| ▲ | epistasis 12 hours ago |
| The grid is HUGELY expensive, an absolutely massive cost for our electricity. And it would still be expensive in a well-regulated environment where you can quickly and easily get permission to build, without, say, voter ballot propositions illegally blocking a transmission line for years [1]. Here in the US we have a very very poorly regulated environment for adding to our grid, it moves slower than molasses and there are so many parties that have unilateral veto points. The advent of a new transmission route in the US these days is pretty much a miracle event. Now imagine a world where there's tons of bribes to government officials all along the way to get a grid going (in the US you just need to bribe landowners and hold-outs). Or there's bribes to get a permit for the large centralized electriticy generator. And you have to deal with importing a whole new skill set and trades, on top of importing all the materials, fuel, etc. Decentralized solar plus batteries is already cheaper than electricity + transmission for me at my home in the US. The only thing stopping me is the permitting hassle or the contractor hassle. Out in greenfield, solar plus storage is so revolutionary. This is bigger than going straight to mobile phones instead of landlines. Africa is going to get so much power, and it's all going to be clean, renewable energy. Thanks to all the entrepreneurs and engineers over the past decades that have continuously and steadily improved this technology, it's one of the bright lights of humanity these days. [1] https://www.utilitydive.com/news/maine-jury-clears-avangrids... |
|
| ▲ | w10-1 12 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| > Thanks to all the entrepreneurs and engineers over the past decades Hat tip also to China's ideological commitment to independence from external oil supplies, as nicely coupled to reducing pollution and greenwashing their image. It's their citizens who sacrifice to make solar power cheap enough. |
| |
| ▲ | chithanh an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | > It's their citizens who sacrifice to make solar power cheap enough. No. Manufacturing labor cost in China is not cheap. In fact since 2012 or so, it is more expensive than in most of Asia. Companies who want cheap labor look elsewhere. https://www.economist.com/business/2023/02/20/global-firms-a... (Archive link: https://archive.fo/tdhXJ ) China is also the only major economy where wages have increased at the same rate as GDP in the last 40 or so years. | | |
| ▲ | adrianN an hour ago | parent [-] | | Solar panel construction is very easy to automate, I don’t think labor is a big driver of cost. |
| |
| ▲ | baxtr 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Like anything else that the world procures cheaply from China btw. | | |
| ▲ | epolanski 9 hours ago | parent [-] | | At this point this is a cliche. There's tons of countries with much cheaper labor. The reasons we build in china are not related to cheap labor, this hasn't been the case from quite some time. | | |
| ▲ | hattmall 9 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Cheap labor is still a major factor, but infrastructure is definitely another. | | |
| ▲ | numpy-thagoras 7 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Most of the time, I don't personally look at it as cheap labour because I am just ordering, e.g. 60,000 of something or 100,000 of something else. It's cheap, yes. I can indeed buy 1,000 of something more locally or from other than China. But when it comes to scale, needing vast shipments, then they are the ones who can actually ship it and do it reliably. It just also happens to be cheaper, too, which is more of a convenience or cherry on top, than the actual attractive part: vast scale. | |
| ▲ | nandomrumber 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | And trust, probably the most valuable commodity. Three or four decades of proven ability to deliver, trusted relationships. Even despite all the political noise. | | |
| ▲ | typpilol 7 hours ago | parent [-] | | The industry basically treats any designs sent to China as a loss since they know it will be duplicated I don't think trust has much to do with it | | |
| ▲ | melagonster 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | If you know it will happen, it is a part of price. | |
| ▲ | gffrd 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I believe Parent is talking about trust in the ability to deliver on promises, not in handling of IP. | | |
| ▲ | typpilol 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | Oh I agree. But I'd say trust is the wrong word They're reliable, but would you really trust them? I think there's a bit of nuance there to differentiate the 2 though. Maybe I'm jaded from working with overseas factories though in ways others wouldn't be. | | |
| ▲ | nandomrumber 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | Are you saying you don’t reverse engineer your competitors, and friends, products? |
|
| |
| ▲ | blitzar an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | China sent tiktok the the US, the gifted geniuses of silicon valley duplicated it and when that was garbage they just took it and said "we own this now" |
|
| |
| ▲ | esseph 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | It's not remotely cheap. A long time ago the cheap labor moved from places like China to places like Mexico, which is one of the reasons so many automotive manufacturing plants there - just a rail ride across the border. Now that hasn't been the case for more than a decade. The cheap labor is in SE Asia and South America. What China has is decades of process improvement, factories, infrastructure, experience, and a willingness to work. They haven't been the cheapest, by far, for a long while. |
| |
| ▲ | mensetmanusman 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | The older generation made huge sacrifices with no wage growth because the CCP kept the currency low. This allowed for China to choose industries it would dominate outside of economic forces. It chose to dominate solar and was allowed to sell panels below raw materials cost in order to kill competition. In one hand it’s good for world solar, on the other hand this has helped cause the rise of the far right all over the west. | | |
| ▲ | stickfigure 8 hours ago | parent [-] | | > The older generation made huge sacrifices with no wage growth ...and poured their savings into the sole investment available, real estate, creating the largest bubble the world has ever seen... | | |
| |
| ▲ | worik 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | This I recal, the 1980s when Japanese manufacturing was dogy as. By 2000 it was the best The same thing is happening in China They are very good at everything they do, and getting better. Good. | | |
| ▲ | usefulcat 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I don't now about Japanese manufacturing per se, but I definitely wouldn't say that finished Japanese products were considered dodgy in the 80s. Sony, Panasonic, Honda, Toyota, various camera brands, Yamaha.. I recall all of those being at least "pretty good". I definitely remember the sense that Japanese cars posed a real threat to the American auto industry, and in hindsight that seems to have been well founded. | | |
| ▲ | coffeebeqn 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | Nintendo! That was definitely not their reputation in the 80s it was top notch |
| |
| ▲ | blackoil 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | You are right except off by couple of decades. So 60s to 80s. | |
| ▲ | lll-o-lll 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Japanese manufacturing was dodgy in the 80’s? I don’t think so. “What do you mean doc? All the best stuff is made in Japan” “Unbelievable” | | |
| ▲ | kilpikaarna 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | That's the entire point of the joke, yeah. Japanese manufacturing was dodgy in the 50s-60s but great by the 80s. Korean manufacturing might've been considered dodgy in the 80s but great by 2000. Taiwan (ROC) went through this also (70s vs 90s, ish?). And now China. |
|
|
|
| |
| ▲ | metalman 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | the vast majority of solar panels are imaculately concieved in fully automated factorys,some where in fact there are NO people and they turn the lights off, as the robots are blind to those frequencys anyway.
surviving solar PV production facilities operate on razor thin margins, and gargantuan volumes, the results of which are the electrification of most of the world, useing the absolute minimum of carbon.
