[HN Gopher] China solar module prices keep diving
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China solar module prices keep diving
Author : flipbrad
Score : 88 points
Date : 2023-06-23 18:54 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.pv-magazine.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.pv-magazine.com)
| aitchnyu wrote:
| I have almost 5kw of panels and a 5kw inverter. If solar panels
| get cheaper than dirt, will future 5kw inverters allow 10 kw of
| panels, so that the power vs time graph is a wide "plateau"
| instead of a thin "hill"?
| andruby wrote:
| 5kW inverters already support 10kW(peak) solar panels. It's
| mostly a voltage compatibility, not a max output.
| jaredhallen wrote:
| If you're not putting it into the grid you can do whatever
| ratio. Have 20KW (or whatever) of panels, a suitably sized
| charge controller, a bunch of batteries, and an inverter sized
| for whatever max AC current draw you need. Or if you can run
| everything you need DC, skip the inverter altogether.
| philipkglass wrote:
| The ratio of DC panel wattage to AC inverter wattage is called
| the inverter loading ratio, and it has been creeping up over
| time in utility scale solar farms. The reasoning is indeed to
| give more of a plateau shape to AC output (which is limited by
| transmission line capacity) and to perform more steadily under
| hazy or partly cloudy conditions. In theory, this ratio could
| go up a lot if panel prices continue to decline faster than
| inverter prices.
|
| In practice, inverters probably also need partial redesign for
| a high loading ratio. Higher ILRs in large solar farms has
| appeared to contribute to faster inverter failures in recent
| years.
| yazaddaruvala wrote:
| > In practice, inverters probably also need partial redesign
|
| I'd also love for appliances to entirely adopt DC.
|
| - Homes should run on batteries.
|
| - Batteries should be trickle charged from the grid with a
| cheap rectifier.
| gtvwill wrote:
| Been tossing around the idea of Poe Eth to 100w usb-c wall
| ports. I'd love to see more Poe DC gear. In aus we have
| laws where if it's <100v and x amperage you don't need a
| license to work on it. Would make rolling out a house or
| shop install/fitout able to be done using regular labourers
| not expensive sparkies.
|
| Hell sneak some data in and you have smart control of all
| these connected usb-c cabled devices too. Make for game
| changing smart home rollout.
|
| Gimme lamps, lights, speakers, fans, window motors, TVs all
| on usb-c power plus data pls.
| ianlevesque wrote:
| I agree on more DC appliances. Can't really escape having a
| failure-prone component in the mix though. For utility-
| scale you still need AC for transmission. For small-scale
| you need a switching regulator to even out the output
| voltage.
| eternityforest wrote:
| I wonder what kind of onsite loads they could have to use
| extra capacity? Is there any high power industrial process
| doesn't require too much space, setup cost, or transport
| infrastructure for materials in and out, and can run when
| there's sun available?
|
| Maybe carbon capture, if that's a thing yet?
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| DC-to-DC EV fast charging
| Misdicorl wrote:
| desalinization (does require transport infra, but mostly
| steady state)
| laverya wrote:
| This is the idea behind Terraform Industries:
| https://terraformindustries.com/
|
| They're capturing carbon to turn into a useful product
| (fossil fuels) though.
| rudyfink wrote:
| That website--1990s text-only style--is a strong
| statement. I am not sure if it's a statement that "we're
| going to take over the world, get on board now" or "in
| hindsight, we'll say we should have spent more on
| marketing," but it does get one's attention.
| tough wrote:
| I thought it was about not wasting bytes on unnecessary
| stuff, but do they load shittons of JS extra marketing
| tracking analytics or not is the real question.
|
| Brutalism has been back for a while on webdev
| marcosdumay wrote:
| Does your inverter not allow that today?
|
| They expect a number of panels to be connected in series, but
| you can have as many of those batches in parallel as you want.
| dymk wrote:
| String systems yes, but you can't do that with microinverter
| based systems
| Robotbeat wrote:
| You can hook up multiple panels to a single micro inverter.
