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Wind and solar unbeatable for low cost new electricity (cosmosmagazine.com)

submitted 2 years ago by L4s to c/technology

14 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Wind and solar unbeatable for low cost new electricity::Onshore wind and solar photovoltaic technologies have maintained their position as the lowest cost form of new electricity generation, despite global supply

all 16 comments

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[–] Tenthrow 23 points 2 years ago (1 children)

A near infinite source of free energy cheaper than pumping ever more scarce liquid from the ground? Who could have predicted this?

[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 years ago

Oil and Gas companies should be paying for the damage caused by Climate change.

[+] donut4ever 9 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (2 children)

[deleted]

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (2 children)

Not going to lie: It's pretty expensive, and I wouldn't recommend buying them if you need to get a loan to do so. The loan costs would eat into your solar savings. Other tips:

Do not buy a solar panel set up without batteries! The electric company does not want to be your battery, and will usually charge more for using their electricity than what you would get sending excess electrons back to them. Batteries add to the cost, but you save money in the end.
Beware of loan scams and shady solar panel dealers! Do your research! There's a lot of direct sales people roaming around because the market is new, it's extremely hot, and potential customers don't know what they are getting into. Politely tell them to fuck off and go find a company that works for you.
Read reviews and ask for quotes from multiple installers. Do the math on your electricity usage, how much you'll save, when you'll break even, etc. There's a lot of variables floating around, but there's good resources out there, like Project Sunroof, to help you get good yearly estimates.
Get your installer to set up a circuit breaker home energy monitor. It's cheap (compared to the main install) and you get a bunch of cool metrics around where you are using electricity. It pays to know where you are using electricity and whether it's during the day or night.
Make sure you get the technical plans and have a decent idea how the whole system works. Remember, the installer is there to help you, and you should have good visibility into whether the system is working or not.

But, out of that hassle, you get the piece of mind that you're (mostly) using renewable energy, saving on electricity bills in the long term, and have a natural whole-house UPS to keep things running during outages. I really hope we get to a spot where installing solar panels is a requirement to building a house, like HVAC or water pipes.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I agree with all but the first point, that is entirely going to depend on your utility. My net meter plan happens to be 1:1 and it's great because they also have peak/offpeak rates. I generally produce solar during the peak rates and consume most of my energy off peak by changing my habits a bit. My utility's clean energy goals are counting on about 30% rooftop solar adoption by 2035 and they're scaling up their storage to account for the growth so it doesn't look like they're going to push against it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

You could always just stash some electrons in a battery just for peak usage, when your solar panels aren't online or aren't able to contribute to 100% of your energy needs. A lot of these systems have a lot of options for when and where the energy goes.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

yeah, material cost is going down while labor is going up. Most of these comparisons are for utility scale solar where economy of scale makes more sense. If your local code allows you to DIY solar there are DIY kits with straight forward instructions that make it really cost competitive. DIY solar is illegal in the sunshine state.

[–] Ibaudia 9 points 2 years ago

"Nuclear SMR current costs are not reported since there is no prospect of a plant being deployed in Australia before 2030"

Darn.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago

This is great, now we need more transmission and storage.

[–] eleitl 0 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Except when it's dark and/or windstill. MWh and TWh scale storage is the opposite of inexpensive.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago

This is exactly what we need to focus on, driving down the costs of storage. Personally i'm a fan of molten salt storage placed at retired coal plant turbines, compressed CO2 seems like a solid bet as well. If flow batteries get their kinks worked out they can be quite cost competitive.

[–] A_A 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Yes, and :
What are the real costs before subsidies ?
What are the real cost of climate damage we try to mitigate - - which is the basis for subsidies ?

[–] eleitl 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

You might find https://surplusenergyeconomics.wordpress.com/2023/07/18/259-the-way-we-live-next/ interesting.

[–] A_A 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Most interesting indeed.
So the cost of energy is a complex topic and this guy has studied many aspects of that.

Amongst other things he wrote :
Morgan, Tim (2013). Life After Growth. Petersfield, UK: Harriman House. ISBN 9780857193391

He discusses the energy cost of energy or : Energy return on investment

He gives an estimate of $130 trillion usd for the global cost of energy transition with a link to the source ... I don't understand how this estimate is made though.