first lights, and dev8ces, small appliences, then the next step will be universal access to clean water and refrigeration, and then the worlds largest continent will be something to recon with. | | |
| ▲ | Incipient 10 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | This is a very rosy picture, unfortunately to the point of delusion. There are huge questions about the labour used in various stages, and the production of some of the raw materials is environmentally questionable. | | |
| ▲ | epolanski 9 hours ago | parent [-] | | Sure, but most of it happens in countries beyond china. In any case, I literally have a cousin who's lived ten years in China building a 3d printing company, and the last reason he went to China was cheaper labor, that was borderline irrelevant. |
| |
| ▲ | zer00eyz 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > the vast majority of solar panels are imaculately concieved in fully automated factorys What? https://insights.issgovernance.com/posts/forced-labor-in-the... Yes there is a bunch of automation in there, and still a ton of manual work and re-work. And it is done by the lowest cost labor, with a hefty government subsidy (by china) and a purchasing program. | | |
| ▲ | cyberax 9 hours ago | parent [-] | | This is pretty much bunk. There really is _very_ little space for manual unqualified work in solar panel manufacturing. Does the supply chain contain less-than-free labor somewhere? Likely. Most probably somewhere in the raw material production, but it's not something that is a deciding factor in anything. These materials just as well likely go into making of iPhones and Lenovo laptops. | | |
| ▲ | zer00eyz 7 hours ago | parent [-] | | Unloading, Frame assemblies, testing, Cleanup of any failed products (this is skilled labor)... Packaging and loading. This is at the plant that does panel assembly (joining silicon to packaging). The problem is that "Highly automated" does not mean "free of people" ... the demand for low skill labor (and a fair amount of it to keep up with automated processes) is still required. The cost of labor in china remains so low (on the whole) that these things are still not only feasible but cost effective. | | |
| ▲ | bad_haircut72 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | Yeh USA could doninate this if only the price of a guy to load panels onto a truck wasnt so high /obvious sarcasm |
|
|
|
| |
| ▲ | mensetmanusman 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | [flagged] | | |
| ▲ | pcchristie 7 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | This is a myth: https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/electric-vehicle-myths Because of the efficiency of the EV motor vs. the ICE motor, EVs are far cleaner than ICEVs even when fossil-fuel-powered and that's not factoring in the (slow) cleaning of the grid which will widen that gap over time, as the other comment mentioned. | |
| ▲ | 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | [deleted] | |
| ▲ | ViewTrick1002 an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Since the beginning of 2025 coal usage has started to decline in absolute numbers in China. China builds enough renewables and storage to both absorb grid growth and displace existing coal plants. | |
| ▲ | petesergeant 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Right, but you can switch an EV to a clean source of energy in the future, which you can't do with a petrol car (until carbon-capture fuel becomes viable) |
| |
| ▲ | badpun 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Some of the sacrifice is not voluntary - most panels contain parts and/or materials made by slaves in work camps. | | |
| ▲ | perihelions 10 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I.e., https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/01/business/economy/solar-xi... ("Solar Supply Chain Grows More Opaque Amid Human Rights Concerns" / "The global industry is cutting some ties to China, but its exposure to forced labor remains high and companies are less transparent, a new report found") | |
| ▲ | omnimus 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Just like iPhones. | | |
| ▲ | epistasis 11 hours ago | parent [-] | | I think it's a bit different, I never heard a story of iPhones being manufactured like this: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-57124636 However most of the "slave" talk these days comes from highly politicized sources, so it's hard to cut through to the truth. For example, it's not likely that there's enough Uyghur slave labor to be involved with "most" of the polysilicon even from Xinjiang, much less the entire world's supply. IMHO, like the cobalt getting mined by children from artisanal-scale mines in Africa, it's a very serious issue that gets trotted out more as a political football against the entire technology, rather than expressed as an earnest concern to solve the underlying problem. | | |
| ▲ | aeonfox 10 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > IMHO, like the cobalt getting mined by children from artisanal-scale mines in Africa Not really an issue for solar battery systems as they typically use the cheaper LFP chemistry that has a much higher cycle count. The gravimetric density is a bit less, but that only really matters for high-performance mobility. | | |
| ▲ | nandomrumber 8 hours ago | parent [-] | | You responded to a comment about cobalt with vague references to cell chemistry, cycle count, and energy density. What does any of that have to do with cobalt? | | |
| ▲ | dgacmu 8 hours ago | parent [-] | | The post you're replying to didn't explain it well, but: LFP batteries don't use cobalt (or nickel). LFP production is starting to pass NMC (lithium + nickel manganese cobalt oxide). Slightly lower density but a lot of advantages in lack of easily catching on fire, longer lifetime -- and lack of cobalt. LFP (LiFePo4) is the battery chemistry of choice today for solar installations, where the longer lifetime and increased safety are a big win and the slightly lower density doesn't matter, unlike mobile applications. | | |
| ▲ | aeonfox 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | I suppose I could have been clearer, but I figure it was an easy connection tom make from talking about chemistry to the question of whether cobalt is even relevant. |
|
|
| |
| ▲ | bdangubic 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > I think it's a bit different nice to discuss the degrees of slavery, little slavery is cool, little more perhaps not as much… | | |
| ▲ | epistasis 10 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Talking about degrees of slavery is decidedly not cool. If you have documentation of iPhone supply chain using forced labor like I linked to, please do share rather than trying to be morally ambiguous. | | |
| ▲ | nandomrumber 9 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | You linked to a four and a half year old news article from a highly politicised source. I wouldn’t call that “documentation”. | | | |
| ▲ | Teever 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I wonder how much solar energy produced from these slave-built panels makes its way into iPhones. |
| |
| ▲ | vkou 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Here in the US, the thirteenth amendment seems to think that a little slavery is cool. As I understand it, much of the rest of the world has similar views, but I'm sure this varies a bit from country to country. It's just that in the 21st century, we prefer to use some less-upsetting euphemism to refer to the practice domestically. | | |
| ▲ | rmunn 7 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > Here in the US, the thirteenth amendment seems to think that a little slavery is cool. For anyone not familiar with the US Constitution, the 13th Amendment forbids slavery and involuntary servitude "except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted." Without that "except as a punishment for [a] crime" clause, being sentenced to N hours of community service would be forbidden by the Constitution, and the second-lowest penalty judges could impose (the lowest being a fine) would be prison time. So that clause was actually necessary to include in order to allow for more lenient sentences for crimes that deserve something more severe than a fine: lowest level of sentencing is a fine, after that comes being sentenced to community service (which most people agree is less severe than prison, even though it does count as involuntary servitude), and then after that come the more severe sentences like prison. | | |
| ▲ | mattclarkdotnet 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Most other countries seem to be able to have community service orders without labelling it “servitude”. Do you have a reference for why community service is defined as servitude in the US? | | |
| ▲ | rmunn 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | Are you saying that being ordered by a judge to perform work, without pay, and which you would not have done absent those orders, does not fit the definition of involuntary servitude? Because while the precise definitions of servitude do vary from dictionary to dictionary, and some define it more harshly than others, in general it fits. One definition I found online (with no reference to which dictionary it came from) defines servitude as "A condition in which an individual is bound to work for another person or organization, typically without pay." Another one (Cambridge dictionary) says it's "the state of being under the control of someone else and of having no freedom". I couldn't check the Oxford English Dictionary as it requires a subscription to look up even one word. Merriam-Webster lists two meanings, one of which applies to land. the one that applies to people is "a condition in which one lacks liberty especially to determine one's course of action or way of life". Now, being sentenced to community service is only a temporary condition of servitude, which ends as soon as a given number of hours have been served. And it might not fit the strict definition if the person being sentenced is allowed to choose the form their community service will take; I lack knowledge of what kinds of community-servitude sentences are commonly handed out. But if the person being sentenced does not get to choose the form his community service will take, but instead is told "Your community service will be served in the city clerk's office. Show up at 9:00 AM on Monday ready to make photocopies and run errands," then that counts as being under the control of another and lacking freedom during the period of community service. It's not a permanent state of servitude, but even a temporary state of servitude is forbidden by the 13th amendment (other than as a sentence for a crime), because otherwise people at the time would have argued "Oh, fifty years of involuntary servitude still counts as 'temporary', so I'm allowed to carry on with imposing debt peonage on my debtors." (I should also mention that I am not a lawyer, so perhaps US lawyers have already reached broad consensus on whether community service counts as involuntary servitude under US law; if someone knows whether that's true, I welcome being corrected on my point). | | |
| ▲ | mattclarkdotnet 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | The context for the 13th amendment was that slavery was legal in the US then. It mostly wasn’t in other countries, so they never had to try to find the language to allow judicial punishments while disallowing private slavery. If you are given a community service orders without labelling in the UK for example, nobody thinks it’s slavery or servitude, they just think it’s a valid sentence under the law. The grey area is probably around profiting off such work? | | |
