Without digging into the study, hasn’t this been true for many years now? Would love to know an actual pivot date where commercial scale deployments became the cheapest option.
I don't understand. Why is it that in every single discussion about power- and in particular, solar power- is the cost of land omitted ?
This is literally the most important factor to consider as it is a very scare resource in some markets - nevermind that this would be a significant driver of cost for solar, as it requires massive amounts of land (and taxes). This is true for solar, wind, etc be built.
Looking forward to the day when solar dominates and we can transmit from the sunny side of the world to the dark side... I think there are already some plans for a pan-European grid, maybe even a European/Asian grid. The bigger the grid, the more resilient solar is.
It would also make the world more interdependent and thus hopefully more peaceful.
I remember reading about this in IEEE. If you google "hypergrid IEEE" you can find papers in IEEE explore, but there was also a perspective that was more readable that I read a few years ago...
It'll be interesting if the sodium ion battery hype can combine with solar and give real base power alternatives. I think claims of cheapest don't really count unless it's qualified as non base power.
The research team also found that the price of lithium-ion batteries has fallen by 89% since 2010, making solar-plus-storage systems as cost-effective as gas power plants
Well, which one is it? Is it cheaper or the same price as a gas plant?
This isn't surprising. Or new. I've been saying for years solar is the future. Solar has so many advantages over every other form of power generation. It's flexible, scalable (meaning you can have an installation any size from a solar farm to a calculator) and robust because it has no moving parts. It has no pollution (noise or chemical) and can be dual-use on many structures, everything from rooftops to adding solar to highways.
The big problem with solar? Regulation around installing it that is entirely designed to protect the profits of utility companies.
We have predatory financing around solar where companies are allowed to put a lien on your house and then essentially extort the homeowner if they ever choose to sell such that solar can reduce the value of your house significantly.
We limit the amount of solar basically so the utility can keep selling you electricity.
One might say it's to cover the bullding and maintenance of the transmission infrastructure. There's some truth to that. But at the same time utilities are generating massive profits, doing share buybacks and giving massive concessions to data centers that everyone else is paying for.
Basically we would all be better off if every electricity provider wasn't a private company but instead what a municipal operation like municipal broadband.
With $40/kWh batteries available soon, i think even having 100 kWh of storage for a house will be rather common. With 14.4kWp solar, 5 MWh of electricity use per year and 100 kWh at 50€/kWh of battery you have 90% autarky and a time-to-value of 8-9 years. Pretty sweet.
i have a house in a lot of sun in mid atlantic usa. i have spent a modest amount of time casually exploring solar. the cost/benefit never seems that great. what am i missing?
It should be noted that those low costs for solar installations are not including consumer rooftop solar. The consumer rooftop solar cost is usually one of the most expensive ways you can generate electricity - often several times the cost of utility solar installations:
The high rooftop solar price is usually hidden because no power source has been as subsidized as rooftop solar. Besides direct subsidies, wealthier home owners have often been paid the retail rate for the electricity they sell to the grid which causes higher electricity bills for those who can't afford to put panels on their roof. Also, in almost all cases, the home installation doesn’t have enough battery power to actually last through inclement weather and so is free riding on the reliability provided by the grid, putting more costs on the less well off. The whole thing is sort of a reverse Robin Hood scheme.
Any subsidies for solar power should go to utility grade solar. Money is limited and is fungible - a dollar spent subsidizing utility solar will go much, much, further than a dollar spent subsidizing wealthy homeowners who install panels on their roof.
> Also, in almost all cases, the home installation doesn’t have enough battery power to actually last through inclement weather
I've posted this several times here, but I think it's worth responding to claims like this, as they are plain wrong.
I had a house with a 4.8kWh battery, and 6.6kW of panels. Just our overnight consumption was over 4.8kWh, so I purchased a generator "in case". Later during a period of high rainfall, we got flooded in for a week. The authorities cut off the power because of risks, so no power for a week. It was a once in a decade rain event, so "inclement weather" understates it.
In that week I learnt what a little adaption can do to your electricity consumption. We never used the generator. We did stopped bulk heating water, and of course all house heating / cooling was turned off. That was about the only life style changes from memory - well perhaps no 2 hour roasts in the oven.
Turns out even in inclement weather the sun does peek through occasionally, and when it does you can do high power consuming activities like wash clothes. It also turns out solar panels don't shut off under overcast conditions, they just drop to about 20% capacity - which means for us they output 1kW most of the day. And that turns out to be more than enough to charge the 4.8kWh battery, and that battery more than enough to power the refrigerators, lights, computers, TV's, fans, and microwave overnight.
4.8kWh is stuff all of course. Yet it suffices to get you through during a once in a decade event.
We've built a new house now, and have 40kWh battery (oddly cost us the same as the 4.8kWh). We also have 32kW panels. They will generate 6.4kW during inclement weather. Do you see the implications of this?
