patrick.net

Tenpoundbass says

zzyzzx says

https://cowboystatedaily.com/2023/06/27/baseball-sized-hail-smashing-into-panels-at-150-mph-destroys-scottsbluff-solar-farm/

Baseball-Sized Hail Smashing Into Panels At 150 MPH Destroys Scottsbluff Solar Farm

Insured, but a complete waste of resources for something that is likely to happen again and again and again. The fossil fuels used just to make those and get them there has not paid for itself. Don't know the age of the field, just given the number of panels, shipping, manufacturing, employees installing and manufacturing employing getting to work, etc.

Solar is only viable in arid climates with little to no rain. And where do all those damaged panels go? As they produce a ton of CO2 on making the new ones? And this is why I don't/won't get solar. Plus it's uglier that shit, just not brown.

WookieMan says

Insured, but a complete waste of resources

Inured? that sounds more like a problem than a but.
Insured for what reason? And how much is their premium compared to the payout?
It's policies like these the every premium payer of every insurance, sees an increase in their premiums, after these episodes.
I bet they are enjoying premiums that are tiny fraction of their profits.

Eman says

Eric Holder says

Eman says

It’s interesting that not making bets is essentially making bets.

Making bets in stock market >> making bets in solar panels on one's roof.

I view installing solar is like buying an asset be it a house, or an investment. You fix the cost while the cost of electricity keeps going up over time. Then in a decade or less once the cost of solar is paid off, you’d get free electricity for the next couple of decades.

It's all feelz. I prefer numbers.

RWSGFY says

It's all feelz. I prefer numbers.

$.333 /kWhr x 365days x 8.36kWhr/day = $1,016 (tax free, BTW)
I should note that $.333/kWhr is a baseline rate. Anything over baseline is $.417/kWhr.
March and October bills include a $38.39 climate credit that all Californians receive. I usually owe PG&E somewhere between $100 to $200 at true up.
EDIT: changed 356 to 365 days. No rest for my panels (hat tip Eman)

EBGuy says

RWSGFY says

It's all feelz. I prefer numbers.

$.333 /kWhr x 356days x 8.36kWhr/day = $1,016 (tax free, BTW)
I should note that $.333/kWhr is a baseline rate. Anything over baseline is $.417/kWhr.
March and October bills include a $38.39 climate credit that all Californians receive. I usually owe PG&E somewhere between $100 to $200 at true up.

356 days, not 365 days? Typo @EBGuy?

RWSGFY says

Eman says

Eric Holder says

Eman says

It’s interesting that not making bets is essentially making bets.

Making bets in stock market >> making bets in solar panels on one's roof.

I view installing solar is like buying an asset be it a house, or an investment. You fix the cost while the cost of electricity keeps going up over time. Then in a decade or less once the cost of solar is paid off, you’d get free electricity for the next couple of decades.

It's all feelz. I prefer numbers.

LOL! I’m sure most people here would agree I’m more of a numbers guy than all feelz…. 🤣

Right, but you chose to put feels and solar industry sales pitch canned phrases into your post instead of ##s.

"Investment in the house", "free electricity", "rates will go STRATOSPHERIC" - this the stuff I hear every time a boy with an electric scooter, iPad and some solar company badge shows up canvassing the neighborhood.

RWSGFY says

Right, but you chose to put feels and solar industry sales pitch canned phrases into your post instead of ##s.

"Investment in the house", "free electricity", "rates will go STRATOSPHERIC" - this the stuff I hear every time a boy with an electric scooter, iPad and some solar company badge shows up canvassing the neighborhood.

Exactly, all of that stuff is just fear porn or bullshit. You’re just avoiding utility costs and replacing them with self generation costs. You’re going to pay something for power, and it’s never going to be free! Inverters are going to last 10-15 years if you’re lucky. Current generation panels will probably get to the 25 year mark and then start significantly degrading.

So much sensationalism. Thanks for the laugh guys. 🤣

I ran the math and shared above. Hirus also chimed in and shared his perspectives. No feels, no fear porn, or BS. Just numbers.

