
Solar Just Hit a Record Low Price in the U.S - toomuchtodo
https://earther.com/solar-just-hit-a-record-low-price-in-the-u-s-1826830592
======
inputcoffee
The true price of solar is the price to produce reliable, continuous energy.
That requires something to smooth out the signal and store the energy, most
probably a battery.

The solar + battery price is also going down, though not as fast as the solar
only piece. But that's the metric we should be following. When that hits $30
per MWh, it'll be game over.

~~~
jartelt
This comment gets made in every single solar article put on HN. The true price
of solar is what the market is willing to pay for it. If the solar was ruining
the grid or was way more expensive than what it seems, we would not keep
seeing solar installed at this pace and at these costs.

We need to get out of the mindset that all power generators need to produce a
steady amount of power 24/7\. A flexible grid made of many power sources that
can be ramped up and down can just as easily meet demand and may even be best
since it is resilient when any one power source goes down for an extended
period of time.

You can't just say that solar should be more expensive because it only works
half the day. You could just as easily turn that argument around and say that
nuclear and coal plants should be more expensive since they are only
economical if run at a constant load and require long shutdowns every year for
maintenance. There needs to be extra capacity on the grid to meet demand
during nuclear/coal shutdowns, but no one states that nuclear and coal should
be more expensive as a result.

~~~
inputcoffee
You misunderstand the sense of "true" here.

The point is not that the "true" price in the sense of what it ought to be. It
is the "true" price in the sense of what the market is actually paying for the
service.

When people put out the number $23, they compare it with the cost of power and
wonder why, if it is so much lower, it doesn't already swamp the current
solution.

So the purpose of the comment is to explain that it is not a complete
solution, and not reflective of the total ("true") bill.

~~~
criddell
I've thought about adding solar to my home and can't see any reason why I
should even consider a battery for storage. I'm in Texas and so I get plenty
of sun and my peak energy demand happens to coincide with that sunlight (due
to HVAC).

Why should I worry about a complete solution?

~~~
volkl48
The main reason I would consider a battery is for disaster recovery purposes.
Being from the suburban NYC metro area, we've had multiple, multi-week power
outages in the past decade.

We have a moderate sized portable generator, but running off that for weeks
becomes a very unpleasant experience. Certainly far better than not having
power, but unpleasant.

Driving 2 hours away to the nearest place we knew had unlimited fuel, turning
my car into a rolling bomb on the trip back with dozens of gallons of fuel in
gas cans, etc. And the endless droning of the thing running.

If those sorts of disasters are not a major concern for you, I don't think a
battery makes much sense.

~~~
Tepix
> we've had multiple, multi-week power outages in the past decade

That's a crass state, what causes these outages? Is it a investment backlog of
the power grid?

~~~
jpitz
Might have something to do with being in a very dense area with some very old
infrastructure.

------
Symmetry
I'm mostly gratified by what a "Dog bites man" story this is. Solar prices
have been decreasing steadily for a long time so we should expect to see a
story like this every few months until the adoption curve flattens out - which
hopefully won't be for a while.

~~~
throwaway5752
The bit about storage becoming a routine part of bids was an interesting piece
of information.

~~~
blobbers
I was thinking the same thing. The gigafactory isn't mention in this, but
could there be synergies with Tesla's (somewhat shady... pun intended)
acquisition of SolarCity?

These sorts of installs aren't exactly the same thing, but maybe SolarCity
needs to pivot to from distributed consumer to large scale utility.

~~~
phil248
Tesla has already deployed utility-scale storage in Australia and has
contracts to build more for California utilities. Those are just the ones I
know of.

~~~
dd36
Puerto Rico too.

------
xahrepap
Slightly off topic... Interesting thing about solar in Utah (maybe everywhere?
Not sure about the specifics): Utah gives every land owner pollution credits.
They're allowed to pollute X units worth per year or something like that.
Depending on certain criteria you're allotted a certain amount of credits. The
problem is, these credits are transferable. So if I, for example, don't
pollute, I can sell my credits off to someone who wants to pollute more than
average.

Something (I think is shady) some companies are doing is selling solar for
really cheap in dollars, but they subsidize the cost by selling it for
credits. Average Joe is going to think he's polluting less, however since he
sold off his pollution credits, his solar purchase has authorized someone else
to pollute for him. Netting us nothing in the end.

