
Solar and Wind Power So Cheap They’re Outgrowing Subsidies - ph0rque
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-09-19/solar-and-wind-power-so-cheap-they-re-outgrowing-subsidies
======
tito
USD$5.2 trillion was spent globally on fossil fuel subsidies in 2017

[https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WP/Issues/2019/05/02/Glo...](https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WP/Issues/2019/05/02/Global-
Fossil-Fuel-Subsidies-Remain-Large-An-Update-Based-on-Country-Level-
Estimates-46509)

"hey fossil fuels, let's 1v1" sincerely, solar

(From Forbes: United States Spend Ten Times More On Fossil Fuel Subsidies Than
Education)

~~~
tryitnow
A few things:

1) That's not what was spent, it's what this paper projected was spent.

2) I think this paper is defining subsidy in a way that we don't usually use
that word. They're calling the costs associated with anthropogenic climate
change and pollution "subsidies", most people would just call those things
"costs."

Using the word "subsidy" implies that governments are actively taking tax
dollars and giving it to fossil fuel companies and consumers. That doesn't
appear to be what's going on for the most part.

Look at Figure 4, the bulk of the so-called "subsidies" are "global warming"
and "local pollution" those aren't what most people would call subsidies,
they're costs.

I'm saying this just to clarify things, personally I am supportive of massive
tax increases on carbon and massive subsidies for renewables.

~~~
mikeash
It’s an unconventional way to use “subsidy,” but I think it fits.

Imagine a garbage company. The government pays them so they can buy land where
they dump their garbage. Obviously a subsidy.

Now, let’s say the government buys the land themselves then gives it to the
company for dumping. No money changes hands but this is still pretty clearly a
subsidy.

Instead of giving the company land, the government retains ownership, but lets
the company dump there for free. Still a pretty clear subsidy.

Instead of buying the land, the government just takes it. Now no money is
involved at all, but it’s still a subsidy.

Instead of taking the land, the government just declares that it’s legal for
the garbage company to dump trash on other people’s land, and the owners just
have to deal with it. This is quite different in the details from the original
subsidy, but the overall effect is essentially the same.

Polluters are in a situation that’s exactly like this last scenario. They get
to dump their trash on everyone’s property and don’t have to pay for the
privilege. They’re being subsidized in an amount equal to whatever payment it
would take to get everyone to willingly accept this trash.

~~~
newvoiceoldphne
Stop! Stop! You're breathing my air!

That kind of thinking leads to a Logan's Run scenario. Instead, why not think
of it as a part of life and work to find a solution that doesn't require the
wholesale curtailment of liberties all in the name of the environment?

~~~
luc4sdreyer
That sounds like the slippery slope fallacy. That kind of thinking doesn't
necessarily _lead_ anywhere, and even if it did, that doesn't make it wrong.
The argument itself is sound.

No one suggested "the wholesale curtailment of liberties". That's a strawman.

There are negative externalities associated with many activities, coal power
generation is one of them. The external cost of coal power is at least more
than twice the normal market price of the electricity[1]. This is the when you
ignore external effects such as those that take place through water, soils,
noise, or carbon dioxide and its effect on climate change.

So the actual price is actually at least three times higher. Why not just bill
the polluter for the damage they do and then let the market decide which is
better based on the true price?

[1]
[https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aer.101.5.1649](https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aer.101.5.1649)

~~~
newvoiceoldphne
But who determines the cost? Who amongst us does not produce CO2?

YOU are the customer if each of these externalities that you are arguing
against. Are you willing to shoulder the cost?

~~~
NeedMoreTea
That's the whole point is it not? We should each shoulder the appropriate
burden of impact in the price of all the goods and services we buy.

If that means some businesses are no longer viable, they go the same way as
horse buggy manufacturers. Maybe far fewer will be willing to take
international holidays every year. Business will seek more sustainable ways of
doing the things we enjoy.

How can a market be expected to function fairly with secret information (an
externality)? It's intentionally distorted. Pollution, waste and the rest
comes with negligible immediate cost, but far reaching consequences to
everyone else's freedoms. If _all_ those externalities are priced in,
customers can make informed decisions.

