[HN Gopher] Australia has so much solar that it's offering every...
___________________________________________________________________
Australia has so much solar that it's offering everyone free
electricity
Author : ohjeez
Score : 246 points
Date : 2025-11-06 15:08 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (electrek.co)
(TXT) w3m dump (electrek.co)
| cowboy_henk wrote:
| * only in the middle of the day, when the real price of that
| electricity may be negative, so it's still sold at a profit
| willvarfar wrote:
| Yes the article talks about consumers scheduling things like
| washing machines during the day, or even filling up a battery.
| mikeyouse wrote:
| They could also run their AC to below where their normal set
| point would be to "bank" some of the free electricity. I
| wonder if we'll start seeing other more passive energy
| sinks... if you lived in a hot area and could rely on several
| hours of free electricity each day, it enables all sorts of
| interesting options like turning on a secondary cooling
| system to "charge" a large boulder or hunk of metal that you
| could then pass air over to cool your house when energy is
| expensive again.
| ch4s3 wrote:
| If you built homes with a lot of thermal mass, you could
| cool the internal thermal mass when energy is $0 and have
| that mass absorb heat the rest of the day. This is sort of
| the principle a lot of traditional architecture uses where
| evaporation, wind over a courtyard, or nighttime lows cool
| thick walls.
| mikeyouse wrote:
| Yep, our house was built like this but in a cooler
| climate (large windows facing south with the all of the
| stone flooring and surfaces getting direct sunlight in
| the winter). But since most houses in the Aussie suburbs
| aren't really optimized for this, you'd have to retrofit
| many million houses to take full advantage. Opens up some
| interesting opportunities for sure.
| ch4s3 wrote:
| Yeah, for sure. Building for 0 carbon AC and electric
| resistive heating will probably look a little different.
| bobmcnamara wrote:
| This is how the cold storage caves work in the Midwest.
| They run their ammonia loops harder in the off hours and
| let the cave mass handle it(provided a large enough area
| is kept frozen, otherwise thermal expansion cycling can
| cause a carve out in the ceiling).
| BtM909 wrote:
| More countries where there's a surplus, are advising people
| to charge or use electricity during the day.
| bee_rider wrote:
| This is the "smart grid" idea, right? We just haven't fully
| explored it yet.
|
| Something I firmly believe is that there's a ton of low
| hanging fruit for timing our energy use better. It is just
| hidden by the desire to present a uniform energy price.
|
| Like why not run our water heaters when power is cheap? Then
| if that became a thing, we might even be interested in larger
| water heater tanks. Batteries cost per volume, you only pay
| for the surface are of a metal tank!
| naIak wrote:
| Power at peak times is cheap because load is distributed
| throughout the day. If everybody ran their heaters at the
| same time, power wouldn't be so cheap and we'd reach the
| same situation we're in.
| bee_rider wrote:
| If power wasn't cheaper, there'd be no incentive to run
| our heaters at the same time. I'd expect the market to
| work this out, and price power down during unexpected
| over-supply, rewarding nimble workloads. Then there
| arrives a reward for being nimble, which is something we
| should incentivize I think.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Power at peak times is cheap because it's the time of
| highest insolation.
| naIak wrote:
| You're missing the other side of the equation.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| Australia has some cutting edge tech that actually sends
| control signals through the electric wires.
|
| It rolled this out in 1953:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zellweger_off-peak
|
| It let coal plants run more efficiently and people could
| heat their water overnight.
|
| Somewhat bafflingly they seem to have somewhat failed this
| same task with the solar rollout.
|
| Presumably 21st century capitalism got in the way of the
| mid 20th century engineering.
| ch4s3 wrote:
| This seems like a great way to encourage the behavior you want,
| which is conserving when energy is emitting more carbon by
| shifting consumption. Do your laundry, charge a car, charge a
| whole house batter, run laundry, crank the AC, run your own
| aluminum smelter, whatever.
| RobinL wrote:
| In the UK, you can go on an agile tariff that does exactly
| this. I'm on one.
|
| It's quite fun (and educational) with the kids to work out
| when to put the car on to charge, when to run the dryer etc,
| looking at the few days ahead forecasts.
|
| Last month, we paid 11p per kWh on average, which is less
| than half what you'd pay on a standard tariff, and it's nice
| to be doing something good for the environment too. It's
| particularly satisfying to charge up the car when tariffs go
| negative.
|
| Here's today's rates (actuals):
| https://agilebuddy.uk/latest/agile
|
| Here's a forecast: https://prices.fly.dev/A/
| hexbin010 wrote:
| > It's quite fun (and educational) with the kids to work
| out when to put the car on to charge, when to run the dryer
| etc, looking at the few days ahead forecasts.
|
| As if we aren't busy enough. I see this as just yet
| _another_ job the government/business is making us do
| instead of them.
|
| Is it too much to ask for my government to provide sensibly
| and simply priced energy so we can get on with our day,
| working, studying, raising kids etc?
|
| IMO this is just setting us up for insane surge pricing for
| those people who don't do the good citizen thing of
| becoming nocturnal
| RobinL wrote:
| I think it's best to view this from an economics point of
| view - in a nutshell price signals are usually the most
| powerful way to create behavioural change; in this case,
| we want people to shift demand away from peak times.
| Nobody is being forced to, they just have to pay more for
| the convenience of not bothering.
|
| > IMO this is just setting us up for insane surge pricing
| for those people who don't do the good citizen thing of
| becoming nocturnal
|
| It actually costs a lot more to produce marginal energy
| at peak times, the cost just reflects the cost of
| production. It doesn't seem unreasonable for me for the
| consumer to bear the cost, and also get the benfit if
| they choose to put their car to charge overnight rather
| than at peak time.
|
| This also has a nice secondary benefit: anyone on agile
| tariffs who shifts demand away from peak time actually
| benefits those who don't want to bother, because the peak
| price/cost goes down, and so the overall average price of
| electricity goes down.
|
| > I see this as just yet _another_ job the
| government/business is making us do instead of them
|
| In most other market, people are expected to respond to
| price incentives. When local apples are cheap relative to
| imported cherries, people don't complain that
| government/business is making us do a job to push demand
| in the direction of apples.
|
| > Is it too much to ask for my government to provide
| sensibly and simply priced energy so we can get on with
| our day, working, studying, raising kids etc?
|
| The free market price _is_ the agile price. The
| government intervention is actually in the direction of
| fixing prices (e.g. by the energy price cap, which is
| sometimes below the free market price at peak times). In
| general, markets do not work very well when the
| government fixes the market
|
| When you let the market clear and send out price signals,
| markets almost always become more efficient (which means
| that consumers benefit overall)
| hexbin010 wrote:
| > we want people to shift demand away from peak times
|
| Because governments have let energy companies fail to
| invest in necessary infrastructure for decades.
|
| And who is the "we"? Definitely not me
|
| I think a much larger conversation needs to happen about
| people's schedules, commitments and whether it's fair to
| say those who have less time and less flexibility due to
| work, children etc are somehow actively choosing to not
| be a good eco citizen. It's incredibly unfair.
|
| I'd rather go back to root causes and re-evaluate private
| companies failing to provide the necessary infrastructure
| oezi wrote:
| > Because governments have let energy companies fail to
| invest in necessary infrastructure for decades.
|
| Well, regulating oligopolies isn't fun and it isn't
| popular with voters.
| ch4s3 wrote:
| > Last month, we paid 11p per kWh on average, which is less
| than half what you'd pay on a standard tariff
|
| That's pretty rough. That should be about 14C/ per kWh
| which only a hair less than the median price per kWh in the
| US (~17C/).
| RobinL wrote:
| Yeah - unfortunately the UK has some of the highest
| electricity prices in Europe.
|
| Almost all households are on fixed tariffs, typically
| about 26p/kwh at the moment.
| adammarples wrote:
| And the worst part is the standing charge keeps going up
| hexbin010 wrote:
| What, do you expect the energy companies to use their own
| money to invest in infrastructure for net zero and the AI
| boom? Oops too late it's been paid as dividends. No, just
| create a levy and make the public be unwilling investors
| except without getting the shares nor dividends
|
| Don't forget it's also a tax for bailing out the failed
| energy companies
| notatoad wrote:
| still sounds like an incredible way to incentivize consumers to
| buy small-scale storage. if i knew i could get free electricity
| for an hour or two each day (or even each week) it'd be a very
| easy choice to drop ~$1000 on a home battery.
| loeg wrote:
| You'd spend $1000 to save $0.20 on electricity every day?
| byefruit wrote:
| 7.3% return, not bad. As battery prices drop it will get
| even better.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| It's not 7.3% return rate. There's some depreciation you
| need to add there.
| WheatMillington wrote:
| If you're going to depreciate the battery then your
| return will be substantially greater than 7.3%. You can't
| use BOTH the capex AND the depreciation as your
| denominator, choose one.
| testing22321 wrote:
| The average price of power in Australia is 34 cents per
| kWh. The average Aussie spends A LOT more than $0.20 per
| day.
| loeg wrote:
| GP isn't talking about a full day's use, but "free
| electricity for an hour or two each day (or even each
| week)."
| testing22321 wrote:
| The whole reason to spend the money on the battery is so
| you can use the free power for a lot longer than an hour
| or two!
| jay_kyburz wrote:
| You'll want to draw as much power as possible while its
| free, and use it duing peak times.
