[HN Gopher] All the electricity you'll need for 40 years
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All the electricity you'll need for 40 years
Author : mwfogleman
Score : 66 points
Date : 2024-10-26 08:47 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.innerpathing.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.innerpathing.com)
| artificialprint wrote:
| People forget that solar panels don't grow on the trees, battery
| packs especially have very large footprint and their
| manufacturing is resource intensive.
| m3kw9 wrote:
| They should use potato's as electricity source, they just need
| a couple hundred tone, as potato sort of grows on trees
| ximeng wrote:
| From the article:
|
| Solar panels and batteries depend on a global supply chain and
| take their own toll on the environment, but the life cycle
| emission of solar is ~40 gCO2/kWh, 25x lower than coal's 1,000
| gCO2/kWh. And buying solar fuels innovation--such as
| alternatives to lithium-ion batteries now on the horizon.
| shadowpho wrote:
| Everything is relative though. Bikes also don't grow on trees
| but they are several orders of magnitude more green then cars.
| candiddevmike wrote:
| This seems like a "green brag" without much substance. Great that
| this person is privileged enough to afford solar panels, I guess.
| Nothing to be learned here though: no wire diagrams, placement
| schematics, or BoM. Just someone telling everyone how green they
| are.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| The idea is the important part. The details (wiring schematics
| and so on) are not. The cost of solar is rapidly approaching
| where you're prepaying for your energy for the rest of your
| life with a few thousand dollars. You can get solar panels for
| 10 cents/watt today, for example. That price will potentially
| continue to decline (historically, price has declined ~20% for
| every global doubling of PV manufacturing capacity).
|
| churchill's comment provides a similar example:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41965228 (2.7 year payback
| in Nigeria, cheaper per kWh than utility rate of 12 cents/kWh)
|
| The engineering of energy abundance and democratization of
| energy globally continues. That's the story.
|
| https://ourworldindata.org/data-insights/solar-panel-prices-...
|
| https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/solar-pv-prices
|
| https://www.pv-tech.org/solar-lcoe-continues-to-decrease-glo...
| titanomachy wrote:
| It doesn't sound like it's that expensive. Certainly less than
| most households pay for electricity, although I imagine they
| also use less than most people judging by their very tiny
| house. Probably some kind of financing available to reduce the
| initial capital outlay.
|
| Unless you just mean they're privileged in the sense that most
| Americans and Europeans are relatively well-off and secure by
| global standards, in which case sure, but what's your point?
| jeffbee wrote:
| I agree about this article being vapid, but at least it does
| introduce the fact that PV doesn't degrade. A lot of people
| have been poisoned by oil industry propaganda that every PV
| panel needs to be trashed in 20 years.
| stonethrowaway wrote:
| I wouldn't say so honestly. In the pantheon of green bragging
| you can do much, much worse. I think these folks are more down
| the earth given they recognize their mortality and that what
| they've got here will outlive them, but in general they are
| gridless people and as such a bit outside of the benefits of
| bragging.
|
| The shit shows unfolding elsewhere fall into hypocritical
| territory - concerned about climate change yet are regularly
| flying. For these folks here, I'm willing to be more
| charitable. Looking forward to seeing more photos of,
| hopefully, simpler life.
| Animats wrote:
| The solar panels are cheap. It's the multi-acre lot with a lake
| that's expensive.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| I've mounted ~8kw of solar on a south facing roof in ~4 hours
| with two other people. You need not multi acre lots, only a
| surface that can see the sky mostly unobstructed, although if
| you've got the land and aren't using it, ground mount solar
| is cheaper, faster, and safer to deploy.
|
| (In the United States, the majority of housing units are
| single-family houses - about 82 million out of the total 129
| million occupied units in 2021)
| ramesh31 wrote:
| TIL mud huts are "solarpunk" and "Pinterest worthy" so long as
| you're doing it in the US.
| EQYV wrote:
| Honest question, why is this your reaction? Why are people on
| this forum so unwilling to be happy for others? I have noticed
| that this attitude is extremely prominent in tech. Everything
| is either perfect (according to the person making the
| judgement) or it's utterly worthy of ridicule. I am growing
| very, very tired of seeing this throughout tech.
| ramesh31 wrote:
| >Why are people on this forum so unwilling to be happy for
| others?
