
Plunging costs make solar, wind and battery storage cheaper than coal - tim333
http://reneweconomy.com.au/plunging-costs-make-solar-wind-and-battery-storage-cheaper-than-coal-83151/
======
rossdavidh
Notable: "And these prices do not represent just a few one-off, left field
offers. All told, there were more than 100 bids combining wind and solar, or
both, with battery storage, and 20 gigawatts of such capacity.

The “median” means that half the bids were cheaper than the median price cited
above."

I realize most readers of HN know what a median is, but the fact that this was
not just the lowest bid in each group was worth highlighting.

~~~
test6554
This appears to have come before the recent 30% Solar panel import tariff. Can
anybody else confirm that the bids that include solar would not be possible
today?

~~~
epistasis
These bids are for projects that go into service by 2023.

It's _extremely_ unlikely that this tariff will last even two years. Similarly
enacted section 201 tariffs get squashed the next time the WTO considers them.
If, by some implausible and disastrous series of events we are taken into a
trade war and the current tariffs stand, they decrease by 5% each year, to
10%.

So its safe to say that they will have as little impact on the bids 5 years
from now as they do on increasing US manufacturing.

~~~
hughes
Also worth noting that even a 30% tariff on panels just makes them cost about
what they did in 2015. It does nothing to the other significant costs of solar
tech - inverters, supporting structures, land, installation labor.

At worst it will delay solar adoption by a couple of years.

~~~
sitkack
I am no economist, but the tariff could end up accelerating the decrease in
prices as the foreign producers have a steeper gradient to overcome. If they
are indeed dumping at below cost, they could also respond by lowering prices
by the tariff amount.

If the tariff is applied to foreign assembled units, they could onshore the
final assembly. Or start bundling non-tariffed systems so they are still
cheaper in the end.

I could envision a cargo container with the panels and strandbeest-accordian
support structure, plant on end in the ground and it would automatically
unfurl (high school bleachers but with an alternating Z pattern) as the
container moves along. Even with a lower pack density, deployment in hours
would save the overall system cost.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theo_Jansen](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theo_Jansen)

~~~
epistasis
The proposed tariff allows for only 2.5GW of cell imports that are assembled
into full modules in the US. Manufacturers are already lining up to see who is
going to be allowed to get into that small quota.

Given that it's going to take a bare minimum of 18 months and probably several
years to build a new cell manufacturing facility, and the length of life of
such a facility, somebody looking at building new capacity would get a year or
two of tariff protection, and then have to survive another few decades without
it.

------
Brakenshire
Within the last ten years we've had solar and wind getting below retail rate
of grid electricity, then getting below wholesale rate, now below wholesale
rate including storage. There aren't too many 'yes, but...' issues which are
left to prevent these technologies actually taking over on a pure cost basis.
That is, even if you assumed climate change is a hoax, which is incorrect, the
alternative technologies are still better.

I suppose one issue is the length of storage, in the article the ranges they
mention are 4-10 hours, I would have thought wind would be variable enough to
require longer term storage to guarantee power output, not so certain about
solar in Colorado? Presumably the percentage of storage needed would vary a
lot depending on the local microclimate. That presumably will be a wrinkle
holding up adoption.

~~~
xPhobophobia
Yes, but...this is the case just for the first-order cost basis. The supply of
raw battery materials (e.g. Cobalt) is limited in price and quantity. If we
don't invent new battery technologies, we don't have sufficient accessible
supply of raw resources.

I also wonder how mid term artificial manipulations to the market of these
components (i.e. China subsidizing solar cells, America adding tariffs) will
keep us on a general decline in solar power costs.

~~~
Brakenshire
I'm dubious about the resource point, because prospecting and mining are
demand-driven. These kind of resource crunches are happening all the time with
new technologies. Supply will follow demand, that may even lower prices with
new discoveries or technologies. Even if the price has to go up massively to
open up new sources, how many orders of magnitude increase would be required
to make a dent in the overall cost of a battery for Cobalt? And then, even if
there is a serious hard limit there are plenty of alternatives. You can use
multiple other materials as an in-place replacement for Cobalt in Lithium
batteries, and there are lots of other fundamentally different battery and
storage technologies which work using different materials and principles,
which have other resource requirements. The peak Lithium or peak Cobalt idea
seems quite similar to peak oil, which was sort of right (in the sense of
conventional oil) but in a way which turned out not to be especially relevant.