Since I own a Tesla in 2017 till now, electricity cost has doubled. Will it double again in the next 6 years, quadruple in 12 years? 🤷‍♂️ So it is an investment as I’ve fixed my electricity cost for the next 2.5 decades, just like having a fixed mortgage, vs. renting, where rent goes up over time.

Inverters are also guaranteed for 25 years. If I get my money back in 8-9 years, wouldn’t the electricity for the remaining years be free? Just like a paid off house and no more mortgage payments while rent is still due every month for renters?

Maybe you guys see something I don’t.

Was just looking at prices for complete home systems with batteries. It's starting to look like giving the big middle finger to electric company is cost effective. If one's house is totally off the grid, will the electric company try to charge you just for heck of it? Also, how much red tape is involved in electrical permits? It's amazing to me that the electric company and California are so badly run that ditching all the economies of scale that a compact neighborhood offers is still better to go it alone.

If one scavenges a run down battery to use for home storage, are those batteries still efficient even if the capacity isn't so great? Supposed new EV battery is 95% efficient (usable power out is 95% of the power fed in), is a run-down EV battery that only gives 1/2 the driving range still that efficient? If the efficiency is also reduced, then you'll need to expend more money for more solar panel, defeating the cost benefits.

SunnyvaleCA says

If one scavenges a run down battery to use for home storage, are those batteries still efficient even if the capacity isn't so great? Supposed new EV battery is 95% efficient (usable power out is 95% of the power fed in), is a run-down EV battery that only gives 1/2 the driving range still that efficient? If the efficiency is also reduced, then you'll need to expend more money for more solar panel, defeating the cost benefits.

Great question. Research shows that Tesla battery degrades at around 1% per year and it flattens out after 10-20% so the capacity should still be around 80-90%.

Solar panels are guaranteed to have 92% capacity after 25 years. That’s 8% degradation. They have a system installed to monitor the solar panel efficiency. If any panel degrades more than that, they’ll replace it for free as part of the 25-year warranty.

From the battery size perspective, the Cybertruck is a great deal. Backing out the numbers, the Cybertruck will likely have a 175 kWh battery pack for 500-mile range. This is equivalent to 13 powerwalls while each powerwall sells for $14k.

On my recently flight to HI, I sat next to a retired gentleman, who has built his own solar system, and is planning on getting a Tesla car battery pack at the junkyard for storage. I’ve heard others have done it. Great deal compared to the cost of the powerwall.

SunnyvaleCA says

Was just looking at prices for complete home systems with batteries. It's starting to look like giving the big middle finger to electric company is cost effective. If one's house is totally off the grid, will the electric company try to charge you just for heck of it? Also, how much red tape is involved in electrical permits? It's amazing to me that the electric company and California are so badly run that ditching all the economies of scale that a compact neighborhood offers is still better to go it alone.

If I have to guess, as more people go solar, PG&E will likely charge higher fees for using their grid to store/transfer excess electricity generating from solar. NEM 3.0 reduced 75% of the electricity credit PG&E gives to solar owners.

With respect to electrical permit, it seems easy. The solar company handles it, and they get the permit within a couple months.

Eman says

Maybe you guys see something I don’t.

Maybe it has changed, but the average person lives in the same home 7 years. Let's say it's 9 years now. So you've put panels up, barely paid them off. You move. I think it's a negative when selling too. They're ugly. You have to have a flat roof home to mostly hide them and I ain't dealing with that. If you have a large roof, then electric should be of no concern as you likely have $$$.

As far as having a Tesla, especially in CA. They WILL tax you based on your registration at some point in the future. It's not about energy, it's about the roads and maintaining infrastructure. It's not a matter of if, it's when. You're registration could go up to $1k/yr or hell higher. EV's not paying into the system will be taxed at some point and that point is coming sooner than later. Or you'll be blowing out tires and suspensions on crap roads.

Either way, solar and EV's are a trap. How many power plants have they shut down even with all this solar production and car charging? Likely none. They, utilities or government will come for you non-electric usage with solar or usage with EV's. If say 30% of people get into EV's, that's a massive drop in MFT (motor fuel tax) funds. A day of reckoning is coming for the greenies. Roads didn't get built by EV's and they won't last with EV's on them.