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| Where I live, $1000 would get you about 3kWh of battery
| power, which would pay for itself in a couple years
| gpm wrote:
| The real price of solar electricity is never negative. Unlike
| something like oil wells (which really have driven the price of
| oil negative) you can just turn solar off.
|
| Prices have gone negative because of things like subsidies -
| which in the short term is a good thing IMHO - it subsidizes
| industries developing systems to make use of that free (but not
| negative cost) energy...
| marcosdumay wrote:
| > you can just turn solar off
|
| Somebody has to go and turn it off, and having this person
| available overwhelms all of your operational costs.
|
| Or alternatively, you need the infrastructure to do it
| automatically, what is currently expensive. (But there aren't
| intrinsic reasons for that being expensive, it's probably due
| to lack of scale.)
|
| If it's just slightly negative, or just rarely so, it's not
| worth it.
| testing22321 wrote:
| Basically every home in Australia, and certainly every home
| and business solar setup, has a smart meter that is grid
| connected and can be remotely shut down when needed. Or
| they even just limit the amount that can feedback to the
| grid if required I.e you're making 8kw of solar, but it
| will only let you feed in 2 if the system determines that.
|
| There is not "person" turning things on and off.
| viraptor wrote:
| Since this year, you're also forced to have the remote
| kill switch on the new solar installations at home.
| quickthrowman wrote:
| Commercial solar fields are entirely automated, nobody is
| going to the site to throw a disconnect switch lol. For
| sites without hardwire internet, there's 4G or satellite
| connectivity. A 4G cell comm module is a few hundred
| dollars. Adding in remote operations control is probably a
| tiny fraction of a percent of a solar field project.
| willvarfar wrote:
| Ignoring the politics, we have to say that China has done the
| world collectively as a whole a major service in strategically
| developing and mass producing super cheap solar panels.
| hangonhn wrote:
| It really is a huge service not just to the developed world
| that needs to decarbonize but also a huge service to the
| developing world. Solar can be put up quickly and cheaply and
| is good for about 2 decades and can be paired with cheap LiFo
| batteries to give round the clock electricity. Both of these
| are relatively portable. It can really bootstrap the economies
| of local communities where infrastructure hasn't been built
| out. Then combined that with portable Internet connection via
| something like Starlink or one of the competitor networks, we
| can really enable the available human capital in developing
| nations to realize their potential.
|
| It's all very exciting I think.
| jacquesm wrote:
| The biggest bottle neck to really solving the energy problem
| is now the price and fragility of high voltage DC long haul
| connections. Between those and solar you can have energy
| anywhere any time.
| svara wrote:
| Great point, you might dream of long range connections
| sending solar energy from the day into the night around the
| world.
|
| But, what exactly do you mean by fragility? In what way are
| they fragile?
| jacquesm wrote:
| That they carry massive amounts of power so they'll help
| you to destruct themselves once the barrier is
| penetrated, are actually quite complex and can be
| sabotaged easily.
|
| This is a nice text on the underwater version:
|
| https://europacable.eu/wp-
| content/uploads/2021/01/Introducti...
| more_corn wrote:
| If only there was a way to deploy solar production at the
| point of consumption so power didn't need to be
| transferred. We'd need large chunks of unused flat surface
| pointing towards the sky, preferably at an angle. Oh wait
| we have that on top of every home (coincidentally the south
| or west face of every roof provides about enough surface
| area to power most homes). Now we need some cheap way of
| storing energy produced during the day for use at night.
| Humm. Got that too. Government don't even need to pay the
| full price for this resilience and climate mitigation.
| Programs offering fractional tax credits have shown great
| success in increasing deployments of rooftop solar and
| distributed battery storage.
| jacquesm wrote:
| You missed the point entirely. If you can distribute the
| energy you don't need the storage and the storage is the
| problem right now.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Starlink isn't necessary. In India you can get 1GB/day of
| cell phone data for $4/month, and other developing nations
| aren't far behind.
|
| The solar+battery revolution is doing for power what cell
| phones did for communications in the third world in the 90's
| and 2000's.
| skydhash wrote:
| The one issue with cellular connection is that some
| software and OS slurp data like there's no tomorrow and
| you're not paying for the connection.
| rdm_blackhole wrote:
| > Starlink isn't necessary. In India you can get 1GB/day of
| cell phone data for $4/month, and other developing nations
| aren't far behind.
|
| There is a huge swath of Australia that does not have good
| internet access and/or very poor cell phone coverage.
|
| And I am not talking about about people living in the
| middle of the desert, I am talking about people who are 10
| to 15 minutes away by car from a small town.
|
| So yes Starlink or it's local equivalent are necessary.
| maccard wrote:
| Meanwhile here in UK, we're unable to get phone signal in
| the middle of major population centres
| floam wrote:
| Not literally no signal/service, right? More likely "I
| have a few bars but data doesn't seem to work... calls
| often won't initiate unless 911?" thing you get when
| there's too many devices connecting to an overburdened
| tower, in a network that needs more cells or something,
| and QoS/qci says no?
|
| If it's a population center someone would probably have
| put up a tower on their land ll
| maccard wrote:
| Yes.
|
| In the context of "cheap mobile data devices are widely
| accessible" I don't think the distinction matters. If
| you're relying on your PS1 sim to trigger your solar
| battery charger and it doesn't, then it doesn't matter if
| you technically had signal or not.
| jimnotgym wrote:
| 911 would get you nowhere in the UK;)
|
| I have no phone signal in my village, a few miles from a
| major town. I have to use WiFi calling to talk on the
| phone. Our local politician campaigns against it, it is
| such an issue. Especially since analogue phone lines are
| due to be turned off soon. We still have a working red
| phone box though!
|
| I travel around a bit in the area and blackspots are very
| common
| dylan604 wrote:
| > unless 911
|
| Probably not that even since it's UK. Isn't it 999 in the
| UK? Has the UK started accepting 911->999 for the
| tourists?
| ImJamal wrote:
| According to Wikipedia
|
| > 911 redirects to 999 on mobile phones/public
| phonebooths[citation needed] and on telephones used in
| USAFE bases.
|
| So maybe? But without the source who knows.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > Not literally no signal/service, right?
|
| Come to Munich, go into any of the large old buildings,
| the central stairwells usually are phone dead zones.
| Truly dead.
|
| Or try to go and hike in the Alps. Shit service, but as
| soon as you walk into Austrian territory, you'll suddenly
| have service.
|
| Or try taking a train from Munich to, say, Landshut.
| You'll lose signal about 5 minutes after the train passes
| through the outskirts of Feldmoching.
|
| Or try driving a car on the A8 highway to Salzburg in
| Austria. You'll lose signal about 5-10 minutes after
| passing Holzkirchen.
|
| Or try taking a train from Passau to Wels in Austria.
| Passau is directly near the border. You will have a shit
| service right until the train passes the national border
| and Austrian towers take over.
|
| The reason isn't technical. The Passau and Alps example
| shows it - identical geography, identical mountainous
| areas with about zero population... but wildly different
| attitudes in regulation.
|
| > If it's a population center someone would probably have
| put up a tower on their land ll
|
| Here, you get death threats if you even propose putting
| up a tower on your land [1], in the UK nutjobs set a 5G
| tower ablaze [2].
|
| [1] https://www.sueddeutsche.de/muenchen/wolfratshausen/i
| cking-5...
|
| [2] https://www.blick.ch/ausland/grossbritannien-
| handymast-eines...
| floam wrote:
| I stand corrected. I didn't realize you could be a MIMBY
| for cell towers _and also not currently have service_.
|
| Any organized resistance I've witnessed myself in the US
| has been something like an HOA saying no not tucked right
| here where our home values could take a hit or a view
| obstructed, please put it down the street or ... anywhere
| else.
|
| But if you had no cell service and your call dropped as
| you backed out of your garage or you tried to sell your
| house and the buyers phones suddenly had no service or
| they couldn't get on the Internet at the open house,
| that'd feel like pretty concerning missing
| infrastructure.
