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Comment by itswindy | Hacker News Reader

The financing approach makes a lot of sense for Google. They can make a lot of money without building any sort of infrastructure.

Solar is more hype than anything, and it's good press. Is anyone making money from solar?

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Yes, we are. The numbers can work in a couple of different ways in a couple different markets. It's neither hype, nor press, but thanks.

I'm surprised Google is able to make residential PV contracts make sense: my guess is that the consumers here are either paying more than the prevailing market rates, or they are locked into a very long contract (20+ years?), or both.

By contrast, we target the commercial market, have shorter contracts (10 years), and guarantee a discount relative to the utility co's.

They are probably subsidizing them. 20 years is a long time, especially when people move often and technology changes.

Yeah the article said that they charge on a variable price for the electric and say that it's on average cheaper than the electric company. I imagine that they probably have either long contracts, or high interest to cover the cost. Would it be feasible that the provider of the panels is willing to take an upfront loss that they'll recoup in maintenance?

Residential is the most profitable part of the solar market because residential rates are by far the highest, so your PPA or lease revenue, even at a discount to grid, is still fairly high. Sure it costs more to install residential than commercial or utility scale, but the higher revenue more than offsets this. Also all PPA or leases are long term arrangements where the provider includes an escalator of at least 2% a year. If utility rates don't rise at least that fast, the long term contract is a bad deal for the buyer.

FSLR is profitable.

Those that sold shovels during the gold rush, made money too.

There's a video of Bill Gates making a mathematical case why solar will not solve our problems. We need another nuclear plant, the name escape but I think it uses all the nuclear waste.

thorium

I believe you're referring to thorium reactors. Though I remain optimistic about future developments in solar (particularly if we can capture it in space and beam it back to earth), I agree that building next-gen nuclear is clearly the best plan for humanity's energy future.

That scenario always makes me think back to simcity (2000?) where as you'd advance, you could build these microwave beam powerplants, and occasionally they'd lose tracking and start burning down your city...

I do wonder how RF power transmission is progressing, and what issues will come with it, as I imagine that's the most feasible way to transport energy from space to earth, although wikipedia also mentions laser transmission - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_energy_transfer

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