[HN Gopher] The largest solar farm just came online in China
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The largest solar farm just came online in China
Author : 1970-01-01
Score : 59 points
Date : 2024-06-04 21:18 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (electrek.co)
(TXT) w3m dump (electrek.co)
| noxs wrote:
| "However, reports and allegations regarding the treatment of
| Uyghur Muslims and other ethnic minorities in the region have led
| to calls for more transparency and ethical considerations in the
| supply chain."
|
| as usual
| azinman2 wrote:
| Is it not of concern?
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| China is running circles around the rest of the world in the push
| for electrification. Sure, it's not a free market, but their
| government policies are making it an economic powerhouse. The
| world will look very different in 50, 100 years if that keeps up
| / if the rest of the world doesn't keep up.
| s1k3s wrote:
| "We need a good dictator" - someone
| _zoltan_ wrote:
| Believe it or not, it helps.
| schmidtleonard wrote:
| It helps until it hurts, and then it really hurts.
| tristanb wrote:
| Trumps market...
| dyauspitr wrote:
| Trump is anti green energy. What good is a damn dictator if
| they can't do infrastructure and energy well, atleast modi
| is killing that part of his mandate.
| TheDudeMan wrote:
| 10 years.
| woodruffw wrote:
| The US is installing roughly 3 times as much solar at the
| utility level, each quarter[1]. We aren't building quite as
| many of these megafarms as China, but the US's solar numbers
| are actually pretty dramatic[2].
|
| (Or by another metric: China has about twice as much solar
| production capacity as the US, but a much smaller fraction per-
| capita[3].)
|
| [1]: https://www.seia.org/us-solar-market-insight
|
| [2]:
| https://www.seia.org/sites/default/files/2024-06/SolarCheatS...
|
| [3]:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_by_country#Global_...
| seo-speedwagon wrote:
| I'm not sure what the value of a per-capita measure is, or
| why it's worth making a distinction at "utility" (I'm
| assuming this means consumer) level.
|
| Wouldn't the most relevant measure, at least as far as
| emissions go, be the ratio of energy coming from renewables /
| solar vs. total energy consumption? Or something similar?
|
| edit: spelling
| jeffbee wrote:
| Quite right. This mistake also seems to occur when
| comparing California and Texas. Texas has a ton of
| renewable sources, but its extremely energy intensive
| economy consumes disproportionately more. So it seems to
| make more sense to normalize by load than by person.
| icehawk wrote:
| As linked in the GP, solar production as a percentage of
| total generation capacity China is 4.8%, just like the US.
| szvsw wrote:
| Yeah there are lots of ways to normalize that might be
| better, but per capita isn't _uninteresting_ per se:
|
| US uses roughly 2.5-3x the energy per capita compared to
| china fwiw [1]. The energy use per capita can be influenced
| by all sorts of things, including climate - for instance,
| SGP will always be in the top few spots on this sort of
| list due to the space conditioning needs. Could also be due
| to lots of heavy industry. Could also be due to lots of
| inefficient homes or high consumer demand. So it can also
| be interesting to look at energy use per person plotted
| against GDP per capita, where as expected higher energy use
| per capita typically also means higher GDP per capita [2].
| US has significantly higher GDP per capita.
|
| Anyways, at the end of the day, in this kind of head-to-
| head energy technology race, the only thing I care about
| really at the end of the day is decarbonization. The US has
| been falling each year (not fast enough though, and much of
| it does not actually come from renewable adoption but
| instead other changes like natural gas replacing coal over
| the last decade and changes in mfg capacity etc) while
| China is still rapidly increasing. Both countries need to
| be doing more, way more (well really the whole world).
|
| [1] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/per-capita-energy-
| use
|
| [2] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/energy-use-per-
| person-vs-...
| MaKey wrote:
| Last year China installed more solar capacity than the U. S.
| has in total [1]. Let that sink in.
|
| [1]: https://www.ecowatch.com/china-new-solar-
| capacity-2023.html
| akira2501 wrote:
| Last year China added 47.4GW of coal power capacity. Let
| _that_ sink in.
|
| We need to stop looking at "China" or "The US" or "Europe"
| as homogeneous entities.
| woodruffw wrote:
| The point wasn't that the US is _winning_ in terms of net
| solar capacity, but that the US 's own growth is
| independently admirable. China has and will continue to win
| in terms of absolute capacity, in a large part because
| they're still urbanizing, industrializing, and increasing
| their overall demand for power.
