Solar cheaper than nuclear

Since the costs of raw PV panels are heading for zero it could be very cheap indeed. There is also a lot of work being done on turning water and CO2 back into hydrocarbons.

If the discussion is about economics (and judging from the subject line it is), then the cost of having that other plant sitting idle when the sun is shining has to be included as part of the cost of solar.

Sylvia.

The cost of an unused facility depends only on the interest rate.

If some active solar energy storage is used, it will also have various operational costs, such as energy loss costs, personnel costs and replacement part costs.

The cost of PV panels has been approaching zero for decades.

Controlled fusion is expected to be commercialized in the next 20 years and this mantra has been heard for a few decades.

I very much doubt that we will see dirt cheap PV sheets or commercial fusion in my life time.

The interest is not insignificant.

There are personnel costs even when the plant is not running, because the people required to operate it are not available from a pool of people who are otherwise unemployed. They will have to be paid enough to make it worth their while to keep themselves available.

These costs are not usually included by proponents of solar power. Instead the usual strategy is to allege that there is spare capacity in the system anyway. There is, but it's there for a reason which doesn't include being a free backup for solar.

Sylvia.

You really think the "natural" price of a PV panel should be equal to that of an LCD TV for the same area??? ie around $400 per sq m

I would expect one of the thin film printing processes to drop that by a factor of ten over the next 15 years.

Interesting argument - "solar is not competitive because it makes nuclear too expensive"

You get more of what you subsidize and less of what you tax. If you subsidize a failure (solar) you get more failure. If you tax nuclear you get less of it. Now you know why, as a country, we're failing. We don't like success.

The interest rate depends on the inflation, so the real question is the bank margins.

Peak power gas turbines and small hydroelectric plants are remote controlled anyway, so personnel is required only for maintenance.

Solar energy systems are not rocket science, so it would not be too hard to train people working with gas turbine or hydroelectric power plants to also maintain solar power stations.

If there has been a heavy demand for backup power and the backup power systems need maintenance, just transfer the qualified people back to their original jobs.

It's still a real cost that has to be taken into account.

Sylvia.

It seems to me that it's the nuclear industry that whining for subsidies, and have been for decades.

As for solar, that's starting to hit the steep slope of the exponential. Installed capacity has been doubling in less than 2 year intervals for the past decade. 8 more doubling will match the conventional generating capacity of the planet. Since a lot of the initial high cost is down to lack of economies of scale, subsidies are justified at present. But as mentioned elsewhere in this thread, they are being scaled back as solar becomes cost competitive with other power sources.

Given that nanosolar can produce panels at 70c per Watt I think we can see that the price will fall by at least by factor of 3 quite rapidly from its current $2.50 per Watt as capacity ramps up.

So what? Everyone whines for subsidies. The difference is that the government listens to some (chooses winners and losers). *That* is _bad_.

So let it go. Do you favor subsidizing kids in their 20s?

No, they subsidies are being "scaled back" because there is no more money for this nonsense.

So it's time to tax it?

I did not read it that way.

In order to keep the total production cost at a minimum, it makes sense to run constant power heavy industry (24x7) from nuclear power plants.

Solar power is a viable alternative at least in low latitude countries to power light industry (single shift), offices and residential loads, including air conditioning.

The real question is how these day time loads are served, when the solar power fails due to clouds, rain and sand storms. Typically, the backup power would be provided with cheap, but uneconomical simple gas turbines.

subsidize

it.

As far as I'm aware, VAT applies to all solar PV systems in Europe

California ISO typically reports 2 types of electric power usage day - those with a peak about 9 PM when it is cool, and those with a peak about 2 PM when it is hot.

subsidize

it.

Not exactly, but the power grid cannot afford to be a supplier of last resort. If real solar power costs, excluding backup costs, drop below normal power tarifs, then people will install solar power and use the grid as a backup, since it will be an economically rational thing to do from the perspective of an individual customer. At that point, the way people are charged for electricity will have to be changed so that the grid can cover its costs.

It probably should anyway. As things stand with typical charging regimes, those who can afford to buy and run air conditioners are being subsidised by those who cannot. The lack of social equity inherent in that is obvious.

Sylvia.

Sorry, I do not understand how the LCD TV panel came into this discussion.

Do you imply that the cost of a PV panel area is dropping at the same rate as the LCD panel (/m²) ?

It would be interesting to see solar panel sheets made by the roll-to-roll process the same way as paper is made these days with over 10 m wide machines and paper speeds over 100 km/h :-)

I very much doubt that this will be the case for solar power production during the next 15 years.

Economies of scale, quantities of each manufactured

OTOH I'm pretty optimistic. I think it might happen considerably sooner

I think that within a couple of decades most houses will have their own PV and battery set, and use the grid for (expensive) backup. Certainly in S Europe PV electricity, even without subsidy, is comparable to domestic mains costs right now. And PV will only get cheaper.