|
| I don't think anti-5G wackos have dented a thing.
| pempem wrote:
| Can you help me understand. Is Starlink, or satellite
| enabled wifi really the only solution here if you're
| 10-15 min away from a populated area?
| rdm_blackhole wrote:
| Yes unfortunately.
|
| My parent's in law live on small farm 10 minutes out of a
| small town in NSW and on the best days, when the sky is
| clear, they get 1 bar of phone reception on their cell
| phone and they have to stay within a 10 sqm perimeter
| within their house in order to make phone calls otherwise
| calls drop out.
|
| Video chat is basically out of the question unless you
| want to talk to pixelated blobs on a screen.
|
| After waiting 10 years for the NBN to be rolled out to
| their property, they decided to bite the bullet and
| bought a Starlink terminal and now we can have normal
| conversations on the phone and they can use streaming
| services whereas that would have been impossible before.
|
| But it is not just them that have issues. When I was
| living in Brisbane many moons ago, I remember how pitiful
| the internet speed was so much so that I ditched my home
| internet and started hot-spotting from my phone instead.
|
| Things have improved in the cities since then I am sure,
| but for the people out there living in the country side,
| not much as changed.
| acchow wrote:
| > Starlink isn't necessary. In India you can get 1GB/day of
| cell phone data for $4/month, and other developing nations
| aren't far behind.
|
| Does that operate at good speeds in rural areas?
| oskarkk wrote:
| I think India is a bad example. It's very densely
| populated, with high density in most of the country, and as
| such it's not a good target market for Starlink.
|
| See for yourself: https://luminocity3d.org/WorldPopDen
|
| India has 1.4B people on 3 million km^2, Africa has 1.4B
| people on 30 million km^2 (out of which 9 million is
| Sahara).
|
| Starlink's use case is low population density areas, and
| Africa has plenty of those. Very different case from India.
| jimnotgym wrote:
| How much is a Starlink setup? They are pretty expensive
| in Europe, are they cheaper in Africa?
| oskarkk wrote:
| I checked a random Kenyan address on starlink.com, and it
| would be around 386 USD for the dish there (with service
| for 50 USD/mo), so not cheap. In Poland I see that
| they're giving the dish for free with some 1-year
| contract (58 USD/mo). Maybe it'll become cheaper, they're
| making millions of them. And you could share it with
| neighbors - if you can get 300 Mb/s, you could connect
| like 5 families if the alternative is nothing.
|
| I found a nice website with prices by country:
| https://www.starlink-
| prices.com/personal/residential/usd/low
|
| But it may be outdated, because it shows $90/mo price in
| Poland, while it's much cheaper as I said, even with the
| free dish.
|
| And some recent articles about Starlink prices in Africa:
|
| https://techlabari.com/average-starlink-prices-across-
| all-af...
|
| https://www.visualcapitalist.com/visualized-starlink-vs-
| lead...
|
| Anyway, Starlink is mostly for places where you have no
| ISPs or cell service (or they are very bad), so not for
| 95% of Europe, and probably not for most of India,
| especially in the future.
| dataviz1000 wrote:
| I witnessed this traveling through smaller islands in the
| Philippines. They have cell service without connection to
| an electric grid in some places. The children with solar
| charging now have access to education materials and there
| is access to banking and payments systems.
|
| The effects of this are going to massive and huge in 10
| years.
| bbarnett wrote:
| Yes indeed.
|
| All those unfortunate children will be introduced to the
| toxic, horrid internet.
|
| They'll be addicted, have no attention span, have their
| own data used against them to exploit and track them, and
| end up with their political system reeling under
| manipulative AI and generic bots.
|
| Far better to just give them books for their educarional
| system, and leave the evil Internet out of it.
| exoverito wrote:
| He says, on the internet.
| dataviz1000 wrote:
| Wow. Everything in life has good and bad consequences. It
| is important that we remember to look towards the light.
|
| What you describe at its worst is still better than the
| exploitation many of the children in the Philippines
| endure today by westerners. Hopefully, being able to
| communicate on the 'evil Internet', the rest of the
| world, like you, can truly understand what they endure.
| cycomanic wrote:
| So how many books have you given to kids in remote places
| in the 3rd world?
|
| This sort of arrogance where suddenly everyone remembers
| all reasons why some technology is bad once the "poor
| masses" get it (while they themselves had the technology
| for years), is hypocritical and frustrating.
|
| The reality is that getting online makes a massive
| difference for someone in some remote poor area. Not just
| in terms of education but also economically.
| graemep wrote:
| That is a lot cheaper than it would cost in a developed
| country, but is not more affordable.
|
| For example, that would cost about three times as much in
| the UK but median income is about an order of magnitude
| higher so its more affordable.
|
| I do realise it is a lot more affordable than telecoms were
| in the past, but its something like a day of median income.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Communications and electricity aren't just luxury goods,
| they're also critical inputs to work. There are lots of
| anecdotes of one or both of these increasing income by
| substantially more than their costs.
| graemep wrote:
| Yes, I do realise that, which is why I recognise it makes
| a huge difference, I just want to put it into context as
| not being very cheap.
| metabagel wrote:
| It is exciting.
|
| > On farmland and on rooftops, Iraqis turn to solar as power
| grid falters
|
| https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/farmland-rooftops-
| ir...
| energy123 wrote:
| And the US and Germany since the 1970s for putting public funds
| into early research
| unglaublich wrote:
| US fossil fuel subsidies: 757B$ [0] US solar subsidies: 7B$
| [1]
|
| [0]: https://www.eesi.org/papers/view/fact-sheet-proposals-
| to-red... [1]:
| https://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/fossil-
| fuels/rene...
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| We are all likely complicit. When gas prices go up people
| lose their shit so politicians try not to let that happen
| thus massive subsidies. Plus it's strategically important.
| davidw wrote:
| People also absolutely lose their shit when someone does
| something like build a bike lane, or proposes letting the
| market allocate automobile storage for housing and
| businesses, rather than having a local jurisdiction
| invent some numbers.
| energy123 wrote:
| I'm referring to Jimmy Carter's policies that helped kick
| start solar research prior to the baton being passed off to
| private industry post a viability threshold being
| surpassed.
| goodpoint wrote:
| On top of that the very same oil industry pocketing the
| 757B does lobbying and propaganda "renewables don't work
| yadda yadda".
| oskarkk wrote:
| The source in your [0] link says China fossil fuel
| subsidies were $2235B in that year. Your [1] link says
| "Renewable Energy Still Dominates Energy Subsidies in FY
| 2022" and "traditional fuels (coal, natural gas, oil and
| nuclear) received just 15 percent of all subsidies between
| FY 2016 and FY 2022", so the two numbers you've given are
| clearly counting very different things.
| tasty_freeze wrote:
| For years I've been hearing one excuse for the US not doing
| more about climate change is that China is polluting more and
| if they aren't doing something about it then why should we?
|
| The argument always seemed disingenuous. For sure, China
| produces a lot of pollution as they are modernizing, but they
| are also investing a lot in the direction of sustainability. If
| we take the balance of (pollution produced - pollution
| prevented) for the two countries, the day will come, if it
| isn't now, that the US is on the losing side of that
| comparison, and I wonder what the new argument will be for the
| US not doing more.
| Freedom2 wrote:
| It's easier to understand that excuse when people realize
| that Americans tend to start with a conclusion then work
| their way backwards to support it. As in, 'we aren't doing
| much about climate change so here's why that's okay'.
| inerte wrote:
| I am not familiar with Chinese politics or motivation, but I
| wonder if it's for the same arguments we have in the US,
| "save the world" vs. "the strong can do whatever they want".
| I am not sure China does for the sake of sustainability and
| environment. Yes I know the end result might be the same but
| are the reasons the same?
| martinpw wrote:
| I keep hearing this argument (that China does not care
| about climate change or the environment so it must be doing
| it for other reasons) but I just don't understand it. Why
| would you think they don't care about these things?
|
| The Chinese leadership understands several things very
| clearly:
|
| - The country has experienced multiple catastrophic natural
| disasters in the past.
|
| - Such disasters often lead to regime change (losing the
| mandate of heaven via natural disasters leading to social
| unrest)
|
| - The leadership is comprised of smart people (and a lot of
| engineers) and they don't play dumb political games like
| denying the reality of climate change.
|
| - Climate change will bring far worse problems in future,
| which threatens the country's economic growth and therefore
| their hold on power.
|
| So they have massive incentive to care about the reality of
| climate change and do everything they can to mitigate it
| and protect their environment.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| That's speculation, and probably good speculation.
