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131 points mg | 1 comments | | HN request time: 1.113s | source
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cbmuser ◴[] No.26597835[source]
It doesn't matter that solar itself is cheap, it still needs backup plants which are the reason Germany has the highest electricity prices - world-wide.

> https://www.globalpetrolprices.com/electricity_prices/

It's really strange that users on HN keep rehashing the myth that solar and wind energy will result in lower electricity prices for consumers - they won't, never.

Even if solar and wind energy was free, consumers would still have to pay the costs for running backup and/or storage plants which lets consumers prices soar.

The problem with solar and wind is that they simply can't produce electricity on-demand which means the kWh has an actual market value and can therefore be sold with a profit.

If a solar or wind park produces huge amounts of electricity when demand is low, the result are dumping or even negative prices.

Affordable and clean electricity in populous industrial countries like Germany or the US can be provided through nuclear energy only.

Proof:

> https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/ghg-emissions-by-sector?t...

> https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/ghg-emissions-by-sector?t...

Germany: 350 million tons p.a. CO2 in the energy sector France: 50 million tons p.a. CO2 in the energy sector

Germany: 38 cents per kWh France: 22 cents per kWh

Germany: 50% renewables in its electricity mix France: 70% nuclear in its electricity mix

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yazaddaruvala ◴[] No.26598017[source]
Here is a commercial installation of solar + storage at $0.04/kWh[1]. And it’s not unique, that article links to the cheapest solar + storage in the US at $0.025/kWh.

Additionally, these are today’s prices, as per this article the price for renewables is dropping exponentially every year. And if Elon Musk is to be believed (which I do) the price for storage is also dropping exponentially.

[1] https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2019/09/10/los-angeles-commissio...

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1. ed25519FUUU ◴[] No.26604869[source]
Right now the grids in Texas go negative from an over abundance of wind power, and California regularly pays to get rid of peak power during the duck curve. It’s cheap, and also not very valuable.

The stable, high-duty cycle of a power plant is very valuable per kWh, and what renewables must compete against. Maybe someday we’ll get cheap versions of that through new battery inventions, but that day is definitely not today or the near future. There’s only one carbon free way to get it at scale.