
Solar is now cheaper than some coal, says India energy minister - Osiris30
http://www.climatechangenews.com/2016/04/18/solar-is-now-cheaper-than-coal-says-india-energy-minister/
======
downandout
_" Solar energy prices hit a new record low in January with the auction of 420
megawatts in Rajasthan at 4.34 rupees a kilowatt-hour. In comparison coal
tariffs range between 3-5 rupees/kWh."_

So the headline here is, as is usually the case with articles in this space,
misleading at best. It's slightly cheaper than the highest-end coal, but
dramatically more expensive - nearly 1.5X more - than the lower end. Overall,
it's still more expensive, and that doesn't include the cost of batteries to
deal with the fact that the sun sets each day.

To be sure, advances are being made in this space. But this headline is
nothing more than clickbait.

~~~
Osiris30
No. See
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11524691](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11524691)

Why does solar always need batteries? These are not "advances". India is
adding 20k MW of solar and 10k MW of wind p.a. China is at 20+20. US at 20+20.
Europe at 20+20.

30% of all new power capacity additions globally will be from renewables for
the foreseeable future. Probably more.

This is without "batteries". Without subsidies.

The need for "baseload", "storage", or "the sun doesn't always shine and the
wind doesn't always blow" are red herrings. They are not relevant.

Whether we like it or not, driven by massive cost and technology improvements,
solar and wind are here in a massive way.

~~~
mistermann
> The need for "baseload", "storage", or "the sun doesn't always shine and the
> wind doesn't always blow" are red herrings. They are not relevant.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding your comment, but how is my desire for electricity
at night time "not relevant"?

~~~
ageofwant
Its not relevant to people who are prepared to sacrifice convenience for cost.
Especially if night-time prices are directly linked to supply. Smarter devices
will become available that use energy when its cheaply available. Long time
storage will improve and spread the load, probably from smaller to larger
scale. Base load is really an artefact of system and usage inefficiencies, not
some inherent problem with renewables.

~~~
Cerium
Exactly! If daytime electricity was cheap enough I would double the size of my
refrigerator and fill it with water to increase thermal mass. At night time it
would stay cold enough to not use any power. Almost all energy except lighting
is good to go. My laptop already has enough power to last the evening. I just
need a few watts for the router.

~~~
criddell
I live in central Texas and my biggest energy consumer is air conditioning.
Rooftop solar makes a lot of sense for me because I use the most energy when
the sun is shining. I've never seriously considered storage.

------
kristopolous
This is called Swanson's law:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swanson%27s_law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swanson%27s_law)

"The future is solar" isn't some hippy fantasy, it's a sincere market
projection. Apparently, a robust, distributed, decentralized, sustainable
power grid is unbelievably the actual long-term direction of free-market
forces.

~~~
netcan
There is some other interesting economics at play. Solar is more suitable for
local, small scale production for a few reasons including relative costs and
the way those costs are distributed (capital cost vs variable cost).

That in itself is interesting for all sorts of reasons, many of them applying
to countries like India with infrastructure difficulties.

About 7 years ago I visited Cow Bay, north of Cairns, Australia and past the
end of the grid (it ends at the Daintree river, I think). All the B&Bs,
houses, hotels and such were running on Diesel generators. Smelly, noisy...
People turn them off at night. I wonder if solar has replaced much of this
yet.

If local solar reduces the need for power infrastructure in areas where
marginal costs are highest, I wonder if the economics of grids changes in some
sort of useful way generally. Maybe the cost savings in marginal
infrastructure reduce overall costs meaningfully. If governments (or the quasi
independent private energy players) are too broke or disfunctional to provide
good central power, there's an alternative. When telcom infrastructure was
simplified by mobile, that had a big impact in places that never had wired
infrastructure in the first place but got mobile phones.

~~~
dexterdog
Can't the same be said for local nuclear?

~~~
iSnow
In the age of global terrorism, local nuclear is a no-go from the start.

Dirty bombs hardly make sense in terms of headcount, but their psychological
effects would be tremendous. Therefore, security around nuclear installations
will remain high - and that's easier to organize and cheaper around big,
centralized stations.

~~~
ageofwant
Bill Gates disagrees [http://terrapower.com/](http://terrapower.com/)

Modern LFTR and TWR designs addresses most of your concerns and leaves the
rest with less risk than the incumbent status quo.

Update your ken on nuclear, the current narrative is hurting as all deeply.

------
murukesh_s
“I sincerely believe that what the West is doing in this respect is anti-
development and anti the fight against climate change,” he said, accusing rich
countries of charging too much for clean technology."

I really don't believe any country is sincere towards climate change. Every
country puts their economy before others. So expecting another economy to help
you is a foolish assumption.