------
spodek
Can we stop subsidizing oil and corn too?

~~~
e2le
Why is subsidizing corn a bad thing? Honest question.

~~~
MichaelApproved
Flip it around. Why is subsidizing corn a good thing?

~~~
aianus
I imagine if food production was not subsidized, much of it would naturally
move to other countries with cheaper labour forces.

The USA doesn't want to be dependent on other countries for basic goods like
food; imagine if there was an "OPEC" of food in 1973 and they decided to cut
off the food supply to protest US support of Israel.

~~~
nostrademons
Most agriculture is not particularly labor-intensive now. We have robot
tractors and ploughs and industrial scale feedlots and slaughterhouses. The
average farmer cultivates over 300 acres, and that number is distorted
downwards by large numbers of family farmers. Pure agribusiness can cultivate
many square miles with basically no people.

The exception are soft fruits like strawberries, avocados, or apricots, where
harvesting them mechanically will bruise them beyond what a consumer's willing
to eat. These are luxuries, not staples, though. Things like wheat, corn, and
other grains get harvested by giant machines and require little labor input.

~~~
aianus
It's still cheaper to export those machines to Brazil or something and have
someone poorer drive the tractors and combine harvesters around and maintain
them. No winter either so the utilization would be higher.

~~~
nostrademons
Not when you figure in transportation costs. Food is perishable, bulky, and
labor-intensive to ship. Even with modern automated railroads and
containerization (which aren't necessarily present in countries with cheaper
labor), you can very easily spend more in transit than you do in growing &
harvesting the food.

------
piokoch
When it comes to renewable energy it is worth to look at one (sad) statistics:
if Germany and California, one of the largest CO2 emitters (Germany is on the
6th place, despite a lot of (failed [2]) efforts and even more PR) would spend
those money on nuclear energy, they would be 100% clean - CO2 emission zero,
null.

Why people keep investing in something so unreliable like wind/solar power
plants which are useless without auxiliary source of energy (batteries
technology is not ready for mass energy storage) while we have technology that
provides clean, CO2 free energy?

I understand sun power plants in California, that make some sense (not much,
as those stats show), but, hey, Germany? With more or less 60-70 sunny days a
year?

[1]
[https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2018/09/11...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2018/09/11/had-
they-bet-on-nuclear-not-renewables-germany-california-would-already-
have-100-clean-power)

[2] [https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2017/10/10/why-
arent...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2017/10/10/why-arent-
renewables-decreasing-germanys-carbon-emissions/)

~~~
dnadler
That's not really the whole picture. Nuclear power doesn't produce CO2, but
does produce radioactive waste which must be stored somewhere.

~~~
Robotbeat
The volume of nuclear waste that must be stored is vastly smaller (by orders
of magnitude) than the amount of emissions (and often ashes) from fossil
fuels. About the same size as the radioactive tailings from mining rare earths
for wind turbines (depending on the design).

And a big difference is that nuclear waste IS stored. In engineered
containers. With the price paid by the nuclear power provider. Unlike CO2
emissions from fossil fuel power plants.

So I'd say, given the orders of magnitude difference, it is pretty much the
full story. Except to note the waste issue for nuclear is vastly exaggerated.

------
crazygringo
> _So until battery systems are cheap enough for generators to stockpile
> electricity for hours at a time, renewables can’t constantly provide power
> like coal and gas._

I thought the solution wasn't expensive batteries locally, but rather storing
pumped water in reservoirs, or other solutions like melting and re-solidifying
salt, etc. -- huge-scale energy storage connected to the grid. Your energy is
produced once from the sun/wind, and then second (at night) from hydroelectric
turbines or steam.

Anyone know how that's going? Does it have to be done at the city/region grid
level, or are there micro-versions that make sense to be integrated with a
single wind turbine or field of them?

~~~
timerol
"Battery systems" encompass all of the above methods of "energy storage
connected to the grid". My personal favorite "so crazy it might work" idea is
stacking concrete blocks on top of each other.

Li-ion batteries keep coming down in price, and they can be scaled to
basically any size. Pumped hydro is generally considered the best if you have
access to it. Compressed air storage works well if you've got a huge, airtight
cavern (generally an old salt mine). But any cheap energy storage we can get
is gonna be useful.

