There are some places on earth where there is so much sun that solar outcompetes even without subsidies. That said the US and EU are only trying to move manufacturing back to China so we have disposable crap produced in the worst factories that needs constant intercontinental shipping. Sounds like a Biden plan.
I have friends who worked in solar in Southern California, where there is lots of sun, and they told me that without the subsidies it was not competitive with fossil fuels. Not even close, in fact.
The easy way to resolve any doubt is to eliminate the subsidies. If "green" energy can truly compete with fossil fuels - great! I doubt it.
The duplication of transmission infrastructure alone makes it a loser. Funny how the eco terrorists don’t care about all the land and waste that goes into renewables.
I'm not sure which subsidies he means. The raw price of a solar panel now is in many cases under a dollar per watt, with no tax rebate applied, just like you went to amazon and ordered a solar panel, and it shows up to your house. The manufacturer potentially could be subsidized in some ways, I'm not sure, like low interest loans or whatever. Anyway a sunny place like florida, texas, or southern california, you can generate about 1.5 kwh per day from a 200 watt solar panel that costs $180. This is about 18 cents of electricity per day, so 1000 days, about 3 years, to offset it's cost. Most panels have 20-30 years warranties.
A gallon of gasoline produces in the mid 30's kwh of power, except ICE engines only harness about 40% of that. If your commute to work is 20 miles, you need about 9 of those panels to harvest enough electricity for that task per day, say 10 to be safe. A 40 mile round trip at average passenger vehicle mpg is 1.6 gallons of gas per day, with holidays and vacation, lets say 50 weeks a year, 5 days per week, that's 400 gallons of gas per year. At current average prices that is $1028 per year, so the panels take less than 2 years to save you money in that scenario.
The real cost savings are in DIY, you can buy panels from wholesalers as low as $0.60 per wat rating that i've seen, and make your own lithium iron battery packs, do the install yourself, it can for sure be cost effective. If you go for a commercial install, you get into more sketchy territory.
The main reason I like solar is the independence, if an idiot like biden takes office and starts jacking up prices of energy with a few strokes of their pen, you are independent and unaffected, at least directly. I think individual independence is nearly as important as national independence, when it comes to things like energy, or the nation's food and medical supplies, we shouldn't be dependent on nations like china or middle eastern dictators literally for our survival, and on an individual level I think most people should have gardens, maybe a few chickens, a tilapia pool, and some solar panels, plus emergency supplies for reasonable natural disasters. Then you still have the grid as a backup and mostly industry is powered by the grid so more energy available for businesses to utilize. As far as that goes, nuclear and solar go hand in hand, solar produces the most power during the day, which is when demand is highest, unlike wind which produces whenever it feels like, often at night, when demand is lowest(if you have batteries it's okay but grid scale batteries are way too expensive). Nuclear creates steady power output so you have to build excess capacity to meet peak needs, but not if you combine with solar.
What hot sunny regions like that are good for is more for is solar steam turbines, since solar EV panels as noted by other posters become less effective when overheated.
Bonus points if they manage to incorporate it into a desalination process for creating potable water while they are at it.
The challenge that as always remains with inconsistent generation methods like solar and wind is storage of that energy.
There are some places on earth where there is so much sun that solar outcompetes even without subsidies. That said the US and EU are only trying to move manufacturing back to China so we have disposable crap produced in the worst factories that needs constant intercontinental shipping. Sounds like a Biden plan.
I have friends who worked in solar in Southern California, where there is lots of sun, and they told me that without the subsidies it was not competitive with fossil fuels. Not even close, in fact.
The easy way to resolve any doubt is to eliminate the subsidies. If "green" energy can truly compete with fossil fuels - great! I doubt it.
The duplication of transmission infrastructure alone makes it a loser. Funny how the eco terrorists don’t care about all the land and waste that goes into renewables.
Yes i wasn't thinking the US in particular.
https://www.pv-magazine.com/2020/04/28/abu-dhabis-2-gw-tender-draws-world-record-solar-bid-of-0-0135-kwh/
Maybe if Biden brings on mass inflation and job losses and mass immigration the labor cost going down just might make it work.
I'm not sure which subsidies he means. The raw price of a solar panel now is in many cases under a dollar per watt, with no tax rebate applied, just like you went to amazon and ordered a solar panel, and it shows up to your house. The manufacturer potentially could be subsidized in some ways, I'm not sure, like low interest loans or whatever. Anyway a sunny place like florida, texas, or southern california, you can generate about 1.5 kwh per day from a 200 watt solar panel that costs $180. This is about 18 cents of electricity per day, so 1000 days, about 3 years, to offset it's cost. Most panels have 20-30 years warranties.
A gallon of gasoline produces in the mid 30's kwh of power, except ICE engines only harness about 40% of that. If your commute to work is 20 miles, you need about 9 of those panels to harvest enough electricity for that task per day, say 10 to be safe. A 40 mile round trip at average passenger vehicle mpg is 1.6 gallons of gas per day, with holidays and vacation, lets say 50 weeks a year, 5 days per week, that's 400 gallons of gas per year. At current average prices that is $1028 per year, so the panels take less than 2 years to save you money in that scenario.
The real cost savings are in DIY, you can buy panels from wholesalers as low as $0.60 per wat rating that i've seen, and make your own lithium iron battery packs, do the install yourself, it can for sure be cost effective. If you go for a commercial install, you get into more sketchy territory.
The main reason I like solar is the independence, if an idiot like biden takes office and starts jacking up prices of energy with a few strokes of their pen, you are independent and unaffected, at least directly. I think individual independence is nearly as important as national independence, when it comes to things like energy, or the nation's food and medical supplies, we shouldn't be dependent on nations like china or middle eastern dictators literally for our survival, and on an individual level I think most people should have gardens, maybe a few chickens, a tilapia pool, and some solar panels, plus emergency supplies for reasonable natural disasters. Then you still have the grid as a backup and mostly industry is powered by the grid so more energy available for businesses to utilize. As far as that goes, nuclear and solar go hand in hand, solar produces the most power during the day, which is when demand is highest, unlike wind which produces whenever it feels like, often at night, when demand is lowest(if you have batteries it's okay but grid scale batteries are way too expensive). Nuclear creates steady power output so you have to build excess capacity to meet peak needs, but not if you combine with solar.
Your friend is wrong.
How much does SPG&E charge a kWH? Something like 80 cents? Even offsetting that with solar and your ROI will be around 8-10 years.
And SoCal doesn't do solar nearly as hard as NorCal does.
You mean, like the deep Sahara desert?
What hot sunny regions like that are good for is more for is solar steam turbines, since solar EV panels as noted by other posters become less effective when overheated.
Bonus points if they manage to incorporate it into a desalination process for creating potable water while they are at it.
The challenge that as always remains with inconsistent generation methods like solar and wind is storage of that energy.
Do you not see my reply with a to an article about abu dhabi? Very strange if shaddow banning or link censoring is going on.
This was my reply but i now took out the dot etc
Yes i wasn't thinking the US in particular.
Pv-magazine com/2020/04/28/abu-dhabis-2-gw-tender-draws-world-record-solar-bid-of-0-0135-kwh/
Maybe if Biden brings on mass inflation and job losses and mass immigration the labor cost going down just might make it work.
No. Solar is ideal in sunny and cold locations. Like Colorado.
Voltage decreases with heat. That's why it's important to keep the modules as cool as possible.