|
| It's a particularly offensive part of white culture that
| fetishizes a "return to the land" while billions around the
| world are trapped miserably eeking out that existence with
| literally zero opportunity to ever have anything else.
|
| The only reason you feel "happy" for them is because you know
| its a cosplay charade they could walk away from at any time.
| Otherwise we would call this what it is; destitute poverty.
| saaaaaam wrote:
| We posted the same time. You said it better than I did!
|
| But - cosplay - 100%
| alamortsubite wrote:
| It sounds like you may be conflating wealth with
| consumption. What these people have, and what billions
| around the world do not, is financial freedom.
| dgacmu wrote:
| It would be a mistake to think their experience is anything
| close to that of people in poverty, regardless of their
| ability to walk away from it. Poverty doesn't involve
| affording the capital outlay for $16k of
| solar/battery/hardware to give you 24x7 heat, heated water,
| electricity, and _an electric car_.
|
| They're trying to have a developed world quality of life in
| a low-resource/low-cost way. In some ways, beyond average
| developed world quality of life: the place they're living
| is stinkin' gorgeous.
|
| I don't know if it's generally practical for most people or
| even as energy efficient as living in a modest apartment in
| a large city (the transportation issues around food,
| medicine, and necessities factor in), but it's not an
| uninteresting thing to explore.
| saaaaaam wrote:
| I suspect that the comment was provoked by the term
| "solarpunk".
|
| For many people in non first world countries this sort of
| existence is standard - not something to be blogged about
| with artfully composed photos carefully edited and posted to
| the internet.
|
| So I guess the comment was provoked by something like that.
| It was certainly one of my reactions reading the piece. I
| also thought "oh that's cool, I wonder how they did it" but
| it was very short on detail, made up for by self-
| congratulatory back patting.
|
| Maybe the person making the comment lives in a developing
| country and finds it a little jarring to see "solarpunk"
| cosplay.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| /dismissive handwave
|
| I think you and the other person are reading far too deep
| into one person's contentment with a humble living space.
| It's clear they are safe and comfortable; that doesn't
| translate in any way to suggesting other places where this
| living style (sans electricity or safety) should just pick
| themselves up by their bootstraps.
| twarge wrote:
| Solar allows one to prepay for power. Would be nice to see more
| efficient financing for it.
|
| Using solar to heat and cool, heat water and run your dryer is
| quite a bit more. And generally doing the HVAC efficiently
| requires a large investment in insulation. Those non solar costs
| may dominate.
| sdk77 wrote:
| It's nice to have solar panels, I have them too and while they do
| generate even more electricity than I need, they do so in around
| 6 to 7 months peaking in July. So in winter, it's grid power and
| in summer I might need to pay to feed in the surplus. This is in
| the Netherlands. It's kind of sad to see all that electricity
| unused in summer, and knowing I could have enough for all of the
| winter if only there was some way to store it, all of the 1MWh..
| spacesanjeet wrote:
| Isn't there a way to sell the unused solar power to the grid in
| summers and during winters the grid sends back the power needed
| to you at a discounted price?
| sdk77 wrote:
| Well, until '27, I'm allowed to use the grid as a free
| battery, basically, this is a kind of government subsidy. But
| that will end, and the contracts available will be fixed
| price with a feed in tariff or dynamic (realtime) market
| price, but then prices can and have been negative during peak
| solar hours. A battery can solve this only for a bit, and
| maybe with smart algorithms it can be trading on the
| electricity market full time, I'm not sure if that makes
| enough money for the grid power in winter.. it's nice to
| think about though.
| ccozan wrote:
| or you get a battery. Is just great. I have 3.5kw solar power
| witha 9kwh battery. Very very seldom it switches to power
| line. And this is in south Germany, maybe a bit sunnier than
| north but still - it rains a lot/cloudy, sun is sparse.
| skybrian wrote:
| It seems like that works for daily cycles, but isn't that
| very expensive storage for one cycle a year, which is what
| you need to save energy for winter?
| ben_w wrote:
| Depends how close to the poles you are. A lot of the
| world can do this fine by sizing the PV for winter; too
| close to the poles and there's not going to work -- you
| either need to diversify power generation by kind (wind,
| wave, hydro, geothermal all work too, but again
| geographically constrained) or by distance (the maths
| says we can build an adequate and literally global power
| grid for an affordable quantity of aluminium, shame about
| the politics).
