By Robert Bradley Jr.
The wind/solar narrative shifts as the polls do. The latest message is that wind and solar are cost-effective and the natural choice for energy affordability. Yet the renewable industry pleads for evergreen help with the outsized subsidies of the Production Tax Credit (PTC) and Investment Tax Credit (ITC), which are on track to end at the end of next year for any new project.
As the free world turns toward natural gas in the new era, consider the following narrative quotations, aspirational and wrong.
“Some critics of solar facilities have falsely claimed that they are expensive and inefficient….” – Maxine Joselow, “As Trump Obliterates Climate Efforts, States Try to Fill the Gap,” New York Times (February 19, 2026)
“Solar is now the cheapest energy source in human history, yet rollbacks are spreading from California to Virginia as officials blame high costs and a hostile Trump administration.” – Haley Zaremba, “Solar Is the Cheapest Power in History, but States Are Retreating from It,” OilPrice.com (June 19, 2026).
Desperation is the word as “House Democrats Want Clean Energy Tax Credits Back ,” according to Inside Climate News, (March 18, 2026). Reports Arcelia Martin:
A new bill would reinstate incentives from the Inflation Reduction Act and provide assistance for consumer electricity costs…. The “Energy Bills Relief Act,” signed by more than half of House Democrats, 122 in all, seeks to establish new incentives for renewable projects and to protect consumers from rising electricity costs due to grid demands from large energy users such as data centers.
In addition to re-upping clean energy credits introduced in the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, the sweeping legislation would reinstate grant money for renewable energy projects that the Trump administration terminated and authorize $2.1 billion to address shortages of transformers and other grid technologies.
Fake Republicans are also in on the act.
House Republicans have introduced the American Energy Dominance Act (April 2026) to reverse tightened deadlines on wind and solar tax credits (45Y/48E) imposed by the 2025 “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” (OBBBA). The new bill aims to remove the July 4, 2026, construction deadline and 2027 operational deadline for solar and wind projects, citing lost investments.
And this from C3 Solutions. States co-founder Drew Bond in “Solar Doesn’t Need Subsidies Anymore” (April 27, 2026):
Solar power is now among the cheapest forms of electricity on Earth. Yet the industry still behaves as if it can’t survive without government support.
It cannot. One can only wish that Bond is right and the industry will raise the white flag regarding subsidies.
The solar industry doesn’t have a subsidy problem. It has a confidence problem. July 4 isn’t a deadline to fear but a milestone that signals American solar is ready to compete without training wheels. The numbers tell the story. According to the International Renewable Energy Agency, the cost of utility-scale solar has fallen roughly 90% since 2010—from about 46 cents per kilowatt-hour to roughly 4.3 cents today. Solar is now one of the cheapest sources of new electricity generation in the world, trailing only onshore wind. Over the past decade the industry has grown at an average annual rate of about 28%.
The U.S. now has roughly 262 gigawatts of installed solar capacity—enough to power about 45 million homes, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association…. Solar is one of the fastest and least expensive ways to meet much of [increasing demand] and that advantage doesn’t disappear on July 5.
So what? The above statistic demonstrate how outsized subsidies (state-level too) propelled an economically incorrect energy into existence en masse. Bond incorrectly concludes:
All of this means solar is no longer a fragile startup industry. It is one of the most remarkable energy scale-ups in modern American history. The industry simply hasn’t fully accepted that reality…. After decades of public support, policymakers aren’t sending the solar industry to its funeral. They’re celebrating its graduation.
This is a strange article. Yes, solar costs have come down (as have other energy technologies). Yes, solar was enabled by special government favor. But no–solar for the grid and at large scale is not competitive with natural gas combined cycle, as the current dash-for-gas demonstrates. In a recent news piece in the New York Times, “New Amazon Data Center Stokes Worry It Would Be the Most Polluting Power Plant in the U.S., Hiroko Tabuchi stated:
To avoid years of potential delays in hooking up to electrical utilities, data-center developers are increasingly choosing to build their own dedicated, on-site power plants instead. And gas-burning plants are usually the fastest and easiest to build.