| ▲ | rmunn 18 minutes ago | parent [-] | | > It [slavery] mostly wasn't [legal] in other countries [at the time the 13th Amendment was passed, i.e. the mid 1860's]... The history of the 19th century and when slavery was abolished in each one is actually a fascinatingly complex subject, and there's tons of interesting history hiding behind your word "mostly", to the point where I can't actually tell whether "mostly" is a correct or incorrect description. Judging by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_abolition_of_slave... I would lean towards "definitely correct in Europe and the Americas, a lot murkier in Africa and Asia". Oddly enough, a lot of Spanish colonies in South America abolished slavery before the United States did, yet Spain itself didn't pass its law ending slavery until a year after the US's 13th Amendment came into effect. If you're at all interested in the history of that era, the film Amazing Grace, though it takes a few liberties with the historical facts, is a mostly-accurate depiction of what it took to get slavery abolished in the United Kingdom. Interestingly, the part of Prime Minister William Pitt was played by a then-unknown Benedict Cumberbatch (Amazing Grace came out in 2006, and most people first discovered Cumberbatch when Sherlock came out in 2010). I recommend the film if you enjoy historical films; it's quite fun. (I love the "I would have been bored by botany" line). |
|
|
| |
| ▲ | ta20240528 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | The conditions in the 'Angola' prison in Louisiana are a lot closer to slavery than community service. |
| |
| ▲ | bdangubic 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | fascinating reading here on HN every now again someone taking a moral high ground on some random shit while actively using products and services of some of the most evil corporations in the history of mankind |
|
|
|
| |
| ▲ | 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | [deleted] |
| |
| ▲ | AuthAuth 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I dont think China deserves that hat tip. Their "commitment" was done years after all the major nations had committed to emissions reduction and seems to have only been done so they could sell the solution. They've made little attempt to reduce emissions and instead scaled their industrial base to capitalize on the demand from nations working to reduce their carbon footprint. The only thing they've done to greenwash their image is spend money buying articles that present the false image of a green china. | | |
| ▲ | samtheDamned 10 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | besides toomuchtodo's nicely made argument, I would like to point that that many "major" nations (I'm assuming that refers to mostly western countries, correct me if I'm wrong) were able to focus on committing to emissions because they gave their dirty work (ie: mass manufacturing, waste disposal, resource extraction) to other countries, especially China. | | |
| ▲ | AuthAuth 10 hours ago | parent [-] | | toomuchtodo's arugments are deluded and ill respond to those in a bit. But I want to be clear that no one "gave" their dirty work to china. Industry in all these countries were priced out. The Western and Asian governments increased environmental regulations and the cost to do business rose. In China the government ignored its climate obligations and slashed environmental regulations and increased coal investment to drive energy costs down and thus the manufacturing moved there. You think Germany couldnt have cut environmental regulations slapped down a few coal plants and made solar panels? Thats why there was climate meetings to get everyone on the same track. If everyone is aligned in their goals then the economic hurt is easier to bare. China intentionally captialised on this and I do not think they deserve any praise for it. |
| |
| ▲ | toomuchtodo 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | This isn't factually accurate at all, and I would encourage some research so your statements can be more accurate. https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/china-energy-transi... https://ember-energy.org/latest-updates/wind-and-solar-gener... https://electrek.co/2025/09/02/h1-2025-china-installs-more-s... > Global solar installations are breaking records again in 2025. In H1 2025, the world added 380 gigawatts (GW) of new solar capacity – a staggering 64% jump compared to the same period in 2024, when 232 GW came online. China was responsible for installing a massive 256 GW of that solar capacity. For context, it took until September last year to pass the 350 GW mark. This year, the milestone was achieved in June. That pace cements solar as the fastest-growing source of new electricity generation worldwide. In 2024, global solar output rose by 28% (+469 terawatt-hours) from 2023, more growth than any other energy source. Nicolas Fulghum, senior energy analyst at independent energy think tank Ember, said, “These latest numbers on solar deployment in 2025 defy gravity, with annual solar installations continuing their sharp rise. In a world of volatile energy markets, solar offers domestically produced power that can be rolled out at record speed to meet growing demand, independent of global fossil fuel supply chains.” https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=65064 > Utility-scale solar power capacity in China reached more than 880 gigawatts (GW) in 2024, according to China’s National Energy Administration. China has more utility-scale solar than any other country. The 277 GW of utility-scale solar capacity installed in China in 2024 alone is more than twice as much as the 121 GW of utility-scale solar capacity installed in the United States at the end of 2024. Planned solar capacity projects will likely lead to continued growth in China’s solar capacity. More than 720 GW of solar capacity are in development: about 250 GW under construction, nearly 300 GW in pre-construction phases, and 177 GW of announced projects, according to the Global Solar Power Tracker compiled by Global Energy Monitor. https://cleantechnica.com/2025/04/20/chinas-coal-generation-... > China’s coal-fired electricity generation took an unexpectedly sharp turn downward in the first quarter of 2025, signaling a potentially profound shift in the world’s largest coal-consuming economy. This wasn’t merely a seasonal dip or economic distress signal; rather, it represented a clear and structural turning point. Coal generation fell by approximately 4.7% year over year, significantly outpacing the overall grid electricity supply decline of just 1.3%. However, electricity demand, a better measure, went up by 1%. What gives? https://foreignpolicy.com/2025/08/21/china-clean-renewable-e... > China’s Decarbonization Is So Fast Even New Coal Plants Aren’t Stopping It. In multiple sectors—transportation, renewable energy, and overall electrification—the clear trend is toward a greener energy system. In fact, in areas like renewables and electric vehicles, China is now the world’s leading player. With the United States essentially abandoning the field, it will become even more dominant. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jun/26/china-breaks-m... > China’s installations of wind and solar in May are enough to generate as much electricity as Poland, as the world’s second-biggest economy breaks further records with its rapid buildup of renewable energy infrastructure. China installed 93 GW of solar capacity last month – almost 100 solar panels every second, according to an analysis by Lauri Myllyvirta, a senior fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute. Wind power installations reached 26 GW, the equivalent of about 5,300 turbines. (it is somewhat irrelevant that China has accomplished spinning up a clean tech machine of this scale out of energy security reasons, as it still accomplishes the goal of decarbonizing their economy first, and then, the rest of the world as their spun up manufacturing flywheel exports cheap clean tech to the world) https://ember-energy.org/data/china-cleantech-exports-data-e... | |
| ▲ | epolanski 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > They've made little attempt to reduce emissions They are a growing economy of a billion + people. You need to realize this is a population that was virtually 90% poor just 3 decades ago. |
|
|
|
| ▲ | mothballed 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Solar bribery is interestingly the exact opposite in some of the USA, where the solar contractors have basically gotten in bed with government for regulatory capture on the market. Most places in my state you need an electrician license, permits, bonding, insurance, a special 'solar' warranty, and inspections if you want solar. I built my house without any inspection or licensing and connected to the electric grid without anyone from the government ever even looking at it or taking money for it. If I wanted to add a solar system, it basically completely fucked everything and I would have had to gone through the normal permitting and inspection system for my house which would have made even building the house basically impossible for me. |
| |
| ▲ | organsnyder 12 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > I built my house without any inspection or licensing and connected to the electric grid without anyone from the government ever even looking at it or taking money for it. That's... not common (perhaps more-so in rural areas). In my area, being connected to the grid brings a lot more hassle: the utility gets a say in how much solar you can build, as well as how it's connected. Some of it makes sense (they want to make sure you're not going to backfeed during an outage and cause a hazard to linemen), but a lot of it is them protecting their bottom line. | | |
| ▲ | mothballed 12 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Interesting. My utility let me do my own service entrance and everything. They didn't even give a shit what I connected it to. I ended up powering a whole house and a trailer without anyone from the power company even looking at either of them (I added them after I built a 200 amp service entrance as just a stubbed entrance with no load). If I added a solar system they would neither care nor have any idea. Only the government cares here. | |
| ▲ | latentsea 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | It's not about them protecting their bottom line. It's about managing the supply-demand balance to within the tight tolerances required to operate the grid stably . You can't just let an unconstrained new amount of generation come online and maintain a stable grid. |
| |
| ▲ | datadrivenangel 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Where did you build a house without a permit and get away with it? | | |
| ▲ | mothballed 12 hours ago | parent [-] | | I have a permit. And the permit basically says I don't have to get it inspected, show building plans, or do anything but tip my hat to the government. Unless I add solar. | | |
| ▲ | foobarian 8 hours ago | parent [-] | | I feel very optimistic about battery storage for this reason. I would love nothing more than be able to run on battery for a week or so so I can give a middle finger to the utility and just rip out the grid connection. No more solar inverter or power limit permits needed. | | |