Wookie,

I’ve been in the same house for 20 years. My sister has been in the same house for 19. Brothers have been in their house for 13 and 14 years. We’re not the “move and 7 years” typical Americans. I did move after 7 years on the first house though.

It’s $60k. We’ll make it back in 2 months if we change our mind. It’s not a big deal.

We drive EV b/c they’re fun to drive. Trap or not, it doesn’t matter. If we have to get rid of te cars and switch back to ICE vehicles, we’ll do it. It doesn’t matter.

If we have to pay higher registrations, it is what it is. It doesn’t matter. Have to pay to keep up the roads one way or another. We’re only on this earth for a brief period of time. Enjoy life and have fun.

Eman says

Great question. Research shows that Tesla battery degrades at around 1% per year and it flattens out after 10-20% so the capacity should still be around 80-90%.

Solar panels are guaranteed to have 92% capacity after 25 years. That’s 8% degradation. They have a system installed to monitor the solar panel efficiency. If any panel degrades more than that, they’ll replace it for free as part of the 25-year warranty.

From the battery size perspective, the Cybertruck is a great deal. Backing out the numbers, the Cybertruck will likely have a 175 kWh battery pack for 500-mile range. This is equivalent to 13 powerwalls while each powerwall sells for $14k.

I'm not worried about capacity. In my hypothetical cost-saving thought experiment I'm assuming I can get ahold of 4 or more junkyard version-1 Nissan Leafs ("Leaves"?) whose batteries have gone from 85 mile range to 40 mile range because they were daily commuters for 10 years. So, with these degraded batteries, if I managed to feed 10 kWh into them by 4 PM one sunny afternoon will I be able to get 8 kWh out of them by 8 AM the next morning? Clearly, the batters can take in that much energy and still not register as "full," but I'm concerned that only 1/2 the amount of energy that gets fed in actually is able to be used as usable output by my home. I could double my solar panel count, feed 20 kWh into them and be assured I can get out 10 kWh, but now I have no savings simply because I have had to spend 2x on the solar panels.

The same efficiency problem would plague EV owners, too, I suppose. We're told driving an EV is half the energy cost per mile than driving an efficient ICE car, but is that true after both have gone 150k miles? That ICE car is still probably giving 80% the MPG figure (and thus 80% range), but does an EV operating at 70% range also operate at 70% MPG-Equivalent?

Watch out Tesla charging went up to about $0.40/KWH in case if anyone is price cautious.

From: https://robertbryce.substack.com/p/the-energy-transition-isnt

Trollhole says

From: https://robertbryce.substack.com/p/the-energy-transition-isnt

HA HA!!!

@SunnyvaleCA,

My Tesla has 80k miles. The batter has degraded 10%. Sibling’s Tesla has 90k miles while her battery has degraded 6%. Wife’s Tesla is 1-year old. It has degraded less than 1%. Performance is still good. I’m not familiar with Leaf and other EV’s.

Blue says

Watch out Tesla charging went up to about $0.40/KWH in case if anyone is price cautious.

I’ve seen 48 and 56 cents during peak hours around the Bay Area superchargers. When we went to Sacramento recently, it was 30 cents on the weekend.

Off-peak at home is 25 cents. Peak is 56 cents. It was 12.6 cents off-peak when I started this journey in 2017. Will it be 50 cents by 2030? If history is any indication, the electricity rate will be higher. This is why I get solar with 2.99% financing for 12 years. Monthly payment is almost equivalent to monthly PG&E bill before the tax credit.

My Tesla has free supercharging for life so it hasn’t bothered me at the superchargers.

Trollhole says

From: https://robertbryce.substack.com/p/the-energy-transition-isnt

I don’t drive EV to save the planet. I don’t install solar due to global warming. I do them because the numbers work for me.

Blue says

Watch out Tesla charging went up to about $0.40/KWH in case if anyone is price cautious.

That's same or cheaper than home charging for most of California, but isn't so bad when gas is $5.

Eman says

SunnyvaleCA,

My Tesla has 80k miles. The batter has degraded 10%. Sibling’s Tesla has 90k miles while her battery has degraded 6%. Wife’s Tesla is 1-year old. It has degraded less than 1%. Performance is still good. I’m not familiar with Leaf and other EV’s.

