Comments on: The Coming Solar Electricity Transformation

By: Bob_Wallace

Bob_Wallace — Sun, 16 Jun 2013 19:36:00 +0000

It’s going to be disruptive, but not life changing like computers, the internet, etc. Most people will not be aware of the transition. I doubt if 1 in 100 Americans are aware that our coal use for electricity has dropped from over 50% to 35%.

And I doubt more than a few percent realize how efficient our appliances and gadgets are becoming. Refrigerators use about 25% as much electricity now as they did 20-25 years ago. Try to find someone who knows that.

The real cost savings from renewables won’t appear very rapidly. First, almost no one knows what we spend in external costs for coal pollution. The tax dollars saved will go elsewhere. The health insurance cost savings will be mixed in with all the other increases and decreases in health care.

And the real savings are two to three decades down the road when we have an appreciable amount of paid off wind and solar.

People 30 or 40 years from now are likely to see their monthly utility bills as an insignificant cost. They’ll look back at how much we paid for electricity and gas and smile at their good fortune.

By: mds

mds — Sun, 16 Jun 2013 19:18:00 +0000

Thank you both for that clarification. I will recalibrate myself.

By: mds

mds — Sun, 16 Jun 2013 19:16:00 +0000

Fair enough and thank you for pointing that out. I’m still saying you need to get to financed parity WITH A MARGIN before you start to see explosive self-sustained replacement of conventional sources. We are already there in some areas, as I stated. That will increase going forward. This is a disruptive transition in power sources that we are going into here… just as disruptive as cell phones, home computers, the internet, etc. …difference is this is a change in our energy supply source and is tightly coupled to our standard of living (yes, energy conservation, nega-watts, is important too). If we don’t blow ourselves up over the last fossil fuels, or stupid/blind religious intolerance, then we could actually see a golden age going forward …golden like the sun itself.

By: Zachary Shahan

Zachary Shahan — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 12:03:00 +0000

The same thing crossed my mind about grid parity.

The subsidy thing… ugh, include them all, or cut them all — do a full comparison.

By: Zachary Shahan

Zachary Shahan — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 12:03:00 +0000

Important points… thanks.

By: Zachary Shahan

Zachary Shahan — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 12:01:00 +0000

one of those liberal “appease the critics” things that drives me crazy. include all the subsidies, or cut them all out!

By: Matt

Matt — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 02:18:00 +0000

Also as for corps, many pay based on peak rate (normally when PV is producing).So using PV they can drop from a high tier to a lower one.

By: Pieter Siegers

Pieter Siegers — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 19:42:00 +0000

I think the comparison of solar energy without subsidies and fossil fuels with subsidies is trying to compare apples with pears. It would be good to correct this and re-publish.

By: Ross

Ross — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 17:28:00 +0000

Probably when James Hansen was testifying to Congress in the 1980s.

By: SecularAnimist

SecularAnimist — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 16:28:00 +0000

John Farrell wrote: “in 1974, the first factory producing solar cells for terrestrial applications had just opened in Gaithersburg, Maryland”.

I believe this refers to Solarex. I applied for a job there not long after it opened. To call it a “factory” is a bit of an exaggeration. It was more like a workshop. The solar panels were assembled BY HAND, one at a time — no automation, no assembly line, just technicians in a clean-room environment, meticulously hand-building one panel at a time. The solar industry has come a long, long way since then.

By: Bob_Wallace

Bob_Wallace — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 16:16:00 +0000

If we want to consider grid parity at the wholesale level then the comparison needs to be made based on the cost of electricity during those hours solar produces.

Utility solar is competing against gas peakers, load-shifting, and stored power. Not against the generic 24/365 supply.

We’re seeing a small amount of solar in Germany knocking the heck out of sunny hour wholesale electricity costs. All the grid needs is enough solar input to offset the need for expensive peaking power and grid parity is reached and redefined.