~~~
noisy_boy
You are correct that every country puts their economy before others.

However, India is not asking another economy to help them. India can develop
its solar energy sector by itself.

The west accuses the developing countries to be big polluters since they use
less environmentally-friendly means of energy production. Then when countries
like India try to subsidize the domestic solar energy market, WTO accuses them
of illegally supporting domestic over international solar producers. Its like
you are called a drug-addict first and when you try to wean off it on your
own, you are accused of cheating the rehab centres. Excellent example of
double standards.

~~~
davedx
> India can develop its solar energy sector by itself.

Until the US sues them and the WTO rules against them.
[http://in.reuters.com/article/usa-india-solar-
idINKCN0QV2FD2...](http://in.reuters.com/article/usa-india-solar-
idINKCN0QV2FD20150827)

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
India wants 8% domestic production, and the US has a cry. What a bully. How
does the WTO enforce that sort of ruling? India has The Bomb.

~~~
harryf
Because 8% of India is huge - that would mean India has a functioning solar
energy tech sector - perhaps one that might be able to compete worldwide

~~~
mcv
8% of India is bigger than many entire countries. If India can export this and
compete world wide, that's enormous.

------
rathish_g
India has made huge investments in Solar and is gradually paying off.

1.World's first solar power airport is in India
[http://money.cnn.com/2016/03/14/technology/india-cochin-
sola...](http://money.cnn.com/2016/03/14/technology/india-cochin-solar-
powered-airport/)

2.Solar power from dams
[http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2014-11-10/news...](http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2014-11-10/news/55956131_1_rays-
power-experts-morbe-dam)

~~~
iSnow
Wasn't there some WTO ruling against India just recently that will make solar
more expensive there?

~~~
_rpd
The ruling was that Indian government subsidies must be paid to foreign firms
as well as Indian firms.

------
droithomme
1\. The Indian government issues grandiose announcements of these sort on a
regular basis. Each announcement is followed by international news waving
their hands "it's happening!" followed by no follow up coverage when every
single time the claims fall apart and the plan never happens.

2\. "I think a new coal plant would give you costlier power than a solar
plant." Someone's "I think" is a gut feeling by a government minister, not
anything to do with reality.

3\. The given cost comparison takes a one-time outlier lowest-price-ever in an
auction to provide a 70Mw plant installation with certain assurances, with the
overall average cost of the other technology. An invalid comparison, as well
as inaccurate to imply that the lowest bid for 70Mw was also the bids for the
other parts of the 420 mW projects.

------
invalid-access
Shameless plug: If you want to participate in India's progress towards bigger
rooftop-solar, please consider joining
[http://www.oorjan.com](http://www.oorjan.com). We believe we are doing
something unique in leveraging banking and financial relationships to
productize solar deployments. And looking for great devs right now - esp
frontend :-)

~~~
saravanannkl
Is solar viable for small installations without any subsidies ? I was recently
looking at a 30KW proposal for a small enterprise in Tamil Nadu. The quoted
price is Rs. 36 lakhs. At the rate of Rs 6.75 per unit, it doesn't even cover
the interest costs. Does this match with your capex costs or is this way off ?

~~~
parimm
Solar is viable, you will be looking at a 6-7year payback on the system with
interest, 36Lakhs is very high for a 30kW system. The prices should be in the
range of 25-27L for an on grid system with a simple structure. Where in Tamil
Nadu is this? Ping me if you are looking for more details(mail Id in profile),
I work for a company that does solar installations.

~~~
saravanannkl
Thanks for the reply. I could not find your mail id in your profile. You can
send me an email to {My HN username}{at}gmail and I can send you more details

------
sandGorgon
This is the carrot to the Paris Agreement's stick (which India and China
refused to sign until the differentiation of developed and developing is
added).

Its basically an attempt to show that as a country, we can move to cleaner
power if the right technology transfer is supported by US and Europe. It is
the second step after the agreement to transfer US nuclear energy tech to
India (which has not signed the Non Proliferation Treaty).

I think the US govt will have to open up its technology and patents to be used
by India - if the climate change deal needs to be ratified. Otherwise there is
zero chance of it being passed in the Indian parliament.

