Submitted 3 months ago by ArtikBanana@lemmy.dbzer0.com to technology@lemmy.world
https://www.pv-magazine.com/2024/11/14/solar-modules-now-selling-for-less-than-e0-06-w-in-europe/
$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)
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.
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?
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 almost a third of the LCOE of nuclear when storage is added: statista.com/…/global-levelized-cost-of-energy-co…
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.
You’re using factors of less than 10 to argue against a factor of 100.
The batteries needed are a lot less than you might think. Solar doesn’t work at night and the wind doesn’t always blow, but we have tons of regional weather data about how they overlap. From that, it’s possible to calculate the maximum historical lull where neither are providing enough. You then add enough storage to handle double that time period, and you’re good.
Getting 95% coverage with this is a very achievable goal. That last 5% takes a lot more effort, but getting to 95% would be a massive reduction in CO2 output.
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.
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:
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.
I’m very much in the first camp and need to remind myself whenever I think about arriving due nuclear
A MW of solar averages out to about .2 MW/h per hour. A MW of nuclear averages about .9 MW/h per hour.
But even so as the UK does it, nuclear power isn’t worth it. France and China are better examples since they both picked a few designs and mass produced them.
MW/h
There is MW which is a unit of power and then there is MWh which is a unit of energy, but what is MW/h supposed to mean?
Maybe just use percentages instead of these weird units. 0.2 MHh per hour is just 0.2 MW, or 20%.
Nuclear actually around 0.5 or 0.6, because 1/3 is always off for repair and control.
In many regions solar capacity factor is much higher than 20%; for example, the entire US. atb.nrel.gov/electricity/2021/utility-scale_pv
but at 1% of the cost, why are we still talking about nuclear
Sure… the reactor will go 24/7 (between maintenance and refuelling down times, and will use less land
The land thing isn’t anywhere near enough of a concern for me, especially when dual uses of land are quite feasible.
24/7 is just about over commissioning and having storage. Build 10x as much and store what you generate. At those sorts of levels even an overcast day generates.
Using the remaining 99% of the cost to bury batteries underground would seem reasonable.
Because grid level power delivery is about FAR more than just raw wattage numbers. Momentum of spinning turbines is extremely important to the grid. The grid relies on generation equipment maintaing an AC frequency of 60 hz or 50hz or whatever a country decides on. Changing loads throughout the day literally and a resistance to the entire grid and it can drag the frequency down.
reliable consistent power delivery is absolutely critical when it comes to running the grid effectively and that is something that solar and wind are bad at
Ideally we will be able to use those technologies to fill grid level storage to supply 100% of our energy needs in the not to distant future but until then we desperately need large, consistent, clean power generation.
You aren’t wrong, but you are assuming that the grid is required. Solar panels can be installed at the point of use, and then the grid doesn’t come into it at all.
You have to have some base load it can’t be all renewable because renewables just aren’t reliable enough. The only way to get 100% reliability from solar for example would be to build a ring of panels around the equator (type 1 civilization stuff).
I would have order the options for base load nuclear is the least worst, at least until we can get Fusion online, but you know that’s always 20 years away.
That’s why we have hydro. Its a giant battery. We can also make synthetic methane.
We absolutely can do 100% renewable.
Storage. It’s all about storage. In exactly the same way that our water is handled. We have reservoirs to handle the times when natural water supply is low.
We can’t manufacture and install enough solar farms and storage to get us off of fossil fuel within 20 years and more importantly available investment capital isn’t the limiting factor.
Investments in nuclear power are not taking money away from investments in solar.
We can do both, and it gets us off fossil fuels sooner.
Investments in nuclear power are not taking money away from investments in solar.
This is interesting. Why do you think that?
I would disagree, because is see investment capital as finite. There are only so many investors able to operate at infrastructure scales. And therefore I see nuclear’s true cost as opportunity cost.
Total solar manufacturing capability has been increasing exponentially. So has wind, and so have various storage methods.
Yes, we can install enough.
Also the budget and timeline is always understated, because otherwise government could withdraw funding if they don’t sink a little more cost into the budget every year.
One percent.
One fucking percent.
One!!
Good news perhaps but I’m sure I won’t see any benefit in Scotland, still thousands to add solar panels.
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.
You know, if you people wanna ditch the Kingdom and join the club, I don’t think it’s too late.
Yup. Average here in south US is 25k for a home system without battery backup.
At the risk of getting political, you should expect that to go up under Trump. The tariff war with China during his first term kept panel prices high, and it’s going to be worse this time. And that’s not his only policy that will affect pricing.
For electricity generation: Solar across the UK was about 5% in last year, while Wind was about 29% and Nuclear 13.9%, and hydro 1.3% - so 49.2% of energy over the last 12 months was carbon neutral.