~~~
triggercut
No problem with being skeptical and typically supply will follow demand,
however there are a couple of important things to note when it comes to
Cobalt.

Most cobalt is produced as a result of other extraction activities, it is
rarely the primary resource. Normally it's in found/produced in conjunction
with Copper and Nickel mines. This has a number of repercussions which would
take too long to detail here, however to get more Nickel on stream would
require either increasing capacity at existing operations, which may or may
not be a non-trivial task or a combination of
exploring/designing/procuring/operating a new Cobalt asset which is never non-
trivial. The result is, there will always be a significant lag between market
demand and output capacity creating sudden spikes in price, a surge in
investment activity and then eventual stabilization of price once assets start
producing.

Most of the worlds known reserves (identified resource which may or may not be
economical to extract) for Cobalt come from the the Democratic Republic of
Congo, which for the purposes of this discussion can be said to have reserves
an estimated order of magnitude over anyone else. In response to growing
demand the DRC have raised taxes on Cobalt as recent as a few weeks ago. A
number of operations have been sold to Chinese companies in recent years,
shoring up their supply chains. It almost goes without saying that a number of
these operations have terrible human/labor rights issues and track records.

We've all managed to come to terms with our cognitive dissonance of driving
cars and drinking out of plastic bottles when it comes to Oil, but how will
everyone feel about funding the DRC in the name of progress?

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
> but how will everyone feel about funding the DRC in the name of progress?

 _By 2015, DRC supplied 60% of the world production of 32,000 tons at prices
of $20,000 to $26,000 per ton_ [1]

That's about $750,000,000.

So the question is: how do you feel about it now?

1\.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobalt#Production](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobalt#Production)

------
wonderwonder
We live in a strange time where our access to clean power is limited not by
technology or product cost but by politics, dedicated lobbying dollars and the
entrenched old guard in federal but more importantly state and local level
government.

I'm still waiting on my clean coal...

~~~
cobookman
How does politics prevent electricity companies from building solar plants.

While I agree politics could help enable it more through subsidies. However we
are capitalisticish where utilities won't build a coal plant if solar is truly
significantly cheaper.

~~~
crdoconnor
>How does politics prevent electricity companies from building solar plants.

By whacking massive tariffs on imported solar panels.

They pretend it's done for the benefit of American solar manufacturers. It's
not. It's done for the benefit of coal and gas. If they just wanted to help
American solar manufacturers they'd give them subsidies to offset what they
(erroneously) considered "unfair" competition from China.

~~~
test6554
A subsidy is a government cost and likely needs more approvals than A tariff
which is a source of income for the government. One was accomplished with
executive order while the other would likely have to go through congress.

~~~
crdoconnor
They did it before with solyndra.

That was before solar became an existential threat to coal and gas.

Obama had some fairly close ties with oil/gas despite him trying to tout his
green credentials.

------
shoguning
Maybe I'm missing it, but I don't see an indication of how much storage they
are talking about here. The problem with renewables is still intermittence,
and geographic dependence. Solar does no good at night, and there are days the
wind doesn't blow. The costs of storage for that bulk application still don't
seem to make sense, and I don't see it addressed here. The Tesla battery
replaced power on the order of seconds, which is still a success, but not
enough.

In general, solar has been great for reducing peak demand, since it has
highest output during the middle of the day when electricity demand is also
greatest. Not clear how much farther it can go, though. Wind may be able to
replace some, but wind isn't strong everywhere.

~~~
Retric
Taking a single family home off grid using slightly over sized solar and
batteries is already cost competitive in most areas.

The real question is if economies of scale and the ability to shift demand
across geographic areas offsets the cost of an electric grid + administrative
overhead. Based on the constantly increasing rate of Solar deployments I can
only assume this actually works out just fine.