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| Any advice on battery brands and features you could share?
| bitmasher9 wrote:
| If every household did this we would have massive problems.
| We would still need a base load amount in the winter, and in
| the summer there would be an over abundance. The price of
| electricity would swing between essentially free in the
| summer to higher than normal in the winter, because the cost
| of operating base grid power would be about same but they
| would need to cover all operating costs during the winter.
| fallingsquirrel wrote:
| Utilities should charge a separate connection fee and per-
| kWh rate if that's what matches the economic reality of
| their business. I don't see the summer abundance as an
| issue. It means we get to shut off the fossil fuels 8
| months out of the year. The remaining 4 months, everyone
| pays a little more per kWh, averaging out to the same cost
| over a full year. What's not to like?
| fragmede wrote:
| The economic viability of a fossil fuel plant that's only
| used 4 months out of the year.
|
| If the plant shuts down because it's no longer
| economically viable/doesn't cover operating costs, what
| happens next winter?
| forgetfreeman wrote:
| Ostensibly it gets replaced by a grid storage array and
| sufficient renewable inputs.
| dtech wrote:
| The electricity price in the winter will go up until
| either the plants are viable again or alternatives become
| viable.
| Gare wrote:
| Maybe you could use the IJsselmeer as a pumped storage hydro ;)
| itishappy wrote:
| > ... in summer I might need to pay to feed in the surplus.
|
| You're allowed to just disconnect solar panels. It's free and
| does not damage them.
| sdk77 wrote:
| Sure. Of course. Not being allowed to disconnect them would
| be ridiculous. But do you want to keep an eye on the market
| every day, and run to the breaker to turn on an off your
| inverter? No. So you need a solution for that. Then a battery
| is much more interesting.
| kleiba wrote:
| This seems like a problem that should be relatively easy to
| solve with technology.
| WJW wrote:
| This is in fact what my home installation already does.
| itishappy wrote:
| Completely agree. I mainly mention it to dispel any notions
| that solar panels can expose you to financial risk due to
| negative energy prices. This is trivial to address.
| Negative prices should only be a concern for plants that
| can not be quickly or easily shut down, like thermal plants
| (coal/gas/nuclear).
| Larrikin wrote:
| Could you just use Home Assistant to do this?
| amelius wrote:
| Note: doing this manually every day (breaking the circuit)
| can increase the risk of damaging your installation.
| mikehotel wrote:
| How can the use of a switch damage your installation?
| GeoAtreides wrote:
| inrush current, mechanical wear, thermal stress on some
| components (mosfets, transformers, etc)...
| titanomachy wrote:
| > need to pay to feed back in the surplus
|
| Why not have the panels disconnect themselves in this case? Is
| this too small an expense to justify the cost of additional
| hardware to manage switching on and off?
| sdk77 wrote:
| It all depends on the situation. Here in the Netherlands
| almost everybody has an PV installation with no way other
| than the breaker to turn it on and off. Some inverters do
| have an interface, and sometimes it's available. Even less
| people know anything about this at all, they just had panels
| installed. The technical solution is simple, bit implementing
| it will cost much more, I assume.
| quailfarmer wrote:
| All modern inverters have control interfaces that allow them to
| fold back their power output on command, this can be set up to
| track feed-in rates going negative.
| theturtle32 wrote:
| "pay to feed in the surplus"? In my U.S. context, this sounds
| surprising: are you saying that sometimes the energy utility
| CHARGES you money when you feed solar energy to the grid? That
| sounds... bizarre?
| dtech wrote:
| When there is a lot of wind and sun simultaneously there is
| effectively too much electricity supply on the net, and day-
| ahead prices drop negative. This is partially fueled by flat
| subsidies per unit produced (has been fixed for a while for
| new installations), so producing when there's oversupply can
| still be profitable. Also most households have a flat energy
| rate and can amortize their energy usage over the year, so
| they will always keep their solar panels on even if the
| energy is less than worthless.
|
| US pricing works very differently, especially in Texas.
| pierot wrote:
| Yes, prices can go negative if you have a dynamic energy
| contract.