(not an expert, so I may have misunderstandings and be oversimplifying things,
but the point should be easy to understand)

~~~
adventured
I'd suspect that if the actual net is anywhere close to even, then that scheme
having the side-effect of further building up the solar industry, is a massive
long-term win for renewable energy and the environment.

~~~
xahrepap
That's a good point. I didn't really think of that. It still feels a bit off,
but that does help return some of the feel-goods back into buying solar :)

------
walrus01
As a person who's built PV systems: The problem of generating enough kWh in a
month is _solved_. In pallet load and container load quantities, good quality
PV panels are now very affordable. Roof and ground mounting systems, DC power
wiring and interconnect systems are highly developed, modular and easy to
build with relatively unskilled labor.

The problem to be solved now is economical, reliable, long-lasting (in number
of cycles) battery storage. Or some other form of storage to draw those kWh
back from when the sun is down.

------
toomuchtodo
Relevant bits:

> “On their face, they’re less than a third the price of building a new coal
> or natural gas power plant,” Ramez Naam, an energy expert and lecturer at
> Singularity University, told Earther in an email. _“In fact, building these
> plants is cheaper than just operating an existing coal or natural gas
> plant.”_

> There’s a 30 percent federal investment tax credit for solar projects that
> helps drive down the cost of this and other solar projects. But Naam said
> even if you take away that credit, _“these bids, un-subsidized, are still
> cheaper than any new coal or gas plants, and possibly cheaper than operating
> existing plants.”_

(emphasis mine)

~~~
CompelTechnic
>It will operate at a flat rate of $23.76 per megawatt-hour over the course of
a 25-year power purchasing agreement

Does anyone have data on typical wholesale power costs?

~~~
crazypyro
Various data here:
[https://www.eia.gov/electricity/wholesale/](https://www.eia.gov/electricity/wholesale/)

From my brief browsing, $23.76 is <70% of the average $/MWh price across the
available data.

~~~
bruinjoe
That's mind boggling. This is absolutely incredible. Our country has so000
much hot, sunny unused land in the west. Let's cover it up with solar panels
and make use of the free sunshine.

~~~
marktangotango
Storage and transmission are the ongoing problems here. Also applies to wind
on the Great Plains.

------
coryfklein
Interesting headlines from the "Presentation PDF" found at [1].

> Installed prices are higher for systems at tax-exempt customer sites than at
> for-profit commercial sites

> Residential new construction offers significant installed price advantages
> compared to retrofits

> No clear relationship between installer-level pricing and installer volume

> Prices vary considerably across installers

> Installed prices in the United States are higher than in other national PV
> markets

> Installed price declines have been partially offset by falling state and
> utility incentives

> Installed prices continued to fall in 2016, _albeit at the slowest rate
> since 2009_ [emphasis mine]

> Module-level power electronics have a seemingly small effect on installed
> prices

> Ground-mounted non-residential systems are generally higher priced than
> rooftop systems

[1] [https://emp.lbl.gov/publications/tracking-
sun-10-installed-p...](https://emp.lbl.gov/publications/tracking-
sun-10-installed-price/)

------
rb808
There is an interesting part about solar generating electricity when its sunny
- it will help population move to warmer climes. If you live in Ohio heating
in winter is a problem, solar isn't going to keep you warm on a cold night (ok
batteries can help but they're expensive). If you live in the South West
though its perfect as Winter nights dont require much heat and the biggest
loads are AC at the times when there is lots of sun.

Perhaps this will mean living in Southern California, Arizona etc will be
increasingly popular as energy costs will be much more affordable. Of course
water is the next problem, but cheap electricity can help that too.

~~~
stcredzero
_If you live in Ohio that is a problem, solar isn 't going to keep you warm on
a cold night_

Houses built to the German Passivhaus standard would do just fine in Ohio. I
used to live in Ohio and Western Pennsylvania, so I should know. There was one
Minnesota church built with polystyrene panels that had to start running air
conditioning in the middle of winter, the insulation was so good.

 _If you live in the South West though its perfect as Winter nights dont
require much heat and the biggest loads are AC at the times when there is lots
of sun._

It can get pretty darn cold at night in the desert southwest. Again,
insulation is the key.

 _Of course water is the next problem, but cheap electricity can help that
too._

It's 10X as expensive to use techniques like desalinization. It's so much more
expensive, that lots of desal plants get built, then get mothballed because
it's that much cheaper to get water by other means.