~~~
phil21
> Taking a single family home off grid using slightly over sized solar and
> batteries is already cost competitive in most areas.

What areas? I've checked a few and it wasn't remotely close.

It starts being doable if you are willing to do things like load shed during
the night - but I'm not. The goal would be for a zero impact on my lifestyle
storage system (e.g. multiple days of storage for A/C use during cloudy/stormy
weather, no 'no laundry days', etc.) and that simply isn't realistic yet.

I find this important since when I do go off-grid, I think it's immoral for me
to expect the poorer folks who can't afford such equipment to subsidize my
free battery by keeping an "emergency" backup connection like pretty much all
"off grid" folks I personally know. Yes, it gets real cheap when you don't
have to size for an expected worst-case - but that's not very interesting to
me.

That said - some of the DIY hacker style projects _are_ getting rather close.
It's very tempting to start looking for a couple old Tesla battery packs and
the like these days and go it alone. If that's the case, I expect within 5-10
years it will actually be doable commercially off the shelf.

~~~
Retric
First a backup generator is a lot cheaper than a backup grid connection for
the next 20 years. Now, some would look at that as an extra cost, but IMO most
homes should have an undersized backup in case the grid goes down anyway.

Next installation costs quotes are often insane, but basic equipment costs are
not even close to that. A ~10KW system for ~1,600 kWh/month as a reasonable
off grid system that's well above most homes normal usage levels and depending
on battery power that should be well under 20,000$ before government
incentives.

Now, you can start running the numbers on payback periods and whatnot, but
it's close enough you need to consider your local rates not just dismiss it
out of hand. Sure, you could use fewer panels but panels are only ~1/3 of the
system price so no need to scrimp on them.

------
matt4077
[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=solar%20never&sort=byPopularit...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=solar%20never&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=comment):

"solar will never solve baseline load."

"solar will never be able to replace traditional coal and gas-fired plants"

"such as wind or solar, can never exceed a certain percentage of the grid's
production capacity"

"they are never going to be viable but for a small portion of our energy
needs"

"entirely on solar? never."

"Solar will never be cheaper than coal"

And that's just the first page of results. There are 49 more... It's quite
depressing that it's the tech community that has been badmouthing renewables
for years, and the politicians were the one that made it happen.

------
all_usernames
Is there anything to the notion that the Trump administration putting a 30%
tariff on imported solar panels is an attempt to bolster the coal or other
fossil fuel industry?

~~~
pdx
There are U.S. solar panel manufacturers who were suffering due to the
flooding of the market by Chinese imported panels. Is it possible for the man
to do anything that won't be seen as evil? If solar is important to you, you
should be happy to foster domestic capability, just as we foster domestic food
production with farm and dairy subsidies. If you are a big-government type
person, as most Trump critics are, this sort of federal level economic shaping
should be something you can get behind.

~~~
gamegoblin
If the goal is to reduce market flooding by subsidized Chinese panels, why not
just apply tariffs to Chinese imports (like the EU does). Trump's tariffs
apply to all imports.

    
    
        If you are a big-government type person, as most 
        Trump critics are, this sort of federal level 
        economic shaping should be something you can get 
        behind.
    

This is a fallacy. Here's a similar one to point it out: "If you are a person
who likes rainy weather, the hole in your roof should be something you can get
behind."

Specifically, just because someone supports the notion of a large federal
government to tackle large problems, does not mean they should support the
idea of a large federal government for any arbitrary reason.

~~~
pdx
That's true in theory, but rarely in practice. I'm surprised to meet a real
life big-gov proponent that is against government interference in the free
market. You are truly a black swan.

~~~
gamegoblin
I never said I was a big-government proponent, I just pointed out that your
attack against them was fallacious.

And you’re repeating the same logical fallacy (false equivalence [0]).

To elaborate a bit, an average big-government proponent might support taxing
cigarettes.

I doubt you’d find a big-government supporter who would support banning all
goods that werent produced by companies with an even number of letters in
their name.

Both of those examples are of government intervention in the market, but one
is clearly absurd. Not all government intervention is equivalent.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_equivalence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_equivalence)

~~~
pdx

       > I never said I was a big-government proponent, I just 
       > pointed out that your attack against them was fallacious.
    