| Ekaros wrote:
| Purchasers want to make margin on anything. So they charge
| this on the seller and then on buyer. Also with how markets
| work it is not like there isn't risks or need to at least
| some level forecast how much you will be buying and then
| selling. So their cut also covers this work.
|
| And finally electricity is a spot market. So there is agreed
| price for certain period and in some cases market can be
| distorted and that price can be negative. It could be idiotic
| subsidies or production that can't be ramped as effectively.
| Or someone does massive mistakes with their bids, think of
| trading bots going wrong.
| bdhdbebebeb wrote:
| If I were to deliver you 1000 gallons of milk that expires in
| 10 minutes*, would you pay me or want to charge me for that
| priviledge. Assume you have enough milk already.
|
| * (< 1 millisecond for electricity but hey for the milk
| analogy say 10 minutes).
| shadowpho wrote:
| $88 amortized over 15 years is only $16k. It's really impressive
| they can get it done for that much, although I suspect labor has
| to be free at that cost. I'd be curious what batteries they went
| with and how it's organized (aka the more technical side)
| haccount wrote:
| A $16k investment at 4% annual yield with quarterly payout re-
| invested turns into $29k at the 15 year mark. So maybe
| batteries and panels today feels like a good investment, but is
| it the best?
| indigoabstract wrote:
| Looking at the posted pictures, it seems like they're living in
| heaven. Good to know the panels will be good for at least 40
| years.
|
| Still, I'm kind of left wondering, where will they be in 40
| years. Can life really be so predictable?
| bitmasher9 wrote:
| You can imagine a high probability that someone will be in the
| home enjoying the power generated.
| beedeebeedee wrote:
| That's great. I wish we had more housing like this, especially if
| we could build them into little hobbit villages. I would readily
| live there
| churchill wrote:
| I live here in Nigeria where electricity has been epileptic since
| I was born (I'm 23 now). Like, I live in one of the nicer suburbs
| in my state, but 12h of power isn't guaranteed.
|
| So, last year, I spent $7k on 8.4 KW of panels (400W * 21), an
| inverter, and 20KWh of batteries.
|
| It's been life-changing. I've been able to go completely off-
| grid. Like, I disconnected from the grid (i.e., my meter)
| completely. And my usage has gone up to around 50KWh daily (air
| conditioners, fridges, etc.) but it hums along day-after-day.
| That assurance that the power won't trip off while I'm on a
| meeting with a client has done wonders for my mental health among
| others. Just reliable, stable power.
|
| And, given that I used to pay $0.12 per KWh, the whole setup will
| pay for itself in 2.7 years. Just under two years to go.
| haccount wrote:
| This compared to my own experience shows how much location
| matters for these things.
|
| I live in a place with cheap and stable hydropower. There's
| winter time price spikes but average solar earnings compared to
| grid cost from solar during sunny months would be pocket
| change. In winter solar would give virtually nothing.
|
| The overwhelming conclusion was that instead of buying a pile
| of hardware to install, configure and maintain I will earn more
| by clicking a button that puts it as a financial investment
| into anything with more than 2-3% annual yield and just paying
| the electricity bill and reinvesting whatever is left over.
|
| I wanted to find an edge case that would make me feel smart for
| buying a multi kWh home battery but with the exception of a
| market apocalypse or the likes every outcome suggests that I
| just put it in dividend stock, high interest savings accounts
| or whatever else until either power prices increase tenfold or
| $/kWh for batteries drop tenfold.
| churchill wrote:
| Different strokes for different folks. If you already have
| sufficiently reliable power and the savings won't beat the
| S&P500, then I guess sticking to the grid makes more sense.
| It's just the flexibility and reliability of solar I'm
| commenting on, especially if you live close to the equator.
| Nition wrote:
| Just a note to the web designer: The footnote links don't account
| for the fixed header, so the page always ends up with the
| footnote hidden behind the header when the user clicks one. Needs
| an 89 pixel offset.
| skybrian wrote:
| > Electric vehicles are mainstream and last longer than their gas
| engine counterparts, with an estimated lifespan of 200,000 miles.
|
| What's this based on? Don't many gas cars last that long? It
| seems like it depends very much on how well you maintain them.
| pryelluw wrote:
| It also depends on the batteries themselves. An older Nissan
| leaf? Doubt it. A newer Tesla? I sure hope so.