|
| On the concrete side we do know that they also care
| deeply about local pollution. They made massive efforts
| to clean the air for the Beijing Olympics, amongst other
| many other moves to reduce local air pollution.
| martinpw wrote:
| I'm in Beijing right now. I was also here 20+years ago.
| The difference is astonishing. Back then the air was
| filthy, it was hard to breathe, you never saw the sun.
| Today it is blue sky most days, EVs everywhere, electric
| scooters, busses, even garbage trucks. The roads are
| quiet. The air is clean. The high speed rail system is
| astonishingly good. This really feels in some ways like
| living in the future. The West is years behind.
|
| Of course there are still a lot of obvious problems to be
| addressed, but the rate of progress is the really
| impressive thing.
| inerte wrote:
| I don't understand why you think I am making this
| argument you're referring to, when I SPECIFICALLY said "I
| don't understand the Chinese motivation" AND I presented
| the US side, which I am familiar with.
|
| My whole post was an ask for more information on the
| Chinese side (each of my 3 phrases were asking this!),
| which you have provided thank you very much, but I could
| do without the "you're dumb" when I ask a question.
| rdm_blackhole wrote:
| China also invests in solar/alternative energy because they
| still import a lot of coal from many other countries (some
| of which are aligned with the US) and that is something
| that could be leveraged in case of conflict.
|
| Therefore reaching self sufficiency in terms of power
| generation will make this threat less relevant and an enemy
| will no be able to use it to make them back off.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| _Maybe_ China wants to "save the world", in at least as
| much as they literally run into problems with smog and
| pollution locally and would like to reduce that pollution
| for practical reasons, as well as some prestige, especially
| now that the US is having a hissy fit on the global stage.
|
| But none of that matters, China would pursue massive solar
| power infrastructure regardless, because _they want energy
| independence_. Stupid amounts of solar power means they
| will no longer be importing lots of oil and fuel, and that
| means they would be less vulnerable to the US blockading
| them in some sort of conflict, which is one of their
| primary geopolitical concerns.
|
| They would do this even if solar power was dramatically
| less effective or was significantly more expensive, because
| solar power is the first kind of power generation that it
| is economical to way overbuild, and have serious redundancy
| and surplus and excess, because there's no consumables that
| scale your running costs like if you tried to build massive
| amounts of coal power plants.
|
| China would like to have that kind of scale for power
| because they can use it to subsidize things like
| datacenters running less efficient Chinese made computer
| components. The fact that power doesn't have to run a
| profit in China helps this.
|
| The US should be _taking fucking notes_ , about how
| nationalized infrastructure can be a force multiplier
| economically, and how infrastructure that _doesn 't have to
| be profitable_ can be even more powerful.
|
| Slaving ourselves to the enrichment of well connected
| capital owners is harming our country, and preventing a
| literal energy revolution. We have the option to, for the
| first time in human history, _actually_ have energy
| resources that are too cheap to meter.
| jimt1234 wrote:
| Latest excuse: sustainable energy is a scam.
|
| https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-
| content/uploads/2025/05/Ending...
| BolexNOLA wrote:
| They say with a straight face as they tout the merits of
| "Beautiful Clean Coal." This administration man...what's
| there left to say?
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| Pretty sure the US has always been on the losing side of
| that, when calculated per capita.
|
| China's numbers did rise quickly on that measure and is above
| the EU now I think but still way below the US.
|
| And if you don't like per capita, then China with 4x as many
| people is still behind the US when you compare cumulative
| CO2.
| Onavo wrote:
| If you ignore the pollution and environmental aspects, the
| main geopolitical reason is because the Straits of Malacca
| are very vulnerable in the event of a hot war and the
| overland pipelines from Russia and the middle east are
| insufficient to supply China. Getting rid of the oil
| dependency is the quickest way to autarchy. There are few
| other resources they can't produce themselves.
| almosthere wrote:
| They are so cheap, infact, that no other country in the world
| is able to compete even with huge tariffs.
| lnsru wrote:
| They are not cheap. They are extremely efficient at
| manufacturing. The 201st panel look exactly the same as 1st
| one. Definitely no human labor involved. Huge well readable
| serial numbers placed on multiple places of the panel for
| camera based identification. Usually no single failing panel
| in shipping container. The bad ones were clearly damaged
| during transportation. This efficiency looks scary when I see
| output of my workplace in Germany.
| almosthere wrote:
| Sorry I should have used the word "inexpensive" I was not
| referring to the quality, I was referring to the price. I
| own many Chinese built panels.
| jl6 wrote:
| Let's hope someone can do the same for grid-scale seasonal
| storage. "Excess" solar electricity won't be free in (noon,
| summer) if you can easily bank it for (night, winter).
| BoredPositron wrote:
| It's a thread about Australia not Austria.
| jocaal wrote:
| Power travels near the speed of light. In theory, the entire
| globe can be connected and countries with daylight can supply
| those at night in a cycle.
| fooker wrote:
| We would need impractically high voltages to minimize power
| loss over long distances.
|
| Maybe something like microwave transmission or cheap
| superconductors will solve it.
| Tade0 wrote:
| The loss is not that much - approximately 3.5% per
| 1000km. IIRC the Changji-Guquan HVDC line reported around
| 8% over 3300km thanks to working at 1100kV.
|
| Extend that to 10k km and you're looking at approximately
| 25%, but if it's surplus solar, who cares?
|
| Such a line costs as much as a highway broadly speaking,
| so it's not impossible to build.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| For reference, that would give me in Maine the ability to
| buy power from a solar farm in Arizona or other literally
| unutilized deserts.
|
| Local power costs are over 30 cents per KWh, so that
| could be pretty competitive.
|
| The problem is that, no profit based organization will
| ever build "surplus" solar to enable that kind of thing.
| If we want surplus power, if we want a strong grid, if we
| want cheap power, if we want to enable the ability to
| quite literally waste solar power on inefficient
| processes (including things like industrial processes
| that produce less CO2 or generating hydrogen or methane
| as long term energy storage), _we have to get the
| government to make it happen_
|
| But, uh, we hired people who would rather spend $170
| billion on harassing random cities and brown people
| so..... Everyone get ready to pay absurd rates for
| electricity to support outdated businesses that have been
| directing American energy policy since Reagan, including
| paying about 60k coal miners in west virginia for a
| resource that is _economically inferior to other fossil
| fuels_ but because they voted for a democrat once they
| now get a stranglehold on the US economy.
| noir_lord wrote:
| Unsure if this one will ever go ahead but if it does it's
| pretty impressive in scope.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xlinks_Morocco%E2%80%93UK_P
| owe...
| cycomanic wrote:
| > For reference, that would give me in Maine the ability
| to buy power from a solar farm in Arizona or other
| literally unutilized deserts. > > Local power costs are
| over 30 cents per KWh, so that could be pretty
| competitive. > > The problem is that, no profit based
| organization will ever build "surplus" solar to enable
| that kind of thing. If we want surplus power, if we want
| a strong grid, if we want cheap power, if we want to
| enable the ability to quite literally waste solar power
| on inefficient processes (including things like
| industrial processes that produce less CO2 or generating
| hydrogen or methane as long term energy storage), _we
| have to get the government to make it happen_
|
| There are huge orbortunities for arbitrage in these
| areas. That's why in Europe there has been significant
| investment into HVDC connections recently. AFAIK they are
| mostly (all? ) build privately without special government
| subsidies (over the usual ones that all large
| infrastructure projects always seem to get). I think this
| partly the beauty of the renewable revolution, it
| cycomanic wrote:
| > For reference, that would give me in Maine the ability
| to buy power from a solar farm in Arizona or other
| literally unutilized deserts. > > Local power costs are
| over 30 cents per KWh, so that could be pretty
| competitive. > > The problem is that, no profit based
| organization will ever build "surplus" solar to enable
| that kind of thing. If we want surplus power, if we want
| a strong grid, if we want cheap power, if we want to
| enable the ability to quite literally waste solar power
| on inefficient processes (including things like
| industrial processes that produce less CO2 or generating
| hydrogen or methane as long term energy storage), _we
| have to get the government to make it happen_ >
|
| I think what we seeing in a lot of places now is quite
| the opposite. There are significant opportunities for
| arbitrage, so private entities are building HVDC lines in
| Europe for example (without special subsidies over the
| usual ones that all big infrastructure always seems to
| get AFAIK). That's part of the beauty of the renewables
| revolution it breaks up the stronghold that only a few
| big corps held over generation.
| xigoi wrote:
| Do we have good enough conductors for that?