~~~
giarc
Another crazy one is simply pushing a big heavy train up a hill. Then when you
need power just letting it go back down the hill.

[https://www.wired.com/2016/05/forget-elons-batteries-fix-
gri...](https://www.wired.com/2016/05/forget-elons-batteries-fix-grid-rock-
filled-train-hill/)

~~~
_Microft
I one-up that with [https://heindl-energy.com/technical-
concept/](https://heindl-energy.com/technical-concept/) (city for scale?;)

------
noneeeed
For anyone interested in power useage and supply patterns you should check out
[https://gridwatch.co.uk/](https://gridwatch.co.uk/)

It shows UK power use and generation in realtime, and over various time
periods. There is still plenty of room for more renewables, and it shows how
solar is actually pretty good in the uk, it generates during the main peak
period in the day.

~~~
toomuchtodo
Worldwide mostly realtime data:
[https://www.electricitymap.org/?wind=false&solar=false&page=...](https://www.electricitymap.org/?wind=false&solar=false&page=map)

~~~
m0skit0
I think France vs Germany in this map is a nice argument in the nuclear vs
"renewables" discussion

~~~
noneeeed
Germany's sudden shift from nuclear without a plan for what to replace it with
was just so frustrating to watch. So much coal :/

------
russdill
Beautiful, chromium 77 has, as advertised, broken incognito mode detection.
Bloomberg now claims I'm browsing incognito regardless of whether I really am
(and thus cannot read the article).

~~~
CraneWorm
outline failed so I used my freebie on ya

I'm not reading it so you can have mine, everyone aside from Mr. russdill
please kindly avert your eyes.

Solar and Wind Power So Cheap They’re Outgrowing Subsidies @markchediak More
stories by Mark Chediak 5-7 minutes

For years, wind and solar power were derided as boondoggles. They were too
expensive, the argument went, to build without government handouts.

Today, renewable energy is so cheap that the handouts they once needed are
disappearing.

On sun-drenched fields across Spain and Italy, developers are building solar
farms without subsidies or tax-breaks, betting they can profit without them.
In China, the government plans to stop financially supporting new wind farms.
And in the U.S., developers are signing shorter sales contracts, opting to
depend on competitive markets for revenue once the agreements expire.

relates to Solar and Wind Power So Cheap They’re Outgrowing Subsidies

The developments have profound implications for the push to phase out fossil
fuels and slow the onset of climate change. Electricity generation and heating
account for 25% of global greenhouse gases. As wind and solar demonstrate they
can compete on their own against coal- and natural gas-fired plants, the
economic and political arguments in favor of carbon-free power become harder
and harder to refute.

“The training wheels are off,” said Joe Osha, an equity analyst at JMP
Securities. “Prices have declined enough for both solar and wind that there’s
a path toward continued deployment in a post-subsidy world.”

Subsidy-Free Europe

The reason, in short, is the subsidies worked. After decades of quotas, tax
breaks and feed-in-tariffs, wind and solar have been deployed widely enough
for manufacturers and developers to become increasingly efficient and drive
down costs. The cost of wind power has fallen about 50% since 2010. Solar has
dropped 85%. That makes them cheaper than new coal and gas plants in two-
thirds of the world, according to BloombergNEF.

“Solar got cheap,” said Jenny Chase, an analyst at BNEF. “It’s really that
simple.”

China Huaneng Group Windfarm in Eastern China

Wind turbines spin in Qidong, China.

Photographer: Qilai Shen/Bloomberg

Yet for all it’s promise, clean energy still has a long way to go before fully
usurping coal and gas. Wind and solar still only accounted for about 7% of
electricity generation worldwide last year, according to BNEF. And most wind
and solar projects still depend on subsides. In the U.S., in fact, the solar
industry is pushing to extend federal tax credits that are scheduled to
decline over the next few years.

And then there’s the issue of round-the-clock power. Solar doesn’t work at
night. Wind farms go idle when breezes slack. So until battery systems are
cheap enough for generators to stockpile electricity for hours at a time,
