Solar power is getting cheaper every year

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Originally Posted By: SHOZ
We in the US have a war on coal. You in Australia have a war on renewables.

http://www.cnbc.com/2015/07/19/australias-war-on-wind-farms-threatens-biggest-renewable-project.html


With 20 minutes worth of investigation, you would realise that lik is full of tripe...

South Australia is the test case for everyone to watch.

Wind has pushed out their last coal...they've got enough of it that sometimes when the wind blows, they can power their state with it (bar needing something big and sychrnous at the load end)...on non windy days, they import the same amount of brown coal energy.

They are putting in another 500MW of wind, and no-one is stopping them, regardless of cnbc articles.
 
Why Australia has become the solar-plus-storage market to watch

Quote:
• Solar plus storage: The phase-out of Australia’s feed-in tariff has resulted in a burst of interest in behind-the-meter battery storage, so that customers can hold excess generation from their rooftop systems to offset evening power consumption. One recent analysis, by GTM Research, predicted the Australian storage market could growth 37-fold by 2020, climbing to an annual rate of new installations totaling 244 MW. Distribution utilities and retailers are becoming proactive players in the market with a number of pilots. For example, Ergon Energy Retail, part of Energy Queensland, is testing out utility-owned solar-plus-storage systems on 33 homes. The project aims to generate multiple benefits -- and revenue streams -- from the systems, reducing customers’ bills as well as the utility’s peak demand and overall market risk.

Behind-the-meter solar-plus-storage has only been commercially available for a short time in Australia. Consequently, early results of market expansion and pilot programs, such as Ergon’s, have yet to provide sufficient data to be evaluated.

SEPA’s fact-finding mission will not only include sessions and site visits where we hear from Australian utility executives and energy experts, but opportunities for their U.S. counterparts on the trip to share their experiences and insights.
 
Quote:
Behind-the-meter solar-plus-storage has only been commercially available for a short time in Australia. Consequently, early results of market expansion and pilot programs, such as Ergon’s, have yet to provide sufficient data to be evaluated.


Asking even the most financially inept Aussie if they are willing to pay $14k for a power wall, with a 30 year payback, and a 10 year battery life/warranty means that the early adopters are the same people who are lining up for an I-Phone 7, or a Tesla S.

Life style choicers.

Cycle trip through the battery is 25c/KWh...retail rates are about the same, thus the long payback.
 
Tesla unveils residential solar roof and new Powerwall battery

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Dive Brief:

Tesla CEO Elon Musk unveiled an integrated solar roof and battery storage product at an event Oct. 28 in Los Angeles. The new roof is designed to mimic several traditional roof designs and will cost less "than a normal roof plus cost of electricity," according to Musk.
The new 7 kW, 14 kWh battery system is being priced at $5,500 and the system will integrate with Tesla's electric vehicle chargers. The offering will come from Tesla Energy, the planned brand name for the combined Tesla and SolarCity, should shareholders approve their proposed merger.
The announcement follows Tesla's official release of the second generation of its grid-scale battery on Thursday night. The Powerpack 2.0 uses upgraded power electronics and a new inverter to deliver twice the energy density of its predecessor at a cost competitive with tradition generation, the company announced in a blog post.
 
Elon Musk Says Tesla's New Solar Shingles Will Cost Less Than a Regular Roof

by Kevin Lui NOVEMBER 18, 2016, 3:35 AM EST
dow-solar-shingles.jpg

“Why would you get anything else?” Musk said, minutes after the Tesla-SolarCity deal was approved.
Just after a majority of Tesla Motors TSLA -1.19% shareholders approved plans for the all-electric automaker to acquire solar energy firm SolarCity SCTY 0.78% , Tesla CEO Elon Musk dropped one of his famous bombshells, this time about the company’s new solar roof product.

He told them that the company’s new roof would actually cost less than traditional rooftop shingles to make and install, according to Bloomberg.

“Electricity is just a bonus,” the billionaire told the crowd.

“So the basic proposition will be: Would you like a roof that looks better than a normal roof, lasts twice as long, costs less and—by the way—generates electricity?” Musk asked. “Why would you get anything else?”

While Tesla’s solar shingles are expected to still be considered a premium product at rollout, Bloomberg reports that the company expects they would incur lower production costs than traditional roof tiles. A large part of these savings stem from the carmaker’s anticipation that its roofing, manufactured by Tesla’s new automotive and solar glass division, would be lighter and easier to ship, thus reducing costs on breakage and transportation. (Read Fortune’s exclusive look at Tesla and SolarCity’s battery solar farm here.)

First unveiled at a Tesla event on Oct. 28 to great fanfare, the roofing material jointly developed by the carmaker and SolarCity would look just like any other premium roof tiles, while doubling as solar panels for power generation.

The shingles would reportedly feature tempered glass made by Tesla, a new solar film from 3M MMM 0.10% specifically designed for this project, as well as solar power technology jointly developed by Tesla, SolarCity and Panasonic. The idea is to make solar-paneled roofs “as appealing as electric cars,” Musk said at the event.