|
| Im curious as to how car batteries will be repurposed to use
| for energy storage. Once they degrade to the point of only
| holding charge for short trips, can they still be used for
| other scenarios that don't require as much from them?
| stefs wrote:
| They're already used for industrial storage of surplus solar-
| and wind power.
|
| I'm my opinion the big problem with electric cars are the
| price of replacement batteries in combination with buying
| used.
| ben_w wrote:
| I'm not sure about averages, but given the second hand pricing
| I've seen: I thought after 100 or so megameters, even well
| maintained internal combustion engines needed maintenance of a
| price comparable to replacement?
| forgetfreeman wrote:
| Barring weird parts supply issues rebuilding an engine should
| be significantly cheaper than purchasing a low mileage crate
| replacement. Same with transmissions.
| warble wrote:
| 300k on my Toyota right now. Most modern ICE engines should
| last 200k with no problems. EVs (other than the battery) should
| last a million miles. Even the batteries are turning out to
| last longer than everyone expected, ignoring some notable
| notable failures.
| skybrian wrote:
| Betting on Teslas didn't work out so well for Hertz due to
| expensive repairs. Rental cars take a beating, though.
| quailfarmer wrote:
| This is cool, and I wish I had a setup like that, but the premise
| seems a bit hollow. Do they grow all the food they consume? What
| about the energy needed to produce the electric car, host the
| Substack? What about when they get sick? Do they stay off-grid,
| or do they go to a modern hospital, which can only exist because
| of urban industrial buildup.
|
| It's cool to live off grid, but solarpunk-libertarianism is a
| vibe, not a meaningful policy direction for modern society
| coumbaya wrote:
| I wish regulations where more lax in France. It was a battle with
| the town council to install 3.2kw of solar panels on the ground,
| I want to install 10 more but it looks like the ground option
| which is cheap will not be approved, I would have to out them on
| my roof which is costly and is not true south (and arguably, more
| visible).
| Animats wrote:
| Average US home power consumption: 30 KWh/day.
|
| Assuming an average of 4 solar hours per day, you would need a
| solar system capacity of approximately 7.5 kW to 12.5 kW.
|
| Individual solar panels produce 250-400 watts. So,
| conservatively, 50 panels. Installed, that's currently about
| $25,000, including inverter but not battery backup. Battery
| backup will cost maybe $15,000 more. So, the whole installation
| is about $40,000. This is with no grid connection, power sales,
| or incentives. Not too bad. Costs about the same as a car.
|
| Median US house price is $412,300.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Did you factor in 30% federal tax credit?
|
| https://www.energy.gov/eere/solar/homeowners-guide-federal-t...
| Animats wrote:
| No.
| nightski wrote:
| In my state electricity costs about $0.089/kWh. We spend about
| $100/mo on electricity total which comes out almost exactly to
| your 30kWh/day figure (with a $23.15 connection charge
| included).
|
| Invested that 40k would conservatively cover over 2x our
| electricity bill without touching the principal (inflation
| adjusted).
|
| That's a pretty hard sell for solar. Obviously incentives will
| improve things but it just seems less financially risky to use
| grid power.
| bdhdbebebeb wrote:
| 10 years ago for me math didn't add up for batteries and
| offgrid but it did add up for solar.
|
| Offgrid added up if you are already offgrid so that ongrid
| becomes a big expense when comparing.
| bdhdbebebeb wrote:
| Not too bad. You need a lot of space for 50 panels. You need to
| live in a large suburbian house or rural and stick them on a
| barn or on the ground.
|
| Clearly to meet demand we need solar farms and grids for most
| people.
| GaggiX wrote:
| ~500$ for a 250/400W panel seems absurd, here in Italy you can
| buy a 500W solar panel for 100EUR without effort or less. Given
| that you can buy a pallet of them, you can probably pay less
| than 100EUR per 500W, I have found deals down to 77EUR per 550W
| panel with pallets of 31 (31x550=+17k at 2405EUR), shipment
| included, and I'm talking about new half cell panels, not old
| stuff.
| ifdefdebug wrote:
| Your numbers are way off (at least for Europe). Panels are 580
| W peak now and cost < EUR150. Battery < EUR1000 per kWh. Prices
| still dropping.
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