------
selimnairb
Many Indians already have backup battery systems because the grid, even in big
cities, is so unreliable. This may make the switch to solar less burdensome,
at least cognitively, if not practically.

~~~
toyg
The real winners of the current movement towards decentralized tech (mobile
phones, solar etc) will be BRICS and developing countries, if only they can
keep their political systems consistent enough.

~~~
ageofwant
The beauty of decentralised systems like these is that they make central
governtment less relevant. This is generally a good thing, but particularly so
in place with less stable political systems.

------
gozur88
Great! If he's right, we don't have to do anything, right? No direct
subsidies, no feed-in tariffs, no cheap loans, etc. We can just _let it
happen_!.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
Your use of the suspiciously specific phrase "direct subsidies" suggests that
you already know that coal receives plenty of government subsidies and that if
those were removed, and coal had to account for the damage it does, then yes
it would just happen.

~~~
gozur88
>Your use of the suspiciously specific phrase "direct subsidies"...

Was to contrast cash grants from other forms of subsidies like feed-in
tariffs, cheap loans, net-zero metering, etc. There's no reason to parse my
comments like some kind of religious text - I will tell you what I mean.

------
a_imho
Bit of a clickbait title, the article mentions only one case where solar was
traded at a lower price than coal, which is still not lower than coal's
average price. For a better comparison we should include the cost of
manufacturing panels vs building coal plants and the money spent on r&d and
pr. Also, afaik solar panels are not exactly eco friendly. I believe it is up
to personal taste which power lobby agenda one buys in, for one, I see the
most value in fission
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integral_fast_reactor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integral_fast_reactor)

~~~
Kliment
The minister being quoted explicitly compared cost of new solar installs
versus cost of new coal installs - that's where the "cheaper than coal" quote
was taken from, it's not about spot prices for solar energy (which are a
senseless comparison anyway, as they go to zero and even negative in times of
low demand)

EDIT: low demand, not high demand, of course

~~~
a_imho
Thanks for the clarification, it seemed to me that the writer was using these
numbers to justify Goyal's claim. Without them we are left with the sentence
that imo is worded exactly that way to reflect the minister's personal
opinion/pr after Sun Edison bankruptcy. Which still makes it clickbaitish
without any more facts.

------
chris_wot
Eat your heart out Tony Abbott!

Unfortunately, the Australian Government, which under the Labor Party was
trying to phase out polluting industries via a Carbon Tax and then an ETS were
voted out of power due to their own cromulence and internal dysfunction.

We then got one Anthony John Abbott as the new Prime Minister who was backed
by Joseph Benedict Hockey, his Treasurer.

Joe Hockey attempted to shut down the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, and
said the following:

"If I can be a little indulgent please, I drive to Canberra to go to
Parliament, I drive myself and I must say I find those wind turbines around
Lake George to be utterly offensive. I think they're just a blight on the
landscape."

The first thing that the Abbott government did once they got into power was
roll back the mining tax and stop the ETS. Tony Abbott said:

"Coal is good for humanity, coal is good for prosperity, coal is an essential
part of our economic future, here in Australia, and right around the world."

Abbott lasted just under two years before his even more dysfunctional
government (which barely passed any legislation and whose leader was the most
unpopular and incompetent Australian leader of recent history) came to an
ignominious end and Malcolm Turnbull was reinstated as the leader of the LNP,
and thus was elevated from backbencher to leader of Australia.

I am hopeful that Malcolm Turnbull can turn this around, but I think it's
unlikely. Much of Australia's wealth is derived from coal exports, even though
it never actually employed a large proportion of the Australian population
(and employs even less now as there have been a lot of mine closures,
especially in the Hunter area of NSW).

Sadly, we squandered the huge wealth that it generated and although the Labor
party made a start towards transitioning to a clean energy economy, it has all
been rolled back in only two years and the momentum they got going is unlikely
to be reestablished any time soon.

Our leaders have let us down badly, and Abbott's risky bet on coal is going to
cause Australia a lot of problems in the years ahead.

------
duncan_bayne
Cheaper, or better subsidised? Politicians are usually quite keen to describe
their pet projects as either cheap or free when in reality they're just
taxpayer funded.

------
mgnacl
This is great news. Years ago it was considered an indisputable fact that
solar (and wind) couldn't compete with the economics of coal and nuclear.