|
| (By contrast, US electricity use has been almost stagnant
| for 2 decades[1]. This informs the country's relationship
| with newer generation techniques.)
|
| [1]: https://www.statista.com/statistics/201794/us-
| electricity-co...
| barney54 wrote:
| Using Uyghur slave labor can be helpful.
| kkzz99 wrote:
| Rufmord.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| US energy production isn't much of a free market either.
| twothreeone wrote:
| And if you have a "free market" the big utility companies are
| going to eat each other over time until you end up with de-
| facto regional monopolies which are then systematically run
| into the ground, extracting all inherent value, until it's no
| longer functional and has to be taken over by the government
| to ensure people can still take hot showers and use their
| computers. You can't make this shit up.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _world will look very different in 50, 100 years if that
| keeps up_
|
| It can't. Besides demography, Xi has wiped out his political
| competition. The history of what comes after a long-serving
| dictator who purged his generation's political braintrust is
| unidirectional.
| woooooo wrote:
| USSR didn't terminally stagnate until 20, 25 years after
| Stalin died. They still looked pretty capable under Kruschev.
| grecy wrote:
| > _The world's largest solar farm in Xinjiang is part of China's
| megabase project, a plan to install 455 GW of wind and solar.
| China now boasts the three largest solar farms in the world by
| capacity. The Ningxia Tenggeli and Golmud Wutumeiren solar farms,
| each with a capacity of 3 MW, are already online._
|
| Very, very cool. I'm so happy the future is being built while I
| am alive to see it.
| dyauspitr wrote:
| Isn't Bhadla Solar farm in India the second largest in the
| world at this point?
| philipkglass wrote:
| According to this article, the project cost $2.13 billion for 3.5
| gigawatts-peak of installed capacity:
|
| https://www.pv-magazine.com/2024/06/06/worlds-largest-solar-...
|
| It's expected to generate 6.09 TWh per year, for a capacity
| factor of 19.8%. That's equivalent to $3.07 per real annualized
| watt. For rough comparison purposes, last year's contract for
| China to build a 1.2 GW nuclear reactor in Pakistan was for $4.8
| billion [1] (4 dollars per watt, $4.44 per real annualized watt
| assuming a 90% capacity factor [2]).
|
| [1] https://www.voanews.com/a/pakistan-signs-4-8-billion-
| nuclear...
|
| [2]
| https://pris.iaea.org/PRIS/CountryStatistics/ReactorDetails....
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| That looks pretty good for nuclear! I assume the cost of
| batteries to shift a annualized watt from day to night is more
| that $1.50
| stkdump wrote:
| Don't know how it is for Chinese projects, but in the west
| you should not compare actual cost of A with projected cost
| of B, because with such projects we repeatedly see that the
| actual cost can be a multiple of the projected costs,
| especially for nuclear power.
|
| For Chinese projects we can assume that the price tag also
| doesn't match the actual costs (similar to French nuclear
| projects) due to heavy government subsidies.
| throwup238 wrote:
| _> For Chinese projects we can assume that the price tag
| also doesn 't match the actual costs (similar to French
| nuclear projects) due to heavy government subsidies._
|
| Why would China subsidize a $5 billion reactor in Pakistan?
| That's not their MO with the Belt and Road initiative -
| China prefers to inflate sticker prices and loan more money
| to the buyer, building more economic influence.
|
| The project certainly benefits from the economies of scale
| thanks to all the reactors China builds, but it hardly
| helps to conflate that with actual subsidies.
| ben_w wrote:
| The battery packs in my local hardware store are all close to
| EUR1/Wh ($1.09/Wh but I'm rounding more than that anyway), so
| they'd have to last a mere 265 cycles to be as expensive as
| $1.50/Wh for every day of a year.
|
| https://www.obi.de/technik/power-stations/c/4850
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I don't think that's correct because of battery makes one
| round trip a day. To compare units Apples to Apples I
| believe you'd have to multiply the battery cost by a factor
| of 24.
| Phenomenit wrote:
| But let's not ignore the average down time of 35-40 days per
| year for refueling nuclear PP.
|
| https://www.statista.com/statistics/185276/us-nuclear-
| refuel...
