Can Solar Power Compete With Coal? In India, It's Gaining Ground (wsj.com) 93
Electricity from sunlight costs less, a hopeful sign for developing nations building out their power grids. From a report: In a dusty northwest India desert dotted with cows and the occasional camel, a solar-power plant is producing some of the world's cheapest energy. Built in 2018 by India's Acme Solar Holdings, it can generate 200 megawatts of electricity, enough to power all the homes in a middle-size U.S. town. Acme sells the electricity to distributors for 2.44 rupees (3.4 cents) a kilowatt-hour, a record low for solar power in India, a country that data trackers say has the world's cheapest solar energy. More remarkable, the power costs less to generate in India than the cheapest competing fossil fuel -- coal -- even with subsidies removed and the cost of construction and financing figured in, according to the Indian government and industry trackers. Price-conscious Indian utilities are eager to snap up that power. "We are infamous for low cost," says Sandeep Kashyap, Acme's president.
Solar power has entered a new global era. The industry was long dependent on subsidies and regulatory promotions. Now, technological innovation and falling solar-panel prices have made solar power inexpensive enough to compete on its own with other fuel sources in some regions [Editor's note: the link may be paywalled.], when it comes to newly built plants. That could turbocharge growth of renewables in the global energy industry, especially in fast-growing Asian markets where much of the world's energy infrastructure expansion will take place. Governments in many solar markets -- including China, the biggest -- are phasing out or reducing supports. Solar-plant development is going mainstream, with finance provided by global investors like Goldman Sachs Group, Singaporean sovereign-wealth fund GIC and huge Western pension and private-equity funds.
Solar power has entered a new global era. The industry was long dependent on subsidies and regulatory promotions. Now, technological innovation and falling solar-panel prices have made solar power inexpensive enough to compete on its own with other fuel sources in some regions [Editor's note: the link may be paywalled.], when it comes to newly built plants. That could turbocharge growth of renewables in the global energy industry, especially in fast-growing Asian markets where much of the world's energy infrastructure expansion will take place. Governments in many solar markets -- including China, the biggest -- are phasing out or reducing supports. Solar-plant development is going mainstream, with finance provided by global investors like Goldman Sachs Group, Singaporean sovereign-wealth fund GIC and huge Western pension and private-equity funds.
Acme? (Score:2)
Let me guess, the solar plant has a secondary function as a death ray?
more mirrors! (Score:2)
Come the zombie apocalypse they'll be golden!
Re: India - can't they burn human dung? (Score:2)
Nah, US politics has gained a global leadership position on that. Even with a billion people, India could never attain such levels.
People like you practically live off of that shit.
Wile E. Coyote... (Score:1)
... Super Genius!
Sure... the plang works just fine until anvils start raining on it.
As for Solar vs. Coal. For all the 'extras' in creating solar panels - I'll take them over coal any day.
There is no free lunch - we just need to make sure that the lunch we do buy is as environmentally friendly and economically viable as possible.
Re: (Score:2)
It's crazy to put a huge effort into reduction of something that will naturally fall a large amount
It needs to fall to *zero*, if not negative. ASAP.
Re: (Score:3)
It needs to fall to *zero*, if not negative. ASAP.
Indeed.
There are hundreds of coal plants under construction or planned in India, Indonesia, Africa, etc., Once built, these coal plants will have an operating lifetime of 60 years.
The world's top priority should be to STOP these coal plants from being built, and roll out solar, wind, nukes, and hydro instead.
This is why AOC's "Green New Deal" is such a terrible idea: It devotes trillions of dollars to where the problem is already mostly solved.
I should be Ultimate Overseer (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: I should be Ultimate Overseer (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
There are hundreds of coal plants under construction or planned in India, Indonesia, Africa, etc., Once built, these coal plants will have an operating lifetime of 60 years.
I can guarantee they will not have an operating lifetime of 60 years, as solar power/nuclear becomes cheaper than coal overall. No-one is going to run a plant that is way more expensive than some other option longer than they have to.
Probably 30 years, tops. Some much lower.
Re: (Score:1)
Economics will kill most of them before they open or well before their design life is up.
Look at China. Most of the new ones are mothballed now. can't compete with renewables.
Re: (Score:1)
Hydro can see massive international protests due to vast amounts of water getting altered. To "protect" the "poor" people in the area of the new dam..