~~~
sharkmerry
is the expense of desalinization the electricity? Which would go down with
adoption of solar?

~~~
philipkglass
This is a decade old, but I think that the proportions are still about right:
[https://desline.com/Geneva/Banat.pdf](https://desline.com/Geneva/Banat.pdf)

See the slide "Cost composition for a typical seawater RO (reverse osmosis)
plant"

Fixed charges (primarily capital cost): 31%

Energy: 26%

Maintenance and parts: 14%

Membrane replacement: 13%

Supervision and labor: 9%

Chemicals: 7%

Really cheap solar electricity could reduce the second largest expense (energy
costs), but right now that's just an improvement for daylight hours. Battery-
stored solar electricity is getting cheaper but it's not cheap enough to
actually _reduce_ nighttime desalination costs yet. And if you run the plant
only during the day, you get less value out of the very largest expense
(capital cost).

~~~
rsynnott
That's reverse osmosis. In a scenario where energy is very cheap (even if only
for part of the day) there are other processes which require less maintenance,
but more energy.

~~~
philipkglass
The previous slide in that presentation also shows a cost breakdown for a
thermal process, multi-stage flash desalination.

Fixed charges (primarily capital cost) 42%

Energy 41%

Maintenance and parts 8%

Supervision and labor 7%

Chemicals 2%

Energy is nearly even with fixed costs for MSF, but fixed costs are even
larger here. Leaving this type of plant idle between dusk and dawn would again
raise per-unit costs a lot.

------
duxup
My house faces south westish. I have a lot of roof on the back side that I
think would be good for solar but all the automated online stuff seem to
indicate it was be expensive and not pay off for a LONG while. At least around
here in MN there's not a lot of residential push for it. Hopefully as prices
drop it becomes more viable.

~~~
aoeusnth1
Online calculators over-estimate costs for large systems. You can find newer
installers who are more willing to negotiate prices, and play them off each
other. I negotiated one company down from ~$3.5/W to $2.30/W (before 30%
credit) on my large residential system - and these weren't budget panels
either (Sunpower E20).

If you do the discounted cash flow calculation of solar, at $2.3/W,
electricity costs you around 5c/kWh:
[http://databin.pudo.org/t/19ece6](http://databin.pudo.org/t/19ece6)

~~~
gibybo
I think your numbers are pretty optimistic. You're neglecting depreciation for
one. Panels have a lifetime in the range of 20-30 years, inverters have a
lifetime in the range of 10 years. 4% is also an optimistic interest rate for
a loan that lasts the lifetime of the system. You may be able to get that for
a ~5 year loan, but then you need to include the higher opportunity cost of
the money that was used to pay that loan off which will be tied up for 20+
years.

~~~
aoeusnth1
The cost of the system includes buying a new one in 30yr. I didn’t include
deprecation of the panel, but modern panels such as Sunpower or Panasonic
degrade at around 8% over 25 years, so maybe add a multiplier if 1/.92 to the
cost to fudge that in.

As for the 4% interest rate, which in this case is really a time value of
money discount rate, I’m comparing it to mortgage loan amounts (which is
pretty much the average consumer's risk free rate of return). I’m assuming the
buyer can afford a cash system.

~~~
gibybo
I don't se how it includes the cost of a new system in 30 years. 2.3 * 30,000
= $69,000 and your cost listed is only ~$59k. 8% over 25 years is much better
than I thought for the panels, but you still need to include about 10%/year
depreciation on the inverters since you'll need to replace them every 10 years
or so (at least that was about their lifetime last time I checked in Arizona,
it may be different in cooler climates)

~~~
aoeusnth1
I'm including the 30% tax rebate and assuming solar panel installations will
be 50% cheaper in 30 years which is pretty conservative given their price
history.

Microinverters last 25 years.

~~~
gibybo
Still not seeing $59k.

2.3 * 30.000 * 0.7 = $48,300 (30% tax credit)

2.3 * 30.000 * 0.5 = $34,500 (50% cheaper)

Total = $82,800

Regardless, adding up the cost of the second one in 30 years doesn't make
sense for calculating kWh prices, depreciation and cost of capital are the
only factors that matter and you are only including one of those.

~~~
aoeusnth1
Sure, looking at my spreadsheet I also discounted the cost by the same
interest rate after 30 years, (1/1.04)^30.

Agreed that including the second system doesn't really make much sense, but I
wanted a quick-and-dirty estimate without having to individually discount each
year's production (as you would if you had a finite time horizon).

