to enable power at night, can produce several orders of magnitude more electricity than is consumed by the entirety of human civilization. Elon shining through here. There is little doubt that SolarCity will be a huge deal.

rlanday 12y ago
There’s a non-sequiter in that statement: the authors jump directly from “the sun emits an enormous amount of energy” to “it is feasible to capture and store several orders of magnitude more electricity than is currently consumed by human civilization using only solar panels and batteries.” That is a huge, huge leap.
- myhf 12y ago
  It's a huge, huge leap of multiplying the wattage of a solar panel by the number of solar panels manufactured and installed. Looks like it would take less than 1% of the land area of the earth to satisfy the electricity consumption of humanity many times over: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=electricity+consumed+%2F+%281kW+%2F+square+meter%29 http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=electricity+consumed+%2... It doesn't seem like much of a leap to propose covering 1% of the world with buildings or roads or farms, so solar panels should seem the same.
  - scotth 12y ago
    I've heard this suggested before, but seriously, 5.1 million square kilometers of solar panels? Seems to me that we're a long way off from that kind of undertaking.
    - maxerickson 12y ago
      The link is showing 2,000 square kilometers now. If you plug in a more reasonable value for watts (efficiency, night), it's still tens of thousands of square kilometers, not millions.

senthilnayagam 12y ago

good move. Tesla gigafactory would produce 50 GWh battery storage, they themselves need huge volumes of solar panels for their ever expanding charging stations network

startupfounder 12y ago

Take a step back. With 1GW of solar capacity production in NY by 2017, 50GWh of battery production in the southwest by 2020, Tesla's and SpaceX's manufacturing facilities in CA, Elon's distributed clean generation, storage and transportation empire is concentrated in the USA. All of these companies are becoming increasingly in control of their supply and distribution channels. What's next, is Musk going to use SpaceX to mine asteroids for their metals to build increasingly inexpensive clean transportation, batteries and solar hardware back here on earth?

toomuchtodo 12y ago
What did Dune say? "He who controls the Spice controls the Universe?" Carbon-based energy sources will not last forever, and even if they outlast us, using them will be catastrophic to the environment. Elon is positioning himself as the provider of plentiful, clean energy generation and storage to the world (not to mention the provider of mobility and space transport). Is it too early to compare him to Rockefeller?
- hueving 12y ago
  >What did Dune say? "He who controls the Spice controls the Universe?" Carbon-based energy sources will not last forever, and even if they outlast us, using them will be catastrophic to the environment. That presupposes nothing can ever be done about the CO2 offset. >Is it too early to compare him to Rockefeller? That would be an insult to him. Standard Oil did some of the shadiest anti-competitive stuff that resulted in many of the laws to protect against monopolies today. I assume you've seen the famous octopus drawing[1]? That didn't become popular because people thought Standard Oil was giving a warm hug to society. The patent release alone shows his intentions are much difference from Rockefeller's. 1. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Standard_oil_octopus_loc_color.jpg http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Standard_oil_octopus_...
  - toomuchtodo 12y ago
    The only way to offset CO2 in the atmosphere is to: a) Move carbon-based energy use to renewables b) If possible, remove CO2 in the atmosphere and storing it in a stable state underground. Elon is definitely working really fucking hard on the first item. The second item is what I would class as planet-level terraforming, and is going to take more than just Elon (without some sort of additional technological breakthrough). Also, I was not insulting him by calling him Rockefeller. I was simply saying he's become a titan of industry. You might have a better comparison than I off the cuff.