| quickthrowman wrote:
| Utility conductors are just aluminum wrapped around a
| steel core, air is the insulator. You can theoretically
| handle voltage drop with larger conductors, and there are
| probably ways to 'boost' power over a long transmission
| line run. I deal with electrical wiring past the utility
| service entrance and am not super familiar with the
| utility side so perhaps an EE who works on the grid can
| chime in with more detail.
|
| I also know breakers for HVDC are extremely challenging
| to make, AC power has the benefit of sine waves crossing
| the zero line so power can be switched/broken a lot
| easier than with DC.
| latentsea wrote:
| Regional grids are connected via tie-lines, and I heard
| international grids are also starting to become more
| connected in this way too. Though, I'd imagine it's
| complicated to send power from one side of the planet to
| the other. For starters grids can have different
| frequencies that need to be converted between. Also all
| transmission lines are subject to loss factors. In addition
| all the intermediary transmission companies have to route
| the power and avoid congestion on their grids, Then you
| have deal with all the financial settlement of the wheeling
| charges, which if you have to go through multiple grids and
| multiple currencies sounds like fun to deal with.
|
| My understanding of the intentions of connecting
| international grids is for things like emergency supply of
| electricity to a different grid to stabilise the frequency
| and prevent blackouts.
| gmueckl wrote:
| This isn't going to happen simply because it would
| introduce enormous strategic vulnerabilities. The first act
| ina war would be to sever an opponent's grid connections to
| their neighbors because that would massively erode their
| ability to maintain an orderly civil society.
| aiono wrote:
| Or if everyone depends on another maybe we will not go
| into a war with each other.
| tintor wrote:
| Well, power dependencies would be uni-directional, not
| bi-directional.
| adwn wrote:
| People believed this before. Then WW1 happened. 100 years
| later, people forgot the lessons of the past, and
| believed this again. Then Russia invaded Ukraine.
| no_wizard wrote:
| If Ukraine was part of NATO it wouldn't have happened I
| am willing to bet.
|
| Most in depth analysis I've seen of these Russia -
| Ukraine conflicts cite this as one of the top factors in
| why Russia invaded both a decade ago and the most recent
| war that is ongoing.
|
| That is to say - mutual cooperation agreements like that
| have enough teeth to keep conflicts to a minimum as the
| repercussions are severe
|
| Also another ultimate irony is that Russia didn't
| completely cut the rest of Europe off from its oil and
| gas. That symbiosis continues albeit not the same way.
| Perhaps electricity would be the same
| thelastgallon wrote:
| This won't happen because the lines are bi-directional.
| It would be like chopping off their own energy supply.
| Because of the Earth's rotation, neighbors can take
| advantage of each other's sunlight. Parts of Europe and
| North Africa's energy markets are already working on
| this.
|
| For the past 100+ years, the US has been spending a
| significant amount of money on protecting oil supplies to
| protect its oil billionaires and its economy. It's the #1
| budget item, outspending the combined military spending
| of the next 10 economies. This can be reduced to zero,
| and ultimately, the $ 39 trillion deficit can be
| eliminated.
| gmueckl wrote:
| Bidirectional powerlines make the grid more stable for
| tha larger region around most countries because it makes
| it easier to route around the conflict as far as
| capacities permit. Not many countries span coast to coast
| in a way that couldn't be routed around. So that would
| actually increase the vulnerability of individual
| countries.
|
| The EU is actually extremely special because its
| souvereign member states collaborate in almost all areas
| on a level that is unmatched anywhere else. But the
| ideological foundation is getting eroded by propaganda
| and if that assault is effective, Europe will balcanize
| again and end up experiencing many more armed conflicts.
| energy123 wrote:
| A second solution is to overbuild so you have enough even in
| winter. Easier to do near the equator.
|
| A third solution is to pipe it across timezones using HVDC
| and accept some level of efficiency loss and some
| geopolitical risks.
|
| A fourth solution is to mix lots of wind, which performs
| better in winter and cancels out the lower insolation.
|
| Realistically it's going to be all of the above, with the
| balance determined by local factors.
| Manabu-eo wrote:
| Related to overbuilding, vertically mounted solar panels
| can help flatten the generation curve during the day, and
| may perform better than "optimally tilted" panels on
| winter, especially where snow might otherwise be a problem.
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| For all the people hyping LLM AI in order to raise lots of
| cash, solar and battery is the real transformational technology
| of our time. But it gets less press, as it just doesn't benefit
| a few, who need the press hype.
| shadyKeystrokes wrote:
| Now if only those people who got electricity got yo study for
| free via cellphone so they could apply themselves to scaming
| and navelgazing bubble investments.
|
| Srsly though, if the 2 billion in the middle east could
| contribute to global society freely, that would be fantastic.
| gambiting wrote:
| How is that even remotely related to this topic or to what OP
| said? Or do you just have a thing you want to rant about no
| matter the topic?
| teemur wrote:
| Don't forget Germany. If you look at the amount of PV built in
| Germany early this century and make some admittedly strong
| assumptions about learning curve, one could argue the
| Energiewende, then usually called failure, singlehandedly
| accelerated PV development by decades. I don't recall Germany
| ever credited on that.
| antonymoose wrote:
| I remember some old tidbit about the American westward
| expansion, most railroad projects failed and went bankrupt
| and were sold for pennies on the dollar to the ultimate
| owners.
|
| Something sad about that, really.
| csours wrote:
| See also the dark fiber build out before the telecom
| collapse of ~2001
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecoms_crash
| hylaride wrote:
| A lot of them got built with per-mile subsidies and cashed
| out via shoddy construction. The ones that focused on long-
| term financial sustainability more often did fine, but it
| is a lesson in perverse incentives (though some would argue
| that afterwards cheap overbuilt lines facilitated much
| faster and more extensive westward expansion of people).
| dylan604 wrote:
| move fast, break things is never a good long term plan
| limagnolia wrote:
| By building the initial rails cheaply, they could then
| bring in equipment and supplies over those rails to
| rebuild the railroad to a much better quality, and at a
| lower cost than if they had to bring that equipment and
| supplies in without the rails in the first instance.
|
| That doesn't mean they always actually invested the money
| to rebuild properly... but it was sound engineering
| theory.
|
| Of course, there were other financial shenanigans too-
| see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cr%C3%A9dit_Mobilier_sc
| andal
| yread wrote:
| > shoddy construction
|
| Just today there was a newsletter from Construction
| Physics about Strap Rail. Literally wooden rails with a
| iron plate strapped on top put in the mud. Only in the
| US, 10 times cheaper. But more expensive to maintain and
| gone in years instead of decades for normal iron rails
| though.
| aworks wrote:
| Leland Stanford made out ok, AFAIK
| twoodfin wrote:
| The lesson, which we learned in the dot-com era and will
| likely learn again in the AI era, is that the benefits of
| step-change new infrastructure technology do not accrue in
| the long run to the infrastructure builders--the technology
| only creates the step-change if it finds its way to being a
| commodity!--but diffuses throughout the new, ultimately
| much larger, more productive economy as a whole.
| nielsole wrote:
| I still wonder the same about the EU and LED lighting.
| Prohibiting traditional bulbs was highly controversial at the
| time
| dylan604 wrote:
| if we didn't transition through the horrible days of CFLs
| first. since we did, that's a big knock against
| wongarsu wrote:
| If cheap LED light bulbs had been around we wouldn't have
| need legislation in the first place. Both Germany's solar
| subsidies and the EU prohibiting (high power)
| incandescent light bulbs were cases where existing
| alternatives were bad (solar was way too expensive to be
| practical, non-incandescent light bulbs sucked), but
| legislation intentionally created demand for them anyways
| in hopes that with demand there would be research and
| scaling effects that create better cheaper products. In
| both cases it worked, even if the transition was a bit
| painful in both cases.
| schmorptron wrote:
| It's probably because germany decided to sorta give up on it
| and all of the production and further research moved to
| china?
| Phelinofist wrote:
| Yeah and then we let it die
| uecker wrote:
| It has been called a "gift to the world".
| https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/14/science/earth/sun-and-
| win...
|
| But since then there was an endless stream of negative press
| especially in English speaking countries against German
| energy policies, so not much of this positive comments are
| still remembered.
| lazyeye wrote:
| The article was about Australia, not China. Incidentally it was
| also Australia that invented the modern solar panel.
| nosianu wrote:
| > _The article was about Australia, not China._
|
| And??? The parent commenter wrote about the manufacturer of
| said solar panels, going outside the frame of that article to
| something related but still relevant, given that that article
| surely is meant to stimulate a more general discussion.
