The exponential growth of solar power will change the world
economist.com
economist.com
Already we're seeing that solar energy is more cost effective than all other forms of energy production [1], that the growth of solar has been consistently underestimated by very large players [2], and that solar democratizes energy production more than any other form of energy.
Distibution needs to be improved, but this issue also holds for other non-fossil energy sources. I predict a lot of these problems will be solved through hydrogen generation and storage [3].
[1] https://www.carbonbrief.org/solar-is-now-cheapest-electricit... [2] https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-does-almost-everyone-unde... [3] https://www.iea.org/energy-system/low-emission-fuels/hydroge...
Your source doesn’t include wind, which is as cheap (onshore) as (utility-scale) solar [1].
[1] https://www.lazard.com/media/2ozoovyg/lazards-lcoeplus-april... slide 2
That seems to be correct for wind that needs major refitting, but solar seems to be more durable.
Google suggests 10% loss after 20 years for solar.
Therefore, i have doubts that presented numbers are accurate. Solar will simply churn along for far longer, while wind will have to becreplaced.
Not disputing, but where do you see this?
> Solar will simply churn along for far longer, while wind will have to becreplaced
We don’t have good numbers for the longevity of wind turbines either, though it’s probably under 25 years [1].
> doubts that presented numbers are accurate
Unlikely. The terminal value of that residual at any reasonable cost of capital is, while non-negligible, not going to be significant. (See Slide 6 for how each source’s LCOE reacts to rates.)
[1] https://www.twi-global.com/technical-knowledge/faqs/how-long...
It was from slide 17, project lifetime (it was for combined with storage).
I looked more closely and it's actually 30 years (25 for residential) for solar, slide 37 (Key assumptions)- facility life row.
For wind, it assumes 20 years.
This is often claimed, but does anyone have budget numbers or even a decent order of magnitude estimate for how much subsidy was applied here? Or was it actually the free market supplying compounding cost reductions through technological improvements?
They suggest that early on R&D support from government was key, then later market support to help grow the scale of deployment. Since 2001 its been manufacturing scale that has dominated price reductions.
MIT News article with link to the actual paper: https://news.mit.edu/2018/explaining-dropping-solar-cost-112...
[1] https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/china-solar-industry...
Cheap producer credit, covering up to 50% of new-facility costs and feed-in tariffs [1]. At least the latter began getting phased out after costing Beijing over $15bn in 2017 [2].
Haven’t run the precise numbers, but that one-year figure seems to line up with the IRA’s total solar package [3].
[1] https://chinafocus.ucsd.edu/2021/02/16/solar-energy-in-china...
[2] https://chineseclimatepolicy.oxfordenergy.org/book-content/d...
That is, it's identical to Western-style renewable subsidies?
At least at the federal level, this seems to be the case.
> it's identical to Western-style renewable subsidies?
At least early on, most Western subsidies didn’t discriminate based on where the panel was produced. We also don’t have visibility into provincial books, where if how they treat coal is any indication, where the plants are there to buy coal from their coal mines, there is probably cross subsidy.
But given what we know, one could argue they’re structurally similar, at least in respect to what we’re doing now.
Currently the cheap hybrid inverter on the market usually comes with crappy monitoring software.
Edit: prior art: https://www.winlab.rutgers.edu/~crose/428_html/projects11/Di...
They work for individual solar panels.
am actively looking to replace it
On scale, free energy supply is pointless when it occurs during times when nobody can use it. It's all about storage capacities.
It’s useless if nobody uses it. The question is why the arbitrage, by way of storage or intermittent industry, isn’t happening.
Negative energy prices are a relatively new phenomenon, and it attracts attention because of its counterintuitive nature (I can get paid to use electricity?!?). Yet, it doesn’t happen that often. If I look at the Dutch market, this mostly happens on sunny+windy Sundays.
