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Solar modules now selling for less than €0.06/W in Europe (www.pv-magazine.com)

submitted 6 days ago by ArtikBanana@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/technology@lemmy.world

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[-] JustEnoughDucks@feddit.nl 111 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

Here in Belgium there used to be big government subsidies for solar panels 5-10 ago.

Now the same wattage battery + solar setup without any government subsidies is a good chunk cheaper than that time with the large subsidies.

Pretty cool and shows the power of government renewables subsidies. A huge percentage of houses in Belgium have solar panels now.(and electricity still costs 0.30€/kWh average because of fossil fuel energy lobbies)

Now that there is a local industry around it, most renovations and almost all new builds include them.

[-] Akasazh@feddit.nl 17 points 5 days ago

As your northern neighbors. We did subsidize it too, but now the privatized energy companies started whining that there wasn't enough capacity, so now they charge you for creating free energy

[-] iknowitwheniseeit@lemmynsfw.com 12 points 5 days ago

Yes I'm considering buying a high power laser so I can send the energy back into space instead of paying the power companies for the privilege of giving them electricity.

[-] Akasazh@feddit.nl 8 points 5 days ago

Great idea! Some inspiration right here :

https://what-if.xkcd.com/13/

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[-] sirboozebum@lemmy.world 23 points 5 days ago

4 million households in Australia have solar panels.

They are great value.

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[-] wewbull@feddit.uk 33 points 6 days ago

$60k per MW or $210M for a nuclear reactors worth (3.5GW). Sure... the reactor will go 24/7 (between maintenance and refuelling down times, and will use less land (1.75km² Vs ~40km²) but at 1% of the cost, why are we still talking about nuclear.

(I'm using the UKs Hinckley Point C power station as reference)

[-] Benaaasaaas@lemmy.world 15 points 5 days ago

Because there are nights there are winters there are cloudy and rainy days, and there are no batteries capable of balancing all of these issues. Also when you account for those batteries the cost is going to shift a bit. So we need to invest in nuclear and renewables and batteries. So we can start getting rid of coal and gas plants.

[-] GissaMittJobb@lemmy.ml 22 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

Also when you account for those batteries the cost is going to shift a bit.

You better be bringing units if you're going to be claiming this.

Still less than half of the LCOE of nuclear when storage is added: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1475611/global-levelized-cost-of-energy-components-by-technology/

Given that both solar and storage costs are trending downwards while nuclear is not, this basically kills any argument for nuclear in the future. It's not viable on its face - renewables + storage is the definitive future.

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[-] suzune@ani.social 25 points 5 days ago

But Germany has no space for nuclear waste. They haven't been able to bury the last batch for over 30 years. And the one that they buried most recently began to leak radioactivity into ground water.

And.. why give Russia more military target opportunities?

[-] elucubra@sopuli.xyz 11 points 5 days ago

I'm not a rabid anti-nuclear, but there are somethings that are often left out of the pricing. One is the exorbitant price of storage of spent fuel although I seem to remember that there is some nuclear tech that can use nuclear waste as at least part of it's fuel (Molten salt? Pebble? maybe an expert can chime in). There is also the human greed factor. Fukushima happened because they built the walls to the highest recorded tsunami in the area, to save on concrete. A lot of civil engineering projects have a 150% overprovision over the worst case calculations. Fukushima? just for the worst case recorded, moronic corporate greed. The human factor tends to be the biggest danger here.

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[-] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 8 points 5 days ago

If France can find space, surely Germany can.

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[-] wewbull@feddit.uk 13 points 5 days ago

You're using factors of less than 10 to argue against a factor of 100.

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[-] frezik@midwest.social 15 points 6 days ago

I think there's a contingent of people who think nuclear is really, really cool. And it is cool. Splitting atoms to make power is undeniably awesome. That doesn't make it sensible, though, and they don't separate those two thoughts in their mind. Their solution is to double down on talking points designed for use against Greenpeace in the 90s rather than absorbing new information that changes the landscape.

[-] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 8 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

What isn't sensible about nuclear? For context, I'm coming from the US in an area with lots of empty space (i.e. tons of place to store radioactive waste) and without much in the way of hydro (I'm in Utah, a mountainous, desert climate). We get plenty of sun as well as plenty of snow. Nuclear should provide power at night and throughout the winter, and since ~89% of homes are heated with natural gas, we only need higher electricity production in the summer when it's hot, which is precisely what solar is great for.