------
kyoob
This is truly good news, but is it really worth calling out that a record was
broken when it's been trending down regularly over time?

~~~
taf2
It’s one of those rare feel good things that hasn’t been yet flooded by
negative view points that often follow a wave of positive news... there is
probably a name for this?

~~~
zitterbewegung
Measurable technological advancement?

See also Moore's law.

------
julienchastang
Note the picture in the article is the Ivanpah concentrated solar thermal
power facility in California (near Las Vegas, NV). The article concerns
photovoltaic not concentrated solar. I drove by Ivanpah not long ago and it is
a site to see, the towers look about as bright as the sun, but my
understanding is concentrated solar is not as attractive economically as PV.

~~~
rsynnott
Probably not now, no (though it does have the interesting property that, with
certain designs, it keeps producing power some time after the sun goes down).
At the time solar power towers were developed, though, PV was rather expensive
and inefficient; the dramatic advances of the last couple of decades weren't
really expected.

~~~
julienchastang
Also, I believe they have to be pre-heated in the morning with natural gas
diminishing the carbon advantage. Too bad, they really do look impressive.

------
ksec
Correct me if any of the maths below are wrong.

Eagle Solar Mountain Solar Farm ( 300 MW ) will have an annual production
capacity of over 900 million kilowatt hours (kWh) once completed. The Moapa
Band of Paiutes has become a national clean energy leader and will host in
excess of 600 MW of solar on the 72,000-acre reservation. [1]

For example, the Topaz Solar Farm [3] has an annual production capacity of
1200 million kWh on 25km2. Around ~6200 acre.

This seems an awful a lot of space for low capacity generation? I know it is
reserved, but that is like 10x the size difference, why aren't they building
more?

US annual electricity consumption is 4,015 billion kilowatt hours in 2017, 60%
coming from fossil fuel [2].

For solar energy to replace that 60% energy consumption; 2409 billion kWh, it
would require 2000 Topaz Solar Farm, or 50,000 km2, or slightly less the fifth
of Nevada area.

The cost of the 300MW Eagle Solar Mountain Solar Farm is roughly $2B, assuming
it would cost $3.6B to build the size of Topaz Solar Farm which is 550MW, it
would take $7.2 trillion to build a 60% US needed solar farm, ignoring the
benefits of Economy of scale, and any improved efficacy of solar panel.

Given all the benefits of Solar, being cheaper then Coal, I am surprise it is
still only 1.6% of US electricity generation. Why is that?

[1][https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180531006155/en/8mi...](https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180531006155/en/8minutenergy-
NV-Energy-Announce-Largest-Solar-Project)

[2]
[https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3](https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3)

[3]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topaz_Solar_Farm](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topaz_Solar_Farm)

~~~
philipkglass
The $2 billion in the article you linked seems to refer to NV Energy's "latest
tranche of renewable projects totaling over 1 gigawatt." The cost of the Eagle
Solar Mountain Solar Farm does not appear to be broken out specifically in
that article.

The Moapa Band of Paiutes is presumably _not_ dedicating most of their
reservation's land to solar generation. Most of the Topaz Solar Farm's land
_is_ dedicated to solar generation. That's why you see a much lower energy
density if you're calculating areal production using the entire land of the
reservation as the denominator.

Solar has become cheaper than coal quite recently. It takes time to build new
projects. The "cheaper than coal" qualifier is also so far true just in areas
with reasonably good sun resources. Much of the US population lives in areas
where there's not enough sun for PV to be cheaper than coal. New York and
Pennsylvania aren't there yet, for example.

Finally, the US federal government is trying to prop up the coal industry.
That includes invoking "national security" to keep uncompetitive coal plants
running. The present administration has also raised the prices of solar
equipment with a slew of tariffs. There's a risk for project developers that
they could submit a bid for a new solar project, sign a contract, and then a
year later see their costs rise above profits due to another round of tariff
fights. There's a risk for project buyers that they'll lock in an agreement
for a new "cheaper than coal" solar project but be forced to keep buying coal
power anyway due to outside forces.

For example, Arizona's excellent sun resources now make PV generation
significantly cheaper than running a 1970s-era coal plant in the state, but
the federal government may try to force the coal plant's old customers to keep
buying its electricity:

[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-coal/us-interior-
depa...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-coal/us-interior-department-
weighs-plan-to-save-navajo-coal-plant-from-closing-idUSKCN1J22UC)

~~~
ksec
I see. Sorry I don't follow much US politics.