renewables can’t constantly provide power like coal and gas.

Solar module prices have plunged this decade

Perhaps nowhere is the push toward subsidy-free clean energy clearer than on
arid expanses of Southern Europe. About 750 megawatts of subsidy-free clean-
energy projects are expected to connect to the grid in 2019 alone, across
Spain, Italy, Portugal and elsewhere -- enough to power about 333,000
households, according to Pietro Radoia, an analyst at BNEF.

“The cheapest way of producing electricity in Spain is the sun,” Jose
Dominguez Abascal, the nation’s secretary of state for energy, said last year.

The road to subsidy-free renewables wasn’t easy for Spain. A decade ago, it
offered developers a lavish feed-in tariff, prompting an uncontrolled boom
that strained the national treasury. Spain slashed incentives and now has a
hands-off energy policy.

China, the world’s largest renewable energy market, also propped up wind and
solar for years. Now it’s shifting toward a more market-driven approach.
Earlier this year, officials announced a plan to develop 20.8 gigawatts of
renewable projects that can only profit from selling electricity into grids at
prices equal to or less than coal. Plus, most wind farms built on land -- as
opposed to in the ocean -- won’t be eligible for subsidies after 2021.

Cheaper Wind

The picture is less clear in the U.S. Nearly every American wind and solar
project remains eligible for subsidies through federal tax breaks, which are
scheduled to decrease or phase out altogether over the next few years. Plus,
dozens of states have renewable-energy quotas, forcing utilities to buy a
certain amount of wind and solar.

Still, they’re starting to compete on their own. The proof is in the sales
agreements. For years, clean-energy developers needed 20- or 25-year power-
purchase contracts to ensure a return on investment. Now they’re building wind
and solar farms with agreements for 15 years or less -- with the expectation
that projects will compete against gas- and coal-fired plants in wholesale
markets after the deals conclude.

“Renewable energy’s next major evolutionary step is to sell power directly
into wholesale markets,” said Richard Matsui, chief executive officer at San
Francisco-based solar risk-management firm KWh Analytics. “Investors worldwide
are only beginning to dip their toes in those waters.”

(Michael R. Bloomberg, the founder and majority stakeholder of Bloomberg LP,
the parent company of Bloomberg News, has committed $500 million to launch
Beyond Carbon, a campaign aimed at closing the remaining coal-powered plants
in the U.S. by 2030 and slowing the construction of new gas plants.)

This story is part of Covering Climate Now, a global collaboration of more
than 250 news outlets to highlight climate change.

— With assistance by James Thornhill, Reed Landberg, Jasmine Ng, Jeremy
Hodges, and Chris Martin

~~~
russdill
Thx man.

------
enqk
Why no mention of nuclear electricity generation, which requires less CO2 than
Solar and even Wind? (For the same amount of available power)

~~~
beat
Because nuclear can't keep up on cost. Right now, new wind, PV solar, and gas
all cost about half as much per kwh as nuclear. We actually have numerous
nuclear plants being decommissioned early in the US, because they've lost
industrial-scale customers to cheaper new sources, and since their operational
cost doesn't reduce with output, it can cost more to keep the plant running
than to just shut it down.

A lot of pro-nuclear activists respond with "Yeah, but" and bring up
theoretical thorium designs and such that are not actually in production
operation anywhere. But until they are in production, they are not actual
competition for the gas/wind/solar systems that _are_ commercially available,
at scale, right now. But traditional light water reactors? They're a
technological dead end. The cost doesn't work.

~~~
enqk
When you're saying nuclear can't keep up with the cost, are you comparing the
same kwh?

For wind and solar if you install X kwh for amount A, and for nuclear Y khw
for amount B, X represents a peak available capacity.. At best, what is the
guaranteed available khw you get for this installed base? 0.10 * X?

For nuclear the available capacity is much closer to Y.