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| What am I missing? 36 down days a year is 90% duty, same as
| parent post
| icehawk wrote:
| Is that something that needs to be considered separately,
| since the operation factor is given in % of hours per year?
| akira2501 wrote:
| Which is why most installations have more than one reactor
| on site.
| newZWhoDis wrote:
| That's terrible for nuclear, and I'm pro-nuclear. That's the
| "Chinese reactor made in Pakistan price"
|
| GA famously took 7 years and spent $17B.
| manquer wrote:
| That is equally terrible comparison. It is the first new
| reactor in US in 30 plus years , the experience and
| expertise is simply not there to do it cheaply and on time
| .
|
| France , India and some other countries regularly builds
| reactors and they don't cost anywhere close to the cost GA
| had
| otherme123 wrote:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPR_(nuclear_reactor)#Fla
| man...
|
| France, 13.2EUR billion, 17 years, still not producing.
| Started loading fuel this month.
| newZWhoDis wrote:
| Meanwhile Georgia spent $17B and took 7 years for ~2.2GW.
|
| What a joke. Nuclear is great and all, but not when it's run
| like this.
| manquer wrote:
| That cost and time is less about nuclear and more about this
| being bespoke one-off for US with little recent experience in
| building new reactors.
|
| It is like saying designing and building a single new car is
| costing few millions and taking years when a Corolla is
| 20,000 and you drive off the plot today .
| s1k3s wrote:
| Please allow me to go political for a second: both US and EU have
| an insane amount of politicians who support backing down on green
| energy and going back to coal mining, oil drilling and the like.
| I hope that at least the people who are intelligent enough to see
| the progress of green energy won't support that through their
| votes. We can literally have "free" energy coming from this star
| around us but instead of using it we're coming up with excuses
| that keep us from progressing.
|
| That's it </political>
| bwb wrote:
| I don't understand, the USA and EU are adding solar and wind
| very fast. Financially, it is a no-brainer and getting added in
| record numbers.
|
| What else do you want?
|
| Sure there are issues over regulations and power lines
| approval, but those are hopefully going to get solved surely.
| s1k3s wrote:
| I'm not talking about what's happening now (even though
| there's plenty of criticism to be said about the programs
| that we run). I'm talking about a new wave of politicians
| that's coming up in both regions, and they want this to stop.
| blackhawkC17 wrote:
| As long as it's economical, people will keep adding solar
| and going green without paying attention to politics.
|
| Case point: Oil and gas industry-loving Texas added 6.5 GW
| of solar in 2023 alone, more than any other state.
|
| https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/energy/article/te
| x...
| bwb wrote:
| Ah gotcha, right now there seems to be a radical group that
| would oppose their own nose if it twitched the wrong way.
|
| I wouldn't worry, the smart money is on renewables, and
| nothing is going to stop it. Plus, national security people
| know it is so important globally.
| s1k3s wrote:
| The thing about money is that energy is a critical sector
| of the economy of each region, so governments push a lot
| of public funding towards it. That's why I'm bringing up
| politics here, otherwise the free market would take care
| of the issue as always.
| thelastgallon wrote:
| Thats temporary. Solar builders stockpiled panels for the
| rest of the year, and doing installs as fast as they can. The
| costs are going up:
| https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/us-solar-builders-
| br...
| dyauspitr wrote:
| Trump saying he'd ban all EVs. Trump saying he would end all
| wind installations.
| Moldoteck wrote:
| At least redirect (some of) govt subsidies for fossils
| towards renewables to build faster?
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| You can't fix some mental models. You can only try to succeed
| despite them. It's unfortunate for sure.
| akira2501 wrote:
| If you have a better source of energy then build it. If it's
| better than the other ones will cease to exist. The "mental
| model" is entirely immaterial to the "market reality."
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Only 1 coal plant in the US is economical to run, and yet
| an entire industry continues to desperately attempt to
| continue to exist through various appeals. The market is
| made up by human rules, they are not physical laws, nor are
| they a reasonable final arbiter to what is rational.
|
| So it's not always just simple humans, but also malevolent
| ones too creating the uphill climb. Such is life.
| akira2501 wrote:
| Coal was being displaced by Natural Gas well before Solar
| added to the fight. Is the issue that Coal didn't just
| stop existing one day immediately? With power plant
| lifetimes of 50 to 100 years why would anyone rationally
| expect this outcome?
|
| This is not a change you will see in your lifetime
| clearly. This is clearly a change that _is_ occurring
| during your life time.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| We agree change is occurring. Do we agree there are
| significant forces intentionally attempting to restrict
| the rate of change to be slower than it needs to be to
| achieve a favorable outcome for humanity?
| s1k3s wrote:
| The energy sector is heavily subsidized by governments
| because it's important. "Market reality" doesn't work here.
| akira2501 wrote:
| If you built solar and energy storage that was capable of
| powering an entire house for less expense than the grid
| can do it, people will buy that, subsidies won't matter.
|
| There is a lot of "green washing" that intentionally
| ignores this outcome because what it really wants to do
| is capture the subsidies for itself. Which is what I was
| alluding to originally.
| thelastgallon wrote:
| We're going to drill baby, drill. Rightaway.
