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Party Is Over For Dirt-Cheap Solar Panels, Says China Executive (reuters.com)
The president of a top-10 maker of solar panels said the global solar power industry is about to lose a major competitive windfall as prices of Chinese-made solar panels begin to recover after a collapse last year. "The party is definitely over," said Eric Luo, president of China's GCL System Integration Technology Co. Reuters reports: Solar panel prices tumbled around 30 percent last year after China, the world's largest producer, cut subsidies to shrink its bloated solar industry, pushing smaller manufacturers to the brink of collapse. To raise cash and stay afloat, manufacturers cleared inventory and diverted sales offshore, sending prices into a downward spiral - offering up a windfall for solar power generators and investors in solar farms.
Luo, speaking to Reuters at the World Economic Forum in the Swiss ski resort of Davos this week, said GCL's vertically integrated business model cushioned it from the downturn in prices as its solar farms benefited from cheaper panels. The pain will mostly be felt by smaller Chinese producers, which lack international supply chains, triggering industry consolidation or forcing them to close, he added. Luo said solar panel prices were already stabilizing and he expected them to rebound by 10 to 15 percent as the Chinese industry consolidates over the next year or two. Luo also said that China was getting to the point where the solar industry could operate without any form of subsidy. Northwest China, where the sun is more plentiful and land is less expensive, has already reached that point, he said.
Luo, speaking to Reuters at the World Economic Forum in the Swiss ski resort of Davos this week, said GCL's vertically integrated business model cushioned it from the downturn in prices as its solar farms benefited from cheaper panels. The pain will mostly be felt by smaller Chinese producers, which lack international supply chains, triggering industry consolidation or forcing them to close, he added. Luo said solar panel prices were already stabilizing and he expected them to rebound by 10 to 15 percent as the Chinese industry consolidates over the next year or two. Luo also said that China was getting to the point where the solar industry could operate without any form of subsidy. Northwest China, where the sun is more plentiful and land is less expensive, has already reached that point, he said.
The good news is there are now at least 23 companies making solar panels in the USA, and their prices are becoming more competitive. It'll get even better once the dumb trade war is over.
You are welcome on my lawn.
The sun is still free, and there are more companies making solar panels in the USA and Canada than ever. Some of their prices are competitive with China, too. One US company is about to open a big plant in Mexico.
Your vibe doesn't have to be harshed.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Good. More jobs for us then.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Parabolic heliostat leading to a large thermal mass via waveguide with a mirrored hatch through which cup can be interposed into beam path. Direct heat when sunny, indirect via heat exchanger at other times. Also suitable for kinetic output with turbine (stirling a poor choice for high power).
Direct motive energy from wind to perform non time critical tasks. Flywheel in evacuated enclosure with magnetic bearings to extend availability.
Argument from incredulity rejected. Engineering knowledge and imagination impugned.
Next.
This only had a major effect on big commercial users like solar farms. Residential customers will be buying panels from domestic or Japanese/Korean brands most likely, complete with long warranty periods.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Perhaps you should up what "intermittent" actually means.
I'm in Thailand, Isan, since 5,5 month. There were two rainy days and two cloudy days. Sun goes up at 6:30 and sets around 17:30. Absolutely nothing "intermittent" here ... same for the Sahara or Australia.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Yes, because we're running out of roofs and unused fields...
Ezekiel 23:20
But they *are* cheap and getting cheaper still. It's called "technological progress", and it happens to solar and wind generation equipment just like it happened to the efficiency and power-to-weight ratio of steam engines in the past, for example. These fluctuations mentioned in the article, which already happened in the past anyway, are irrelevant for the big picture.
Ezekiel 23:20
That's misrepresenting what she was saying. Simply it is easier to harvest heat from solar rather than electrical energy and it's far more efficient than generating electricity and then using it to heat water.
Googling solar water heaters, a typical home can get a system for around 5 to 6000 before grants. It saves around 800 a year. If you have the money it's a good return and it does work on a cloudy winters day. If you own your own home it's a reasonable option.
Power generation pretty much is too expensive for individual homes, the best way to be green is to be more energy efficient but there is a catch.
http://live.windenergy.ie/ currently shows around 56% of irelands energy needs is being provided by Wind of course that varies a lot. Over capacity is always going to be needed. Although some of this can be via interconnectors The Island of Ireland has 2 interconnectors to the UK and can import or export up to 1000MW For grid stability Wind currently can be up to 65% of demand so being able to increase demand via exporting is a good thing the UK has around 3000MW of interconnectors with france and the netherlands. Sometimes they are importing from france and the netherlands while exporting to Ireland.