I think 2 things are happening that will make arbitrage feasible:
1. As solar production capacity increases, so will opportunities for arbitrage
2. As battery costs keep going down (capacity learning curve), so will the investment to do arbitrage.
At some point the curves for (1) and (2) will cross convincingly enough that investing in storage is just good business, and people will invest. If it’s anything like solar (home batteries), adoption might actually go very quickly because decision making would be decentralized, small investments, and without permits.
your 2 will probably happen at some point but its been forecast within the minimum likely range for arbitrage opportunities to cause widespread capital allo.ation to take advantage of the arbitrage that it has stunted investment in your 1.
in short its questionable that arbitrage will sort this any time soon (although it will likely be accounted for in new projects that were happening anyway. That˙makes it something that will move the needle over decades, not years) sorting this soon needs another order of magnitude or two improvement in total cost of storage, ideally in a cheaper and less environmentally harmful chemistry that can also take advantage of the installed battery production capacity, or rethinking to make environmentally friendly demand generation (ie nuclear) cheaper and faster to deploy to provide the power when the solar can't.
Anyone looking to take business advantage of solar should be looking at predictably below average prices for most of the day, rather than only when it hits zero.
edit to add:
An example, yesterday on CAISO in California they broke records for solar generated, and battery discharge, but the price never hit 0 and batteries were charging from 6am to 6pm and making good money meeting evening demand:
https://www.gridstatus.io/live/caiso?date=2024-06-20
And it's possible to argue that the price didn't hit zero in part because of the batteries knowing they could sell it for more later.
https://beta.economist.com/leaders/2024/06/20/the-exponentia...
Seems Australia has dodged a bullet by NOT having Nuclear, now some are trying to catch that bullet for political points.
I understand exponential is hard to grasp..
The low kerf diamond wire saw is also a critical technology for this, but the powdered diamond required can be synthetic.
The fact that “the all-in cost of the electricity they produce promises to be less than half as expensive as the cheapest available today” is what sinks nukes. Burn fossil fuels longer, be judicious in adding gas so batteries have a chance to take hold (we’ve already fucked this up in Europe and America), and accept that while the transition will be dirtier you’ll have a cheaper grid in the end.
That said, just as decarbonisation isn’t the only variable, LCOE isn’t either. Australia will have to maintain a nuclear fleet for military purposes. Taking into account that sunk cost, a civilian fleet’s math might change. (I’m doubtful, but maybe.)
Australia has 2x the sunshine of Europe, more spare land for panels, and less seasonal variability.
Australia has no existing nuclear plant experience. No experienced regulator or legal regime. High labor costs and little relevant local labor. And a track record of project cost blowouts and time overruns on large projects.
Australia's small energy needs are also an issue. The marginal cost of new nuclear drops after you build the first few plants but Australia has such small energy needs that it won't reap the fruits of scale benefits.
Australia has large community opposition to nuclear but not to solar. About 35% of the electorate approve of nuclear, with almost all state premiers publicly stating opposition, while 80% approve of solar. This will lead to social licensing risks like what Germany, Japan, Taiwan and California face with planning and legislative delays, and potential early plant closures leading to wasted capex and higher energy costs.
Australia's peak scientific body, the CSIRO, estimates that a mostly decarbonized grid will be 2x more expensive with nuclear than pure renewables with transmission and storage. The above local factors contribute to that conclusion.
In other words, Australia is not China. And even in China, solar is beating nuclear.
Yeah, because having a cheaper and cleaner grid would be soo bad
We don’t include the cost of disposing of spent panels and turbines either. Nuclear waste’s risks are hyped beyond reason. What kills nuclear is the capital cost of building it.
In the end, it’s fine. We’ll do gas + wind + solar and that will take us through 2050.
Correct, the LCOE of nuclear is much higher than competitors’. Most of that, however, is regulatory, and it’s far from clear how much is necessary.
It's interesting you mention carbon costs. It's a fair point but also does not end up in nuclear's favor. Germany has been deploying more than a 1GW of solar per month this and last year. This will produce as much as two reactors worth of electricity (actually more but ok). If they were trying to shutdown coal plants with nuclear it would take around 15 years for those two reactors, likely more. So instead of their coal plants running for decades as they build out nuclear, they are sitting idly because solar deployment is quick. This matters too.
And that's the situation we are in. The discussion changes once you saturate the market with solar but even advanced economies are far away from that and the world as whole especially.
The last one reminds me of a quote attributed to Einstein [1]:
> Two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I am not yet completely sure about the universe.
[1] https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/18140/did-einst...