| PossiblyKyle wrote:
| You can essentially already do that. I live in a place basking
| with sun most of the year, and have 22k of panels with a 15kw
| inverter (max allowed before being considered commercial). My
| production is a wide hill with a considerable plateau, thanks
| to the amount of panels (as an example, produced 140kwh
| yesterday). It is clearly not economically viable for most
| regions, but for us it luckily is
| kurthr wrote:
| Even more important, if you're on batteries as opposed to
| grid-tied, your battery costs can go down significantly.
| Since the worst days of the year tend to be winter and
| overcast, if you can install enough capacity to still
| generate a significant fraction of your needs on those days
| (eg at 10% of summer peak) the size of the required batteries
| can be much smaller.
|
| It doesn't work so well in the north east, but if weather is
| only bad for a few days, you might need much less backup or
| generator power. Batteries and generator power tends to be
| much less than adding excess solar.
| hbarka wrote:
| Yes. You'll get inverter clipping, but the area under the curve
| in a clipped production is still better than a "thin hill"
| production. https://unboundsolar.com/blog/oversizing-pv-arrays
| RobinL wrote:
| Not sure if it's a comparable metric, but it seems to largely
| follow the long term time series here:
| https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/solar-pv-prices
| tryptophan wrote:
| Hmm interesting, suggests that solar panel prices should drop
| to like 8c/W by 2030. At that point they are pretty much free
| because the ROI will be so high.
| dopa42365 wrote:
| https://ourworldindata.org/learning-curve
|
| > As the cumulative installed capacity increased, the price of
| solar declined exponentially. Solar technology is a prime
| example. For more than four decades, the price of solar panels
| declined by 20% with each doubling of global cumulative
| capacity.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| Is that adjusted for inflation?
| philipkglass wrote:
| Yes, the chart says that prices are adjusted for inflation
| and presented in 2019 US dollars.
| secondcoming wrote:
| My biggest use of electricity is my laptop and monitor.
|
| Any ideas on a portable solar panel that could power those during
| the summer? Portable because I rent and can't fix anything down,
| it doesn't have to fit in a backpack or anything like that.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| Seems like the easy solution is one of those solar systems
| marketed as being for camping, right? Not sure it's economical,
| but easy.
|
| Personally I'm interested in a DIY mod to add solar panels
| directly to the back of a laptop screen. It probably wouldn't
| be able to actually charge unless the machine is in sleep mode
| (which also would have the lid closed which would help), but it
| _would_ extend the battery - if the machine averages 10W and
| the panel gives 1W, that 's an extra 10% runtime for free, and
| better if it sleeps in the middle (which works, because I'm
| unlikely to use a laptop _continuously_ for 10 hours).
| jopsen wrote:
| > Not sure it's economical,
|
| Or environmentally sustainable?
|
| A solar panel has life-span of 25-30 years, will you be
| utilizing that? or are you just creating more waste?
|
| If you wanted to protect the environment, it's probably
| better to find a wind-farm project or solar farm project to
| invest in.
|
| It's really easy to think that adding solar panels everywhere
| is a good idea; but you might just be making e-waste.
| Symbiote wrote:
| Your fridge is probably using more power, unless it's a fairly
| new, highest-quality European market model.
|
| (The range at the local big appliance retailer is about 35W for
| the cheapest models to 10W for the most expensive.)
| syntaxing wrote:
| That's...really surprising? A ceiling fan uses about 75W a
| hour. A MacBook Pro has a 100 Wh battery and last about 4 hours
| so 25W per hour. Your laptop and monitor should be lower than
| any other appliance.
|
| That being said, there's a lot of options nowadays which is
| exciting! For instance, you could have a 200W port panel and a
| 1kWh battery system from eco flow that should run both with
| room to spare. Anker has a new system meant for patios but it's
| only for Europe.
| nkingsy wrote:
| I run my MacBook Pro off of the usbc pd port on my cheap
| ($130, 300wh) lifepo4 battery box. I got 2, plug one directly
| into a 100w solar panel, other powers the computer and
| monitor. Swap daily.
|
| If you want to run a line into your house you can get by with
| one, or just get a panel with a usbc pd output.
| NotYourLawyer wrote:
| >75W a hour
|
| Just 75W.