So if the available capacity from wind/solar was something like 0.10 X, then
it means you'll have to install 10x more wind and solar than you would need
nuclear. Which needs more material and more energy expenditure (more CO2?) to
install.

If you compare cost, similarly, A would have to be 10x smaller than B to make
wind/solar be cheaper.

Some other issues is how Solar competes in terms of surface with areas that
you'd grow food in (unless you build in the desert, but then you have issues
such as dust on the panels, and the need to carry the energy across large
land)

------
spenczar5
What are the developments that have made solar and wind _so much_ cheaper over
the last 15 years? I am hoping HN has an expert lurking about who can unpack
this.

~~~
pjc50
It's not one big thing as a thousand thousand little things that individual
engineers have worked on.

"Simply" making the turbines bigger helps quite a lot, but that requires
engineering the blades and support structures. There's also a continuous
improvement of the generators, and the inverters to connect them to the grid.
There's also clever fluid modelling software to reduce the extent to which one
turbine takes energy out of the airstream of another, and so on.

For solar cells, the onward march of silicon processing helps a lot, but this
time we don't even have to reduce the feature size! One paper that sticks in
my memory is the development of "reduced kerf diamond wire saws": since a
"boule" of silicon is more or less a fixed cost, if you can make the cuts
between wafers thinner you reduce the amount of waste material and increase
the number of wafers produced.

~~~
pfdietz
I recall recently reading a paper from back when the price of polysilicon was
at its peak, which it discussed. Since then, adjust for inflation, its price
has declined by a factor of 70.

------
rossdavidh
I am really glad this is happening. I think that the Moore's Law-like decline
in costs of wind and solar are going to far more to combat climate change than
every international treaty ever attempted, and that's great because climate
change is a serious problem and it must be addressed.

However...

I think we have been trying to figure out how to get the world's economy to
shift off of fossil fuels for so long, we haven't given a lot of thought to
what happens as we do, which appears to be in the process of happening. Right
now it's coal that's circling the drain. The other fossil fuels will come a
few years after.

Imagine every nation in the world that depends on oil revenue right now, going
the way of Venezuela.

We are not ready.

------
Jedd
Why do we still have such poor quality reporting on renewables:

> And then there’s the issue of round-the-clock power. Solar doesn’t work at
> night.

PVC doesn't work at night, but CSP most definitely does.

(By _working_ , I mean a solar thermal plant is providing power well after
sunset.)

------
jamil7
Theres a Dutch study indicating that we're rapidly approaching supply chain
limits for the rare metals required for renewable energy, both solar and wind.
I wonder how long renewables can continue dropping in price.

~~~
beat
Solar, maybe, for now. But I can't imagine that there is a need for large
amounts of exotic metals in a wind turbine, which is a simple generator.
Exotic materials might give a percent or three more operational efficiency,
but they're not actually necessary.

~~~
jamil7
As far as I know neodymium is currently used for magnets in a lot of wind
turbines and electric motors among other things. It's not rare but the vast
majority of it comes from China right now. I can't speak to how much
efficiency it adds.

~~~
vlehto
Wind turbines are currently over 100 meters high and installed into places
that see lot of wind. It's a rule of thumb that you should keep the natural
frequency of any large steel building above 20 hz. Swiching to heavier magnets
will increase the mass of the generator which is mounted on top. That in turn
will make the whole thing more wobbly (ie lower the frequency). To combat this
you need thicker frame. Which in turn will cost more and weight more.

It's completely possible that current windmill designs are only possible with
neodymium magnets. We would need to ask turbine designer.

------
ufukcan74
Cool Earth Solar company unlike normal solar panels, it produces spherical
panels, thus producing 400 times more energy than normal panels.
[https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/4bf1/d93a9467608c9c1d1536f3...](https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/4bf1/d93a9467608c9c1d1536f3a9179d97f5ce2c.pdf)

~~~
EA
"With no occlusion, the flat-panel collector is more efficient than the
spherical-surface collector by a factor of more than 2."

"Considering the occlusion factor, the spherical-surface collector can be the
better choice in certain situations"

------
aussieguy1234
The sun always shines - somewhere in the world.