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6GiTR--XuM
| wqtz wrote:
| What transition plans do you recommend for coal producing
| counties? The issue is that these coal counties get fucked (for
| a lack of a better words) with coal and without coal. With coal
| every family suffer generational health problems. But atleast
| they get to eat and live. Without coal they do not have an
| economic system to make a living out of it. During the colonial
| times (here we go) the Bri'ish forced Bengal farmers [0] to
| cultivate indigo which caused literal famines. They could not
| produce food crops and colonialist didn't bother to compensate
| the farmer obviously. Then the farmers got "fucked" over again,
| when industrial revolution resulted in creation of artificial
| indigo and farmers struggled to make a transition to another
| crop. Now, your average WV native is far from a Bengal peasant
| but idea of policy based restrictions on making a living can be
| compared. My argument is that broad sweeping policies about
| establishing how people in particular regions make a living
| needs to carefully evaluated. Now, I am not for or against coal
| at all. Coal producing counties are always marginalized and
| politicians rarely care about them except for election times.
| For/against coal does very little in terms of coming up with a
| solution. If you are against coal present a solution on how
| these counties can transition to making a living without being
| relocated.
|
| [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigo_revolt
| jbattle wrote:
| There are only 12,000 coal miners in WV. Only 45,000 in the
| whole US. Obviously there are a large cast of others
| supporting the miners directly and indirectly (e.g. truck
| drivers, manufacturers of mining equipment, etc).
|
| There are 341 million other Americans that have an interest
| in where our energy comes from (and what goes into our
| atmosphere).
|
| (I'm all for generous support for any American facing major
| disruption because of macroeconomic changes btw. Getting
| rural places a fair share of national prosperity is a
| national problem)
| s1k3s wrote:
| This is a great argument and perhaps the best argument to
| support the idea of going back to coal. I don't know how to
| answer this because I'm not an economist, but I'd suggest
| subsidizing such people from taxation until we reach a green
| energy goal. Sadly though, politicians don't address this at
| all.
| akira2501 wrote:
| > both US and EU have an insane amount of politicians who
| support backing down on green energy and going back to coal
| mining, oil drilling and the like.
|
| What is an "insane amount?" Is there a spreadsheet or scorecard
| somewhere that quantifies this?
| s1k3s wrote:
| Kind of. According to polls there are 52% of Americans
| supporting this. In the EU we have elections this weekend so
| there's no reason to come up with polls, just follow the
| results!
| SadTrombone wrote:
| 1 is an insane amount.
| cladopa wrote:
| You talk about intelligence but then act like a zealot. Don't
| get me wrong, I have solar panels myself in Spain, but is not
| Utopia.
|
| Solar panels use a lot of space that could be used for other
| things like growing food. They make the earth extremely hot as
| they absorb so much heat from the sun. The political zealots
| talk about climate change but avoid to talk about that.
|
| It is not excuses, there is very intelligent people working on
| those problems. Natural gas makes a lot of sense combined with
| solar and wind because solar only works when the sun is above
| and wind when the wind blows. You need something for winter and
| nights. Energy storage is very expensive, and also require lots
| of energy and raw materials for manufacturing.
|
| For wind mills to make sense you need wind. Lots of countries
| do not have wind, and also produce heat an noise and kill
| birds.
|
| In Spain, when the price of the panels and inverters go down,
| if you have users nearby, it makes sense. In Germany, with half
| the insolation, it does not.
|
| There is no "free" anything. Everything has its ups and downs.
|
| We need less politicians, lawyers without knowledge of science
| and engineering.
| s1k3s wrote:
| Of course there's an impact, but the question is "what is
| impacting us more?"
|
| https://www.energysage.com/about-clean-energy/solar/solar-
| en...
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| Surely it has been generating power during the entire
| construction? Were they waiting to connect the grid once the
| final panel was in place?
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