| ▲ | coffeebeqn 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | You probably still want an inverter to get AC for your household. I’m also still waiting for the house size batteries to come down in price before pulling the trigger apart from a small 200W setup for fun |
|
|
| |
| ▲ | bryanlarsen 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | In my jurisdiction I could avoid permits and inspections by attaching less than 5 square meters of panels to my house, by staying under 60V, and by staying right of the panel. It would be ridiculous to pay over $3k in permits and inspections for $2k of hardware. | |
| ▲ | thelastgallon 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > Most places in my state you need an electrician license, permits, bonding, insurance, a special 'solar' warranty, and inspections if you want solar. Because its dangerous to own solar. If its guns, then its perfectly fine and safe. | |
| ▲ | jmole 12 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | "I built my house without any inspection or licensing and connected to the electric grid" Where exactly do you live? I'm not saying you're lying, but this smells like a tall tale. You can easily buy solar panels and batteries, and if no government inspectors are coming by anyway, then it doesn't matter. Maybe what you're saying is, "my power company wouldn't let me use grid-tied solar without it being permitted." ? | | |
| ▲ | mothballed 12 hours ago | parent [-] | | Rural AZ >"my power company wouldn't let me use grid-tied solar without it being permitted." ? Nah they didn't give a shit what I connected it to. I literally stubbed a 200 amp service entrance on vacant land then just went wild connecting it to whatever I like. I shot the shit with their engineer when they ran secondary off the power pole and that was it, I've never seen them again. > no government inspectors are coming by anyway, then it doesn't matter. I don't know for certain but having an unpermitted solar panel visible via satellite would likely trigger a visit. | | |
| ▲ | jmole 12 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Great, so it sounds like installing unpermitted solar at your house is about as illegal as jaywalking, and you probably shouldn't worry about it so much. | | |
| ▲ | boredumb 11 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | just never upset the wrong person that knows they have leverage over you keeping your home. | |
| ▲ | mothballed 12 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | As long as it's not visible by satellite, yes. |
| |
| ▲ | jsight 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | What law governs this? I'm familiar with a lot of restrictions on grid-tie systems, but I've never heard of it being this strict for something that could (presumably) be done without a back feed. I mean, are you saying that someone sticking up a few panels+batteries to run an electric fence, gate, and camera system has to have permits? This all seems strange. | | | |
| ▲ | kazinator 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Don't people have guns in AZ, especially rural? I wouldn't want to go to someone's home to hassle them about their DIY solar installation. | | |
| ▲ | xboxnolifes 10 hours ago | parent [-] | | People have guns in all of the US. Sure, AZ ownership might be around double that of CA, but that's just going from 1 in 4 to 1 in 2. The odds are high either way. |
|
|
|
|
|
| ▲ | glenstein 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| >voter ballot propositions illegally blocking a transmission line for years [1] This is a disastrous misrepresentation of a complex case with lots of moving pieces. At no point in the history of the construction of that specific power line was there a challenge to legality of citizen initiative until after the vote. Meanwhile, as they were behind in the polls, the company rushed to build as much of it as they could knowing that the initiative was coming, so when they failed at the ballot box, they could claim a legally recognized "vested interest". Absent the vested interest claim they would have been legally bound by the results of the ballot initiative, and the vested interest was not established until after the ballot had been voted on. |
|
| ▲ | justapassenger 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > Decentralized solar plus batteries is already cheaper than electricity + transmission for me at my home in the US. The only thing stopping me is the permitting hassle or the contractor hassle. Does decentralized solar plus batteries give you same amount of reliability? How many days without sunny weather can you survive without having to change your energy use habits? Each 9 of reliability for infrastructure is EXTREMELY expensive. And grid has a lot of 9s. |
| |
| ▲ | noosphr 12 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | It absolutely does not. But having electricity 13 days every two weeks is much better than not having it at all. This isn't about China building out their grid with an over capacity factor of 200% so they can keep everything running even if rain, sun and wind all fail for months on end. This is a developing county getting to the point they can charge mobile phones consistently. | | |
| ▲ | numitus 10 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Unfortunately, all such calculations are egocentric. People assume that everyone can use solar panels for 13 days 2 weeks, and when needed, we’ll just get electricity from the grid. But what they don’t take into account is that when there’s load today but none tomorrow, the grid becomes unstable.
2) This also increases costs. You might save electricity consumption in 14 times, but your expenses for grid electricity can increase in 14 times, because the grid still needs to be maintained — staff must be kept at power plants to ensure you can be supplied with 100% of your energy at any moment. | | |
| ▲ | noosphr 9 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | These people don't have access to the grid. That's the issue to begin with. | |
| ▲ | incompatible 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | The tricky thing in cold climates is the part of the year when solar power is lowest but electricity use, for heating, is highest. Sometimes they have hydro or something. |
| |
| ▲ | pfdietz 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | When I go to https://model.energy/ and ask it to solve for providing steady output in China from 100% renewable energy (wind/solar/battery/hydrogen) at minimum cost using 2030 cost assumptions and 2011 weather data, the solar curtailment is just 7.3% (and most of the energy is coming from solar, not wind). If I remove hydrogen and solve again, solar curtailment increases to 16.7%. "200% overcapacity" is completely bogus. | | |
| ▲ | discordance 8 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Try that again with 99% renewable and it becomes much more reasonable with regards to over overcapacity. 1% non-renewable would be a very good outcome. | | |
| ▲ | pfdietz 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | One can enable "dispatchable 1" which is simple cycle gas turbines, and limit the total CO2 emission so that's at most 1% of the generation. Doing that, and with no hydrogen, solar curtailment is reduced by more than half, to 8.1%. |
| |
| ▲ | Steven_Vellon 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | And what was the storage requirement? I just ran those parameters myself with China's 2.9 TW of constant electricity demand, and the storage requirement was over 70,000 GWh of battery storage. By comparison, global battery production is around 1,000 GWh per year. | | |
| ▲ | epistasis an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | Battery production capacity grows by 10x every five years. In 2021 there was ~100 GWh of batteries produced a year. In 2031, it's going to be 20-30TWh per year. Current batteries have 10+ year warranties, and last 20-25 years. We're likely to see 30 years+ for the newer sodium ion batteries. For something like 20 years, people have been looking at the exponential growth in the annual solar deployments and saying "well that's it, starting next year we're only going to deploy exactly as much as last year, plus 5%-30%". And every year these predictions are proven wrong. And every year they do the same dumb thing again: https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2020/07/12/has-the-international... Let's not repeat the same projection mistake with batteries that's been going on with solar for so long. | |
| ▲ | pfdietz 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | It was around 14 hours of battery storage. Seems reasonable. Realize that replacing all ICE road vehicles in the US with 70 kWh BEVs would require storage equal to ~40 hours of our average grid usage. The future is going to need large numbers of batteries, which is why China has been all in on this. | | |
| ▲ | Steven_Vellon 8 hours ago | parent [-] | | 14 hours of battery (~40 TWh for China) with the hydrogen storage or without? Because the calculator was reporting ~78,000 GWh battery storage with China's weather selected, and 2030 technology assumptions. I changed the spatial capacity factor from 1 to 2 and the battery storage requirement dropped down to 68 TWh, but still well above 40 TWH. Regardless, 14 hours of China's electricity demand is a whopping 40,600 GWh. By comparison, 2024's lithium ion battery production figure was 1.5 TWh [1]. Even assuming 100% of this went to EV's we're still talking about roughly 25 years worth of global battery production to fulfill only China's demand for storage in this model. As you point out, we still have loads of battery demand for EV adoption, so nowhere near 100% of production will be able to be diverted to grid storage. The scale of storage required to make intermittent sources viable without being backed by a dispatchable energy source really is tremendous, and this often gets overlooked in pushes for a fully renewable grid. 1. https://www.argusmedia.com/ja/news-and-insights/latest-marke... | | |
| ▲ | epistasis 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Battery production capacity grows by 10x every five years. It was four years ago when I first heard that, and we are exactly on track still. In 2031 we will be at 20-30 TWh/year production capacity. There are few things that grow this fast when it comes to manufactured things, atoms are far harder to arrange and scale than bits. But it's happening at a tremendous scale. Natural gas turbine production capacity is tapped out with long order queues, and so is battery production well into 2026, but only battery production capacity is expanding at breakneck speed. | | |
| ▲ | Manuel_D an hour ago | parent [-] | | Understand that only ~6 TWh of lithium batteries have been produced to date. As in, every single year of production combined adds up to less than 6 Twh. Moore's law largely stemmed from the fact that making a processer faster also meant making transistors smaller. Reducing the width of a transistor to a half, a quarter, etc. increased compute per cm^2 by double, quadruple, etc. Chemistry doesn't obtain that kind of exponential growth - we have hard limits on the number of joules we can store per gram of anode and cathode, so scaling up production means digging up more anode and cathode material out of the ground. The nature of resource extraction is that the easiest-to-exploit reserves are exhausted first, and continued production is contingent on accessing the progressively more and more inconvenient reserves.