I know Nevada are basically a desert, which is perfect for Solar Panel and
electricity, does the Federation nature, forbid a super scale Solar Farm in
Nevada to power the rest of US? And who owns the grid in US? Government?

~~~
philipkglass
The United States has multiple regional grids, operated by organizations
called RTOs or ISOs (Regional Transmission Operators, Independent System
Operators). Components of the grid, including transmission lines, may be owned
by government agencies or by private companies, though private companies are
more common.

As I mentioned in another comment, the hardest part of building big interstate
transmission projects in the US is getting approval from every state and land
owner between two distant points. 4 out of 5 involved states can approve a
plan quickly but then the plan can languish for years trying to get approval
from the 5th state involved.

Long distance transmission projects _do_ get built, but they generally take a
long and uncertain time to reach approval. That's one of the factors that
prevents sunny states from just exporting solar power to less sunny, more
densely populated states. The other big factor is that these big
infrastructure projects are also expensive to construct, but in my opinion
it's the delays and uncertainties that are the bigger obstacle.

------
preparedzebra
The internal combustion engine seems to have been milked for all the
efficiency our current materials can get out of it, while new materials and
economies of scale in solar tech keep pushing prices lower. However, material
science could also revolutionize the efficiency of engines and make them cost
competitive with solar again. Solar-ification seems to be the trend, but it is
not guaranteed.

~~~
swebs
>However, material science could also revolutionize the efficiency of engines
and make them cost competitive with solar again

I doubt it. We've passed peak oil and have resorted to expensive techniques
like fracking to collect the scraps. Meanwhile, even if no advances in solar
panels occur in the future, the price of power produced by solar will only go
down as more panels are added to the grid.

The biggest hurdle now is getting cars with combustion engines off the road
and replacing them with electric. I haven't seen much progress made on that
front in the past few years.

~~~
preparedzebra
I think a lot of people lack imagination here. What kinds of efficiencies
could we create with room temp. super conductors? This is a good read for
anyone interested in this trend
[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S136403211...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364032114001087?via%3Dihub)

------
mulmen
It is my understanding that we are already past or very near a point of no
return w.r.t greenhouse gas emissions and global warming. Talk of peak power
and renewable excess leads to discussion about the need to store that excess.
Could we also expend that energy to do something like scrub CO2? Is this even
feasible at a scale that could make a difference?

~~~
maliker
Direct air capture of CO2 is getting pretty good. Carbon Engineering [1] was
in the news recently for demonstrating an efficient scheme at commercial
scale. When I looked at the math, their technique would add about 8 cents/kWh
to the price of fossil power assuming it was used to capture all the CO2. So
if solar is coming in around 2 cents/kWh, you could have 10 cent electricity
(competitive in many markets) that also captures as much CO2 as the average
fossil unit currently creates. The progress is pretty heartening.

~~~
mulmen
Yeah I think about this in the context of energy density in batteries. Liquid
fuel like gasoline has huge benefits for personal transportation just because
of the energy density. I wonder what amount of clean energy it would take to
make some kind of synthetic/green(?) fuel similar to E85 (E100?). The cost of
the fuel could include the carbon capture based on how the fuel is burned.

e: looks like you missed a link but I looked up Carbon Engineering and if what
they say is true that is really exciting. Especially for airlines and
shipping.

------
nivertech
Q: Where one can check solar energy prices?

~~~
robto
As far as I know, the industry standard is the Lawrence Berkeley National
Laboratory's annual 'Tracking The Sun' report[0]. I recommend it as a great
primary source - the measurements are well explained and accompanied by
helpful charts and analysis of the year-to-year changes. LBNL also publishes
other useful resources on energy production/consumption, so it's worth
browsing around to see what they have if you're interested.