Read More: Here Are Important New Details About Tesla’s Solar Roof

Tesla’s merger with SolarCity was approved “overwhelmingly” by an 85% majority of unaffiliated shareholders, according to the company. Growing concerns over potential safety issues related to its touted Autopilot driver-assistance feature, as well as uncertainty over federal tax breaks for electric cars under the incoming U.S. administration, has left the automaker in a tough spot this year, according to Reuters—sending its stock price tumbling by almost 20% this year.

For more on the Tesla-SolarCity deal, watch Fortune’s video:

After merging with SolarCity, of which Musk is the largest single shareholder, Tesla now has business all the way from solar electricity generation to batteries and electric cars. Elon Musk is also the CEO of the private space exploration company SpaceX.

Fortune.com LINK
 
Love the idea...look at Google Earth and see how much space is taken up with rooftops, making solar roofs makes so much sense. May as well harvest 20-25% the energy rather then insulate it out of your home.

Problem is that as per my previous commentary, it still has to be INTEGRATED into the system, and that requires storage.

Have spoken to some fairly senior energy market analysts, and they agree with my premise that cheap solar and the requirement to store it will "invert" (no pun intended, honestly) the peak/off peak cycles, and energy will be nearly free in daylight hours, and very expensive at night...which matches most of human's evolutionary period funnily.
 
For the peanut gallery...

https://bobistheoilguy.com/forums/ubbthreads.php/topics/2763442/Re:_18__Solar_Cell_Efficiency_#Post2763442
 
New solar cell is more efficient, costs less than its counterparts

A team of researchers from MIT and the Masdar Institute of Science and Technology may have found a way around this seemingly intractable tradeoff between efficiency and cost. The team has developed a new solar cell that combines two different layers of sunlight-absorbing material to harvest a broader range of the sun’s energy. The researchers call the device a “step cell,” because the two layers are arranged in a stepwise fashion, with the lower layer jutting out beneath the upper layer, in order to expose both layers to incoming sunlight. Such layered, or “multijunction,” solar cells are typically expensive to manufacture, but the researchers also used a novel, low-cost manufacturing process for their step cell.

The team’s step-cell concept can reach theoretical efficiencies above 40 percent and estimated practical efficiencies of 35 percent, prompting the team’s principal investigators — Masdar Institute’s Ammar Nayfeh, associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science, and MIT’s Eugene Fitzgerald, the Merton C. Flemings-SMA Professor of Materials Science and Engineering — to plan a startup company to commercialize the promising solar cell.

Fitzgerald, who has launched several startups, including AmberWave Systems Corporation, Paradigm Research LLC, and 4Power LLC, thinks the step cells might be ready for the PV market within the next year or two.
 
Originally Posted By: Shannow
Problem is that as per my previous commentary, it still has to be INTEGRATED into the system, and that requires storage.

It's a great idea, but cheaper than normal roofing materials? Oh, that's right. That will apply once he gets subsidized and they add a crippling tax onto normal roofing materials. Until then, this is another one of his delusions.
 
Originally Posted By: Garak
Originally Posted By: Shannow
Problem is that as per my previous commentary, it still has to be INTEGRATED into the system, and that requires storage.

It's a great idea, but cheaper than normal roofing materials? Oh, that's right. That will apply once he gets subsidized and they add a crippling tax onto normal roofing materials. Until then, this is another one of his delusions.
Hey this isn't Canada......
 
I'm not particularly interested in the political side of things, particularly on BITOG. My point is simply that getting a roofing job done with solar panels cheaper than ordinary shingles is a bunch of hot air. Maybe Musk can stand on my roof and give his speeches. There will be enough hot air to keep the snow away and the roof dry. I won't even need shingles.
 
You really cannot comment on final cost until after the development and implementation of the system. Initial cost are always high.
 
Originally Posted By: SHOZ
You really cannot comment on final cost until after the development and implementation of the system. Initial cost are always high.


Being an expert in both power and asphalt (including shingles from used oil), could you comment on just HOW an electronic device COULD be made cheaper than a shingle ?

I'm seriously interested in the mechanics that would drive such innovation...I only get the power side of it...
 
Originally Posted By: Shannow
Originally Posted By: SHOZ
You really cannot comment on final cost until after the development and implementation of the system. Initial cost are always high.


Being an expert in both power and asphalt (including shingles from used oil), could you comment on just HOW an electronic device COULD be made cheaper than a shingle ?

I'm seriously interested in the mechanics that would drive such innovation...I only get the power side of it...
Why would I comment on the price of an installed system in the future when questioning someone else's comment on the yet developed system?
 
OK, an asphalt shingle is a little less complicated than a hammer, while a solar shingle is a little MORE complicated than a hammer.

What would make the latter cheaper than the former ?

Only thing hat I can think of is "someone else's money"...unless you've got some other mechanism, being exposed to both sides of the industry ?
 
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