Is the problem of solar power at night more of an issue with transmission?

------
gridlockd
_" Solar doesn’t work at night. Wind farms go idle when breezes slack. So
until battery systems are cheap enough for generators to stockpile electricity
for hours at a time, renewables can’t constantly provide power like coal and
gas."_

This is the crux of the problem. We don't just need cheaper batteries, we need
entirely new battery/storage technology. Current battery production is an
ecological disaster in and of itself.

 _" Still, they’re starting to compete on their own. The proof is in the sales
agreements. For years, clean-energy developers needed 20- or 25-year power-
purchase contracts to ensure a return on investment. Now they’re building wind
and solar farms with agreements for 15 years or less -- with the expectation
that projects will compete against gas- and coal-fired plants in wholesale
markets after the deals conclude."_

This may just be speculating that governments will be issuing all kinds of
premiums on fossil technologies instead of directly subsidizing renewables,
which is far more likely than actually switching to renewables.

~~~
beat
Storing energy isn't exactly magical. Humans built the first dam nearly 3000
years ago. It's simply a matter of cost, and that's a combination of situation
and experience. Batteries, hydro, compressed air, thermal, gravity... all of
these things work, and are known quantities.

It doesn't take a breakthrough in technology to say "If we build a tank for
compressed air that is volume X, to pressure Y, it can store energy Z; and
thermal losses for conversion in and out are A, and it costs B to build". This
is completely ordinary engineering.

~~~
gridlockd
> It's simply a matter of cost, and that's a combination of situation and
> experience. Batteries, hydro, compressed air, thermal, gravity... all of
> these things work, and are known quantities.

 _Everything_ is a matter of cost. If cost didn't matter, we could just suck
up all the CO2 from the air. That technology already exists too, and it's a
"known quantity". The problem is, cost _does_ matter and there is such a thing
as "prohibitively expensive", especially if we're looking at countries that
aren't as wealthy.

Furthermore, relative costs matter. What are we _not_ building if we are
building all this buffering infrastructure?

> It doesn't take a breakthrough in technology to say "If we build a tank for
> compressed air that is volume X, to pressure Y, it can store energy Z; and
> thermal losses for conversion in and out are A, and it costs B to build".
> This is completely ordinary engineering.

Sure, but if B is too large, it just won't happen. That's why you need a
technological breakthrough to get B within the realms of feasibility.

~~~
beat
I'm not seeing anyone state any numbers, though. Just a bunch of handwaving
about how it's totally impossible, which strikes me as simplistic BS.

~~~
gridlockd
> I'm not seeing anyone state any numbers, though.

You aren't stating any numbers either, yet you seem very confident that it can
work out.

> Just a bunch of handwaving about how it's totally impossible, which strikes
> me as simplistic BS.

Same to you, just a bunch of handwaving how it's totally possible, which I
might call "simplistic BS" as well.

I could give some of the source material that my opinions are based on, but
then you will just complain about how the sources are biased or how the
calculations are too pessimistic, and so on. Been there, done that, it's a
waste of time. Therefore, I suggest you do your own research and believe what
you want to believe. I don't care if you change your mind.

~~~
beat
Without going back and digging for sources (google it yourself), existing
nuclear costs about $100/Mwh. Coal is around there, too (this is round number,
different sources have slight variations). Onshore wind and natural gas are
currently pushing $40, and PV solar is under $60 and dropping rapidly.

Numerous nuclear plants in the US (and MANY coal plants) are being shut down
before end-of-life, due to losing key customers to cheaper alternatives. It
costs more to keep the plant running than to shut it down.

We have a couple of decades of data on wind consistency and variation, scaling
from minutes to years - enough data to do very reliable projections on storage
needs. Solar has a consistent schedule, which also helps projection, and of
course we know loads. So computing just how much storage is needed is a
straightforward exercise.

Tesla and other companies are stepping hard into the utility-scale storage
game. It's a very exciting field because there are billions to be made. And
there are billions to be made, because once costs drop below a certain line,
wind/solar + storage will be cheaper than anything except fracked gas, and
will take over the coal/nuclear markets as fast as it can be built.

A lot of people who are smarter with money and know the field more than you
and me are expecting to make fortunes on this. That says more than any numbers
I could throw at you.