~~~
StreamBright
And it is still true, wind will be never be able to compete with nuclear for
the simple fact that wind blows when it blows and you need energy when you
need it. Unless we develop a technology that is able to cope with the huge
spikes that windmills put on the energy grid and store energy in a very
efficient way (including gaining the energy back when we need it) wind will
not be more than few percentage of the overall energy production with the cost
of having gas turbines in the system to just to balance windmills. Solar is
obviously far better, there are few things to sort out but the progress we
made is definitely promising.

~~~
nhaehnle
Note that nuclear is also not exactly grid-friendly, since you cannot quickly
change the power output of a nuclear power plant. They are useful for base
load and nothing else.

~~~
StreamBright
This is not the definition of grid-friendly. I am just calling out that
windmills could never serve as base power plant, and serving as peak power
source has a serious side effect of requiring gas turbines to provide smooth
energy production that does not stress the grid. You do not change the output
of your base power plant on a daily basis, this is why it is called base. For
the peak coverage you have something that is easy to change the performance
of.

------
dimitar
Aren't warm countries incredibly suitable for solar power? I assume most of
the electricity is used during the day for things like electric motors during
the work hours and air-conditioning. So they don't need to store that energy
to keep homes warm during the colder night (even if residential AC is kept
running during the night it will consume less energy since the temperatures
will fall)

~~~
skoocda
Absolutely- factoring in refrigeration as well, it seems like an ideal
location for widespread solar. On top of that, power transmission in a
developing country would benefit a ton from decentralization. The tough
aspects of managing a decentralized grid (sensing and load shedding) are much
easier today than when the North American / European power grids were
developed. I'd even wager to say that some non-industrial areas should push
for HVDC transmission and start to move away from AC altogether. With most of
our household amenities trending towards relatively low DC voltages, the AC
losses don't seem as worthwhile if we can avoid it.

------
azazqadir
This will definitely lower the demand for coal, which in turn could lower its
prices as well. This is good, because India might still need few coal power
plants, considering its population size.

~~~
shard972
Considering that India is making progress on nuclear, it would seem inevitable
that they shut down a few if not all of them.

~~~
rathish_g
No! Solar is solar; depends on available sunlight. India is not going to shut
any nuclear power plant and is working on new one or next phase of existing
ones.

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
I believe the parent meant they'd shut down coal plants in favour of nuclear.

------
andraganescu
i don't get it, countries export electricity for ages. other than money and
infrastructure, what are we missing so that we all, as a united humanity, use
our shared sun to export, on a daily basis, electricity from the sun lit part
of the planet to the other one. why must we still wait on the genius who will
revolutionize batteries, considering we already have non stop sunlight. is
this lack of political will? or is such a planetary scale effort impossible?

------
forrestthewoods
I'm not sure I believe this. Is this due to subsidies on solar? Or taxes on
coal? I'm not sure this headline is possible at face value.

~~~
starving_coder
From the article: “Of course there are challenges of 24/7 power. We accept all
of that – but we have been able to come up with a solar-based long term vision
that is not subsidy based.”

Headline is not possible at face value except that it is.

~~~
forrestthewoods
As best I can tell India's government is currently spending billions of
dollars on solar. Maybe it will some day not be subsidy based. But as best I
can tell it currently is.

In fact the government appears to be spending one hundred billion dollars on
solar in the next six years. By 2022.

Furthermore, "The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy provides 70 percent
subsidy on the installation cost of a solar photovoltaic power plant in North-
East states and 30 percentage subsidy on other regions."
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_India](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_India)

I'm all for renewable energy. Solar is great. At this point I don't see how
the headline isn't clickbait bullshit.

~~~
tim333
The headline's accurate in that India energy minister said "solar is now
cheaper than coal." Doesn't necessarily mean solar is actually cheaper than
coal.

~~~
TheLogothete
He said that? Can you please provide the quote?

~~~
tim333
Ok - it seems he tweeted rather than said it:

>“Through transparent auctions with a ready provision of land, transmission
and the like, solar tariffs have come down below thermal power cost,” Goyal
said in a tweet.

[http://cleantechnica.com/2016/01/22/solar-power-now-
cheaper-...](http://cleantechnica.com/2016/01/22/solar-power-now-cheaper-than-
coal-in-india-says-energy-minister/)

------
Aelinsaar
Now comes the agonizing process of explaining this to many millions of people
who have been propagandized by the coal lobby for decades. Hopefully we can
also work in some best practices around these photovoltaics that leads to less
pollution from the process of mining elements for them, and making them in the
first place. It's still better than coal, but "better than coal" is a very low
bar.