That’s a huge success story - still a long way to go, particularly as that does not include Gas burned in homes, but the UK is moving in the right direction. And Scotland is a huge source of Wind & Hydro power for the whole country.
So even if the barriers to solar in your home are still high, the grid is getting cleaner and cleaner every year. There are also community projects installing wind generators which you can join/invest in if you do want to try and get a slice of cleaner energy and solar is not realistic.
Installation the trouble. Roofing is expensive. Next time you have to redo the roof: then it’s time
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…
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.
You can pay a lot less than 10x for completed panels. store.santansolar.com amazed me.
Thousands of people buying rooftop panels was never going to be the best way towards a Water/Wind/Solar (WWS) future. Fitting panels to the roof has to work around the roof geometry and obstructions like vents. That makes every job a custom job. It also means thousands of small inverters rather than a few big ones.
Compare that to setting up thousands of panels on racks in a field. As long as it’s relatively open and flat, you just slap those babies down. You haul in a few big inverters which are often built right into shipping containers that can just be placed on site, hooked up, and left there. Batteries need inverters, too, so if your project includes some storage, then you only need one set of inverters.
I get the feeling of independence from the system that solar panels on the roof gives people, but it’s just not economically the best way to go. The insanely cheap dollars per MWh of solar is only seen when deploying them on a mass scale. That means roofs of commercial/industrial buildings or bigger.
Rooftop units might not be the least expressive, but they are absolutely the way to go. The less we rely on the utilities, the more demand we take off of their adding grid, that they refuse to upgrade. It also means more energy independence. A friend of mine has a small rooftop setup that has completely offset his electricity isn’t to the punt that he bought a plugin hybrid that never goes out battery for his day to day travels and costs him nothing to charge.
Solar has always an extremely high ratio for megawatt per mass unit.
This price is really good
It’s kinda good but it completely destroyed the European manufacturing for solar
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 is not just a ‘for-show’ move. As sanctions on Russia show, dependence on markets that can potentially turn hostile can be very damaging.
Yep the EU will be beholden to a dictatorial regime again. Instead placating Putin for gas it will be Xi for solar panels and batteries.
At least those items you only need to buy once.
You’re either an astroturfer or useful idiot spreading oil lobby talking points.
Either you believe the climate science or you don’t. If you do, you know that we don’t have time for industry protectionism.
Do not assume bad faith over anything you disagree with.
While I disagree with the original statement, hostility never changed anyone’s mind.
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.
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.
If EU wants to compete they’re welcome to utilize the same style of subsidies that enabled China to produce these so cheaply.
0.001$ per watt would be way ducking better
Theyre $1.25 per watt in south America right now (we have an energy crisis due to climate change caused drought)
Assuming these prices are ideal for a solar grid, which EU country(s) would have the highest chance of shifting towards solar; I wonder
Probably all of them. Germany is really not ideal for solar in terms of weather, yet they are installed by many people all over the place, even today. With the cheaper prices things will get even better.
Appreciate that, glad to see there is data pointing these things out
And good shop that will sell me a super cheap and good set including inverter here in Germany?
Any of the Discounters, really. ALDI, Lidl, Netto, etc have regular offers in their online shops.
Hmm. But with those three, the simple sets (2x400W + power inverter) seem to be ~100€ more expensive than on Amazon. Maybe I have to go with Amazon then. Thanks anyways!
JustEnoughDucks@feddit.nl 3 months 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)
sirboozebum@lemmy.world 3 months ago
4 million households in Australia have solar panels.
They are great value.
Akasazh@feddit.nl 3 months 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 3 months 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.
ammonium@lemmy.world 3 months ago
You guys shouldn’t complain, you still have saldering (net metering) ánd get money for the electricity you have left which is still a huge subsidy.
echodot@feddit.uk 3 months ago
I’m fairly sure that all newly built houses in the UK require solar by law.
Blackmist@feddit.uk 3 months ago
All the new houses around here with no solar would indicate that is not true. They’re not even required to have a south facing roof.
bobs_monkey@lemm.ee 3 months ago
Same here in California
Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In@lemmy.world 3 months ago
This is the price of guaranteed electricity delivered to your doorstep. We can’t get rid of gas fired power stations and kms of electricity grid network yet.
JustEnoughDucks@feddit.nl 3 months ago
Only partially true. The solar panels almost all inject power back into the grid. Power companies started complaining about their profits when they had to actually pay the users for their power that they generated so now home power generating houses get paid pennies on the dollar for delivering power and reducing the power capacity needed by the power companies and of course the power companies didn’t lower prices at all, so they are just sucking up the difference in pure profit.
Wahots@pawb.social 3 months ago
That is surprisingly expensive there. I think it’s like 12¢/kwh here (though we have block one and block two prices depending on how many kwh you use in a month, so it could be a higher rate if you are eating through tons of power).