~~~
gridlockd
> Without going back and digging for sources (google it yourself), existing
> nuclear costs about $100/Mwh. Coal is around there, too (this is round
> number, different sources have slight variations). Onshore wind and natural
> gas are currently pushing $40, and PV solar is under $60 and dropping
> rapidly.

So what? This is an apples-to-oranges comparison. Coal, nuclear, natural gas
are all delivering stable supply 24/7\. PV and Wind are highly volatile both
intraday and seasonally. Why don't you add in the cost of storage?

> We have a couple of decades of data on wind consistency and variation,
> scaling from minutes to years - enough data to do very reliable projections
> on storage needs. Solar has a consistent schedule, which also helps
> projection, and of course we know loads. So computing just how much storage
> is needed is a straightforward exercise.

Computing the cost is not the problem. Paying the cost is the problem:

[https://www.pv-magazine.com/2019/08/12/new-us-study-finds-
re...](https://www.pv-magazine.com/2019/08/12/new-us-study-finds-renewable-
energy-storage-costs-need-to-drop-90/)

> A lot of people who are smarter with money and know the field more than you
> and me are expecting to make fortunes on this.

It's a reasonably safe bet that western governments will push green energy and
penalize fossil energy in the future. Of course you can make a lot of money
off of that.

> That says more than any numbers I could throw at you.

It really only says that speculators are speculating that green energy will
yield a big payout.

------
kumarski
It takes an immense amount of coal to make steel turbines.

It takes an immense amount of natural gas peaking facilities to counterbalance
Solar and Wind's draw downs.

Manufacturing photovoltaic panels with low-carbon electricity (for example, in
a solar-powered factory), and installing them in a high-carbon-intensity
country would tip the balance. Right now we do the opposite.

Solar actually INCREASES gas consumption.

You have to provide for a fixed power demand with 2 systems.

-Combined cycle methane gas plant (cc)

-Methane Peaker backed Solar PV(pvp)

"Epvp=Epeak/(1-Cpv)

Your effective time average methane energy consumption efficiency (electrical
energy out / chemical heat in) for pvp is going to be the peaker efficiency
divided by 1 - the capacity factor of the PV:

Epvp = Epeak / (1 - Cpv)

The methane energy efficiency of cc, Ecc, is fixed One can find the methane
breakeven capacity factor, Cpvbe by setting Epvp=Ecc and solving for Cpv:
Cpvbe = 1 - Epeak/Ecc

Epeak ~ a generous 42%

Ecc ~ 62%

Plugging these numbers in yields:

Cpvbe = 1-42/62 = 32% which means unless your capacity factor meets or exceeds
32% that solar imposes a net methane opportunity cost backing it up with a gas
peaker plant in comparison to gas combined cycle.

You can find the capacity factors for solar here:
[https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.ph...](https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.php?t=epmt_6_07_b&fbclid=IwAR3Oj5a7FUildPrxVyVfErx-
kb997hbl5KGWTjf0IDIVB2KtLar2sEFFIfA")

~~~
timerol
This is a very poorly worded comment. I had to read it multiple times to get
your point: Gas plants that run continuously (combined-cycle) have much higher
efficiencies than peaker plants, so solar+peaker can have a lower efficiency
than combined-cycle gas plants on their own.

I have a few questions about this. How do combined-cycle plants adjust to
changes in demand? Do we need to compare solar+peaker to combined-cycle+peaker
to have a fair comparison? Or do combined-cycle plants allow for lower changes
in output than peakers, such that (e.g.) a 10% solar 90% combined-cycle system
could adjust as well? The grid is a whole system, not just two power plants.

Finally, nobody is advocating for just solar+peaker. Solar+wind+peaker will
easily get you over the 32% threshold, as solar and wind tend to provide power
at different times (not perfectly, sadly). If you have some storage available
(preferably hydro, but possibly other), then you get an even higher effective
capacity factor.

------
woodandsteel
Remember, one of the main arguments of the climate change is a hoax, fossil
fuels forever gang is that switching to renewable energy would make
electricity so expensive it would mean the end of modern society and we would
all go back to living in crude huts.

------
sremani
As usual this where Bloomberg acts as Solar is similar to NG. Solar and Wind
are widely dependent on location. Your results of NG in Phoenix or Chicago are
going to be more or less same - you cannot say that for Solar.

At the right places Solar is profitable - but at the grid interface level its
not same as having NG. For all the solar panels that are visible and there are
countless "invisible" massive diesel generator back-ups and an inefficiently
used NG base-load generator somewhere.

Its very rare Solar-Wind get their baseload from hydro (its possible). But
again, HN being HN .. Ye Ye Ye!

These headlines make people think some how ONG is replacable and all it takes
moar and moar Solar and Wind, and there is nothing farther from truth.

The enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, its illusion of knowledge.