Maybe in 2030 annual global production will be 30 TWh - we'll know in 4 years. But there's a lot of people who probably don't want to make trillion-dollar investments gambling on that possibility panning out. Regardless of your confidence in battery production's continued growth, I think you'd agree that if someone is making a calculation about the required amount of overproduction required to maintain a stable grid, they should at least mention that their calculation is contingent on provisioning tens of terawatt hours worth of grid storage. |
| |
| ▲ | nicoburns 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I wonder what proportion of energy use goes towards either heating or cooling and could use a thermal energy store rather than an electrical one. | |
| ▲ | pfdietz 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | That was about the amount in both cases. Slightly more in the no-hydrogen case than otherwise. Hydrogen contributed only marginally. Yes, it's a lot of batteries. So what? It's not like the current battery production is some firm limit. If anything, the very large future demand ensures batteries will be driven down their experience curve, so the cost will be even lower than assumed. The world spends something like $10T per year on energy. Any replacement energy system is going to be a big thing. You need to make an argument that is more than you expressing fear of large numbers. |
|
|
| |
| ▲ | noosphr 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | It's their 2060 plan. Take it up with the CPP. | | |
| ▲ | pfdietz 9 hours ago | parent [-] | | Press 'X' to doubt. Assuming someone actually told you that, I think you need to reevaluate the credibility of that source. | | |
|
| |
| ▲ | badpun 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Sounds good until you try to run a business. Having businesses randomly out of commission is not a way to bring country from developing to developed status. | | |
| ▲ | epistasis 11 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Even if you have an under-provisioned solar+storage solution and don't want to splurge for a generator, even on cloudy days you still get power, just less. Generally businesses are really great at balancing costs, and for highly-cost-constrained businesses if you give them 95% uptime at half the cost, the equation becomes clear. And in Africa, if the option is 95% uptime or 0% uptime, the choice is even clearer. | |
| ▲ | jchanimal 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | If that’s your first thought, then you’ll hate this influential perspective: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worse_is_better | |
| ▲ | o11c 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Better make sure they don't depend on AWS, then. |
|
| |
| ▲ | toast0 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > And grid has a lot of 9s. Where I live, I only get two 9s from the utility. And I'm within commuting distance of Seattle. With my generator, I still got three nines the one year where the battery tender failed and the generator didn't start when needed, but only because that outage was less than 8 hours and I replaced the battery tender before further outages (I could have jump started the generator, but the outage started overnight and waiting it out was easier). Most years, the number of brief outages adds up, and I probably only get five 9s. Solar + battery + generator for really bad weeks (but make sure you exercise it!) could pretty easily add up to the two nines I'd get from the utility here. For developing countries, solar + battery alone is likely be better than many grids which often are intermittent rather than 24/7 and many places don't have any access to utility power. | | |
| ▲ | brucehoult 8 hours ago | parent [-] | | Same here in rural far north New Zealand. I actually counted the number of outages after I got my battery unit in June -- it was six in five weeks, for anything from a couple of seconds to 30 minutes, which I noticed because the unit clicked over to running from the battery, and the clock on the oven (which is still only mains powered) flashes until I go over and hit a button. In April I had a 40 hour outage after a storm. That's what caused me to order the brand new Pecron E3600LFP, first New Zealand model shipment in "early" June (I received mine June 19). In February 2023 I had a 4 day outage during/after a storm. There are even, every 2 or 3 months, scheduled and notified 9 AM - 3 PM outages for equipment maintenance, tree trimming etc. Just those alone lower the grid reliability to around 99.5%. Six days outage in three years -- let's call it four -- drops grid reliability by another 0.4%. So, yeah, two 9s is about right. With the Pecron base unit (US$999 at the moment still on Halloween special, $1259 before that) I simply don't notice any outage under 4 hours, and that's even with a full winter heating load. In fact I deliberately turn the mains to it off from 7-9 AM and 5-9 PM every day. A 4 hour outage was a little close sometimes, so in August I added a 3kWh expansion battery ($699 on pecron.com right now). With 6kWh I can run my fridge, computers, Starlink, some LED lighting for 36 hours. Or 30 hours with typical kitchen appliance usage added (espresso machine, toaster, kettle, microwave, air fryer). Or virtually forever now I added 6x 440W solar panels (cost me US$400 total) to it, which still generates around 200W between them in even the worse overcast and rain. I'm running this stuff as a mini off-grid system, not connected to the house wiring at all -- except plugged into a standard socket to charge the battery if needed. I also have a $450 2kW petrol generator which I can use to charge the battery if needed, but needing that should be very rare. Total cost: under US$3k. More like $2.3k at the current Halloween special prices. https://x.com/BruceHoult/status/1984782313386099022 |
| |
| ▲ | roywiggins 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | The grid has a lot of 9s, but in a lot of places losing power for a day or two after a storm is not unusual at all. The grid per se being fine but your actual neighborhood being dark for a couple days is a pretty common experience in some places. | | |
| ▲ | ryandrake 12 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | If you have ever lost power for just 12 hours in an entire year, you're already down to only two 9's: 99.863% I've never lived anywhere where the power didn't go down for at least a few (cumulative) days a year. | | |
| ▲ | martinald 8 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | It's very location dependent fwiw. In the UK, I think I can remember 3 power outages my entire life. One when there was significant flooding in my hometown as a child, which lasted around a day, once at university for a few hours (local substation failed) and recently 30 minutes overnight while they were upgrading something (with a lot of notice). I may be undercounting/misremembering but I don't think its far off. I think the main difference is the UK in all but mostly rural areas has all the power lines underground. This is very different in eg North America where you can go a few blocks out of downtown areas and it is all overhead delivery. | |
| ▲ | ben_w 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Last time my building lost power was about 19 years ago, when I was living in a Welsh valley halfway between the two nearest villages. Since then, none of the extended Portsmouth conurbation, Sheffield, Cambridge, rural Cambridgeshire or Berlin have had any problems big enough to even notice while I've lived in them. I have seen at least two circuit breakers trip in that time though. | |
| ▲ | abakker 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | And, for a refrigerator and a lot of loads, being down for 2 days straight is way worse than a few hours a year. losing 48 hours of supply a year if broken into 2 hour chunks is not nearly as bad as losing 48 consecutive hours. | | |
| ▲ | matthewfcarlson 11 hours ago | parent [-] | | I get your point, but I personally would be grumpy if I lost power for two hours twice a month. I realize that is rich considering this article is about people who are lucky to get any amount of power reliably | | |
| ▲ | jaggederest 10 hours ago | parent [-] | | When I lived in a city proper, the grid was doing well to maintain 98% uptime. Multiple day long outages were the rule, not uncommon to lose power 3-5 days in a row. Now I live in a rural area and it's uncommon to avoid outages more than a month. We have an automatic transfer switch and fuel generator from previous owners and it saves hundreds of dollars in frozen food. This is in the US by the way. If you're investing in a transfer switch and generator now, the cost is going to quickly approach a modest solar + battery set up with a whole house inverter, and of course, you save money all year that way, not just in outages. |