api 12y ago

I found Elon's secret business plan! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale

kbenson 12y ago

I like the section on "Forward-Looking Statements". While I'm sure some will take it as weasel-words to cover his ass (and I suspect if it was absent many of these people would find something -anything- else to critique), I think it's just prudence. It comforts me to see a big announcement with a caveat, because I feel they are trying to be accurate instead of bombastic.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
300bps 12y ago
Forward Looking Statements are a boilerplate disclaimer that publicly traded companies typically include anytime they talk about anything other than historical fact. If they don't include them and their plans change, they are at serious risk of being sued by their shareholders. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forward-looking_statement http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forward-looking_statement
- kbenson 12y ago
  I assumed as much (the SEC statement in it makes it fairly obvious). I almost threw in a few sentences about how I think if this is because the SEC, it's a very good side effect of informing investors. I think the effect a statement like this has on normal people reading is to allow the original article to inform and excite while also containing expectations. It can dampen the more excitable of the populace, as well as those who like to set them off. In all, regardless of why the statement is there, I think the fact that it is present is a good thing. I wasn't exactly assigning credit to Elon for it (the swipe at critics may have made it seem so), just talking in generalities.

torrenza 12y ago

Stock jumped 16% after that was released.

dang 12y ago

We changed the title to the first part of the lede, since it says what the article is about.

tomp 12y ago
Is this the new policy? Should we also post subtitles/ledes instead of titles, if they make the post more informative?
- dang 12y ago
  I wouldn't call it a new policy, but sure: what I look at are document title, article title, top subtitle, and first sentence of the article, in that order. If the latter is significantly better than the article title, we sometimes use it, like we did here. A good HN title is accurate and neutral (the opposite of misleading and linkbait). Rewriting is bad; it's far better to use words that are already there than to make up words of one's own. Taking words out in order to fit the 80-char limit is ok. Editorializing and spin are right out. Faithfulness to the original content (unless it is misleading or linkbait) is paramount. I think that's about it.

jguimont 12y ago

What keeps them from installing their system in every states or even Canada?

revelation 12y ago

Quite interesting, particularly considering Elons name is there. Elon was quite adamant in talking about SolarCity that they concentrate on the consumer-facing business, not producing solar cells, which as he explained is just slightly refined pure silicon with connectors slapped on, very much a commodity business where state actors like China are essentially subsidizing the West for buying solar panels in a bid to crush solar panel competition. So he didn't want to get into that. Maybe, as with the Gigafactory, he sees an opportunity here. Here is Elon saying making solar panels is a bad idea: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHHwXUm3iIg#t=2960 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHHwXUm3iIg#t=2960

jccooper 12y ago
True. And yet, it's also a very Elon move: vertical integration, making a big bet on growth, and doing so domestically in spite of theoretically lower-cost foreign production. (You can see all those factors in Tesla and SpaceX.) Perhaps the Silveo technology convinced him that solar cells are not always commodity. And then he went with his usual instinct.
- trhway 12y ago
  in vertically integrated business, even 2 times difference in the price of some basic parts/materials may not matter if that is just a fraction of the total price of the resulting product/service. If you own the high margin exit point like installation of the solar systems, you may be more worried about quality and the performance of the parts, stability of supply, etc... - the factors which can significantly affect your downstream high-margin part of the pipeline. Add to that that Musk is going to own battery component of the solar systems as well.
tls 12y ago
It's been recently reported that China will not be able to side step tariffs anymore. http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/06/04/us-usa-trade-solar-idUSKBN0EF08A20140604 http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/06/04/us-usa-trade-solar...
marcell 12y ago

johnohara 12y ago

The 35% U.S. federal subsidies for solar energy are due to expire in 2016. That's an important consideration. Nice coup for New York and its rebranding strategy. Doesn't Sanyo have a big facility upstate? Unfortunately, in all of this, we never see a discussion about individual ownership and transfer of excess SREC's.

ape4 12y ago

I have a small amount of roof space so want to buy efficient panels.

dredmorbius 12y ago
Focus on cost, not efficiency, really. There's plenty of space for solar energy all told, on a net-metering or grid basis. Unless you've got an absolutely compelling need to generate the maximum amount of energy from a minimum space and/or weight (say: you're building a satellite or space probe), just seek to keep $/kW as low as possible over the anticipated life of your panels.