Nukes can often see a lot of new investment needed. US and UN inspections, questions. What to do with the results after 40 to 80 years?
Buy a turn key project from France? Japan? Russia? China? Try a domestic design?
Coal is 24/7 power that m
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
What to do with the results after 40 to 80 years?
Portable water heaters.
Re: (Score:1)
India has some of the worlds largest deposits of low grade coal. It cant be used for steel making. About the only stuff its good for is power plants. Is India supposed to give up billions of dollars of natural resource exploitation and millions of jobs to make some SJW feel good about a problem that
a) Noone has actually proved is going to be a problem (who is to say a warmer climate is not a better one)
b) Caused by Western countries with their wastefull industrialization
If you want India to not use the coal
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
In other words do as I say not do as I do. India says No thanks
Re: (Score:2)
In other words do as I say not do as I do. India says No thanks
In other words learn from our mistakes instead of insisting on repeating them.
Re: (Score:2)
What the hell does that mean? The US is the #1 emitter of CO2 per capita on the planet.
Re: (Score:2)
They only have a life span of 60 years *IF* it remains economic to run them. If you can generate you electricity at say 20% using solar than even an existing coal plant that is 10 years old, that coal plant is toast. Doesn't matter that it has a design life of 50 years left, cold hard economics will kill it.
It's the same as fracked gas killing coal in the USA. Nothing Trump can do will ever change that, because if it's cheaper to use gas than coal hard economics comes into play. It's identical to cheap Nort
Re: (Score:2)
If you're going to use up internet bandwidth, at least try to make some sense.
Re: (Score:2)
You don't seem to understand plants or greenhouse gases, do you?
Re: Only one response to that (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Sounds like you're in favor of destroying all life on the planet then, in particular the 7.5 billion co2 emitting humans.
Sounds like you're a fan of hyperbole and false choices.
more than double what the US produces.
So on average each US person generates almost twice as much CO2 as each Chinese person.
And here in the US, co2 production has actually dropped almost 3% in the last couple years, so we're already doing our part.
Like I pointed out, 3% done, 97% to go.
Re: (Score:3)
And a 3% drop isn't going to have any measurable effect.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
So China produces double the CO2, but they have four times as many people.
Therefore, the clear choice to save the planet is to prevent Chinese people from achieving the same standard of living as Americans, which only exists because of fossil fuels.
Or, hmm.. I suppose the flip side may also be your goal -- to make American quality of life more expensive in order to drive down the standard of living to Chinese levels.
Re: (Score:2)
That's true for capitalist countries where there is an incentive to go for more profitable, more dense and stable fuels (like nuclear and gas) however, the politics in those countries are not set up to drive incentives according to the optimal market.
A top-down government-based approach brings with it that governments are slow to adapt and will incentivize whatever keeps them in power and doesn't rock the boat too much. If that means solar today, then that means only solar panels of specific brands through
Re: (Score:2)
the politics in those countries are not set up to drive incentives according to the optimal market
Adoption is slower than in a more market situation - but with a cost benefit divide being great enough even slothful countries or states will move more quickly than you think.
You can see this problem in Germany
I wouldn't take Germany as a typical example for anything.
Getting rid of nuclear power was a dumb mistake, that they will rectify in time. In the meantime the nighttime costs of electricity will be mitig
Re: (Score:3)
If you say "Germany" I really wonder what you mean?
The all mighty government?
Or the population?
The population does not want nuclear power and never wanted it.
If we never had the nukes we would be fully renewable since decades ...
Re: (Score:3)
You can see this problem in Germany, a top-down approach to government-funded solar means you have solar everywhere to the point that there are no more returns on investment to be had
Solar power in Germany is not government funded and never was.
Return of investment is between 5 and 8 years, for the remaining 25 to 22 years of prognosted lifespan that is: profit.
power companies are dumping solar power on the market whenever it is being generated at extremely low cost
Most solar power in Germany is not produce
Re: This is why CO2 emissions are not a concern (Score:2)
Perhaps if you understood economics and energy markets; the end result is the German households are paying massive amounts for power on their bill at an increasing rate (and having lived there, they've had variable meters decades ago and they're now demanded by law), but electric companies buy and sell on something akin to the stock market as production and demand fluctuates.