|
| |
| ▲ | strken 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | The grid where I live has a target of 89 minutes of unplanned power outages per year for urban customers and somewhere in the high 200s for long rural feeder lines. This is in Australia, where serving outlying customers comes with some geographical challenges. I think it's currently sitting at 99.998% reliability. I can't remember the last unplanned outage longer than a couple of minutes, although they did some planned work last year and took out our power for half an hour. I'm surprised that someone would think days of power outages are normal everywhere. My family used to get hit with 8+ hour outages every few years back in the 90s because we were at the end of a single long rural feeder line, and we thought that was an unacceptable frequency. | |
| ▲ | ruszki 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I don’t know where you live, but I experienced outage in Budapest once in at least 10 years while I lived there. And only one phase was out, not all. We even lamented with my friends that we didn’t even remember when was the last time when something like that happened. I never had to reconfigure the clock on my microwave, just for daylight saving time. I know that even 30 kms from there my granddad still experiences outages monthly, but there are places where that happens very-very rarely nowadays. | |
| ▲ | zanellato19 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I lost power for 10h in my city recently and it was a big fucking deal. The last 5 years that's the first time that happened. I would say I have less than a hour of downtime per year in the other years PS I don't live in the US. |
| |
| ▲ | tekchip 12 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Can confirm. I live in a US city and the only 9 involved is maybe the very first number. I've lived here just over a year and we've had 1 full day without power and probably 8 to 10 short outages between a few seconds and several 10s of minutes. I'm adding batteries and solar permitting be damned. | | |
| ▲ | sethherr 11 hours ago | parent [-] | | Wild! I’ve lived in Chicago and San Francisco and have never lost power for more than an hour. And can’t remember the last time it went out at all, maybe 2 years ago? What city do you live in? | | |
| ▲ | daemonologist 9 hours ago | parent [-] | | I'm (not GP) in the Chicago burbs and expect to lose power 1-3 times a year. Usually it's for less than twelve hours but last year it was out for three days straight. Most recent outage was ~10 minutes long a couple weeks ago - I still haven't set the oven clock. The cause around here is usually storm + trees + above ground power lines, plus a low enough population density that you're not top priority for the utility company. | | |
| ▲ | sethherr 9 hours ago | parent [-] | | Checks out - you aren’t in a city. I was surprised that the original comment said they were in a city |
|
|
|
| |
| ▲ | aydyn 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > Each 9 of reliability for infrastructure is EXTREMELY expensive. And grid has a lot of 9s. Correction: should have a lot of 9s. But in a lot of places in the U.S., even rich states, it doesn't because a combination of regulatory capture, profiteering and straight corruption. I can see why solar and batteries are so attractive because at least its your prerogative when the power goes out. | | |
| ▲ | babypuncher 10 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | My concern is that it deflates any impetus to actually solve the problems of regulatory capture, profiteering, and other corruption. Not everybody can afford the up front costs of installing solar + battery storage, plus replacement when the PV cells and batteries inevitably reach EoL. These people will be left behind on a decaying grid nobody with political capital wants to fix or at the mercy of landlords. I really don't like this attitude we have in America where we realize "thing is broken" and advocate throwing it away instead of trying to fix it. | | |
| ▲ | aydyn 8 hours ago | parent [-] | | > I really don't like this attitude we have in America where we realize "thing is broken" and advocate throwing it away instead of trying to fix it. Because people are too busy playing Team Politics instead of solving issues that everyone can get behind. Fixing the power grid is one of those things that everyone could get behind, and yeah I agree, it disproportionately affects the economically disadvantaged. |
| |
| ▲ | Iulioh 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Have you heard how companies makes money on the US grid? Oh boy. They are incentivized to BULID but not to maintain or upgrade because that grants them guarantee rate of return. It was enlightening to see what caused the big blackout during a big snowfall in texas a few years ago | | |
| ▲ | afiori 11 hours ago | parent [-] | | It is funny to me how fractally perverse systems gets when a centralised authority refuses to directly solve a problem but rather decide have it solved by third party uncooperative players by creating an endless stream of byzantine rules to force the solution to be a twisted copy of what the centralised authority could have done by itself. Of course there are failure modes in any approach but "oh no! Herding cats is hard. Who could have imagined!" is funny to me |
|
| |
| ▲ | TYPE_FASTER 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | PVWatts will help you figure this out: https://pvwatts.nrel.gov According to PVWatts, a 10kW solar system would get me very close to my average usage in December. I'd be way over in the summer, could probably get away with a 4kW system and dial back use during an outage. I can lease two Powerwall 3 batteries from my utility company for $55/mo. Or look at: https://www.franklinwh.com/products/apower2-home-battery-bac... Edit: this also looks like a good option: https://www.santansolar.com/product/the-homesteady-kit/ We used to lose power 3-4 days a winter in our old house. It would have been really nice to have heat. A generator or smaller system could handle that. | | |
| ▲ | eldaisfish 9 hours ago | parent [-] | | keep in mind the limitations of these forecasting calculations. On an AVERAGE day, assuming AVERAGE weather, assuming AVERAGE load, you should be fine. The trouble with relying on the weather for your electricity is that it is entirely possible that you will go five days straight with cloud cover, limited to no solar generation and then be freezing. This is the problem that the electricity grid solves with varied sources of generation. |
| |
| ▲ | andyferris 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Distributed can do redundancy. It’s relatively cheap. Consider a family with two cars instead of one. How often do they have zero working cars? The correlated failure rate squares while the cost doubles. My home now has a grid connection, house battery and solar, a caravan with mounted solar/battery/fridge/inverter beside it, and I also have a portable “powerstation” and portable solar panel which is basically a UPS. My fridge contents and phone charging needs have a several extra 9’s now for costs that have scaled very well. These systems are tech that is improving rapidly. In some years these African farmers with their increased yields will likely add a bigger, second solar & battery system. In a village you can run a cable next door. Etc. | |
| ▲ | 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | [deleted] | |
| ▲ | zahlman 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > And grid has a lot of 9s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_blackout_of_2003 Not as many as you might think. | |
| ▲ | manoDev 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | A grid in a remote place in Africa would have less 9's than self reliance on solar. | |
| ▲ | rsynnott 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > And grid has a lot of 9s. I mean, it very much depends on where you are. Three 9s would be no more than about 8 hours downtime per year. A lot of rural locations would do worse than that, realistically. | |
| ▲ | Gibbon1 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I read a decent essay about the difference between solar and wind reliability and fossil fuel reliability. Solar and wind tend to be regularly and predictably intermittent but not unreliable. That's something you can design around. Especially when you have cheap storage to handle critical loads. It's instructive to look at California's ISO website's supply graphs over the year. Renewables follow a reliable daily cycle. https://www.caiso.com/todays-outlook/supply |