| lazyeye wrote:
| Seems like every 2nd post on HN, regardless of the actual
| content, becomes an argument between advocates for the US
| and China. In the case of China it's particularly egregious
| as they get to use US platforms to push their cause, whilst
| China blocks all foreign foreign access their own
| platforms. It's tiresome.
| breve wrote:
| > _China has done the world collectively as a whole a major
| service_
|
| I doubt the Uyghurs would agree:
|
| https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-57124636
|
| https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/in-broad...
|
| https://sustainabilitymag.com/articles/gb-energy-blocks-use-...
|
| https://www.greenmatch.co.uk/blog/solar-companies-linked-to-...
| acdha wrote:
| I agree their treatment of the Uyghurs is deplorable but the
| way you had to chop that quote like a creationist undermines
| your point. It's possible to say China has done both good and
| bad things, and recognizing the cost rather than denying
| something factual is probably a more effective.
| breve wrote:
| You're rationalizing slavery. That kind of nihilistic
| apathy is never useful.
| acdha wrote:
| Not in the slightest. I'm saying that it's possible to
| recognize that evil without denying that something else
| is good. Just do both at the same time, like how we might
| say that the world has benefited from polyurethane,
| digital computers (Konrad Zuse), or rocketry without in
| any way excusing the Nazi government which controlled
| Germany at the time.
| breve wrote:
| You are entirely rationalizing it.
| maxglute wrote:
| Most of them would. These are labour-rural-transfer programs
| thats been going on in PRC for poverty alleviation for 20+
| years that retards in west twisted into slave labour.
|
| The entire coerced labour propaganda are bunch of country
| bumpkin Uyghurs getting enrolled in poverty alleviation
| programs where they're paid close to median wage, i.e. 2x+
| typical subsistent agri income. This is equivalent to US
| starting a jobs program to give bottom quantile earners (15k)
| a median income (40k).
|
| The reality is these are well paying jobs, relative to bottom
| quantile recruits these programs are designed to uplift
| usually go towards more ethnically "Chinese" applicants,
| because factory bosses don't want to deal with Uyghurs who
| don't Mandarin Good until central pushed Uyghurs (and
| Tibetans) to front of queue, when frankly much more qualified
| "Chinese" applicants exist.
|
| Are individuals sometimes fucked in the process, of course,
| statistic inevitability, but poverty alleivation is net good
| for Uyghurs, XJ solar is net good for the world.
| breve wrote:
| Sure. Slavery is freedom.
| maxglute wrote:
| It's slavery in the same sense as DoD recruiters use
| underhanded means to get kids with no prospects to sign
| up for military. Except those kids get sent in GWOT to
| kill Muslims for a few tours whereas when XJ bureaucrats
| hit quota they get more solar panels.
| maxglute wrote:
| Never going to happen but there should be some sort of global
| emission accounting standard to factor in exporting goods that
| reduce emissions (over lifetimes), vs not, i.e. a barrel of oil
| burned should count at producer side the consumer side.
| BtM909 wrote:
| > The Australian government is floating a scheme that would share
| the benefits of solar power with everyone on the grid, offering
| totally free electricity to ratepayers in the middle of the day,
| when the sun is shining the strongest.
|
| > Australia proposes letting everyone benefit from negative
| wholesale rates
|
| I know more countries have this now, so that's a good initiative
| that hopefully will spread to other countries (with negative
| rates).
| Leherenn wrote:
| It might not be as reliable in other places to do it every day,
| even just in summer. Still, there's clearly a trend globally
| towards more dynamic prices.
| almosthere wrote:
| For some reason when I read that I thought it was offering anyone
| in the world free electricity, and I started imagining the USA
| setting up a giant undersea cable... then I realized the voltage
| drop would be too high, then finally realized they meant it for
| Australians only!
| freedomben wrote:
| Now I'm imagining drilling through the Earth to get the
| shortest possible line from Australia to my house. I like this
| boldlybold wrote:
| If you're already down there, set up some geothermal!
| bombcar wrote:
| We can repurpose the burrito tubes.
| smallerize wrote:
| The core is mostly iron and nickel already, so you don't have
| to drill the whole way!!
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| There is one project for an undersea cable to Singapore.
|
| As solar efficiency goes up, and prices of solar and batteries
| come down and make local installation easier, an already
| audacious project seems less and less likely to complete.
|
| I think they're pivoting the giant solar farms they were
| building for this to AI or green hydrogen now.
| wussboy wrote:
| It's almost like that idea where the first people to leave in
| generational star ships will arrive at their new home to find
| the people who left in the third or forth generation ships
| already there for some time, technology having advanced so
| much in that time.
|
| By the time they get the cable to Singapore, it will just be
| cheaper to generate it in Singapore.
| bobmcnamara wrote:
| Hey now, it's not free oil.
| vondur wrote:
| Wish they would do this in California where wholesale power can
| go negative for the same reason.
| trollbridge wrote:
| And they actually charge you a fee if you generate. My brother
| in law unhooked from the grid because back feeding was charging
| him $100 a month. To give away power.
| mock-possum wrote:
| Is that a California thing? In OR it's like ~$15 to interlink
| (or whatever the term is)
| danans wrote:
| > And they actually charge you a fee if you generate. My
| brother in law unhooked from the grid because back feeding
| was charging him $100 a month. To give away power.
|
| Which utility and plan is this? I'm not aware of any
| California _residential_ rate plans that charge you for
| putting power back on the grid, much less $100 /month.
|
| That said, wholesale electricity rates are set by high
| frequency supply/demand markets.
|
| Recent residential net metering rates are closely aligned
| with wholesale supply/demand based rates, so most utilities
| will compensate your brother in law near $0 when you are
| pushing power to the grid when wholesale rates are <= $0,
| because there are not enough buyers of the power he is
| generating.
|
| He is using the grid as a battery, which comes at a cost.
|
| This is of course changing as more grid connected storage
| comes online and creates demand for off peak electricity. In
| that case, you actually get paid for selling power back to
| the grid during high grid stress periods. I get paid a few
| hundred dollars a year in CA for doing that with my measly
| home backup battery.
| vondur wrote:
| I think they're referring to the fact that if you're
| connected to the grid, you may be charged a base fee of
| around $100 per month, even if you don't use any power.
| Previously, homeowners received credits for the excess
| solar energy they sent back to the grid, but the state has
| since ended that program.
| jimt1234 wrote:
| A friend of mine is trying to build a house in a remote area
| of Southern California. He's planning to be completely "off-
| grid", generating power exclusively from solar. However,
| local regulators insist he hook up to the local electric
| utility. Further, in order to run the electrical cables to
| his property (from the substation), the local fire department
| insists that the brush is cleared around the new electrical
| cables. All in, he's looking at around $100K for something he
| doesn't even want or need. He said he's tried explaining this
| to local regulators, but they're not hearing it.
|
| Oh yeah, yes, after paying all the money to get the
| electrical hookup he doesn't want or need - yeah, he's gonna
| be on the hook for around $100/month.
| jimt1234 wrote:
| It gets even crazier. Latest: he's got a lawyer that says
| if he plants trees on a certain percentage of his property,
| it can be classified as a farm, and then exempt from the
| power utility hook-up requirement. But that comes with its
| own requirements, like a well to get water and certain
| fencing. But yeah, keep in mind, this is all so a dude can
| generate his own power on his own property.
| theryan wrote:
| If he wants to be completely off-grid wouldn't he want
| his own well anyways? I'm on a well and it's actually
| really nice to have zero water bills. I also have a cabin
| that's on a well that was dug in the 1940s and is still
| pumping out 'free' water.
| jeffbee wrote:
| If your friend wants to build a remote off-grid house
| that's in the middle of nowhere, why wouldn't they shop for
| a jurisdiction that allows it? Places that require utility
| connections are actual places generally. When you live out
| in the center of Inyo County you can be off the grid if you
| want. It sounds to me like your friend wants the benefits
| of proximity to developed places, but also wants to opt-out
| of contributing to the development of the place.
| jimt1234 wrote:
| You're not wrong ^^^
| vondur wrote:
| I'm assuming that, based on the property's remote
| location and the lack of existing power infrastructure,
| it would make sense for them to build something that's
| primarily offgrid.
| quickthrowman wrote:
| Your friend is not the last person that will own that
| house, forcing a utility connection is a good thing for
| future owners. The same reasoning is why building codes
| exist, nobody really cares if you want to live in a
| substandard dwelling (aside from your mortgage insurer) but
| basically every house has more than one owner over time.
| Building codes mean when you buy a house, you can be
| reasonably certain there aren't any weird cut corners.