The government is funding massive expansion of solar, else they wouldn't be raising taxes for said purpose, they just give "incentives
Re: (Score:3)
I currently live in Germany and I do not pay a variable rate. Also there is no tax for expansion of solar. This is a complete misunderstanding on how the system works: There is a surcharge on the electricity which is used to pay a guaranteed feed-in tariff to producers of renewable electricity. Most of this money goes to owners of old installations while newly solar power and wind gets much less, as this feed-in tariff is guaranteed only for a limited time, it is foreseeable that this goes away relatively s
Re: (Score:3)
The rates are not increasing. They are more or less constant since decades and slowly falling since years.
The government is funding nothing, and solar plants have no tax incentives either. The only thing the government is doing are handing out a fixed amount of money as very low interest credits to _private_ house owners.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Since the faster emissions are reduced, the less we will have to adapt and mitigate to a changing climate, it isn't crazy at all. Besides, these changes are coming about because Germany put a huge effort into reducing it's carbon footprint. This caused the price of solar and wind to fall more than they would have otherwise. Adoption of solar and wind has spiked as a result. Carbon taxes are an efficient way, probably the most efficient way, of doing the same.
Besides, this is old news. At least three years
Re: (Score:1)
Germany put a huge effort into reducing it's carbon footprint. This caused the price of solar and wind to fall more than they would have otherwise. Adoption of solar and wind has spiked as a result. Carbon taxes are an efficient way, probably the most efficient way, of doing the same.
Not so much. Solar has followed the same price curve that most every other technology has.
Besides, this is old news. At least three years old. The electricity generation sector has been well-aware that solar and wind have become cheaper than coal-fired. Examples of entities mistakenly doubling down on coal abound. For instance, South Africa's Eskom has stuck with coal to a degree that is threatening the solvency of South Africa.
I would expect this to be a case of it being cheaper for me to buy some coal vs me building a new plant and using the free sunlight. The plants will go offline when someone builds a solar plant next to them, then undercuts their fuel and maintenance costs.
Everyone should now understand that there are very few places where it makes sense to burn coal for electricity. It has advantages in a few industrial processes, but those are being knocked down one-by-one.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Germany put a huge effort into reducing it's carbon footprint. This caused the price of solar and wind to fall more than they would have otherwise. Adoption of solar and wind has spiked as a result. Carbon taxes are an efficient way, probably the most efficient way, of doing the same.
Not so much. Solar has followed the same price curve that most every other technology has.
Most other technologies see nothing like the price drop of solar. And yes, this was too a large part triggered by mass production caused by demand from Germany.
Re: (Score:2)
For instance, South Africa's Eskom has stuck with coal to a degree that is threatening the solvency of South Africa
Completely incorrect - SA's Eskom was used as a vehicle to funnel resources into the ANC so that they could stay in power longer. This rampant corruption is why Eskom cannot meet the load required.
Another part of it is that, over the last 15 years, four attempts to build new nuclear power stations were made, but each time political clout and media interference shut them down.
Eskom is currently getting wet coal after every rainfall, bringing their generation capacity even lower, leading to even more frequent
Re: (Score:3)
Like LED and Energy Saving Lamps (Score:5, Insightful)
China mass produced them, putting USA energy efficient bulb manufacturers out of business, and everyone complained for 10 years about it. In the meantime the cost of energy efficient bulbs (and LEDs) dropped massively due to the scale of production, and they were adopted by emerging cities, and it was basically much better than if Americans had produced them in smaller numbers at higher costs. That is what the article says is happening to the cost of new solar panels.
WSJ is one of the best researched journalism sources on the planet (though this article swings a bit between euphoria and impossibility of energy storage). But the paper's "comment trolls" are rabid, anything which is pro-solar gets savaged.
Re:Like LED and Energy Saving Lamps (Score:5, Insightful)
I particularly grow tired of the strawman "well, solar can't supply 100% of all use cases at all times, therefore it is total crap and can never be of any use to anyone, anywhere!"
Re: (Score:1)
Philips still makes LED bulbs. They mostly go for the high end of the market, particularly smart bulbs.
Japanese manufacturers still make them too on the same basis. Panasonic, Mitsubishi etc.
There's always a race to the bottom and it's best not to be in it.
