Solar Power

[andrewducker]

Should reach grid parity in Italy next year, most of Europe by 2020 and the UK by 2030.

That's assuming trends continue as they currently are.  Which is something that never happens.

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Comments

[drplokta]

Grid parity isn't good enough to make solar photovoltaic economic, as when the sun is out during the day you will generate more power than you use, so you either need to store it (pushing up the price and thus the point of grid parity) or sell it (in which case you need wholesale parity, not grid parity).

[andrewducker]

True. But if it's going to reach grid parity here by 2030 then that should be making it wholesale parity in Italy (or darn close).

And it might be worth, for instance, my office getting the roof covered in panels, as it uses the vast majority of its power during the day.

[kurosau.livejournal.com]

It might be feasible to store it very cheaply, provided this turns out to be more than hogwash: http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/energy_digital/4276071.html

Unfortunately, aside from the initial press on the subject, I haven't been able to find any word about how development of this technology is progressing.

[balthial.livejournal.com]

Power usage is high during the day, really high in the evening, and almost zero at night. So for grid connected solar systems storing power is absolutely not a problem in an advanced country. If you have the entire country running on solar or you have an off grid system or whatever then you have an issue.

I am not sure I trust their numbers. You really have to think about things like long term electricity cost projections (very hard to predict, but probably prices are going up) and financing costs. Financing costs for Solar is almost nothing in Germany but I bet it is expensive in Italy.

[drplokta]

Yes, which is why I say that selling it is an alternative to storing it. But to make that economic, photovoltaic has to achieve wholesale parity, not grid parity, which is a good deal harder.

[balthial.livejournal.com]

1. Yes, if you believe that the difference between whole sale and retail energy prices reflects the cost of moving the power. This is a highly regulated industry, and in my experience in the power industry, I have found that there are a lot of political influences on the process. In my mind a little regulation to prop up the price for people selling solar power to the grid is in order. Anyway, the true cost of moving power from my roof to my neighbor's house is really not as high as moving it from a big coal plant 200 km away.

2. Most commercial and industrial installations will easily be able to absorb all the power they generate from something like a roof top installation.

[johncoxon.livejournal.com]

Is grid parity where it produces enough energy to meet the current production of the National Grid, just not all necessarily at the right time?

[andrewducker]

Nope - it's where the cost per watt is the same as current grid costs.

[0olong.livejournal.com]

Speaking of which, the complete absence of capacity from that discussion made me very suspicious.

[andrewducker]

Capacity is something that has to be dealt with separately, as does base load and the like.

[0olong.livejournal.com]

Sure... but there's not much point getting excited about grid parity if solar power's only going to be able to provide 0.5% of our electricity, eh?

[andrewducker]

The point being that once it costs the same as buying it from the grid people will be happy to install it in their own homes rather than buying it from the grid. Until that point there's no financial incentive to have it supply _any_ of our electricity, purely a social one.