|
| He should've done DD on the land and local AHJ restrictions
| before moving ahead with a plan that wouldn't work. One
| call to the local planning and permit office is all it
| would've taken to avoid this problem and find a different
| jurisdiction.
| testing22321 wrote:
| Have you ever lived in an off grid house?
|
| Friends have a full sized off grid house in the Yukon
| since 2010. Every modern convenience, stunning location.
| Never a single power outage in all those years. How many
| power outages have you had?
|
| Off grid is not somehow sub standard.
| quickthrowman wrote:
| No, but I have a very good idea of what it costs to
| procure, install, operate, and maintain a 24kW or 48kW
| generator. About 30-40 grand if you're adding a sizable
| diesel day tank or propane tank.
|
| Once it's installed, you've got fuel deliveries plus
| regular maintenance and monitoring. You're looking at
| thousands of dollars a year to operate your own generator
| for a 100A or 200A service. If you're already installing
| a propane tank for heating then the costs can be spread
| between heating and power generation but it's still a
| sizable investment.
|
| Generators are nowhere near as reliable as you're making
| them out to be. Maintaining and fueling one is a hassle
| that the vast majority of people would rather not deal
| with.
| testing22321 wrote:
| Their house is primarily solar powered.
|
| They have no diesel generator. No diesel tank. Propane
| for cooking.
| danans wrote:
| Not free, but PGE has started an hourly variable rate plan
| pilot:
|
| https://www.pge.com/en/account/rate-plans/hourly-flex-pricin...
|
| However, they aren't taking net metering customers yet, but if
| you end up spending more on the hourly variable rate plan,
| they'll refund you to the same you would have spent on the
| regular time of use rate plan.
| shevy-java wrote:
| But it is so damn HOT there. And Australia has the most vicious
| animals and plants too. It is like an alien continent.
| choeger wrote:
| Yeah. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that even the electrons
| are poisonous there...
| mywittyname wrote:
| Zapbears
| kulahan wrote:
| I'm pretty sure they get snow sometimes in NSW. AUS is big
| enough you can find many climates there!
|
| You're not wrong about the plants and animals though. It's
| basically an island, and islands _always_ end up with super
| weird flora and fauna - there usually just aren 't many (any?)
| predators, so the competition takes species in weird
| directions.
| testing22321 wrote:
| There are many ski resorts. The biggest has 44 lifts.
|
| Yes, it snows.
| georgebcrawford wrote:
| I've lived here 15 years and seen two snakes, zero deadly
| spiders, zero crocs.
|
| Yes, I'm on the city fringe. Like millions of others here.
| somanyphotons wrote:
| With free power for 3 hours a day, I'd skip installing solar and
| I'd buy a ~30kwh battery (2x Ruixu Lithi2-16) and a big inverter.
|
| Charge the batteries in the free time and then use the stored
| power the rest of the day.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| Australia will give you a 30% discount on that purchase, they
| have a fund of 2.3 Billion Australian dollars available for
| this purpose called the Cheaper Home Batteries program.
| chankstein38 wrote:
| Man as someone paying a premium for power in the US,
| Australia is sounding really nice
| jjcm wrote:
| I took a job with Atlassian out there and got my
| citizenship.
|
| Best 5 years of my life. I'm back in the US now
| temporarily, but there's zero doubt in my mind I will end
| up back in Aus. I've lived in 8 cities now(1), and Sydney
| was the highest quality of life I've had out of any of
| them. Great infrastructure, great work-life balance, great
| culture, and fantastic weather. Only downsides are the
| distance and the lack of ozone layer (do not fuck around
| with the sun in Australia - there's a reason why they have
| over 10x the global average of melanoma). Happy to answer
| any questions about it or the process for getting
| citizenship.
|
| (1) Cities lived for comparison: San Diego, LA, Honolulu,
| San Jose, San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, Sydney
| SoftTalker wrote:
| What about the spiders?
| somanyphotons wrote:
| If a bad spider bite happens, government-provided health
| care has your back
| viraptor wrote:
| I've seen more spiders in my house when I lived by the
| river in the UK than for years in Australia.
| obroc wrote:
| Not sure if this is a joke or not, but this is much like
| saying "don't all Americans carry guns?" Almost none do,
| it's more common in rural areas, you will see it in an
| urban area once or twice in your life. Same for super
| deadly animals in Australia. But no one in Australia has
| died from a spider bite since anti venom was invented.
| obroc wrote:
| I'll add Texas, UK, and the Netherlands to that list as
| places I've lived that Sydney far surpasses.
|
| But I'll add to the downside that housing prices are
| actually laughable here. How anyone affords to buy a
| house here is beyond me.
| fekunde wrote:
| Curious how you'd rank the 8 cities
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| You can do something similar in Texas IIRC, with free
| electricity at certain times
| testing22321 wrote:
| But then you have to live in Texas.
| dfex wrote:
| My subsidised 48kWh battery is getting installed in two weeks
| - and I can't wait.
|
| I have also upgraded to a 20kW inverter (I have ~10kW of
| panels on the roof) so I can import or export twice as fast
| and I will be switching to a provider that offers wholesale
| pricing. Getting a guaranteed 3 hours of free power a day for
| charging (even in winter) is just going to be the icing on
| the cake.
|
| Based on back of the envelope calculations, the battery
| should be paid off in about 5-6 years during which time I
| will have paid zero for electricity (outside of a $25/month
| access charge).
|
| "The future is already here - it's just not very evenly
| distributed." - William Gibson
| shadyKeystrokes wrote:
| Jit chemical processes, refinig and metal melting?
| scotty79 wrote:
| Mine bitcoin ffs, sell bitcoin and build more solar. That's the
| only way we ever get ahead of the climate change, through the
| power of greed and waste. Clean electricity must cost nothing. At
| no point ever human civilization developed reasonably and in
| conscious moderation.
|
| Don't bet on us avoiding apocalypse by the only way that never
| happened in the history of development of our species. We won't
| suddenly get any smarter, we never did. And now it's important.
| someone4958923 wrote:
| Sshhh... Don't tell the AI companies :P
| larusso wrote:
| I still wonder who came up with the charge your car during the
| day / use it as a batterie. I don't have the luxury's of owning
| two EVs that I can charge and use at the same time. If my car
| stand unused at home so I can charge it would mean I use it
| during the night? I understand that there could be useage pattern
| where someone works from home once or twice a week and waits with
| the charge during these peek hours. But the generalization of
| just charge your car during the day is weird.
|
| Unless that also counts when the car could charge for free at the
| workplace of course.
| jeffbee wrote:
| Everything about the push to convert the whole fleet to EVs
| falls apart under even the slightest rational scrutiny.
| bdcravens wrote:
| "the push to convert the whole fleet"
|
| Is that anything like the "_ agenda being pushed" I keep
| hearing about, but can't seem to see anywhere?
| jeffbee wrote:
| Well, to me the EV conversion push, which undeniably exists
| and has many government policies supporting it, does
| represent an agenda, and that agenda is "Cars Uber Alles".
| The obviously more practical approach to the problem is to
| support the conversion of transportation demand to less
| energy-intensive modes such as trains, buses, bicycles, and
| feet. It isn't very practical to say we're all going to
| have an EV and we'll have plenty of megawatt-scale chargers
| for everyone.
| testing22321 wrote:
| Why not?
|
| We extract, refine, transport, store and pump billions of
| litres of toxic chemicals everyday to power our cars now.
|
| We could do the same with electricity if we wanted to,
| and use a fraction of the energy.
| jeffbee wrote:
| The liquid fuel distribution system is simply far more
| space-efficient than any known means of EV charging. The
| liquid fuel scheme works because the energy flux through
| the pump is obscene. EVs don't have an answer to this
| problem.
| recursive wrote:
| Is it falling apart right now? It seems the poster has
| forgotten that EVs can be charged at home but also away from
| home. They mention that in the last paragraph, but it kind of
| seems to undermine the whole premise that this is a problem.
| jeffbee wrote:
| Yes, it is in the process of disintegrating. The main
| symptom is the transformer shortage.
| testing22321 wrote:
| A few things.
|
| Obviously it still works great on the weekend, or whatever days
| you're not working to charge the EV at home for free.
|
| Given all power is free, why wouldn't you charge the EV at work
| in the middle of the day? Even if you pay to have the charger
| installed it will pay back quickly.
|
| It's not going to happen overnight, but with literally free
| electricity things will change quickly, and even huge parking
| structures or lots will have a stack of chargers that are free
| or very close to it.
| larusso wrote:
| I don't know how the charging infrastructure in Australia is.
| But it's of course cool that they have excess energy enough.