------
sambe
This was in my inbox this morning:

[http://www.vox.com/2016/4/18/11415510/solar-power-costs-
inno...](http://www.vox.com/2016/4/18/11415510/solar-power-costs-innovation)

Suggesting that costs are not falling fast enough to overcome value deflation.
Seems quite US-focussed though. The numbers in the two articles don't seem
directly comparable.

~~~
caminante
Great article. Sivaram's an impressive kid...

For the near term, financial engineers have not done solar any favors with
recent "yieldco" abuses.[1] Though with value deflation, financial innovation
and regulatory protection may not be able to save solar.

[1][http://on.wsj.com/1SW1BPH](http://on.wsj.com/1SW1BPH)

------
mentos
Solar is nuclear energy as Elon Musk has put it we have a reactor in the sky
we can harness

~~~
forgetsusername
Oh yes, let's credit Mr. Musk with recognizing the sun's potential.

~~~
rfrey
I think that was an attribution for the qoute, not credit for inventing solar.

------
levemi
Whatever the realities of the cost of solar, I tend to worry about a future in
which we cover vast swaths of areas with solar panels and the impact such a
thing will have on the environment. I don't know if anyone has done good
studies on it.

A bunch other sustainable forms of energy have environmental problems. Wind
generators cause harm to birds, geothermal electricity sources like in Hawai'i
raise the temperature of bodies of water disrupting wildlife. Nuclear power
comes with great risks of radiation leakage. Biofuel is hugely inefficient. It
seems any solution comes with problems.

~~~
drjesusphd
Those problems you cited all pale in comparison to global warming. It's a
disingenuous comparison.

~~~
levemi
These problems pale in comparison partly because these sustainable forms of
technology aren't being used any meaningful scale yet.

How much area do we have to cover with solar panels to power a largish
metropolitan area?

~~~
hnarn
The best location for covering a large area of land for purposes of solar
energy would arguably be a desert. "90% of the world’s population lives within
range of a desert and could be supplied with solar electricity from there",
says this article, which also shows you how much needs to be covered to supply
the entire globe in theory: [http://cleantechnica.com/2009/06/22/half-a-
trillion-dollars-...](http://cleantechnica.com/2009/06/22/half-a-trillion-
dollars-to-build-huge-desertec-plan/)

~~~
xaldir
No it's not. Solar panels must be free from dust to remain efficient, meaning
you have to clean them, frequently, with water...

~~~
Intermernet
There are patents regarding ultrasonic cleaning of panels[1]. Not sure about
actual products yet.

[1]:
[http://www.google.com/patents/US20120285516](http://www.google.com/patents/US20120285516)

------
jernfrost
I don't know how things work in India, but it seems to me that big government
backed projects in India don't quite work out.

The great thing about solar is NOT depending on government. If government puts
the right regulation in place, that allows people to locally build solar cells
on their houses, farms etc then that it where the great potential for solar
power is. Not being dependent on central authorities doing their job.

Solar scales down so much better than coal and that is its real advantage for
developing countries with weak governments and lots of red tape.

~~~
thetruthseeker1
In general I understand the principle of the argument, that the government is
not as driven as private sector because there is strong incentive structures
in private companies. But with some good management decent incentive
structures in govt, it can also work. Case in point, the some of the Indian
banks which were nationalized, the Indian railways(the largest rail network in
the world), and in many Indian States govt. diary companies have worked
decently well as well.

------
codecamper
Who would have thought that India outdoes all the west when it comes to making
sustainable growth.

Google CEO Indian. Microsoft CEO Indian.

Watch out all you fox news watching Americans.

~~~
vinay427
You're going to claim that the Google CEO and Microsoft CEO being of Indian
ethnicity somehow contributes to India's growth? I think it does the opposite,
considering what people of their talent might or might not have achieved if
they remained in India.

I'm not saying that they should have remained in India (far from it), but they
chose not to so they could contribute to largely American growth.

------
nxzero
Any country using fossil fuels is stuck in the past; solar is the future,
economies are driven by energy, and refusing to act on this is irresponsible.

~~~
douche
So..., every industrial country in the world?...

I wish I lived in an alternate reality where the hippies and greens didn't
effectively scuttle nuclear power development.

~~~
nxzero
When it comes to energy, there a lot of options, but doing nothing because
you're stuck on your solution makes no sense.

------
__Joker
Interesting times for the energy economics and geopolitics. If people believe
that solar(renewable energy) is getting cheaper, the prices of the oil is drop
faster. And you don't want to keep holding to oil when the music stops.

