Solar ... In the news

zeupater

lstar337 wrote: »

I believe 'Embiggen' is a Simpsons reference likely used as a bit of fun.

I think the Springfield town motto (as said by Jebediah Springfield), is "A Noble Spirit Ebiggens the Smallest Man" or something to that effect.

The episode pokes fun at the made-up word and includes a string of other made-up words to comedic effect.

Hi

Thanks for that .......

Anyway, in that case it simply reinforces the observation regarding the article being taken seriously, particularly the timeline graph ....

Z

Martyn1981

Couple of unusual articles I've 'stolen' from another forum.

1. PV prices in Germany. This is interesting as the UK has decided to push for fracking and nuclear, so PV will be excluded from future CfD auctions. However, the 2015 price of £80, is approx €94, so compares reasonably closely to the 2015 German bids of €90.

From there we can draw some conclusions from the following German auctions, which have shown a further 20% cost reduction.

rates keep falling

That would suggest a potential PV farm cost of sub £70/MWh, in line with the domestic PV cost of £67/MWh, and far cheaper than the 2016 cost of Hinkley £102/MWh.


2. An interesting article (with a clear bias for Tesla) but with most of its source info from Bloomberg. It has a number of interesting figures, such as a FF peak in 2025, and a PV learning rate of 26% (the percentage drop in costs for every doubling of output). Big predictions for batteries too.

TESLA MOTORS VS. FOSSIL FUELS: AN ELECTRIFYING SHOWDOWN

Mart.

Martyn1981

Some info on what might be a fascinating move ...... but they are being a little cagey about it:-

Elon Musk & SolarCity CTO Peter Rive Announce “Solar Roof” (Not “Solar On The Roof”)

Speaking to analysts and investors during the Q2 earnings call for SolarCity on August 9, Elon Musk went into detail about his plans for what he calls the “Solar Roof.” It is not a system of solar panels mounted over an existing roof but the actual roof itself. “We’re going to be making a pretty interesting product and I’m excited to kind of reveal to you all at some point. But it is not just your typical module. It is both very efficient and it looks really, really good,” said Peter Rive, SolarCity’s chief technical officer and cousin of Elon Musk.

Mart.

Martyn1981

Very strong support for solar from the Institute of Directors.

Solar wins strong backing from UK's business chiefs, poll shows

Opinion poll among the traditionally conservative Institute of Directors finds barely 9% support for Hinkley nuclear plant, with solar power earning the backing of more than three-quarters of members.

An opinion poll of 1,000 business leaders in the U.K. has found diminishingly small support for the proposed new nuclear power plant Hinkley Point, with solar power garnering near-universal backing.

The Institute of Directors (IoD) is a traditionally conservative group comprising many of the most influential business leaders in the U.K. The recent poll revealed that just 9% of those surveyed were in strong agreement that the Hinkley Point nuclear plant would make Britain more economically competitive, and fewer than one-in-five were of the opinion that the nuclear option would make the country more "strategically secure".

I guess the question is, do these business leaders understand economics and accountancy better than the ideological critics of PV and wind.

Mart.

Martyn1981

Martyn1981 wrote: »

Some info on what might be a fascinating move ...... but they are being a little cagey about it:-

Elon Musk & SolarCity CTO Peter Rive Announce “Solar Roof” (Not “Solar On The Roof”)

Mart.

Seems that it's 'just' solar shingles. Nothing wrong with that, but hardly new.