|
|
| ▲ | whatever1 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Poor countries have different problems that don’t let decentralization to work. Local gangs go around and demand protection money and if you don’t pay up your solar panels will unfortunately suffer some “accidental” catastrophic damage. |
| |
| ▲ | datadrivenangel 12 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Apparently solar panels that have fake cracks are moderately popular in some parts of the world to deter theft and similar behavior. | | | |
| ▲ | skissane 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Poor countries have these problems, yes, but they don’t stop whatever, they just add some expense to it. In certain areas of Mexico, businesses have to pay taxes to the local cartel, but if you do, they’ll leave you alone-and they know that if they demand too much, that’s actually undermining their own self-interest. Effectively, the cartel is just another level of local government, taxing you like all the others do. An armed gang or warlord somewhere in Africa or Syria or Afghanistan very often functions similarly. | |
| ▲ | samdoesnothing 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Sounds like taxes and government to me and that hasn't (so far) stopped people from building. In fact many people here praise those gangs, and wish they were bigger and demand more money. |
|
|
| ▲ | manmal 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Here in Austria, grid costs are now on par with the actual electricity cost. Each are ca €0.1 per kWh now, plus again that in taxes. Once the EU finally gets rid of the ridiculous pricing model where spot prices are dictated by the most expensive energy source (usually, gas), we might have a situation where grid costs exceed the cost of energy itself. Oh and what do they do with that money? Hoard it for upcoming grid updates, which they supposedly have to make to accommodate solar peaks and EV charging. And buy solar parks in Spain, apparently. |
| |
| ▲ | CorrectHorseBat 10 hours ago | parent [-] | | >Once EU finally gets rid of the ridiculous pricing model where spot prices are dictated by the most expensive energy source (usually, gas), we might have a situation where grid costs exceed the cost of energy itself. Why is it ridiculous? From a pure mathematical economics point of view it's genius I think. It means energy producers can just set their price at production price, knowing they will get the best deal that way and thus don't need to speculate on the electricity prices. It makes electricity as cheap as possible when it's abundant and expensive when it's not, also incentifying users of electricity to shift their consumption. What's a better way of doing it? | | |
| ▲ | 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | [deleted] | |
| ▲ | nandomrumber 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Any way that is more fair for the end user. Why should a solar generator, who has virtually zero inputs, demand the same rate as a gas or coal generator who’s costs are dominated by inputs? Where’s the promised savings to the end user? That’s right, there aren’t any. And people bang on about solar being cheaper. No it isn’t. Solar electricity is the same price as gas peaker-plant electricity. Everywhere I’ve looked, same story. And there’s no solar power without gas. | | |
| ▲ | pantalaimon 8 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | If you can make a great profit from solar, you are incentivised to build more of it for an even greater profit. Soon there is so much solar that you don't need the expensive gas most of the time. | | |
| ▲ | manmal 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > Soon there is so much solar that you don't need the expensive gas most of the time. In the EU (winters with weak solar radiation) this only works if you can store power over multiple months. Getting rid of gas means purchasing and maintaining a giant amount of batteries. Slow storage won’t save you from outages during peaks. We do have very cheap power from solar, during the hot months. In winter, its wind and offshore turbines that are prevalent, but they are as unpredictable. So, solar and wind power is trivial. Storage is the issue. And consumers will pay that storage, in both grid cost, and spot prices. I don’t understand why peak producers should dictate prices for all levels of service. Make an exception for them that’s adequate, like a second peak market, and done? Why should a solar producer (who doesn’t buffer!) get 3x the price only because Russia turns up gas prices and the big producers start panic buying expensive gas futures, poisoning their whole lineup in the process? Solar producers just pump whatever’s coming out of their panels into the market, with no regard for grid stability. | |
| ▲ | nandomrumber 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Isn’t that a self defeating loop. Great profit to be had from solar because of expensive gas. Let’s put aside that this isn’t good for the end user, as it openly admits the whole point of solar is great profit, rather than savings for the end user. Soon there’s no need for the expensive gas. Where’s your profit margin not? | | |
| ▲ | istjohn 7 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > Let’s put aside that this isn’t good for the end user, as it openly admits the whole point of solar is great profit, rather than savings for the end user. The whole point of capitalism is that in a well-regulated, open, competitive market, an ecosystem of companies pursuing maximum profit drive down each other's profit margins as they compete for a limited pool of consumers. In other words, it is precisely the profit motive that creates savings for the end user. | | |
| ▲ | glenstein 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | Exactly. The same principles that apply for solar energy are already in place for natural gas and for every other form of energy and the fundamental logic of markets is that there's a price point consumers will pay that's also profitable for the company. That didn't newly become an issue for the first time once solar entered the picture. There should be a word for this type of argument where people relitigate settled principles because they're discovering them for the first time. | | |
| ▲ | jabl 43 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | Even more generally, this applies to commodity markets. Price of potatoes is x EUR/kg, set by supply and demand. If some farmer can produce potatoes for 0.1x EUR/kg, they get to make a good profit. Now electricity wholesale markets are an artificial construct, but it has been designed to mimic other commodity markets in that the producer on the margin sets the price. | |
| ▲ | nandomrumber 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | It’s not like I’m discovering the concept for the first time. I just think when people say things like “solar is cheaper than gas” they should say for who. Solar is cheaper than gas for the capitalist. And there’s no guarantee the capitalists savings will ever be passed on to the consumer. In my market, Australia, the energy retailers are regulated to increase prices once a year. Increase prices. Never a saving for the retail customer. They’ve worked out that can skip all that messy market bullshit and just regulate annual increases. Good work if you can get it. | | |
| ▲ | defrost 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | > In my market, Australia, the energy retailers are regulated to increase prices once a year. Increase prices. Never a saving for the retail customer. They’ve worked out that can skip all that messy market bullshit and just regulate annual increases. Have you actually read the regulation? The AEMC said the new rules were in response to requests from Australia's energy minsters. They will:
* prevent retailers from increasing prices more than once a year
* ban excessive charges like late-payment fees for all retail contracts
* ensure all consumers are entitled to a fee-free payment method
* prohibit retail fees for vulnerable consumers
* ensure vulnerable Australians are receiving their retailer’s best offer
* prevent retailers from charging more than the standing offer price if the customer's initial offer changes or expires. This will protect customers from paying higher prices for their loyalty.
The rules to improve consumer confidence in retail energy plans will come into effect on 1 July 2026. Those that assist hardship customers take effect from 30 December 2026.