| syntaxing wrote:
| Yeah, it's gets a bit murky to stick with power or energy
| even though Wh isn't SI. But it's usually pretty important
| to keep the time component when it comes to describing an
| energy storage system.
| a_cardboard_box wrote:
| Watts per hour are not a unit of power or energy. Watts
| are power. Watt hours are energy.
| NotYourLawyer wrote:
| 75 watt-hours per hour then, if you must...
| megaman821 wrote:
| I am trying to figure when solar panels will have a lower LCOE
| than just a steam turbine alone. At that point even absolutely
| free fusion would have a hard time competing with solar for half
| the day.
| testhest wrote:
| Once the Chinese run out of money or they have killed off the
| last competition the price will increase again.
| andy_ppp wrote:
| Surely we'll just invest in factories in the Philippines or
| Mexico and build these things (even more) cheaply there
| instead? Capitalism is good at finding ways to make a return
| and if solar panels become profitable money will make it
| happen. It could turn out to be good if there was a load of
| unused solar capacity in China rather than the coal they are
| burning today...
| pfdietz wrote:
| At some point the modules get so cheap that transportation
| costs will become important. This is why we don't ship window
| glass great distances.
| andy_ppp wrote:
| Yes, I was surprised to see screws and industrial
| fastenings being made in the UK in what looks like really
| modern highly automated factories. I guess shipping them
| isn't worth it.
| bluSCALE4 wrote:
| I keep seeing articles like this but install prices don't go down
| at all. Does news like this only apply to people building PV
| farms?
| drcross wrote:
| Panel cost is probably 10-20% of a total install cost. What
| you're paying for is labour, inverter, cabling and metal
| mounting equipment. Mostly labour. If you're able to self
| install you can shave years off ROI.
| Joeri wrote:
| With inflation install costs staying flat is actually a price
| decrease.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| So frustrating that pro-installed solar at the consumer level
| around here does _not_ seem to have dropped. If anything it 's
| gone way up.
| sroussey wrote:
| Labor costs dominate.
| Animats wrote:
| Are those numbers inflation-adjusted? That big downward spike
| coincides with the US inflation spike.
| kurthr wrote:
| The Yuan has roughly been pegged to the dollar @ ~7Y/$ for the
| last few years, but it rose (falling ratio) during the pandemic
| and it has been falling a lot (rising ratio) recently.
|
| https://www.macrotrends.net/2575/us-dollar-yuan-exchange-rat...
|
| China PPI is in Yuan, but sales prices of panels are mostly in
| Dollars.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| China subsidized the worlds PV. That's great.
|
| Practically this was possible by pegging the currency which
| lowers the purchasing power of all their citizens.
| yesbut wrote:
| And all of this cheap PV being produced required burning coal.
| We've basically outsourced this production, reduced our own
| coal burning, and then yell at China for increasing its carbon
| output.
| pengaru wrote:
| The disaster of the last century is _not_ securing a
| renewable energy future while squandering the convenient non-
| renewable energy of fossil fuels on short-term interests.
|
| If you want to shake your fists about fossil fuel emissions
| this is by far not the appropriate direction to aim them IMO.
| pfdietz wrote:
| Producing PV does not require burning coal.
| Tade0 wrote:
| It does require energy though, and China gets a lot of it
| from coal.
|
| That being said panels still produce multiples of their
| embedded energy throughout their lifetime, so it's still
| worth it.
|
| It's their construction industry which is incredibly
| wasteful and isn't a result of outsourcing.
| throwawaymaths wrote:
| Purchasing pvs doesnt require china. Mine come from South
| Korea, for example.
| elif wrote:
| coal is a very specific facet of the discussion where the
| US has targetted coal reductions, and at the same time
| increasing other fossil fuel based sources. Meanwhile
| china uses very little oil and gas for electricity
| production.
|
| For an example of why focusing on one segment does not
| give you a full picture, china is the world leader in
| solar, hydro, and wind energy production.
|
| they also use less fossil fuel energy per capita than the
| united states.
|
| for a more accurate comparison of how clean their power
| is compared to the united states, i would say a better
| metric would be that they are 26% renewable while the US
| is 17% renewable.