I would argue this trend is showing off. The oil producing countries pumping
out their oil, because they don't see value reducing the capacity, while the
oil prices are historically low.

~~~
masklinn
> And you don't want to keep holding to oil when the music stops.

Or you want to be the only one holding to accessible oil, and pretty much sole
provider of oil for plastics and other non-fuel petrochemical products.

~~~
__Joker
Yes. Still OPEC cartel doesn't seems to be working, neither does any kind
monopoly. Given the wide and often conflicting interest between the oil
producers I like to view this as less probable outcome.

------
ck2
Now that would be amazing in the USA if they could stop blowing up mountains
and polluting the entire area, or dig filthy toxic mines just to extract coal,
which is a horrible, horrible job for any human being (who will resist
changing their job until the early day they die).

Too bad there is no "sexy" equivalent like a Tesla to make USA change from
coal to solar/wind.

------
kumarski
These are all red herrings from the most immensely important technology we
must regulate....

We must put carbon capture technology on all coal plants as the immediate high
impact stop-gap solution to CO2 emissions. I think the only way this happens
is regulatory.

The general utility verdict on solar/wind is that it's good for displacing
natural gas peaking in a small way.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
As the headline says, solar is already breaking even with coal and the
projection is for it to continue to drop for some time, even without further
big breakthroughs.

If you add carbon capture to coal, you decrease efficiency and increase costs
to the point that it simply isn't viable. It's simpler to just regulate coal
out of existence directly and replace it with a mix of
gas/solar/wind/hydro/etc.

The only people who care about carbon capture for coal are those invested in
coal. Everyone else sees it as pointless (though it may have applications for
other carbon producing processes like concrete).

Solar and wind are ready for prime time, displacing peaker plants is just the
beginning, solar will wipe out all contenders during daylight hours and then
the stuff they displace into the off-peak hours will start getting eaten by
storage that shifts solar into the evening.

------
aaron695
A politician make a statement in a speech and HN eats it up as scientific
truth.

People really can't leave their bubble worlds can they?

~~~
forgetsusername
There's quite a bit of disillusionment regarding the reality of energy
production.

But solar is getting cheaper. Is anyone shocked?

------
throwaway16419
If you want to help make solar even cheaper, Genability is hiring a VP of
Engineering and a full-stack developer.

[http://genability.com/careers/work_with_us.html](http://genability.com/careers/work_with_us.html)

------
puranjay
With the amount of light we receive here in India, it's a shame this didn't
happen sooner.

------
stevetrewick
Only if it includes the price of all the overcapacity and storage required to
produce baseload and still comes in lower can solar be considered to cheaper
than coal (or more usefully whatever fossil/nuclear mix is actually currently
providing that).

~~~
Osiris30
No.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11520789](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11520789)

------
known
Solar cost for domestic purpose
[http://nedcap.gov.in/PDFs/Solar_Net_Metring/Indicative_Cost_...](http://nedcap.gov.in/PDFs/Solar_Net_Metring/Indicative_Cost_Economics.pdf)

------
reacweb
We will need big wires to bring electricity to the dark side of the earth ;-)

~~~
davedx
You mean like this? :) [http://www.pv-tech.org/news/asian-super-grid-could-
get-go-ah...](http://www.pv-tech.org/news/asian-super-grid-could-get-go-ahead-
after-china-and-russias-grid-operators)

------
asgs
how does subsidy vs no-subsidy matter here?

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tremon
It doesn't. The subsidies are used as a bootstrapping mechanism, the
projections in the article indicate that as the market scales, costs of solar
energy production will drop below coal.

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asgs
thanks!

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dschiptsov
Especially in the monsoon season.

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selimnairb
Many Indians already have backup battery systems because the grid, even in big
cities, is so unreliable. This may make the switch to solar less burdensome,
at least from a cogmitive point of view.

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eva1984
Sounds exciting!

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nano852
Interesting...

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TheLogothete
So his quote is

"I think a new coal plant would give you costlier power than a solar plant"

He _thinks_ a NEW plant would give you costlier energy. Secondly, aren't the
solar projects subsidized in a BIG way? I have seen many smart people say that
solar is a sham. They say it's just an opportunist's play. Entrepreneurs want
to get on the government's tit and the politicians are happy to portray
themselves as environmentally friendly in front of the increasingly global
warming wary voters.

If anyone can argue against that, please speak up. I haven't seen anything
other than wishful thinking and naive people patting themselves on the back
because someone got their hands on tax money.

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pjc50
I don't think India subsidises solar power.

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nickysielicki
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jawaharlal_Nehru_National_Sola...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jawaharlal_Nehru_National_Solar_Mission)