~~~
batmansmk
Solar and wind as you said are widely dependent on location; they have the
courtesy of also being widely dependent on the time of the day, and the
forecast that day.

The price angle is not the correct one to estimate quality of an energy
source. When the wind blows and the sun shines, NG is cheap because we
overproduce and we have to get rid of MWh. Germany even reaches negative
prices quite regularly.

------
Huycfhct
I don't get these titles. Solar is overcoming the subsidies fossil fuels get
for freely dumping carbon or they no longer need the government price
alignment?

------
noetic_techy
Has this translated to me as a consumer being able to buy rooftop solar for
cheaper? I live in FL and am considering it.

~~~
toomuchtodo
You’ll pay about $2.70/watt in Florida. Payback period will be based on
whether you’re paying cash or financing, system size, and your current utility
rates.

Much cheaper than in the past, but whether it makes financial sense is a
calculation each household has to perform.

I’d suggest getting three quotes from local installers to kick off the
process.

------
kumarski
"This performs a wealth transfer from the poor to the middle class, when the
middle class can buy partially subsidized panels but the poor can't, and then
the panels "drop" the cost of power by raising it for everyone else, offering
cheaper power to those who can afford it on the backs of those who cannot."

~~~
Robotbeat
This is partly a result of the monopolistic status of utilities. Usually, in a
competitive market, if you add extra supply or reduce demand, the price drops.
In a monopoly where the company is allowed to maintain profits, the reduced
demand means less revenue and profits so they increase price. In a free market
with lots of players, the profits would drop, the prices would drop, and
marginal players would simply go bankrupt.

It's clever marketing by utilities, however, to blame their abuse of monopoly
power on solar power subsidies.

------
lucaspottersky
cant read. paywall. nice internets.

------
Genome1776
great story

------
ThomPete
This is only because for some reason when we talk about wind and solar we
don't factor in the cost of coal, nuclear, gas and oil which are being used as
backup.

Furthermore, with wind and solar, we don't factor in things like decommission
like you would on nuclear.

~~~
pjc50
Nuclear decomissioning is the only one that's especially expensive; I suspect
if you look at most of the actual wind farm contracts you'll see a
decomissioning cost in there somewhere.

Factoring in the "backup" generators makes no sense in a free market
electricity economy. That's like saying you need to factor in the cost of a
taxi to train tickets, in case the train is broken down.

~~~
ThomPete
You don't see that in there, unfortunately.

And of course, it makes sense to factor in backup energy as you can't actually
deliver consistent energy with wind and solar alone.

So the true cost of wind and solar should obviously include the cost of
running these backups AND it would then of course also mean some of those
externalities.

Anything else is dishonest comparison IMO which the above article is guilty
of.

~~~
pjc50
But that's not how an electricity spot market works. The market price is
instantaneous as the energy is delivered.

~~~
ThomPete
That's how you need to discuss this in order to get to the true cost otherwise
you are making decisions based on incorrect data.

Wind can't deliver enough energy it's relying on other types. So any
discussion that includes wind or solar as a solution needs to include what
backup are needed and what that cost.

The reverse mind you is not true.

