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Falling panel prices lead to global solar boom, except for the US

(arstechnica.com)
249 points Jtsummers | 6 comments | 30 Oct 25 16:32 UTC | HN request time: 0.002s | source | bottom
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umvi ◴[30 Oct 25 17:03 UTC] No.45762286[source]▶
Has storage been solved yet? In my experience US power companies hate crediting pushback to the grid because it all happens at the same time during peak sunlight hours and then customers get to use those credits at night and during the winter which the power company thinks is unfair. In Idaho at least the power companies were able to change the laws so that you get much fewer credits for solar panels on your roof which means they aren't great unless you can figure out how to store the generated energy inexpensively.

Personally I like the idea of an electric car doubling as a house battery but so far I think only the F-150 lightning is capable of doing that.

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xnx ◴[30 Oct 25 17:10 UTC] No.45762356[source]▶
> Has storage been solved yet?

No, but it's cheaper than it ever was and panels are so cheap that they can have ROI even without storage. That said, grid solar makes the most financial sense if you're not in an off-grid location.

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1. Retric ◴[30 Oct 25 17:16 UTC] No.45762448[source]▶
Carful when saying it’s not cheaper, it’s generally profitable to add some batteries to a solar power plant.

The economics on storage only kicks in after scaling the grid with a lot of solar, but adding solar to that point is itself profitable almost anywhere.

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2. jaggederest ◴[30 Oct 25 17:42 UTC] No.45762804[source]▶
I've always been confused by the insistence on storage. Saturate 100% of the daytime loads with solar, curtail at peak, it's still cheaper than just about any other source. Save all the hydro power, gas, and other standby sources for before and after sunset.

Once you're curtailing a bunch of power during the daytime, then you can add storage as a no brainer bonus and stop curtailing.

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3. xnx ◴[30 Oct 25 18:09 UTC] No.45763129[source]▶
Yes, and if peak solar generation exceeded demand, and were priced appropriately, I think we'd find that some workloads could be timeshifted (e.g. precooling homes).
4. Retric ◴[31 Oct 25 01:17 UTC] No.45767354[source]▶
Saturation of daytime loads with solar kills nuclear by lowering its capacity factor or daytime pricing, which some people object to.

It’s clearly a net win environmentally and economically, but for anyone who sees nuclear as part of a green future storage in some form is a massive requirement.

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5. rsynnott ◴[31 Oct 25 08:18 UTC] No.45769501{3}[source]▶
> Saturation of daytime loads with solar kills nuclear

If you exclude China, effectively no nuclear plants have been built in the last decade, and the existing fleet is aging out. "We shouldn't do this thing, because it might threaten that other thing that we don't do anymore" is a weird argument.

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6. Retric ◴[31 Oct 25 13:30 UTC] No.45771781{4}[source]▶
It’s not quite that extreme: https://www.worldnuclearreport.org/reactors.html

But yea building nuclear is all about forecasting the future so most of the damage has already occurred here, still advocates are going to advocate even if what they say doesn’t make sense.