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Understanding Solar Energy

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261 points chmaynard | 1 comments | 20 Mar 25 12:09 UTC | HN request time: 0.913s | source
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bryanlarsen ◴[20 Mar 25 14:23 UTC] No.43423941[source]▶
Great article. Unfortunately his California duck curve graph only shows 2023. A graph including 2024 shows how batteries are dramatically flattening the duck curve:

https://cdn-ilcjnih.nitrocdn.com/BVTDJPZTUnfCKRkDQJDEvQcUwtA...

https://reneweconomy.com.au/battery-storage-is-dramatically-...

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epistasis ◴[20 Mar 25 15:06 UTC] No.43424435[source]▶
And similarly the battery prices are very outdated. I don't blame the author for using those estimates, I frequently do too just because getting access to current data usually requires paying money.

But making decisions on that data without understanding that current prices and near-term prices will be about half of that price will lead to bad decisions. And when thinking 5-10 years out, not taking the full exponential drop in battery and solar prices is beyond foolish.

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r00fus ◴[20 Mar 25 16:39 UTC] No.43425520[source]▶
Actual battery prices may be dropping but cost to install batteries to your solar installation in CA have not dropped - in fact they've gone up.

Not sure why this is the case.

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epistasis ◴[20 Mar 25 16:53 UTC] No.43425678[source]▶
This is by design in the regulatory infrastructure, from local permitting offices all the way up to CPUC and rate structures.

We pay about $3/W for solar installation in the US, but Australia pays about $1/W.

For batteries, there's still a supply crunch and the only people getting really good prices are those people who buy in huge bulk or are willing to take a risk on a lesser known manufacturer. If you want well-proven brands the prices can still be very high for small purchases, and a solar installer is not going to want to take a risk with a new supplier.

These systems are not super complex, most technical people could figure them out fairly easily, and in fact off-grid disconnected systems are really easy to do. It's the grid tie that will kill you or first responders to your house, we have made the process of setting the whole thing up very expensive because nobody on the regulatory side has an incentive to make it straightforward and cheap. And since NEM3 killed solar in California, all the installers are barely scraping by and need to rely on very high margins on few projects.

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stephen_g ◴[21 Mar 25 00:47 UTC] No.43430746[source]▶
The same price difference exists with things like heat pumps - I've seen people in the US talking about installing single-head Japanese brand mini-split systems for US$5000 to even over US$10,000, when I can get the same sized units fully installed for AU$1600 to AU$2500 (about US$1000 to US$1600).

Just makes no sense why it should be that different. The units seem to cost similar prices in Europe to what we pay here in Australia so why is it so much more in North America? I assume part of it is that they are not quite as common but it still boggles the mind.

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1. kragen ◴[21 Mar 25 11:00 UTC] No.43434166[source]▶
Fossil fuel companies choose the president and legislature in the US—not exclusively, but they do evidently at least have veto power, and the current president campaigned on an anti-renewables platform which he has delivered on. Bipartisan tariff policy in the US is basically completely locking Chinese solar panels and EVs out of the market, doubling the costs of those products to US consumers and sabotaging any chance of future competitiveness in heavy industry. I don't know if the same thing is happening with Japanese air conditioning systems.