You didn't? Hmmm, well, somebody did. Either you edited or I confused you with
them. Fine, you're not big gov, that's good. You and I are on the same team.

Your strawman refutations are not convincing. I would rather you managed to
pull up examples that a government might actually in good faith propose, to
attempt to fix a perceived economic shortcoming, but that would still be
opposed by our hypothetical (not you apparently) big-gov proponent.

------
treis
There's two problems:

(1) The bids include tax incentives. Without those it's much closer:

The cost of wind without storage was $18/MWh, while the cost of solar without
storage was $29/MWh – both prices benefit from federal tax incentives, and
would likely be around $US25/MWh and $US40/MWh without them.

(2) Solar and Wind are not 100% consistent producers. There are days where the
wind doesn't blow, it's cloudy, or it's winter time. You have to have excess
capacity in the grid for these events. So you can't just look at the price per
mWh. You have to include this excess capacity in the cost of your wind/solar
system

~~~
sametmax
(1) I don't know how it's in the US, but in France the price for wind turbine
projects must include underground electric cable setup and retirement of old
turbines after x years.

I don't think it's included for any other kind of energy source.

(2) You are thinking the old way, the way fossil fuel formatted your thinking.
There is always wind __somewhere__. There is always sun __somewhere__. We
currently have very centralized way of harvesting energy. If we want to
transition to alternative energy sources, it must come with changing the shape
of the grid to accommodate a more decentralized system. Also partnership
between countries would help a lot.

~~~
treis
It would be great if we had a continent wide grid that could efficiently
transfer energy from one region to another, but we don't. Building one would
be enormously expensive and we'd lose a lot of power in transit.

~~~
disconnected
Wouldn't it be great if such a thing existed?

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

~~~
treis
There's nowhere near enough capacity to transmit enough solar power from say
Florida to power the Northeast. Besides, then you still run into problem 2.
Florida has to have enough excess capacity to support the NE. And enough
excess to make up for summer vs winter.

------
pfarnsworth
I would love to get solar panels but it feels like the price is artificially
high. Panel costs keep going down but I've never seen a set of solar panels
for less than $20k, regardless of panel cost. I think the solar companies keep
increasing other costs to keep it at the same level, which means there isn't
enough competition yet.

~~~
sxates
Decreases in panel costs result in only modest decreases in residential solar
costs, because the panels aren't the bulk of the cost of install. There's all
the labor of installing them, the other equipment like inverters and electric
panel upgrades, the engineering time to evaluate the site and design an
optimized system size and placement, and then just the general overhead that
comes with the business (sales, marketing, admin, billing, etc.). The panels
themselves might only be 30% of that.

~~~
martinpw
Looks like even less than 30% - the chart in this article shows panels are
only around 10% of total cost for residential, meaning further panel price
declines now have very little effect:

[https://www.pv-magazine.com/2017/06/12/u-s-utility-scale-
sol...](https://www.pv-magazine.com/2017/06/12/u-s-utility-scale-solar-falls-
below-us1-per-watt-w-charts/)

As you imply, for utility scale the other costs are much lower, so falling
panel costs still have a significant impact on total price.

------
virmundi
I could have missed it, but does this take into account subsidies provided by
the Chinese government?

~~~
ZeroGravitas
Although the site is Australian, the cost info is from Colorado, the US
already has anti-dumping levies on Chinese solar which will be reflect in bids
so yes it does take solar subsidies into account. It doesn't however account
for government subsidies of coal.

~~~
virmundi
I thought the US just added anti-dumping levies. If so, the price wouldn't
reflect that change yet.

As to the coal, fair point.

------
thisisit
I always wonder - do the bid prices really reflect the future? I mean it is
entirely possible for these prices to not hold long term and many of these
projects shutting down/ending in huge losses.