| soligern wrote:
| China is building dozens of nuclear reactors as of right
| now. Coal is a stepping stone.
| marianatom wrote:
| Meanwhile, China's solar industry is in rapid decline, dropping
| 40% in market cap y/y, due to overcapacity, falling price
| margins, bans on goods from China's Xinjiang region, and
| increased non-Chinese solar growth - US's solar industry seem
| to be on the rise. China's solar industry should follow similar
| trends as its electronics industry, with massive pullout of
| factories to other countries, and eventually only mostly
| servicing China's internal markets.
|
| Plunging Solar Stocks Fly in Face of Booming Panel Demand
| https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-06-20/solar-sto...
|
| U.S. solar installations to fall 23% this year due to China
| goods ban -report https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/us-
| solar-installatio...
| mullingitover wrote:
| Whatever they're doing, it doesn't seem to be worse than the
| US. Chinese PPP has been growing faster[1].
|
| [1]
| https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.PP.CD?locat...
| arcticfox wrote:
| That could be simply a function of having a lot of room for
| growth. I personally think their growth is not sustainable
| once they achieve ~US levels of PPP per capita.
|
| [1] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.PP.KD?lo
| cat...
| oblio wrote:
| It's super debatable if they can reach US levels of GDP PPP
| per capita.
|
| The US is at 80k, Germany is at 66k, Canada is at 60k,
| South Korea is at 56k, Romania is at 41k. China is at 23k.
|
| If Germany or South Korea can't reach the US, China getting
| there seems incredibly hard.
|
| Though if China reaches Romania's level (funny when
| presented this way :-) ), the nominal total GDP of China
| will probably be 1.5 - 2x the US one, just by virtue of
| them having 5x the number of people compared the US.
| justsomehnguy wrote:
| > Though if China reaches Romania's level
| Population * 2023 estimate Neutral
| decrease 1,411,750,000[7] Population
| * 2021 census Neutral decrease 19,053,815[3]
|
| I can bet my pumpkin latte what there are more people in
| China living better than Romanians, _all_ Romanians.
| bilbo0s wrote:
| This.
|
| It's the natural progression of anything in this universe.
| Even people.
|
| Your rate of physical growth between the ages of 2 and 22
| was enormous. Your rate of physical growth between the ages
| of 22 and 42 was likely minimal. (Unless you grew, um,
| laterally.)
|
| A 22 year old should not be comparing himself to a 2 year
| old and lamenting that he can't match the 2 year old's
| growth rate.
| alephnerd wrote:
| I'd be a bit cautious about using GDP PPP in isolation.
|
| It's a good metric for a rough comparison/transformation, but
| has relatively weak prediction power. That said, the same
| holds for any economic metric used in isolation (eg. HDI,
| GDP, GDP Per Capita, GDP Growth Rate, GDP PPP Per Capita,
| Debt Rate, Median Income, etc.)
|
| All metrics need to used together to gain a holistic view on
| economic development. It's the equivalent of driving and only
| concentrating on the odometer at the expense of the fuel
| gauge, speedometer, and tachometer.
| ImPostingOnHN wrote:
| what specifically are the shortcomings of using GDP PPP to
| measure purchasing power in this specific example?
|
| to that end, what metrics would you use instead to compare
| purchasing power?
| alephnerd wrote:
| Well, in this case we are talking about the Photovoltaic
| Sector within the PRC.
|
| This implies that this is a microeconomics problem, not a
| macroeconomic one. This means that metrics like GDP PPP,
| HDI, etc are completely useless when investigating a
| subsegment of industrial production.
|
| If I was analyzing the Photovoltaic sector, I'd probably
| look at
|
| 1. Current TAM, Future TAM, TAM growth rate (both past
| and present)
|
| 2. The price of the inputs used (wafers, polysilicon,
| cells, modules, labor, R&D, tariffs, subsidies)
|
| 3. The growth of comparable manufacturers globally
|
| 4. Adjacent markets/segments (if I am specialized in
| solar wafer manufacturing tools, can I potentially pivot
| into tools for IC wafer manufacturing)
|
| This is a non-comprehensive list, but in general I'm not
| surprised with a collapse in the price of Photovoltaic
| Cells.