So here's my thought process:

nuclear for base load demand to cover nighttime power needs, as well as the small percentage of homes using electricity for heat
solar for summer spikes in energy usage for cooling
batteries for any excess solar/nuclear generation

If we had a nuclear plant in my area, we could replace our coal plants, as well as some of our natural gas plants. If we go with solar, I don't think we have great options for electricity storage throughout the winter.

This is obviously different in the EU, but surely the nordic countries have similar problems as we do here, so why isn't nuclear more prevalent there?

[-] itslilith@lemmy.blahaj.zone 12 points 5 days ago

Because it makes no sense, environmentally or economically speaking. Nuclear is, as you said, base load. It can't adjust for spikes in demand. So if there's more energy in the grid than needed, it's gonna be solar and wind that gets turned off to balance the grid. Investments in nuclear thus slow down the adoption of renewables.

Solar is orders of magnitude cheaper to build, while nuclear is one of the most expensive ways to generate electricity, even discounting the waste storage, which gets delegated the the public.

Battery technology has been making massive gains in scalability and cost in recent years. What we need is battery arrays to cover nighttime demand and spikes in production or demand, combined with a more adaptive industry that performs energy intensive tasks when it's abundant. With countries that have large amounts of solar, it is already happening that during peak production, energy cost goes to zero (or even negative, as traded between utilities companies).

About the heating: gas can not stay the main way to heat homes, it's yet another fossil fuel. What we need is heat pumps, which can have an efficiency of >300% (1kWh electricity gets turned into 3kWh of heat, by taking ambient heat from outside). Combined with large, well-insulated warm-water reservoirs, you can heat up more water than you need to higher temperature during times of electricity oversupply, and have more than enough to last you the night, without even involving batteries. Warm water is an amazing energy storage medium. Batteries cover electricity demand as well as a backup in case you need uncharacteristically much water. This is a system that's slowly getting adopted in Europe, and it's great. Much cheaper, and 100% clean.

[-] xthexder@l.sw0.com 11 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

You bring up heated water as a method of storage, and it reminds me of a neighborhood in Alberta, Canada that uses geothermal + solar heated water storage for 52 homes. They've been able to successfully heat the entire neighborhood with only solar over the winter in 2015-2016 and have gotten > 90% solar heating in other years.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_Landing_Solar_Community

There's a huge number of new storage technologies being developed, and the fact that some even work on a seasonal basis for long term storage is amazing.

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[-] Shardikprime@lemmy.world 25 points 5 days ago

Solar has always an extremely high ratio for megawatt per mass unit.

This price is really good

[-] Valmond@lemmy.world 23 points 5 days ago

Just have to buy 1100 panels 😋 but then the price is 0.055€/watt ...

I Want one, but only one or a couple, to put on my balcony...

[-] ikidd@lemmy.world 16 points 5 days ago

These are topcon modules only. Considering a 400W panel will have about 72 modules in it, that's only about 15 panels worth. Of course, then you have to actually build the panel and connect the modules, put it behind glass inside a frame, then put in a bypass diode and leads for connection. So an actual panel ends up being about 5-10X the cost of the modules per W.

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[-] Venicon@lemmy.world 27 points 6 days ago

Good news perhaps but I’m sure I won’t see any benefit in Scotland, still thousands to add solar panels.

[-] frezik@midwest.social 29 points 6 days ago

Scotland has really good wind power, anyway. Between that, nuclear, and a few other renewable sources, you guys are down to 10% fossil fuel energy use. So don't worry about solar.

[-] brsrklf@jlai.lu 10 points 6 days ago

You know, if you people wanna ditch the Kingdom and join the club, I don't think it's too late.

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[-] Vendul@lemmy.world 12 points 5 days ago

It’s kinda good but it completely destroyed the European manufacturing for solar

[-] humanspiral@lemmy.ca 38 points 5 days ago

When panels were 30c/watt, projects at $1/watt in EU and US happened. 70c/watt was spent on labour, copper, support structures, and grid connection equipment. All of those can be locally produced, with possible exception of last item.

At 6c/watt, that is over 90% of power projects are local economy boosting instead of 70%. It provides cheaper energy that is useful for industrialization and cost of living benefits too. US tariffs on solar are entirely about protecting oil/gas extortion power instead of a $10B solar production industry that needs fairly expensive support.