Anyone in the solar energy industry have some insights on the pricing?

------
chris_va
(disclaimer: I work in a Climate and Energy R&D group)

I just want to jump in here because these numbers are all strange.

The author mixes units all over the place (e.g. MW vs MWh). The article
confuses nameplate capacity and marginal cost. And there is no mention of
capacity factor or dispatchability.

Very simply, the current state of the world:

\- Renewable energy is getting more popular, and has zero marginal cost. That
means they always sell to the grid, regardless of cost, and drive high
variability in daily demand.

\- Coal and nuclear have higher capital costs, and thus require 90%+
utilization to stay competative with natural gas. However, demand is low for a
quarter the day now, so they are out. There is no saving coal, no matter how
much political rhetorical goes into it, the economics do not work out.

\- Renewables by themseles are not dispatchable. Do not confuse them with
natural gas/coal/hydro/nuclear.

\- Renewables+storage would be dispatchable (especially if you add HVDC to
lower variability), and this gets us into the actual numbers from the
article...

 __ __Lets do some math __ __

Batteries currently cost about $150 /kWh. That will continue to come down, but
let's say we want to build a plant in the next 5 years, so maybe $100/kWh if
we are really lucky.

For a 200MW _dispatchable_ solar/wind plant, we'd have:

\- ~25% capacity factor would be very optimistic (they aren't building in an
ideal location in CO).

\- That means 800MW of nameplate capacity to get an average of 200MW output.

\- $1/W nameplate for solar these days => 800MW _nameplate_ plant at $800M for
_just the solar_.

\- $100/kWh for batteries. Even if we only needed 24h of storage (though
realistically you need more like 3 days), that means 200MW _24h_ $150/kWh =>
$480M

=> Total plant cost is $1.28B, for 200MW of output, or $6400/kW.

Let's say we have

For 30 years, with a 5% rate of return on capital (3% over inflation), and a
1% O&M/y cost (this is really low, just to give it a fighting change, 3-6% is
typical), that ends up as....

5.5 cents/kWh.

Which is way above natural gas (4 cents/kWh), so they'd never take it without
federal subsidies.

Any bid below that isn't likely to be fully dispatchable, which makes it even
less competative with natural gas, even if it is cheaper.

It's hard to compete with a low-capital cost power plant that has nearly free
energy flowing out of a hole in the ground.

~~~
philipkglass
I'd be very surprised if these bids came with more than 4 hours of storage.
That's enough to prevent a California-style "duck curve" and to serve the
early evening peak demand. It's also enough storage to severely dent the
economics of new fossil peaker plants -- perhaps even those of already-built
peakers.

These solar + storage proposals are not 1:1 complete replacements for
traditional dispatchable power. But with 4 hours of storage a solar plant
_can_ run for hours after sunset, serving the highest-demand period of the day
(which is also the most lucrative period in deregulated electricity markets).
Just a few hours of storage significantly increases the upper limit to solar
generation's share on a grid without excessive curtailment.

EDIT: you probably know this. I'm just using your comment as a jumping-off
point to elaborate.

------
Robotbeat
EDIT AGAIN: No, this is the same as the article I thought it was. They didn't
actually specify the cost vs duration of the storage. There's a figure which
shows duration for another project, but pricing info is not shown, so it's not
very useful.

But I did manage to find this linked to in the story, which does specify
duration in parts: [https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/record-low-
sola...](https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/record-low-solar-plus-
storage-price-in-xcel-solicitation)

This is a continuing pet peeve of mine: "solar plus storage" but very hard to
actually parse out how much storage they're talking about.

~~~
ljf
In the article (in an image) - states 4 to 10 hours:
[http://reneweconomy.com.au/wp-
content/uploads/2018/01/Screen...](http://reneweconomy.com.au/wp-
content/uploads/2018/01/Screen-Shot-2018-01-29-at-12.44.01-PM.png)

~~~
gwright
If that is true (costs include just 4-10 hours) then the cost comparisons are
absurdly misleading.

The reality is that the grid needs to work when there is no sun or wind for
days or even weeks.