Right, so it's unlikely that I can find a scrapped Tesla or buy someone's 10-year-old Tesla for $500.

On the other hand, the original Leaf had an advertised range of 73 miles and is now 12 years old. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_Leaf. Plenty of people were driving them to near exhaustion 5 days a week as a commuter car. Those Leaves (Leafs?) suffered battery range degradation a bit more quickly do to the repeated full-discharge. Plus, if your round trip was 60 miles, you didn't have much range to spare! So, Leaves with seriously depleted range (down 20% to 40%) are easy to pick up really cheap. Even at 40% depletion that's 24 kWh * (1-40%) = 14.4 kWh of capacity.

So, it's good to know I won't be getting any of EMan's Tesla batteries for $500 anytime soon. But, I can probably round up a bunch of 40% off Leaf batteries for cheap. The question is (and I feel like this is the 3rd time asking): Does a car battery whose capacity is significantly depleted also suffer a similar drop in charge/discharge efficiency. i.e.: If I put 12 kWh into the battery will I get 10 kWh out or maybe only 5 kWh out? If it's 5 kWh out, then I'd have to buy 2x as many solar cells because I'd need to put 24 kWh in to run my house for the next day. The capacity of the batteries isn't the problem if they are really cheap; but poor efficiency is costly because it means I need to buy more solar panels.

From the wiki article cited in this post above: "In 2011, Nissan estimated that the battery would have a lifetime of at least 10 years, with 80% usable capacity remaining after five years." So, yeah, 60% capacity after 10 is a reasonable expectation.

Leaf battery degradation I thought was common knowledge. What I don't know if if you can buy a leaf cheap enough for it to be worth fixing. Like get a second leaf battery cheap used a just use the good cells left to swap into your existing leaf battery to make it better.

I think internal resistance builds up over time as well; i.e., it takes more energy to bring the battery to the same charge because more energy is lost through resistance/heat rather than building up charge.

@SunnyvaleCA,

Maybe post your question on Quora and see if someone can help you out? A lot of knowledge folks on there.

Booger says

What I don't know if if you can buy a leaf cheap enough for it to be worth fixing.

In California, you can get a used Leaf for "free" if you are "income limited". That is, PG&E will give you $4k (if for instance, your family of four makes less than $150k and lives in San Mateo county) plus the feds will kick in a 30% tax credit if you a buy used EV from a dealer. Terms and conditions apply. YMMV.

EBGuy says

Booger says

What I don't know if if you can buy a leaf cheap enough for it to be worth fixing.

In California, you can get a used Leaf for "free" if you are "income limited". That is, PG&E will give you $4k (if for instance, your family of four makes less than $150k and lives in San Mateo county) plus the feds will kick in a 30% tax credit if you a buy used EV from a dealer. Terms and conditions apply. YMMV.

@EBGuy,

The catch is you have to buy the car from a dealer. No credit if you buy it from a 3rd party.

EBGuy says

Eman says

. It would cover my monthly electricity bill of $230/mo on average.

Looks like PG&E just upped summer rates to $.49/kwHr for above baseline usage during peak hours (4-9pm) summer months. Yikes. For the amount you use, it be insane not to get solar...

58.4 cents now for peak. That’s about a 20% increase? Off-peak is now 27.2 cents/kWh, about 10% increase?

Got mined installed and loving it. I wish I had it installed sooner.

Patrick says

Amazingly, the solar works even on cloudy and rainy days. I don’t have the knowledge to understand how it works, but it makes financial sense to have it installed for me.

Eman says

Amazingly, the solar works even on cloudy and rainy days.

You mean like in a "Better than nothing..." kind of way.

Eman says

Cost is $17.4K after tax incentives.

Incentives should be unconstitutional. Where's my $7,000 check?
Thanks to concepts like these high bar incentives(90% of the population are not in a position to lay out $17K to reap that reward) concepts like "reparations'"
are fair game. If not for this cockamamie, they would have been laughed down and ran out of town.

Eman says

Amazingly, the solar works even on cloudy and rainy days. I don’t have the knowledge to understand how it works, but it makes financial sense to have it installed for me.