[0][https://emp.lbl.gov/publications/tracking-
sun-10-installed-p...](https://emp.lbl.gov/publications/tracking-
sun-10-installed-price/)

------
tombert
I'm of course a supporter of solar, and I don't want to be "that guy", but is
there a strategy for handling solar power at night? In these areas that are
mostly solar, how do they store the energy, or do they resort to natural gas
or coal or something?

~~~
epistasis
There are oh-so-many ways to address this and it's not clear what the market
will pick.

First off, 100% solar is not likely to win out unless it's a small grid on an
island. Any realistic grid will have wind and solar and hydro. New nuclear is
already far more expensive than lithium ion batteries + solar, so that's out
of contention for new builds unless a government is trying to subsidize the
industries that are companions to fission power (nuclear submarines, etc.)

Among the ways to time shift electrical demand:

\- lithium ion batteries. These will likely be only 5-6 cents/kWh within five
years.

\- thermal storage: cooling (making ice) or heat can be stored for these
energy applications

\- demand response: EVs and many other large demand sources can respond to
price signals or aggregated demand response to shift their consumption to the
best times. Currently this is mostly used to shave the peaks off of demand but
with critical mass of EV there will be huge amounts of valley filling too.

\- vehicle to grid: I'm somewhat skeptical this will win a cost battle, but
it's being investigated: high penetrations of EVs mean that there will be a
day or more of storage on wheels. This can be used in all sorts of ways,
potentially.

\- flow batteries: I'm also skeptical that these will win on price, but they
might.

\- concentrating solar power: this is solar power from heat, therma storage
can be used in conjunction to deliver 24 hour power. Early pilots were super
expensive but recent project have dropped drastically in price to the point
where it has a chance of being competitive with other storage tech.

\- lots of others that I'm forgetting.

Basically solar is will probably get so cheap that we'll overbuild a ton of it
and have more power than the inverters can handle, and size the installs for
the winter lows, most likely. This means that there will likely be tons of
extra unused DC power at solar sites for large chunks of the year. Could be an
opportunity...

~~~
agumonkey
any curated list of place to follow to stay up to date ?

~~~
epistasis
No curated places for the Bay efforts from each tech that I know of. However
there are a few news outlets that are pretty solid:

[https://www.greentechmedia.com/](https://www.greentechmedia.com/)

[https://www.utilitydive.com](https://www.utilitydive.com)

~~~
agumonkey
appreciated

------
WrathOfJay
Given that solar auction minimum bids have dropped 470% in the last 4 years
(in Mexico, [https://earther.com/mexico-just-auctioned-off-the-
cheapest-s...](https://earther.com/mexico-just-auctioned-off-the-cheapest-
solar-project-in-1820676364)), isn't it crazy to accept a 25 year flat rate
contract?

~~~
distances
I don't know if this is overly pendantic, but surely they mean prices dropped
by 79%? Percentages in the hundreds would mean prices deep in the negatives.

------
imtringued
Every country should invest more into railway and subway infrastructure.
Trains are vastly easier to automate, highly energy efficient and have run on
electricity for at least a century.

Why even bother with electric self driving cars or trucks when the solution to
this problem already exists?

------
8bitsrule
No mining, no drilling, no transportation, no wastes. Huh, I bet that's why
solar and wind are cheap.

As a decades-long solar and wind advocate (the term 'renewable' has been spun
too much to be useful) I'm sad to say... too bad they made it take so long.
And there still isn't nearly enough of it.

As for storage, there are literally dozens of solutions. Yeah, they can be
expensive. So's the alternative ... to everybody. (How'd that nuclear thing
work out for the Japanese? ... who had centuries of quakes and tsunamis to
learn from? ...who have a nearly limitless supply of offshore winds. Ooops.)

As for selling to the power company (they're resistant for multiple reasons
... can see the writing on the wall, and will find ways to cheat you ... sell
to your neighbors at cost instead.

This HAS to be the future, kids. The sooner, and the cheaper, the bettter.
Time to sell the buggy whips.

------
cloudkj
Every time I see a headline like this it makes me think that I should work on
some personal DIY projects related to solar to really appreciate the advances.
Does anyone have experience or suggestions for cool projects to try?

------
mrfusion
What happened to all the solar tariffs folks were stressing about?

~~~
stusmall
It's in the article:

 _They also show that the efforts of the Trump administration to prop up
fossil fuels at the expense of renewables aren’t enough to push solar out to
sea. The tariffs that Trump levied earlier this year against cheap solar
panels imported from China could eventually dampen installations. Naam said
they add roughly 10 percent to the price of utility-scale projects, but “at
most, they move the price of solar back by about a year.”_

It's still a significant cost added on and slows things down, but you can only
do so much damage.

