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Comment by TillE | Hacker News Reader

For the past 15 years or so, Germany has been pursuing an aggressive plan to switch entirely to renewable power, which includes building out lots of wind and solar. Some say it's not fast enough, but it's still pretty impressive, especially for a country so far from the equator. I think the country is around 30% renewable by now.

Bear in mind, this is absolutely necessary for the entire world at some point. Fossil fuels will not last forever. Best start now and not procrastinate.

In terms of specific policy to pursue: basically lots of subsidies.

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Germans also pay 30 cents per kWh. There are projections it'll be 50 cents per kWh in the future. Renewable power is unfortunately expensive.

So are 1.2 trillion sandbags.

All the power in my camper is provided by solar energy. I paid maybe $500 for the system, including a lithium ion battery. It will provide power for the next 25 years for two people, using computers all day long and plenty of bright lights at night.

Solar power is hella cheap. People need to stop whining.

It is cheap because manufacturing was subsidised by cheaper dirty coal-fired electricity. Solar panels today are essentially overpriced batteries that require years of time and sunshine to discharge. 10 years ago most solar panels barely returned 50% of the energy expended to make them. At least we seems to be getting close to the breakeven point.

P.S. I really doubt that the panel will last 25 years, and the battery is likely to go poof even sooner.

The battery is Lifepo4 chemistry with a good solar controller from electrodacus.com. I typically drain to about 65% so these are considered shallow cycles.

I think the battery will go for 15 years & the panels too. So 25 years was a bit of a stretch but 15 years electricity for $500 was pretty OK.

Solar energy really is cheap.

There are many parts of the world where it makes the most financial sense.

Lol Do people EVER follow-up after feel good policies to see how they worked out? http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-04-14/coal-rises...

What does that have to do with the GP's comment? Neither coal nor nuclear are classified as renewable.

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