~~~
Robotbeat
Even that would be impressive. But it's just not clear that that is what the
data says. 4 hours of storage, if the storage is expected to cycle twice per
day (once in the morning, when sunlight is still dim but demand has picked up,
using fossil/nuclear/geothermal/wind energy generated at night when demand is
super low, and once in the evening as sun sets but demand still high, using
solar energy generated during the day), then that is a factor of 2 better for
costs than if storage is expected to only cycle once a day or worse.

But we can't tell because the article doesn't mention any of these details.
This factor of two (or more) is the difference between status quo and a
revolution, but the article remains unclear.

------
seren
I know next to nothing to Power Generation Bid, but I am always puzzled that
these articles always mention cost estimation coming from the bidder. Are we
sure the lowest bidder can actually deliver at that cost point down the line ?

~~~
postingatwork
those "estimates" likely get written as hard promises into contracts in the
form of long-term power purchase agreements.

The bidding, assuming it is competitive, drives down the current price in
favor of the utilities. The long-term agreements provide stability in favor of
the suppliers in case market prices plunging even further than estimated.

~~~
seren
I have not followed all EPR nuclear reactor project, but it seems some project
have a hard time to deliver. So is there somewhere an example of catastrophic
failure ? or on the contrary, wind/solar project tend to be completed on time,
with the expected cost for the provider ? Naively I would think that latter
kind of project are much lower risks.

~~~
philipkglass
Wind and solar projects have the lowest overrun risks of all utility-scale
electricity projects:

[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S036054421...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544214008925)

[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221462961...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214629614000942)

A 500 megawatt solar project is, approximately, 100 5-megawatt solar projects
tiled together and sharing a transmission line. There are large parts of the
project that can be built in parallel without scheduling dependencies. There
are multiple vendors available for each equipment component (racking,
tracking, inverters, modules) and there's a lot of mix-and-match flexibility.
You don't have to buy Panasonic inverters and monitoring software just because
you went with Panasonic modules. Large projects usually start generating power
before their official commission date, because you can energize completed
subsections as soon as they're connected to transmission.

Nuclear projects are pretty much the complete opposite. There are tightly
coupled dependencies. A delay in one component (like a coolant pump) means
that the entire project timeline slips. You can't play mix-and-match with
reactor components -- no Westinghouse core plus Mitsubishi containment system.
Unlike a large solar farm, a large reactor can't start generating partial
power when the project is only 50% (or even 85%) complete, so financing weighs
more heavily on the project economics.

Reactors that are up and running are great, and I deplore their premature
retirement. But building new reactors is a slow process where the payoff comes
only at the end.

------
JBlue42
Can someone provide a bit more details about this. Is this only if you have a
massive solar farm (which I assume is cheaper due to land value + large
quantities) or does it also include solar for residential (which I assume is
more expensive due to installation, limited area, etc)?

When looking at a satellite image of LA, I wonder how much power we could
generate by having panels installed on the flat/near-flat rooftops of
apartment buildings, at least in the sunnier parts of the city.

------
intrasight
Arguably, the US has Trump as president due to coal interests. But I doubt
that the next administration will go as far as Obama did in trying to shut
down the coal industry - too politically risky to lose PA again. This
political-economic dynamic does imply that there will be a tipping point were
coal-fired power plants shut down en masse. I wish that day would come sooner
rather than later since our air quality sucks.

~~~
politician
Intriguing! Maybe Dems should work to bring renewable energy projects to PA,
so that in 10 years they can swing the workforce away from coal.

~~~
BinaryIdiot
I always wondered why this didn't happen in every area with coal. I get many
of these areas are not the best for solar or wind but if you provide a way for
these people to transition to something different you're far more likely to
win their support versus the narrative that ran rampant in the election where
no one cared about the coal miners.

~~~
aspaceman
People have been trying to transition coal miners via education programs and
funding for a while now.