|
| This was kind of the whole point globally of spearheading
| the industry - it helped build domain experience or
| subsidize the adjacent semiconductors sector as well as
| helped countries like the PRC and the US pivot away from
| foreign ONG dependency, and is why countries like
| Vietnam, Malaysia, and India also invest heavily in the
| sector.
| marianatom wrote:
| China's PPP should reduce in half this year. It has seen
| massive layoffs from every industry (average 22% decline in
| revenue across all industries). It has seen 50% reduction in
| wages, even in stable positions like government offices. It
| has seen unpaid wages for anywhere from a few months up to a
| year!!
|
| This is reinforced by 50% in price cuts in real estate
| listings in tier 1 cities, 10X increase in real estate
| inventory this year, and 90% physical retail decline
|
| China's Latest Source of Unrest: Unpaid 'Zero Covid' Workers
| https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/16/world/asia/china-covid-
| pr...
|
| China's Industrial profits in the January-March period
| declined 21.4% from a year earlier
| https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-04-27/china-
| s-i...
| alephnerd wrote:
| Huh? Even the most bearish projections about Chinese
| economic growth are at about 3% per year. For PPP to
| actually halve you'd have to actually see a recession
| comparable to the Great Depression, the Peso Crisis in the
| 90s, or the 2015 EU+US sanctions in Russia.
| marianatom wrote:
| China IS in a Great Depression. The government is making
| the numbers seem a little bit better, but with 21%
| official youth unemployment rate - definitely higher
| since netizens have found that only 20% of this year's
| graduate has secured jobs, and 50% - 70% reduction in
| real estate listing prices, when real estate is 30% of
| China's economy and how local governments mostly gets
| funded, we will see retroactively that China entered its
| Great Depression in 2022.
| goodbyesf wrote:
| > China IS in a Great Depression.
|
| You can't have either the US or China in a great
| depression without it taking everyone down with them. If
| china is in a great depression, then so is the rest of
| the world. If china is in a great depression, apple stock
| would have cratered as would most indices around the
| world. Go read about the 1929 stock crash. Money front
| runs economic depressions. Meaning wall street will let
| us know.
|
| The anti-china nonsense hasn't changed since the early
| 2000s with gordon chang. China was supposed to collapse
| decades ago according to the anti-china "experts". Today
| it's the like of peter zeihan and youtube grifters like
| serpentza, et al. Same old nonsense - economic collapse,
| falun gong genocide, organ harvesting, environmental
| devastation, end of "da ccp". All of that turned out to
| be outright lies in the 2000s.
|
| My advice is stop watching silly youtube videos by silly
| grifters and silly news from silly media organizations.
| Watch the money. If one day, the dow or s&p drops 10% (
| even with circuit breakers ), then we may have something.
| If it continues to drop and stay down, then we may have
| something. Can't believe the amount of nonsense people
| believe when it comes to china. Especially when it's the
| same old debunked nonsense.
|
| At this point I don't know whether people like gordon
| chang or peter zeihan work for "da USA" or "da CCP".
| Cause their outlandish bullshit always end up being wrong
| and making china look good in the end.
| alephnerd wrote:
| > organ harvesting, environmental devasation
|
| Just because one person spouts disinformation doesn't
| mean all criticism is false. [0][1][2]
|
| [0] - https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-
| releases/2021/06/china-un-hum...
|
| [1] - https://bmcmedethics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.
| 1186/s129...
|
| [2] - https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/P
| IIS0140-6...
| goodbyesf wrote:
| Do I seem like a person who has or hasn't dealt with
| people who spam a list of links before? Also it's not
| that one person did, it's that all of them did. It was
| state backed propaganda.
|
| The organ "harvesting" is something that happened in
| chinese dominant countries. Even in taiwan, which
| strangely enough didn't get the same "press" coverage.
| But I'm guessing you already knew that.
|
| Whatever happened to the "death camps" in china with
| millions of muslims? Did that turn out to be fake as
| well? We had satelite images and graphic testimony and
| congress even pass a bill declaring it a genocide. And
| then magically radio silence. That's exactly what
| happened back then too.
