Top comment on this post right now is a dumb, dismissive joke. Personally, I don’t think an addressable market size in the trillions of dollars is a joke, but you do you.
Is it fair to call it the top comment if it's the only comment? And downvoted, nonetheless.
And while it was a joke, I actually think it makes a valid point. As an individual, I'm incredibly wary whenever I see these "Field X is going to explode with jobs!" announcements, because they analyses are usually quite simplistic.
I mean, we were saying the same things about solar jobs 10 years ago, and there was a ton of excitement. That was then followed by tons of companies going bankrupt and jobs disappearing because they couldn't compete with "the China price". With globalization slowing down and decoupling I'm not saying that fate will repeat itself, but I still think some healthy skepticism is warranted.
The thing that didn’t work out were some high profile panel manufacturing plays, but the solar industry as a whole has grown and employs more people than the oil and gas industry.
In fact, the “China price” is responsible for a lot of that growth, because it’s made the economics of solar irresistible in many places.
More info on jobs and industry size: https://www.seia.org/solar-industry-research-data
Would be great to stop importing cheap, inefficient panels from abroad and instead have out tax dollar subsidize a higher quality domestic product.
Cheap and inefficient panels are usually exactly what you want. You are rarely space or weight limited, so it is all about getting the highest power capacity for your money. Why spend twice as much for 10% more capacity when you can get 100% more capacity for the same money by simply placing more panels?
Because panels are a small portion of the overall installed capacity price. Installation labor, inverters, racking, wiring, mounts, and other parts account for most of it.
See pages 22 and 30 of this 2022 NREL solar cost report:
"U.S. Solar Photovoltaic System and Energy Storage Cost Benchmarks, With Minimum Sustainable Price Analysis: Q1 2022"
https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy22osti/83586.pdf
The residential market has traditionally been where higher-cost, higher-efficiency panels do best. But efficiency has risen so much across the board in recent years that it appears difficult to run a solar manufacturing business targeting the rooftop market alone. The bigger manufacturers that service all markets have panels that can match or nearly match the efficiency of specialty manufacturers and they have better economies of scale.
Yes and no. In a commercial context, with installation at ground level, space isn't an issue. On commercial buildings, again roof space is often plentiful, and not an issue.
But for residential, with pitched roofs, often pitched it the wrong direction, space is a major factor.
Alas residentials are also the most price-sensitive.
And this is before we discuss the assumption that US panels would be "better". In truth they are likely to be less effecient, not more effecient. Chinese factories spen a lot on updating equipment and processes. By contrast most US industries don't spend a lot upgrading factories - especially in the short term.
It is also the carbon cost of the coal that is used to produce solar panels, and the human forced labor: https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2021/05/19...
Cheating on both carbon emissions and slave labor practices is a giant way that China was able to bring down costs compared to competitors in the US and EU.
Everyone keeps going on about lithium and cobalt shortages, but in The Netherlands the biggest shortage is in laborers - and I bet it's the same story in other places.
Hi there, software engineer here. I was laid off from a climate tech (solar) company in December ‘22. Bonus points for doing it a week out from christmas!
He has jobs booked out 8 months now. Its funny because he tells me his parents were so upset he started a roofing company and didn't go to college and now he makes more per year then most software engineers even at large tech companies.
He also said he's having issues hiring dependable people even though he says he's offering a really good salary+benefits.
It is evidently not good enough. Can you share how much he is offering for back breaking outdoor labor that has a high likelihood of causing musculoskeletal healthcare problems by one’s 50s, and cannot screw around on HN during the day?
As for the effects of physical labor on the body: that is true for many industries and occupations. It certainly doesn't give solar a pass but this is not a problem that is exclusive to solar installations (though the risk of injury is high this is in part because the people that try to do the work aim to get it done as quickly as possible and safety be damned). Have a look at the building trades for small time contractors, the situation is quite comparable (especially the roofing part). But don't underestimate the wear and tear of any one of a large number of other 'blue collar' jobs on the body.
I do not see the difference. He wants a worker of certain quality, and apparently is not offering or able to offer sufficient pay to attract said worker from other options they have.
As for the second paragraph, I never meant to imply roofing or solar was special. As the proportion of younger age population declines, prices for work with lower quality of life will need to rise to compete with work that offers a higher quality of life.
In solar installations the first filter is 'is comfortable working at heights', the second is 'can deliver quality work', the third is 'is able to represent the company well', the fourth is 'will take good care not to damage the clients property' and there are probably others. Within a given region there may simply not be enough people left over in the intersection of all those sets that you are able to supply the companies with sufficient people. There are quite a few industries with similar shortages. Usually over time these even out as industries mature but during a growth spurt (which is exactly what has been happening for the last decade or so) the market may not be able to solve the shortfall by offering more cash, for that to work enough people actually need to exist in that bracket.
When someone claims they can't get anyone to work for them "no matter what they are willing to pay", it often turns out they weren't willing to pay all that much. Which solar installation company offers FAANG level total compensation?
It is obvious there are no guarantees in life. But over the long term, quality correlates with price of the goods are limited in quantity.
It is obvious over the past many decades that the pay to quality of life at work ratio for manual labor has lagged far behind “office”. Therefore, to attract the best or even above median young people to manual labor jobs, they will need to offer a commensurate price to overcome that reputation.
If you're arguing that solar power installations are too cheap then you may well have a point but that isn't going to convince a lot of people to change to the point where it is no longer viable. If anything the market is getting more and more competitive as more people enter it. In 2005 I paid about $30,000 for a solar power system that produced 3200 Watt on a good day in March, today I paid about $12000 for a system that produces well over 10KW. Installation costs as a fraction of the total bill has gone up, not down during that time, but in an absolute sense they've gone down because installations are now much simpler and far more routine. Back then every installation was an experiment, now it is routine.
It always seems nice to be able to simplify things to the point where they become soundbites but reality is rarely that simple.
Anyway, I repeat: the accent was on dependable. That does not necessarily correlate with price (though it would nice if it did...).
Are you sure about this, I mean non-anecdotally? Much might depend on the type/repetitiveness of the labour, etc,etc, but in general I suspect most HN-fiddlers are (mutatis mutandis)in poorer physical shape than labourers. There's little more dangerous to a mammalian frame, designed for a life of outdoor physical activity, than hours of inactivity. The sofa and car are probably the two most physically dangerous items we've come up with. I started to notice most of my peers having become functionally disabled by car and sofa abuse by about their late 20s.
For example they small lifting devices that attach to ladders to bring roofing material up, think like a flat elevator that goes up and down. That takes alot of heavy lifting and climbing.
Nail guns and other power tools also reduce exertion in general. I'm not saying it's easy but it's better
Hopefully the IRA can translate into a lot of productive asset growth in North America - at the very least we can translate the GDP / CO2e to be more efficient. It isn't clear that it will be a huge success but it is important goal to pursue.
That said there are many humorless climate zealots out there that are problematic that get in the way of progress.
You mean, like most of the real economy? In which people produce stuff and provide the services everybody needs? ...
I think that many of the most visible parts of the solar value chain (the panels and the installers) are very competitive industries that are going to be poor investments. However, there's always some segment of the value chain that is condensed into a few technologically-advanced and capital-intensive companies. I think we'll see this with solar as well, and there will be trillion-dollar companies that come out of it.
https://www.google.com/finance/quote/ENPH:NASDAQ?sa=X&window...
Despite the optimism, I expect the actual number of jobs to fall short of expectations.
I'm just saying if your financing and backing has come to pass because of government fiat, it can just as easily be removed by government fiat.
Good luck out there!