Solar imports does not cause energy dependence. You have power for 30+ years with no reliance on continuous fuel supplies. Shoes and apparel is a $450B industry in US. You need new supplies every year, and it makes much more sense to secure supply in that industry for war on the world purposes.

[-] Allero@lemmy.today 18 points 5 days ago

It is good, period.

Local manufacturing is politically advantageous and may employ some people at the same time, but that's where benefits end.

Europe didn't reject Chinese face masks during COVID-19, and Europe shouldn't reject Chinese solar during a climate emergency.

Solve that first, and political struggles later.

[-] nexusband@lemmy.world 15 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

It's not only a political struggle. Working conditions are tremendously better in Europe, Environmental Protection as well. Manufacturing photovoltaics takes a huge pile of chemicals that need to be handled properly to not cause any harm to the environment - China neither cares nor has any other incentives to actually do this properly, which is exactly why they are so cheap. Theres also the issue of poor quality, that if you're manufacturing something that can have a significant impact on the environment, it should "count" and not be waste 10 years later.

Not only that, China's subsidies are utterly unfair.

Destroying the environment in one part of the world to "save" a different one due to climate change is just ridiculously stupid and simple minded.

[-] Allero@lemmy.today 9 points 5 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

I see where you're coming with that, and in principle, some of the points you make I would clearly share under different circumstances.

But to me, even with the side effects, rapid rollout of green tech (even if its production is not kept to the best standard) beats slow incremental growth with good standards in place, given the urgency with which world requires it. After all, even poorly produced Chinese options very much do offset their footprint compared to the alternatives.

There are some points for concern, such as the use of lithium ion batteries, for example, but Chinese companies also think ahead and implement alternative options - in case of batteries, they increasingly work with sodium-ion instead.

As per "unfair" subsidies - I'd rather urge all countries to go all in and compete on those, rather than complain about those who implemented them. Subsidies for green tech are essential to secure our future, they boost the green industry and expedite its expansion, and they should only be seen as a good, not the evil.

[-] humanspiral@lemmy.ca 6 points 5 days ago

Manufacturing photovoltaics takes a huge pile of chemicals that need to be handled properly to not cause any harm to the environment

Source for this? Cadmium is exclusive to 1 US manufacturer.

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[-] RaoulDook@lemmy.world 4 points 5 days ago

It seems like China is putting a lot of efforts into becoming environmentally cleaner in the last few years though. I'm hoping that they've finally realized that pollution is bad.

[-] ZMoney@lemmy.world 8 points 5 days ago

There's something called an environmental Kuznets curve that suggests that a population will sacrifice environmental health to industrial degradation in favor of per capita income up to a point, after which they are affluent enough to care, and after this environmental health improves. China seems to be at the inflection point.

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[-] PugJesus@lemmy.world 5 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Local manufacturing is politically advantageous and may employ some people at the same time, but that’s where benefits end.

There are legitimate strategic concerns with sourcing things long-term from potentially hostile states.

Europe should absolutely take advantage of current Chinese production to improve their own green energy efforts, but looking into local production in addition is not just a 'for-show' move. As sanctions on Russia show, dependence on markets that can potentially turn hostile can be very damaging.

[-] Allero@lemmy.today 4 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Sure, that's what I threw in the "politically advantageous" bucket to not expand on it too much

Though I do not expect China to blackmail Europe with solar, but I see the concern.

[-] SkunkWorkz@lemmy.world 9 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

Yep the EU will be beholden to a dictatorial regime again. Instead of placating Putin for gas it will be Xi for solar panels and batteries.

[-] Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In@lemmy.world 11 points 5 days ago

At least those items you only need to buy once.

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[-] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 4 points 5 days ago

Europeans demolished their manufacturing sector when they stripped all the wiring out of the walls during the austerity years.

You can't blame people for buying foreign when you've been defunding domestic infrastructure for over a decade.

[-] IndustryStandard@lemmy.world 5 points 5 days ago

By providing big subsidies to green energy developement. Something the EU could also have done but refused to. And so they lost their entire lead.

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[-] jagged_circle@feddit.nl 12 points 5 days ago

Theyre $1.25 per watt in south America right now (we have an energy crisis due to climate change caused drought)

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this post was submitted on 17 Nov 2024

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