If the electricity bill doesn't remain in credit, we will just disconnect. Why wouldn't it remain in credit you ask? It's because you can't sell power when the sun is shining where I live, as the solar duck curve forces the price to go negative. There is a $2/day flat cost for being connected to the grid, even if you draw nothing. So we have to sell $2 of electricity every day for being connected to remain viable.
I think perhaps we will, but only because of the battery. When the grid suffers some outage the price spikes by a factor of around 100. That almost never happens when the sun is shining of course, because the solar over capacity just shoulders the load. But when those coal fired generators trip during the night (which they regularly do), you get to make some real money from the battery capacity.
RE ".. Solar energy is now the cheapest source of power, study ...."
Does this cost include needed storage( up to several days ) and often new transmission lines? Is any country running only on solar? if it is the cheapest? The actual all up costs to actually allow 100% solar actually make it very expensive
> These hybrid setups, which combine solar panels with batteries, are now standard in many regions and allow solar energy to be stored and released when needed, turning it into a more reliable, dispatchable source of power that helps balance grid demand.
On one hand, I think people underestimate how much energy our grids demand in a 24 hour cycle. The amount of lithium it would take to handle an unusually cloudy week would be astronomical.
On the other hand, one of the ironies of electric cars is that they are one of the least effective uses of battery capacity. A Tesla with a 60kwh battery is probably touching less than 20kwh of capacity every day.
So theoretically if you use the batteries for grid storage and actually cycle them regularly from 80% down to 20%, the battery capacity would be well over 2x - 4x more effective at offsetting carbon sources. (Even more so if you are offsetting worse sources like coal).
Does this include the lifetime costs of need to replace the panels? Also batteries though I'd imagine that is a separate. But the panels would seem to be direct additional costs.
Nuclear is far superior as you don't need batteries and can have 24/7 reliable power. Cut the artificial costs caused by insane regulation and nuclear is the safest and most cost effective solution.
Not being able (or willing) to turn turn nukes down or off to load-follow makes them sometimes as difficult to work with as intermittents. None in the GB grid load-follow, though one can AFAIK. And nukes need refuelling, so you need to fill in those generation gaps. And one of the last two big grid stumbles in the GB (UK) in the last ~20Y was caused by a big nuke (Sizewell B) tripping, so nukes can be big single points of failure too.
Note: I am pro nukes in the mix, but nukes have difficult points too.
There are two approved sites for AP1000 reactors to be built, Turkey Point in FL and Summer in SC, all regulatory hurdles have been passed. Yet no one wants to take the risk to build them, not because of regulation but because industry can't control construction costs.
Nuclear is far inferior in that it is too costly, despite that putative advantage. The value of being able to run 24/7 doesn't make up for the unaffordably high cost of building the plants.
Really, every one interested in renewables and net-zero should listen.
IIRC, my own take aways from this interview:
At the time of this interview, in the USA, because of subsidies and tariffs, only natural gas (IIRC ~$70 gWh) is cheaper than solar + battery for new generation.
Battery storage costs continue to drop faster than any one has anticipated. -40% in 2024 alone. Wow!
Even people savvy about our glorious renewable energy future don't fully appreciate just how quickly how fast both solar and batteries have and will continue to improve.
I don't remember the specifics when where wind is preferable to solar. IIRC, even in Finland solar + battery still pencils out.
Since solar + battery only gets us ~90% (?) to net-zero, we'll still need wind. (Ditto adv geo therm, heat batteries, pumped hydro, etc. Because we'll need A LOT more of everything for net-negative, to restore 360 ppm for CO2 and other GHGs.)
Personal note: Am very eager for Jenny Chase's yearly report on solar. Especially prospects for scaling up wind generation. Chase previously expressed concern about wind lagging behind solar. Which is bad, because we'll still need a lot of wind (at northern latitudes).
Having quickly scanned prior comments here, my impression is that u/epistatis is spot on.
In other words, most everyone's priors need a major update.
28 comments
[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 44.5 ms ] threadThis is literally the most important factor to consider as it is a very scare resource in some markets - nevermind that this would be a significant driver of cost for solar, as it requires massive amounts of land (and taxes). This is true for solar, wind, etc be built.
It would also make the world more interdependent and thus hopefully more peaceful.
I remember reading about this in IEEE. If you google "hypergrid IEEE" you can find papers in IEEE explore, but there was also a perspective that was more readable that I read a few years ago...
I've converted it to pdf.
https://files.catbox.moe/tfoim0.pdf
It talks about the California grid. Except there is no such thing, California is on the Western grid which is operated by WECC.
The actual mix of energy on the western grid is here.[1]
[1] https://feature.wecc.org/soti2025/soti2025/resources/index.h...
Well, which one is it? Is it cheaper or the same price as a gas plant?