There is a bit of an issue with overcapacity in order for power generators to invest in plant they need a return on their capital investment. So they get capacity payments when they are shut down by the grid. This increases the price we pay for electricity. There is always a number of generators either stopped or running at minimum capacity. in ireland demand varies usually between 3000 to 6000 MW in a daily cycle.
Prior to the 2008 crash demand was expected to increase and generators were commissioned to meet that demand, this demand didn't appear so these generators got capacity payments for standing idle, as we were busy trying to cut our power usage, electricity prices rose to compensate for reduced demand.
If there was a sudden uptake in Solar heating and Generation you would be using less from the main suppliers but chances are the price they charge you will rise in order to compensate for you taking less from them. Kind of like apple increasing the price of macs and phones in order to compensate for lost sales.
Blarney Quality Restaurant, Plants
She claims EROEI on PV is 3:1. Sure, in 1987 maybe. Current panels have "harmonized EROIs between 8.7 and 34.2".
>That's less than a $0.01 per kWh
Huh? "CN: Usage Price: Electricity for Industry: 35 kV & Above" from https://www.ceicdata.com/en/china/electricity-price
0.870 RMB/kWh = 13 cents USD/kWh
The US price for industrial power is lower across the board:
https://blsstrategies.com/docs/news/News_181.pdf
20 year solar PPAs are being signed for delivery this year at 1.4 cents/kWh. More realistic numbers for China are between 4 and 6 cents. That is precisely why China announced they were no longer offering any support on PV installs. Yet in spite of removing those incentives, current predictions are for ~45 GWp of installs this year in China alone.
It's not hard to see why: PV can be installed incrementally, one panel at a time. Therefore you can easily ramp up and down with supply-n-demand, labor availability, access to cash, etc. Wind and natural gas are next in line in scalability, the former ~1.5MW per install and the later around 200 kW in most cases. But for something like a reactor, it's 1 GW or nothing. This really skews the financing side toward the renewables.
Sunlight appears to be the most equitably distributed primary power source on the whole planet. Even the worst regions don't seem to be more than 4x or so worse than the best region on the planet (a part of Chile, I suspect?). Any other source, such as wind, coal deposits, oil deposits, uranium ore etc. have vastly higher geographic differences (although admittedly, for some, such as uranium, this might not impact their practicality).
Ezekiel 23:20
The problem with renewable energy is not so much the price to do so but the cost of not running non renewable energy. Power plants are built on the basis that there is going to be a return on investment. Truth is they get paid both to produce and not to produce in order to return that investment.
Taking Ireland as an example, i work in this market, demand can vary between around 3000 MW to 6000MW typically on a daily basis, Sometimes demand can reach higher or lower. So at minimum demand there is at least 3000MW of generation capacity that is off or running at minimum load. This idle generation is paid a capacity payment. When you introduce Wind you have a variable source, the maximum wind generation to date was just short of 4000 MW on a low it can reach as low as 200MW So you need enough standby generation to cover those low days and they are going to get paid if they run or not.
Environmentally it's better to run using renewable energy but you still have to pay the non renewable energy producers anyway. If you didn't then you might not cover peak demand and then we could be sitting in the dark. It's not that hard to destabilize the grid.
It's kind of interesting what tesla is doing in Australia they have huge battery packs which are charged by the wind farms and able to supply the grid at a moments notice. This helps a lot.
Blarney Quality Restaurant, Plants
Even if - my large array (Around 4kw peak) runs my home campus even on cloudy days, since it only draws ~ 300w when I'm not running a lathe or welder. All this crap about concentrators is dumb-ass and only for places like deserts or maybe Thailand. The rest of us have lots of cloudy days, and you know what? If there's enough light to see...there's some power coming out, even in diffuse light - from a panel array. Like street racing where there's no substitute for cubic inches - no substitute for plain old area.
Concentrators only work when you don't need them, such a deal I have for you....
Why guess when you can know? Measure!
What is that thing where the sun is completely unavailable no matter if there is cloud cover or not ?
Oh yeah I think they call it nighttime.