There is a difference betweenA) regulation that forces a price rise once a year. and B) regulation that stops more than one price rise (if any) in any year. |
|
|
| |
| ▲ | glenstein 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | If solar is cheaper to produce (which it often is), there's room for undercutting natural gas and room for profit, a mutual benefit to customers and the solar industry where only natural gas loses. |
| |
| ▲ | thaumasiotes 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > Soon there is so much solar that you don't need the expensive gas most of the time. Unless it's night. Or, possibly, unless you have enough battery capacity to store the entire nighttime supply during the day. |
| |
| ▲ | eldaisfish 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | comments like this really show that many people with strong opinions do not understand how the electricity grid, electricity markets or electricity economics work. Electricity is priced at the edge entirely because demand must match supply at all times. You either meet all electric demand or someone will go without power. This is why marginal pricing exists and this is why the most expensive generator is always the last to be accepted. This is why electricity at night is cheaper that during the day. Please, if you do not understand what you are talking about, it's ok to just say that you don't know. Don't spread misinformation like this. | | |
| ▲ | latentsea 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | > Electricity is priced at the edge entirely because demand must match supply at all times. You either meet all electric demand or someone will go without power. There's also more to it than just that. Supply-demand imbalance affects the frequency on the grid. Too high or too low frequency damages the turbines in the base load power plants, and they will shut down to avoid damage if the frequency goes too far out of range. Hence, too little or too much power actually causes grid collapse. Solar actually has to be managed a lot more carefully than people realise. |
|
|
|
|
|
| ▲ | teiferer 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > in the US you just need to bribe landowners and hold-outs If you really believe that then you need to read up on how the political system is financed. Members of congress spend a majority of their day calling "donors". That's not mom and dad, it's some corps (or rich individuals) who want to get sth done in return. And magically it gets done if the donations keep flowing. The only thing missing for "bribe" is to actually use the word. |
|
| ▲ | tick_tock_tick 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > Decentralized solar plus batteries is already cheaper than electricity + transmission for me at my home in the US. How do they deal with the cost of storage for anything non trivial completely eclipsing any savings? |
| |
| ▲ | energy123 12 hours ago | parent [-] | | Well it doesn't eclipse savings, you can still get about 12% annual ROI in developing countries with a battery. And many will make do without a battery, just relying on power during the day. | | |
| ▲ | tick_tock_tick 12 hours ago | parent [-] | | > Well it doesn't eclipse savings I mean it's several hundred fold more expensive I'd call that "eclipse" but maybe you have a higher threshold for that word? > And many will make do without a battery, just relying on power during the day. I mean I guess that's an option if you don't want these places to advance in quality of life or produce much of anything. | | |
| ▲ | energy123 12 hours ago | parent [-] | | It increases costs of a solar system to about 1.5-2.2x (so an extra 50-120%), not several hundred fold. The hybrid inverter is slightly more expensive than a normal inverter, then you add the 4-16 kWh battery which is pretty cheap nowadays. |
|
|
|
|
| ▲ | 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| [deleted] |
|
| ▲ | Brian_K_White 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Since once all the land is accounted for, there is no such thing as construction without destruction, I am glad that destruction is difficult. |
|
| ▲ | aidenn0 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Where I live in California permitting is such a pain in the ass that a lot of work goes unpermitted. Contractors have a CYA clause in all of their contracts (along the lines of "the owner is responsible for all permits"). Permits significantly increase the time for a job, with inspectors needing to show up to inspect things before something else can go on top, and things that seem reasonable causing complete reworks[1]. The fact that so few people pull permits means many workers aren't used to inspections, causing even further delays. 1: e.g. I saw an inspector not allow two 90deg. bend in RMC because, while the existing RMC went through a wall, and came out in a straight line on the other side, without knocking out the wall, we couldn't prove that there weren't already 3 90deg. bends. Maybe that's the right call (the electrician certainly thought it was asinine), maybe not, but things like that can significantly increase the time for project completion, since there are downstream effects to the scheduling. |
| |
| ▲ | yankwire21 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | It certainly is asinine. The reason more than 180 degrees of bends is not allowed is because it becomes too hard to pull the wires through. If the inspector was there looking at finished work, the wires are already pulled. |
|
|
| ▲ | bongodongobob an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Sorry, it's not. The only proof I need to show is 100 year old wooden power poles that are literally everywhere. I have no idea why this is so highly upvoted. I guess it takes some shit in the tech tree to get you there, but maintenance of the lines and infra is not expensive. You ate the bait. |
|
| ▲ | Joel_Mckay 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| There are a few US Solar wholesaler companies that will draft and sign engineering drawings for a roof-top permit application in most states. Some folks claim https://www.pegasussolar.com/ was inexpensive, and might be worth a call. The problem with Home Solar is the same as with Heat exchanger installs... some installers price gouge, and simply don't care about the quality of the work. Best of luck, if you plan to stay someplace 8+ years a 10kW Solar+battery install and heat exchanger are fine investments. We've also donated a few of those cheap FlexSolar 40W Foldable Solar panels + power-bank kits to people in remote areas, and they reported phone/VHF-Handy charging was reliable. =3 |
|
| ▲ | nextaccountic 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Permitting hassle? What do you need permits for? |
| |
| ▲ | skywhopper 9 hours ago | parent [-] | | To build meaningful solar on your house/property would require permits most municipalities. |
|
|
| ▲ | api 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| In many places more of your electric bill pays for the grid than for the power. |
|
| ▲ | Loughla 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| >The advent of a new transmission route in the US these days is pretty much a miracle event. Having had three major transmission lines for energy (two electric one gas) come through the area I live in the last 8 years, this is just false. In the US it's not hard to get it done as long as you have mountains of cash and a state willing to imminent domain people. |
|
| ▲ | jauntywundrkind 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Rural electrification in the US hugely proves your point. Yes, grid costs are fantastically expensive!! At the time: we had no choice! Universal electricity access was (& is) vastly better than the alternative: not having universal access. But what's happening in this article isn't an alternative, not so far: it's leaving the masses behind, dropping the pretense that electricity is a utility that ought be available to society broadly. Perhaps the private rental systems here provide pretty good access. In general though, I think society really ought to accept pretty big inefficiencies/costs (if that's what it takes) if thats what it takes to provide these base demands widely. It feels horrific to consider only the costs here, to see the inefficiency, without regarding what electrification, transport, and other base utilities enable your people to do, how much it changes lives. Narrow, mercenary cost analysis is an awful way to run your society. For sure, I deeply hope solar maybe can reduce some of the grid maintenance costs, by decentralizing energy. Over time. But this article &b this comment broadly accept a cost-based analysis, that largely revolve around the failure of a public works, one that needs to be efficient but that also has to be more willing to lose some money, to operate no matter what in unprofitable places. States have to make utilities available, period, whatever combination of political & economic will/unprofitability is required. I'm excited for solar! The decentralized nature is amazing! But beyond the glory of possibility, it scares the heck out of me that society might just give up on a tie that binds us, might abandon the basic sense of utility that most states have been able to keep going for around a hundred years now. The success & market capture of the companies spotlighted here is both a success, but also an liability. Solar is plentiful but the middlemen here have enormous price control, that maybe they are not flexing on now, but over time is a capability I would far prefer states tap & use for public benefit, rather than comingling with private interest. |
|
| ▲ | mrguyorama 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > voter ballot propositions illegally blocking a transmission line for years [1] The idea that a private company should get to unilaterally change our environment for profit is gross. I think it's funny you use this example when CMP has been utterly refusing to connect tens of solar power and community solar projects to our grid, which suffers from a lack of generation contributing to our staggeringly high electricity costs. Meanwhile, CMP insists that they have to double our rates (again), and don't really provide justification. This despite our generation and distribution costs being entirely separated, CMP having monopoly power over most of the state for distribution buildout, CMP having one of the least reliable grids in the nation despite supposedly spending enormously within the last few years to upgrade parts of the grid, and the whole time, CMP is extracting tidy profits to an entirely different country, from my fellow Mainers who are primarily old and on fixed incomes. Maybe, just maybe, you don't have an accurate understanding of this issue? We have several fully built solar farms, desperately needed new generation, just sitting idle as CMP refuses to connect them, because connecting more distributed infrastructure like that would eat into their profit margins, which continue to stay high as they continue to yearly increase our rates while sending out multiple leaflets telling people that they are totally not at fault for increasing their distribution rates because oh my generation costs also went up. You should look up how much CMP spent on playing ads about how they would totally respect our nature and it would be vaguely great for us to build a transmission line to another state, as they continue to refuse to hook up generation that could reduce our power prices, and not even their chunk of that price! |
|
| ▲ | honkostani 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| [dead] |
|
| ▲ | NedF 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| [dead] |