Elon Musk leads Tesla effort to build house roofs entirely out of solar panels

Mart.

cells

Martyn1981 wrote: »

Based on:-
1kWh costing 13p normal, or 8p E7
1kWh giving you between 4 and 6 miles

1 gallon of petrol or diesel costing £5
1 gallon giving you approx 50mpg

cost per mile of 10p we have a cost differential between the two choices ranging from 6.7p to 8.7p

your figures are too generous for the EV and too negative for the diesel car and you are using accounting tricks in the form of looking at diesel that is heavily taxed vs electricity that is nowhere near as heavily taxed. you are not comparing technology you are comparing taxes

Anyway I think EVs will take significant market share even if they dont cost less to run or have limitations simply because the buyers of new cars are not logic or math or energy savings driven or even that price sensitive. The model 3 price tag is supposedly the same as the price of the average car sold in the USA thats all that is needed. The rest is brand comfort advertising and good salesmanship

My crystal ball of the future sees self drive taxi fleets like uber offering cheaper to rent than buy transport. These taxi fleets I think will be electric but they may be diesel/petrol it will be down to 1: regulations 2: cost/benefit analysis. You may find that in the cities its better to have fleets of EVs but on inter-city taxis the more efficent diesel cars getting 80mpg @ 80mph. Overall I think the energy issue will fall for both types of vehicles as the average occupancy will increase. Imagine the model x with its falcon doors but a 6 seater with each seat segmented for private space. Also both electric and oil cars can be designed much more efficently as someone renting a car from a autodrive fleet operator is not going to care how good or sexy the vehicles look so its more likely to be far more optimized for aerodynamics and things of that nature

cells

Martyn1981 wrote: »

Interesting comparison. The numbers are closer than I'd thought.

Can't wait to see what true mass production of domestic storage will bring. Fingers crossed for 'PV like' cost success.

Mart.

Bulk storage makes no sense for stationary applications for a long long time. Why do you think building 100kg objects to bolt onto your wall and scrap and landfill and replace every x years is a good idea when the already existing copper wire into your home does a fine job and will last hundreds of years not clogging up landfills?

Battery storage does not even get rid of the need for a copper wire into the home it might do for x months a year but you will still be dependent on it some of the time which means you will bear the full cost of the system


If you think EVs are going to work, your better off allocating battery supply to EVs. 20 million annual EVs with 50KWh battery packs is 1,000 GWh annual battery production. Dont hope for mass stationary storage before you see that sort of figure of batteries going into cars. And the world is nowhere near having the capacity to build 1,000 GWh annually not now not in 10 years time

cells

Martyn1981 wrote: »

Basically it shows how quickly a disruptive technology can become established once it builds momentum, such as radios, tv's computers etc.

Hopefully this will apply to RE and EV's.

The examples seem to show that after a slow burn, when the technologies take off, they are quickly 'adopted' by around 60% of households in what looks (to me) like 15 years or so.
Mart.

There is not the manufacturing capacity to ramp that fast.

The world needs to build 4 billion homes to house its 10 billion population. If you feel 60% of them will/should have a 4KWp system on the roofs by year x its not a difficult calculation

2.8 billion x 4KWp = 11.2 TWp
Say you want that over the next 30 years that would be 373GWp installed per year and the world is at only about 1/10th of that.

So if you believed in this 11.2TWp you would have to point to a lot of additional PV factories being built.


With regards to quick deployment of other technologies, say kettles or smartphones there is another crucial difference. Mass and need.

cells

Martyn1981 wrote: »

That would suggest a potential PV farm cost of sub £70/MWh, in line with the domestic PV cost of £67/MWh, and far cheaper than the 2016 cost of Hinkley £102/MWh.

The difference is that PV crashes its own price for most of its generation output, so if you offer PV a CFD at £70 your probably going to have to pay out the best part of £70 a unit. IF you offer nuclear £100 your probably going to have to only hand over £50 a unit.

Also it is not one v the other. The best option for the UK is probably to simply keep what exists and if needed replace some of the older plants with new CCGTs and wait 5 years by which time the potential of both Solar and nuclear will be far more clear.

cells

Martyn1981 wrote: »

Very strong support for solar from the Institute of Directors.

I guess the question is, do these business leaders understand economics and accountancy better than the ideological critics of PV and wind.

Mart.

if they want to there is nothing stopping them putting their hands in the pockets and building solar farms, that they arent probably tells you more than some poll

Hinkey should not be built, nor should there be a mass early build out of PV