------
fallingfrog
This gives me hope. We really do have both the technology, and the money, to
cut our fossil fuel usage to almost zero, right now- and morally, there is no
other choice.

~~~
the8472
That's just a part of electricity. We also need to tackle other major
contributors like transportation, heating, concrete manufacturing and
agriculture. And soon, for all of those.

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crb002
In 2019 to reap the tax credit sunset every battery will fly off the shelf and
get a few solar panels in front of it to qualify.

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kraig911
If only we could do long transmission from one half of the earth and vice
versa...

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cjhanks
This solution won't work if the sun ceases to emit light, therefore it's not
fool proof.

I kid, but - why so much pessimistic "all or nothing" attitude on this?

------
Pica_soO
I sometimes wonder- if you have a superconducting "pipeline" along the earths
rotation direction could those countrys where the sun is still "up" power
those where the sun already has set?

~~~
Tade0
China is doing something similar with its HVDC power lines.

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king_nothing
Is Warren Buffett’s Nevada holdings still thwarting progress of rooftop solar
in the name of profits?

------
moistoreos
Why is this a surprise? Solar costs have been falling for multiple decades.

NON-SURPRISING HEADLINE: "Falling Costs Are Actually Falling".

The important statistics to pay attention to are the implementations and if
the components are recyclable not the cost per megawatt. Increasing renewable
energy is important but not if you cannot recycle the components.

~~~
toomuchtodo
Solar panels are easily recyclable. There is an operational pilot plant in
France doing so.

[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-solar-
recycling/europes-f...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-solar-
recycling/europes-first-solar-panel-recycling-plant-opens-in-france-
idUSKBN1JL28Z)

Keep in mind, solar panels have a 25 year warranty, and after that will
continue to produce power (at about 80% rates output). We have decades to get
recycling infrastructure in place.

------
sol_remmy
I would not trust a source called "earther.com" to tell me good news about
solar because they're clearly going to be biased.

When power industry magazines talk about solar being cheap then i'll believe
it

~~~
glitcher
Is there anything specific about that source besides the name that increases
your skepticism? By that logic, one could say that anyone posting under a
pseudonym containing "sol" shouldn't be trusted when they comment on a solar
topic either.

~~~
swebs
>Is there anything specific about that source besides the name that increases
your skepticism?

1\. It's from the Gawker network, which is known for clickbait, yellow
journalism, and half-truths.

2\. They don't cite their sources. All links (except 1) in the article just
lead to past articles they've written. The only external link is about a
report unrelated to the main article.

Here is a better article published a day before this one which gives more
details and actually lists their sources.

[https://www.utilitydive.com/news/nv-energy-23-cent-solar-
con...](https://www.utilitydive.com/news/nv-energy-23-cent-solar-contract-
could-set-new-price-record/525610/)

------
niftich
The frustrating part about solar is that because the peak generation output
doesn't line up with typical peak consumption ("the duck curve"), utilities
need natgas peakers, which sit mostly idle, to fill in the gap. As solar
installation grows, coal baseload falls behind due to cheap natgas, and
nuclear languishes due to huge capex, established baseload capacity will
decrease. From now on, new capacity will largely be a mix of natgas CC, natgas
CT, solar, and wind. CCs (combined cycle) are most able to serve in
baseload/load-following capacity, but if solar and wind are reliable for a
particular interconnection, CTs (simple cycle) are cheaper to build, if less
efficient to operate.

Much of the strategizing in the future will be about trying to find the right
balance of CCs and CTs to complement intermittent and opportunistic (load-
ignorant) renewables, while balancing an onslaught of new regulations and
activists that will force battery storage as an issue. This is already
happening now, well before battery storage is cost-competitive.

~~~
ghouse
> The frustrating part about solar is that because the peak generation output
> doesn't line up with typical peak consumption ("the duck curve"), utilities
> need natgas peakers, which sit mostly idle, to fill in the gap.

Solar does line up with peak consumption. The duck curve is not a consumption
curve, but a "Net Demand" curve -- the demand remaining after solar and
generation is removed.

Peakers existed before solar. A typical load duration curve is a sideways "S"
The peakers may run less than 5% of the year but are necessary to meet the
hottest hours of the year.

~~~
coryfklein
> Solar does line up with peak consumption.

Not true according to [1], which shows peak consumption around 19:00, just as
solar production drops to 0.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_curve](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_curve)

~~~
Brakenshire
Looks like a fantastic opportunity to install a.c. which draws its energy in
the middle of the day, hell you could probably just set the house to stay cold
through the day and save.

~~~
EADGBE
If the cost of energy is free (PV source already paid for); there's no point
in programmable thermostats.