| crmd wrote:
| If my 208V,200A service here in New York City were free for 4
| hours a day, I might buy a ~30kW chiller to run during free time
| and store its output in a big thermos or ice cube.
|
| Assuming a COP of 2.5 (small, air cooled), that would be around
| 300 kW or 1M BTU of cold storage per day, which is around 42 kBTU
| or 3.5 tons of raw cooling capacity running 24x7.
|
| I imagine if commercial buildings with support for larger and
| vastly more efficient chillers did this we could take a huge
| chunk out of NYC's ~50 TWh power bill.
|
| Ok, I've convinced myself. ConEd, please update when the free
| electricity program is activated.
| Razengan wrote:
| So just to fantasize for a bit,
|
| Suppose fusion power becomes a thing, and after handwaiving some
| issues let's assume it can power everything indefinitely.
|
| Does that make things like heating, cooling, travel, ocean
| desalination, bandwidth, AI, Bitcoin mining, permanently free?
|
| Shouldn't all of humanity be homing in on that holy grail?
|
| I read here and there that geothermal could be the next best
| thing. Maybe HN can say more on that.
|
| (P.S. terrestrial fusion may also explain why nobody bothers to
| build Dyson spheres out there)
| hdivider wrote:
| In short: yes. It _can_ be done. Clean, almost limitless
| energy, funded in a way to provide effectively free electricity
| for ordinary people. Restrictions would have to be in place to
| prevent true excess, but regulations already handle such
| matters in other areas.
|
| The ambient vibe of our time, and here on HN, is often really
| pessimistic. I don't believe such pessimism is realistic.
| Commercial grade fusion power will come, and we should push
| very hard to make it happen. It will change the equations at
| the core of the economy and open up whole new paths for
| technology -- far beyond the pure digital.
| seanw444 wrote:
| Then some very rich and powerful people become very unrich and
| unpowerful. And they could never let that happen willingly.
| Razengan wrote:
| But they'd be able to build their moon castles sooner and
| control the next frontier in their lifetimes:
|
| What's cooler than being a billionaire? A SPACE BILLIONAIRE.
| hollywood_court wrote:
| Damn that's a big difference when compared to how the State of
| Alabama treats solar energy.
|
| You get penalized for having solar panels here in Alabama the
| Beautiful.
| andrewinardeer wrote:
| On the flip side here in Australia the government for years
| encouraged us to get panels put on our house by selling it as,
| "You can export power and create a small income exporting the
| surplus you create".
|
| So many people did so that at one point last year the government
| said, "So many people are exporting it now, and the surplus is so
| great on the network we may have to charge you for exporting it".
| Wholesale power prices become negative during peak solar times -
| but retail companies will still charge you for using it!.
|
| Obviously, that didn't go down too well and this is the response
| - free electricity during peak solar hours.
|
| That said, my understanding is that free electricity is only for
| people who are on the "default offer" from the electricity
| companies - that is effectively the highest tier of pricing. Most
| people are not on the default offer.
| hexbin010 wrote:
| Governments do this all the time. And wonder why there is
| resistance and have to roll out the "why do you want your
| grandchildren to die" propaganda for the next eco green net
| zero thing du jour.
| jay_kyburz wrote:
| I haven't look into the details, but It sure feels like a slap
| in the face to those of us who invested in panels.
|
| I think this is about battery sales for those that can afford
| it. Fill a battery up for free and use the power during peak
| hours.
| viraptor wrote:
| There's currently a significant rebate on batteries in
| Australia. (Or maybe just Victoria?) So that's definitely one
| attempted solution. People are getting it for costs paying
| off in under 5 years.
| jay_kyburz wrote:
| I got this email from from our local provider the other
| day..
|
| "For a limited time only, we're offering a $500 upfront
| electricity bill credit* with every eligible home battery
| system (Tesla Powerwall 2 & 3, LG Chem HV, SolarEdge
| batteries only) purchased through Electrify with ActewAGL
| and installed by one of our approved installers - plus a
| further $100 credit* every year for the next five years, so
| long as you stay connected to our Virtual Power Plant.
|
| Join the thousands of households across across Australia
| taking advantage of the Cheaper Home Batteries Program.
| Over 100,000 systems have been installed since July 2025,
| and with the rebate scheduled to decrease as installations
| rise, now is the time to act."
| rstuart4133 wrote:
| > I haven't look into the details, but It sure feels like a
| slap in the face to those of us who invested in panels.
|
| Sure. But if you live in Australia, you knew that slap was
| coming. You could almost have said to have signed up for it.
|
| Very early in the piece, the government offered to pay people
| who installed solar about $0.50 for every kWh you fed into
| the grid. To be clear, that was far more than the retail
| price of electricity at the time. It was sunsetted, in 2028
| from memory (so if you signed up back then, that sweet
| subsidy money still flowing strong.) I know a few people who
| installed 50kW of panels on their houses and sheds purely
| because of that incentive.
|
| The idea behind the subsidy was to kickstart the solar
| industry, and it worked. It was always obvious what was going
| to happen to feed in prices if it did work. Given the price
| of power is now very close to $0 for 8 hours a day, it's
| working very, very well. That's how this "free electricity"
| offer came about.
|
| The same incentives are now happening for batteries. The
| Australia electricity regulator created a special kind of
| retailer called a "Virtual Power Plant". It's effectively a
| collective of battery owning consumers, and the VPP allows
| them to sell their excess storage into the wholesale market.
| The government is now subsidising batteries, in the same way
| they subsidised solar panels. And now, they are looking at
| offering free power to charge the batteries(!) The result you
| should be able to get will over a 10% return by installing a
| battery and joining a VPP. Consequently, there is currently a
| shortage of battery installers.
|
| That 10% won't last forever of course. It will last for a
| while, especially in Queensland (where I live) as the
| conservatives are installing more gas turbines rather than
| building more renewables. The high price of gas generated
| power guarantees a good return on my battery investment. I
| will take great pleasure in sending the gas and coal
| generators broke by selling when the price is highest (which
| is a night) and taking their profit.
|
| And fortunately night lasts a long time, and years and years
| of battery installs to take a real bite out of it.
| Nevertheless the fun and profit will wind down eventually.
| When it does I won't be whinging about a receiving slap in
| the face. I will shrug, be thankful I could have my fun while
| it lasted, and move on.
| msy wrote:
| This is a bizarrely negative take. No residential is being
| charged negative prices without very, very explicitly joining a
| plan that exposes them to the direct minute-by-minute wholesale
| price. Most 'EV' plans include free hours during the day (and
| much cheaper power in the early hours as well), it's likely
| it'll be standard within months thanks to this.
|
| They are now also subsidising batteries while should help meet
| the wave of solar with a wave of distributed storage capacity
| to smooth out grid demand as well as successful rollout of
| grid-scale batteries.
|
| This is a generational success story big enough to have geo-
| strategic implications.
| asdefghyk wrote:
| The relatively EASY part is building large arrays of solar panels
| .....
|
| The HARD PART is
|
| 1) STORING this electricity ( Storage is very expensive and
| technology changing)
|
| 3) Getting this electricity from the storage to where its wanted
| - is EXPENSIVE and requires many $BILLIONS of new transmission
| lines ....
| Razengan wrote:
| Taking cues from some sci-fi: Could "broadcast power" be a
| thing? Wireless power on a medium if not mass scale.
| wewewedxfgdf wrote:
| Solar power benefits the rich in Australia.
|
| Renters, as usual, rarely get it.
| testing22321 wrote:
| Did you read the article?
|
| It clearly said the free electricity will be for renters too.
| eduction wrote:
| Does not make economic sense, there is still the cost of panels
| and transmission.
|
| There might be a surplus now but dropping the price to zero will
| increase use (demand).
|
| I was surprised the story does not even specify "residential," it
| really says "everyone." That's a great way to exhaust existing
| supply. Entrepreneurs can presumably be quite creative in the
| shape of businesses they set up if unlimited free power is on
| offer during the day.
| eeasss wrote:
| I have been thinking that you have data centers that follow the
| day around the globe and which are powered by solar power this
| could be a great business model.
| asdefghyk wrote:
| Its only for residences ( not business )
|
| Only available in some parts of Australia
| zacthedev wrote:
| Meanwhile in Great Sydney Area, Australia, my current energy rate
| is 60c (peak) 45c (shoulder) 32c (off-peak) / kWh. That's totally
| fraud
| petermcneeley wrote:
| please dont post the same comment twice
| zacthedev wrote:
| Meanwhile in Great Sydney Area, Australia right now, my current
| energy rate is 60c (peak) 45c (shoulder) 32c (off-peak) / kWh.
| That's totally fraud
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2025-11-06 23:01 UTC)