Re: (Score:1)
From the link (Score:2, Informative)
"Solar’s big problem: It generates power only when the sun shines. Wind power, similarly, works only with wind. So displacing fossil fuels could require cheaper ways to store energy. And the more renewables in the power-transmission grid, the more the grid will need to be rebuilt to accommodate those special characteristics.
That inefficiency is why the IEA forecasts the amount of power solar generates to rise to only 11% of the world’s total by 2040, around half that of coal or natural gas."
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
There are other design other than a field of solar cells.
2385 km (Score:2)
It's always windy somewhere on (or off the shores of) your continent. It's probably sunny somewhere in a 2385km radius from you for a good half of the 24 hour day.
Not really a problem (Score:2)
In a country like India, Air conditioning is a massive load during the day which falls during the night so India needs a lot more power during the day where Solar power fits in beautifully. Noone is talking about going to a zero carbon economy. India creates way less carbon per capita than any Western country so all India has to do is hold onto the current carbon per capita number while increasing energy usage to improve living standards while western countries can reduce their energy usage to come down to
Re: (Score:2)
Also from the linked article:
"In India, which has some of the world’s best conditions for generating solar power, the mismatch is pronounced because demand for electricity swells after people go home and switch on air conditioners in the evening, when solar plants aren’t working."
Re: (Score:2)
I call bullshit on that. People use way more airconditioning during the day when temperatures are higher than in the evening unless the author is stupid enough to think people who can afford air conditioning at home would ever work in offices without airconditioning
Re: (Score:2)
The land in question is India.
Sporadic power is better than no power.
We all know that the sun does not shine at night, why you bore us with such arguments is beyond me ...
Re: (Score:1)
Re: We are infamous for low cost (Score:1)
Duh? (Score:4, Interesting)
Compare to, say, Germany [wikipedia.org], which has an average of a 10%-11% capacity factor. In other words, the exact same solar panel will generate about (17.98 / 10.5) = 71% more electricity in India than in Germany. (And if you're curious, the continental U.S. has about a 0.145 average capacity factor for solar; though the desert Southwest can exceed 0.18.)
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
Re: (Score:2)
It's not going to be as beneficial this time of year but the amount of light they get in the summer was surprising to even me during our visit last July. I'm not advocating solar farms in Northern Germany but widespread residential adoption would significantly reduce the need for
Re: (Score:1)
The winter in Germany was/is very sunny at the moment.
We had five or six storms in the last six weeks, but they mostly only brought wind and no clouds or rain.
Climate change, you might have heard about it. On the other hand, winters never were really particular cloudy in Germany. When it used to be really cold, we had clear sunny skies.
Re: (Score:1)
Solar wind microhydro (Score:2)
A full-scale system based on a mix of solar wind and microhydro can easily achieve 99.99 percent uptime, and the addition of other forms of energy storage such as pumped water up an incline, pulley storage (rocks), and flywheels can meet needs that batteries might otherwise fill.
Coal is more expensive than all of these.
Fossil fuels are over.
A combination of industrial and commercial solar and wind with residential solar wind and microhydro for decentralized grids are really all you need.
Re: (Score:2)
Geothermal energy could be 24/7.
Re: (Score:2)
Wind power is strongest at night.
Nope.
There are plenty of factors. The main factor is: general wind direction. The second factor is distribution of high and low pressure systems.
Look: https://www.windy.com/?54.757,... [windy.com]
The windspeed there has nothing to do with day or night!
The next factor is coast and the change of landward wind versus seaward wind during morning and evening ... there is no special night wind, neither plus or minus.
Hint: it helps to have a clue about the topic ...
Re: (Score:2)
Wind (often strong when solar is weak), hydro, pumped hydro storage, molten salt, batteries, hydrogen fuel cells....
Re: (Score:1)
Re: what is powering the grid at night. (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Competition (Score:2)
It's solar power pulling into the lead!
But wait! Coal just spewed a big grey cloud in front of solar's collectors. And now they are in the lead again.
Probably not if you get to externalize the costs (Score:2)
Natural gas is the new coal (Score:1)
Gold Man-Sacks ... private equity... (Score:2)
So... they're fucked!
Those are the literal corporate equivalents of a serial murderer and torturer, and several pimps.
Gaining what? (Score:1)