By: S.Nkm

S.Nkm — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 14:41:00 +0000

Now, when *did* we *actually* reach solar grid parity if you include the cost of externalities and remove subsidies for the fossil fuel industry?

By: JamesWimberley

JamesWimberley — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 14:14:00 +0000

A niggle on John Farrell’s definition of grid parity: “when the cost of electricity – without subsidies – is equal to the residential retail electricity rate.” This holds only for a residential installation, or ceteris paribus a commercial one. A utility solar installation has to be competitive with a wholesale rate, before distribution costs.

What’s a subsidy? Fossil fuels get tax breaks too, and also have large unpriced externalities (i.e. destroying civilization). For public policy (not the individual householder) parity should be calculated on a hypothetical level playing field, with no or equal tax breaks. It should also include a price for carbon.

By: Bob_Wallace

Bob_Wallace — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 05:38:00 +0000

0.11% for the first 11 months of 2012. Up x2 from 2011.

Should start taking off now that prices have dropped so much.

By: mikgigs

mikgigs — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 05:18:00 +0000

infact tenth of percent is corrct, because it is for generated electricity but not for installed power installation. differences between mwh and mw is important.solar does not work and night and on full scale only for few hours.

By: Bob_Wallace

Bob_Wallace — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 04:23:00 +0000

Grid parity is generally calculated at a price that includes financing. LCOE includes interest costs. One starts with installed price per watt/kW and adjusts for capacity and financing.

By: mds

mds — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 04:09:00 +0000

I thought solar in the USA was more like 1.4% now, not a tenth or a percent.
Solar pv is below half of parity in the state of Hawaii which is leading to an explosive transition. It is well below parity in some places in S. Cal. when you take into consideration tiered prices. Solar PV outputs when peak electricity prices are highest in the afternoon for AC on hot days. What is important is not so much grid parity, as about half grid parity. At half grid parity home owners and businesses can afford to finance the new PV system and still be saving money. This is the requirement for a disruptive transition in technology. We’re already seeing it in Australia and Hawaii. It’s close in S. Cal, maybe there in some areas. This disruptive growth situation will continue to expand into other areas (all of S. Cal?) as solar PV panels and solar PV install costs continue to drop.

By: agelbert

agelbert — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 03:40:00 +0000

One of those “it’s not hard to figure out” enigmas of our economy: A solar panel lasts longer than a car but the banks don’t want to give super low interest rates for them like they do for cars. Low interest PV panel 20 year loans would make them affordable to most people. For the Federal Reserve that is a logical extension of housing finance but they won’t go there. Centralized power company influence, perhaps?

We’ll get there. But you can safely ASSUME that powerful vested interests delayed us at least TWO DECADES (and as many as 8 Decades!).

Did you ever wonder why the photoelectric effect was known to science since 1905 but, until we needed it in space, wasn’t developed? The timing wasn’t right, you say? Baloney! We had the brains and industry in the 1930s to develop nuclear energy. The photoelectric effect is a snap in comparison. Decade after decade, Big Oil kept us on fossil fuels until THEY COULD DO IT NO LONGER. The entire 20th century was FOOT DRAGING on steroids!
Don’t let them get out of paying for their pollution. Big Oil OWES us!

By: Bob_Wallace

Bob_Wallace — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 23:26:00 +0000

12 cents at $2.40/watt is roughly correct. It’s going to vary depending on how much sunshine your site gets and how much you pay for financing.

Right now residential rooftop is being installed in Germany, England and Australia for $2/watt. We will get there in the US.

I would think you could pretty close to $2/watt if you shopped carefully and played the ‘general contractor’ role.

By: Marion Meads

Marion Meads — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 21:43:00 +0000

So, the total cost of installed retail solar panel should be at most $2.40 per Watt in order to produce electricity at $0.12/kWh retail. This is based on the following statement from the article: “The cost of solar was $0.50 per kWh, equivalent to an installed cost of approximately $10 per Watt”

And by extrapolation, $0.12 per kWh should cost $2.40 per Watt. This is only achievable if you DIY.