|
| But then again, we send warships along the chinese coast
| and accuse them of threatening us.
| alephnerd wrote:
| Chinese youth unemployment in 2023 is roughly comparable
| to the PIGS (Portugal, Italy, Greece, Spain) in the
| 2010s. Those countries still held around a 2-3% GDP
| growth rate.
|
| Also, the bearish 2-3% growth rate estimation was derived
| independently of the PRC government - it was reached by
| both Blackstone and the IMF.
|
| None of this is to say there isn't an economic
| malaise/recession in the PRC circa 2023, but honestly
| it's playing out the same way a similar growth slowdown
| happened in Mexico, Turkiye, South Korea, Thailand, and
| Brazil in the 2000s when those countries hit similar
| economic metrics to China in the early 2020s.
| marianatom wrote:
| 1.) China's unemployment rate is no where near comparable
| to europe's. China considers one employed if one has
| worked at least ONE hour a week. or if their family have
| land to farm.
|
| 2.) There's nothing comparable to what's happening to
| China right now, except for the Russia sanctions, where
| an entire economic engine (export, 25% of GDP) is being
| ripped out or shut down, by companies pulling factories
| out of China
|
| 3.) Blackstone and IMF have been plenty wrong before.
| also, there's no chance they don't at least use some part
| of the data from the Chinese's National office of
| statistics.
| alephnerd wrote:
| Tbh, this is a weird hill for you to die on.
|
| The PRC is absolutely in a recession. No one is arguing
| against that, but to say a recession will lead to a 50%
| collapse in GDP is absolutely ludicrous.
|
| The only middle income countries that have seen such a
| dramatic collapse in GDP are those in an active state of
| war like Ukraine, Syria, or Lebanon.
| quad_eye_oh wrote:
| Property values are something like 70% of China's wealth,
| but only 30% of production. A GDP drop of 15% is very
| conceivable.
|
| I think it's likely GP is wrong about the 50% figure, but
| if they were correct the CCP would never publish the
| number for fear of scaring away foreign investment. So it
| may be worth looking into more deeply.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| The WalMart market dominance model. Undercut everyone else
| until you eliminate the competition, then raise the price.
| toolz wrote:
| At least in the US market there isn't a single category of a
| thing in any walmart that you can only buy exclusively at
| walmart. If this was their strategy they would still be price
| cutting.
| mywittyname wrote:
| There are a lot of companies that produce what amounts to
| the "Walmart line" - basically a cheap version of their
| normal products. Sure, their products are sold elsewhere,
| but never for as cheap as Walmart.
|
| Plus, Walmart has pretty terrible payment terms. Suppliers
| hand over the product, and _maybe_ Walmart pays them for it
| in a year.
|
| Walmart is too large to ignore, but too cut-throat to
| survive exclusively on.
|
| But Walmart isn't the only company like this. The entire
| domestic auto industry operates like this (supplier costs
| are known to the fraction of a cent, and manufactures know
| exactly what margin to give in order to keep them around,
| but just barely), as is Apple.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| Walmart pays low wages and doesn't have high margins.
|
| How cheap are we expecting things to be?
| esafak wrote:
| How? There is a competitive market in China itself; more
| than one provider, no?
| aaron695 wrote:
| [dead]
| causality0 wrote:
| Rather sad to me that none of these price drops seem to trickle
| down. Hurray for more solar farms but it would nice if the price
| of a backpack solar panel was a dollar less than it was a decade
| ago.
| nico_h wrote:
| It practically did thanks to inflation.
| ZoomerCretin wrote:
| Wages don't rise with inflation. The price of everything
| rising 20% doesn't affect the price of things that don't.
| [deleted]
| eternityforest wrote:
| I don't remember what the price was a decade ago, but something
| like a 60W folding panel these days often goes on sale for
| really cheap, like, under $2 a watt.
|
| The backpacks with built in panels are still expensive because
| I'm guessing it's hard to find customers who want to be in
| direct sunlight long enough to get significant charge, while
| carrying a backpack.
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