Works to an extent in certain areas. I've researched it enough for my area. I'd have to live in the same house for 20 years to justify the cost for the weather we get. I'd contemplate the Tesla shingles/roof on the build, but I'm not doing panels. Maybe in the yard I guess by a garden so they're hidden mostly. I could actually get decent wind energy where I live. It's just fucking ugly like solar panels.

At some point it's pinching pennies to make other people money. It's a time frame thing. I'm not putting up 10's of thousand for solar if I'm not knowing if I'll stay a decade plus. That's your payoff period. 99% of people with solar are just paying it forward to the next owner and didn't save a dime.

Tenpoundbass says

Eman says

Amazingly, the solar works even on cloudy and rainy days.

You mean like in a "Better than nothing..." kind of way.

Not like that. I didn’t expect solar to work when the cloud covers the sun, but that’s not the case. What I’ve learned is that I still get 20% production when the cloud is thick and up to 60% production when the cloud is thin. Solar even gives production in the teens on rainy days. It’s just interesting. That’s all.

Tenpoundbass says

Eman says

Cost is $17.4K after tax incentives.

Incentives should be unconstitutional. Where's my $7,000 check?
Thanks to concepts like these high bar incentives(90% of the population are not in a position to lay out $17K to reap that reward) concepts like "reparations'"
are fair game. If not for this cockamamie, they would have been laughed down and ran out of town.

The incentives are there for everyone unconstitutional or not. Solar can be financed 100% through the solar company’s lender at 2.99%. No money out of pocket. So rather than paying PG&E, we pay the bank. It’s like a fixed mortgage where our electricity cost doesn’t go up every year.

Once the loan is paid off, it’s practically free electricity for the remaining life of the solar, which is guaranteed for 25 years with at least 92% production. 8% degradation in 25 years is not bad at all. This was why I over-designed the solar system by 10% to account for degradation.

Wookie,

Everyone’s situation is different. No one size fits all. In general, I make decisions based on numbers while others make theirs with emotions and/or aesthetics.

I remember having a convo with my former coworkers how 401k contributions won’t be enough to give us a comfortable life when we retire. It’s live less now so we can live less later. My goal is to make more now so we can spend more and save more; then we can live more later. This has set me on the right path to never look back.

I still get together with my former coworkers occasionally. They’re all slaving away while I can drop their annual salary on a car at anytime I want. THIS is the life I have always dreamed, achieved and enjoying now. I love America.

.

from Ten Global Trends

Every Smart Person Should Know by Ronald Bailey and Marian L. Tupy.

The economics and market share of solar energy continue to improve dramatically:
 
"The prices of silicon solar photovoltaic cells will continue their steep exponential decline, according to the New Energy Outlook 2018 report from Bloomberg's New Energy Finance (BNEF) group. According to the BNEF, the average price of silicon photovoltaic (PV) cells fell from $76 per watt in 1977 to $4 per watt in 2008, a drop of nearly 95 percent. Since 2008, the price of PVs has fallen to $0.24 per watt, another drop of nearly 95 percent. That downward trajectory tracks technological improvements in the efficiency of solar cells, as well as increasing economies of scale. With regard to the latter, solar cell prices seem to be following Swanson's law, named for Richard Swanson, the founder of U.S. solar-cell manufacturer Sun Power. Swanson suggests that the cost of PV cells falls by 20 percent with each doubling of global manufacturing capacity. The pattern is a product of constantly improving manufacturing processes: more automation, better quality control, materials reduction, and so forth. As of 2018, BNEF reports that global wind and solar developers had installed their first trillion watts of power-generation capacity, and it projects that the next trillion watts in renewable generation will be completed within the next five years. In 2016, total world electric power-generation capacity stood at 6.2 trillion watts.

A conventional crystalline silicon solar cell (as of 2005). Electrical contacts made from busbars (the larger silver-colored strips) and fingers (the smaller ones) are printed on the silicon wafer.

"As the result of ever-falling costs, the Bloomberg analysts project that by 2050, wind and solar technologies will generate a most 50 percent of total electricity globally, with hydropower, nuclear power, and other renewables pushing total zero-carbon electricity up to 71 percent.

.