The sad truth is that coal miners want to continue being coal miners because
they have wrapped up a lot of their identity into the job.

~~~
ams6110
Well we're going to continue to need coal in possibly decreasing amounts for
the next couple of decades. No way are we decommissioning all coal-fired
generating any time soon. That should be enough time for natural attrition to
handle the current mine workers. The effort should be in getting young people
interested/trained in something else before they follow their fathers into the
mines.

~~~
intrasight
As long as folks like Trump keep selling them on the dream of "coal forever",
they're not going to listen to common sense. Politicians see them only as
votes and not as constituents to be cared for.

------
sologoub
Completely side topic question - are there any studies on how much surface of
the planet would need to be covered with solar to make a measurable impact on
absorbing and/or reflecting enough sunlight to affect some cooling?

~~~
chimeracoder
> Completely side topic question - are there any studies on how much surface
> of the planet would need to be covered with solar to make a measurable
> impact on absorbing and/or reflecting enough sunlight to affect some
> cooling?

I don't think solar will have any impact here. The whole point is to absorb
the light (and energy), not to reflect it. That's one of the reasons solar
panels appear black, not white: they're absorbing light.

If the alternative is coal, solar energy will warm the planet _less_ , but
it's not going to actively cool the planet the way you're describing.

~~~
sologoub
Naively thought that by absorbing heat energy and transforming it into
electric current, there was some cooling effect when compared to heating the
surface of the planet.

~~~
philipkglass
There is localized cooling in the cell. Some photon energy that would have
been thermalized immediately in a dark-colored simple absorber is carried away
as electricity instead. But that electricity is, ultimately, used and
thermalized somewhere else on Earth, so it doesn't have a cooling effect on
the planet as a whole.

Additionally, the albedo of solar modules is lower than e.g. empty desert, so
the net effect of installing a large solar array on such land is to slightly
increase localized temperature. Accounting for increased albedo is why the
IPCC's global warming assessment of utility-scale solar puts its warming
impact a bit above that of rooftop solar. Rooftops are already lower in
albedo, so adding solar modules doesn't darken them as much. Both rooftop and
large desert-based solar have much lower warming potential than any form of
fossil combustion, of course.

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sologoub
Thank you for the excellent explanation!

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colanderman
Anyone know why the project bids are in units of energy? From my experience
with home solar projects are priced in units of power.

(EDIT: From further in the article, these look like operating costs, not e.g.
initial build-out costs that one would be quoted for a home installation.
Makes sense, though I wonder now if they include amortized build-out costs.)

And then, why the mixing of MWh and kW·mo? They're similar orders of
magnitude, why add in a layer of confusion with the constant factor
difference? (For reference: multiply $/kW·mo by 1.39 to obtain $/MWh.)

~~~
qbrass
From the source document
[https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/4340162/Xcel-
Soli...](https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/4340162/Xcel-Solicitation-
Report.pdf)

"Pricing is provided in $/kW-mo terms for those generation types that can be
viewed as dispatchable and likely to provide high levels of generation
capacity credit. Pricing is provided in $/MWh terms for those generation types
or resources that are non-dispatchable or that include a storage component
with a non-dispatchable base generation resource."

They're paying for whatever wind and solar can provide but require fossil fuel
plants to produce what actually need.

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sfink
Hah. These shortsighted "renewable energy" fanatics will sure be sorry when
the sun burns out, and we have to fire up all those old mothballed coal power
plants that they have heaped such scorn on.

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cyberpunk0
Old news

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wavegeek
Solar with batteries $40 (that only last 10 hours max then blackouts).

Gas turbines $4.80.

> renewables are cheaper

Storage prices have fallen by about 7% per annum over a long period, with some
fits and starts. This is no Moore's law.

This article is very slanted, expected from a player in the process.

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dsfyu404ed
As the price of renewable energy sources drops it's gonna be harder for states
to dismiss the high cost of corruption and incompetence in the energy
procurement process by telling consumers "your electricity is so expensive
because we buy organic, sustainably farmed, non-gmo, carbon neutral electrons"