The big problem with solar? Regulation around installing it that is entirely designed to protect the profits of utility companies.
We have predatory financing around solar where companies are allowed to put a lien on your house and then essentially extort the homeowner if they ever choose to sell such that solar can reduce the value of your house significantly.
We limit the amount of solar basically so the utility can keep selling you electricity.
One might say it's to cover the bullding and maintenance of the transmission infrastructure. There's some truth to that. But at the same time utilities are generating massive profits, doing share buybacks and giving massive concessions to data centers that everyone else is paying for.
Basically we would all be better off if every electricity provider wasn't a private company but instead what a municipal operation like municipal broadband.
https://www.aalto.fi/en/news/rapid-growth-of-solar-power-in-...
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/plunging-solar-captu...
https://www.lazard.com/media/xemfey0k/lazards-lcoeplus-june-...
The high rooftop solar price is usually hidden because no power source has been as subsidized as rooftop solar. Besides direct subsidies, wealthier home owners have often been paid the retail rate for the electricity they sell to the grid which causes higher electricity bills for those who can't afford to put panels on their roof. Also, in almost all cases, the home installation doesn’t have enough battery power to actually last through inclement weather and so is free riding on the reliability provided by the grid, putting more costs on the less well off. The whole thing is sort of a reverse Robin Hood scheme.
Any subsidies for solar power should go to utility grade solar. Money is limited and is fungible - a dollar spent subsidizing utility solar will go much, much, further than a dollar spent subsidizing wealthy homeowners who install panels on their roof.
I've posted this several times here, but I think it's worth responding to claims like this, as they are plain wrong.
I had a house with a 4.8kWh battery, and 6.6kW of panels. Just our overnight consumption was over 4.8kWh, so I purchased a generator "in case". Later during a period of high rainfall, we got flooded in for a week. The authorities cut off the power because of risks, so no power for a week. It was a once in a decade rain event, so "inclement weather" understates it.
In that week I learnt what a little adaption can do to your electricity consumption. We never used the generator. We did stopped bulk heating water, and of course all house heating / cooling was turned off. That was about the only life style changes from memory - well perhaps no 2 hour roasts in the oven.
Turns out even in inclement weather the sun does peek through occasionally, and when it does you can do high power consuming activities like wash clothes. It also turns out solar panels don't shut off under overcast conditions, they just drop to about 20% capacity - which means for us they output 1kW most of the day. And that turns out to be more than enough to charge the 4.8kWh battery, and that battery more than enough to power the refrigerators, lights, computers, TV's, fans, and microwave overnight.
4.8kWh is stuff all of course. Yet it suffices to get you through during a once in a decade event.
We've built a new house now, and have 40kWh battery (oddly cost us the same as the 4.8kWh). We also have 32kW panels. They will generate 6.4kW during inclement weather. Do you see the implications of this?
If the electricity bill doesn't remain in credit, we will just disconnect. Why wouldn't it remain in credit you ask? It's because you can't sell power when the sun is shining where I live, as the solar duck curve forces the price to go negative. There is a $2/day flat cost for being connected to the grid, even if you draw nothing. So we have to sell $2 of electricity every day for being connected to remain viable.
I think perhaps we will, but only because of the battery. When the grid suffers some outage the price spikes by a factor of around 100. That almost never happens when the sun is shining of course, because the solar over capacity just shoulders the load. But when those coal fired generators trip during the night (which they regularly do), you get to make some real money from the battery capacity.
Does this cost include needed storage( up to several days ) and often new transmission lines? Is any country running only on solar? if it is the cheapest? The actual all up costs to actually allow 100% solar actually make it very expensive
On one hand, I think people underestimate how much energy our grids demand in a 24 hour cycle. The amount of lithium it would take to handle an unusually cloudy week would be astronomical.
On the other hand, one of the ironies of electric cars is that they are one of the least effective uses of battery capacity. A Tesla with a 60kwh battery is probably touching less than 20kwh of capacity every day.
So theoretically if you use the batteries for grid storage and actually cycle them regularly from 80% down to 20%, the battery capacity would be well over 2x - 4x more effective at offsetting carbon sources. (Even more so if you are offsetting worse sources like coal).
Note: I am pro nukes in the mix, but nukes have difficult points too.
"Recycle" -- 0 results
"Maintenance" -- 0 results
"Insurance" -- 0 results
Okay?
Cheap clean elec and comments is all about finding issues
Solar+storage is so much farther along than you think / A conversation with Kostantsa Rangelova and Dave Jones of Ember. [2025/07/16]
https://www.volts.wtf/p/solarstorage-is-so-much-farther-alon...
Really, every one interested in renewables and net-zero should listen.
IIRC, my own take aways from this interview:
Having quickly scanned prior comments here, my impression is that u/epistatis is spot on.In other words, most everyone's priors need a major update.