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Comment by toomuchtodo | Hacker News Reader

This [1] recent FT times piece indicates solar PV coming out of China is down to 10 cents/watt. This [2] other piece indicates LFP cells are down to $53/kwh.

[1] https://www.ft.com/content/69e4cb33-3615-4424-996d-5aee9d1af... | https://archive.today/11TFI

[2] https://about.bnef.com/electric-vehicle-outlook/

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I have a theory. China is leading in solar and making it dirt cheap to undermine the USA and any other resource based economies without actually saying they're doing it.

It's a perfect weapon really, make energy so cheap, reliable and efficient that it destroys the petro-dollar.

As someone concerned about climate change, it's a wonderful thing but I think the hegemony should watch it and adapt.

Yours is in the class of theories that presumes that some large group is perfectly organised, communicates perfectly and able to keep that ability secret.

Like a single autocratic government.

It's an autocratic government that banned hiring Norwegians and then paid me to write open source code, which necessarily isn't an activity you can expect to keep secret. That's how well the government is able to impose its policies on its own branches.

Don't expect magic feats from autocratic organisations.

Does it really even need to be a secret? I mean technically there is nothing to really cover up except encouraging or incentivizing manufacturing for "green tech". There's nothing even sinister about it.

It could be as simple as China just sort of stumbled into this situation and realized what's happening and now they just have to foster and grow their solar and wind industries.

The only hole in this theory is that solar currently doesn’t help with car and automobile usage.

If I drive to my office and use their solar charger to charge my EV (which conveniently comes from China) while it's there, or if I'm lucky enough to have a wfh job and then charge it during the day while I'm working, why wouldn't it?

Though the other thing to note is that Texas and thus the US is now a net exporter of oil, the opposite of the 70' oil crisis.

Regardless of their intentions, energy independence is a huge thing for a country's sovereignty.

It's simpler to assume several Chinese based business are pursuing profits and the consequences of this particular pursuit are seen as beneficial by bureaucrats so it's encouraged.

Capitalism requires no conspiracy. People will do anything to increase their wealth.

The US is not really a resource based economy (though it less dependent on external resources than many others). Gulf countries are.

They gain a lot of power from oil being bought and sold in USD.

If it's 10 cents per watt why are prices on Amazon still 6 times that? https://www.amazon.in/WAAREE-TOPCON-575-Bifacial-Performance...

https://www.alibaba.com/showroom/solar-panels.html

Interesting, even with the 40% import duties (China to India), local prices still are very high. Im not sure how to explain why no one is using this arbitrage.

Usually the arbitrage is a mirage (though sometimes it's real). Many times there are hidden taxes in the form of government bribery and special red tapes that requires paying the relevant parties. You only find out this stuff when you start doing business as the details are not included in the manual.

Tariffs? https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/india-may-cut-solar-...

Because that's what people are willing to pay.

I have wondered this for years since the price for 200W panels stayed pretty flat for half a decade or more. Around $1/watt.

It turns out that these calculations are for utility scale purchases. You need to be buying thousands of panels to realize them.

That being said, I have noticed in the last year or so that you can find some pretty good individual panel deals, closer to $0.5/watt.

Just having a look in the UK and you can get 430W panels for £59.95 (excluding VAT, similar to sales tax) in bulk, marginally higher for smaller quantities. At current exchange rates that's $80, so 18c/watt?

https://www.solartradesales.co.uk/8-33-solar-430w-full-black...

In my region of the world(Eastern Europe) I've seen monocrystalline solar panels in stores for the equivalent $0.25/W, which is crazy considering that electricity here is around $0.20/kWh.

I could use only a quarter of the generated energy and still break even on the panels in 5 years.

Yup, I just bought 60 kWh of LFP batteries. Total with shipping was $3100.

Where did you buy from? Also, what is your end application?

That’s insane. That’s the size of a decent EV battery.

Hi there. Where did you purchase those from?

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