To recap. The PR narrative is that solar is now cost-competitive. But behind the scenes, the lobbying frenzy by solar trade groups, led by the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) nationally and in Texas, the Texas Solar Energy Society (TXSES), speaks for itself. It is continued subsidies or bust for the utility-scale solar industry.
If wind and solar were really cheaper and more efficient, power companies would have cottoned on to them years ago without need of bribes from virtue-signalling governments.
“Cheap Solar” actually doesn’t need subsidization… at all. Unfortunately “Cheap Solar” is like “Cold Fusion” (or any sustainable fusion on the market today) it simply does not exist!
The fallacy of “Cheap Solar” is what’s being peddled currently. Solar is costly relative to say Nuclear.
Solar only produces power at near nameplate capacity for 4 hours a day but the day has 24 hours so to produce nameplate for 24 hours you need to install 6 times that capacity and gather and store that power for when the sun is unavailable.
For example…
2,200MW of solar produces 2,200MW (at best for 4 hours 10am-2pm) when it can be directly utilized. But the world operates 24 hours a day so to guarantee 2,200MWh available for any 24 hour period you need to install 13,200MW of solar capacity plus 316,800MWh of battery storage.
Installing 13,200MW of solar costs Between $11.8B-$17.1B.with replacement every 15-20 years (more with storm damages) that same 2,200MW capacity costs $47.2B-$68.4B over an 80 year period (lifespan of nuclear) Plus the cost of Battery Storage.
The 2,200MW Nuclear plant (2 – 1,100MW generators) will cost $13.6B in the US or only $5.7N-$9.9B in Asia and will last 80 years … no batteries required.
So which is cheaper and exactly how “Cheap” is Solar???
Fun aside on ‘cold fusion’. It never was, but the hyped phenomenon actually exists. As the ww head of Mot strategy, I sent our #1 theoretical physicist to Pons/Fleischman’s Toyota funded French lab to investigate. He reported back was real, but not reliable.
Turns out isn’t cold fusion at all. Is a consequence of inverse beta decay, capture of ‘heavy electrons’ by protons to become neutrons. ‘Heavy electrons’ are just energetically boosted, so by E=MC*2 ‘heavy’. Gravitationally, the same as neutron stars. Energetically, caused by eforce amplification in misnamed cold fusion ‘fuel rod’ microfracture tips—hence the unreliability.
This understanding —Widom/ Larsen theory— resulted in reliable 2x lab scale energy production using high frequency radio waves as the heavy electron boost energy input. But not when lab scaled to 4x, when at least 7x would have been needed for reliable net energy production. I wrote it up as one of one chapter’s several energy examples in ebook ‘The Arts of Truth’.
Kind of like grid scale battery storage. Technically but not commercially feasible.
At least not yet … but … Who’s to say in 10 years or so 😉
As a junior engineer with an almost-new BS in Nuclear Engineering, I was sent to a 6 week course in “Laboratory Management” to better equip me for running some classified projects. To meet the requirement for a research paper, I investigated the state of the art in controlled fusion. (We had reasonable success in generating un-controlled fusion.) I’m sure that you will be gratified to know that based on the best estimates of classified and public research “experts” in the field, it was confidently projected that we would reach scientific break even within 15-25 years, with almost certainly reach engineering breakeven in 20-30 years.
I got an “A” on the paper…in 1975.
Battery technologies are always the promised land, but…
There are only so many elements and compounds that can be used in ion-based electrochemical cells.
Can there be newer and better? Of course.
Will the future reveal the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything? We know the answer: 42. Problem is, we do not know the question.
The Search for the Magic Battery continues…
And generally, rechargeable batteries still only last so long before they need replacing too. Likely 20 years or so before their capacity degrades to something far below their required/designed capacity.
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If you need 13,000MWh of storage and 20 years later that 13,000MWh of storage has degraded to 11,000MWh you now have a daily shortfall of capacity and either must replace the batteries or add additional new capacity.
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If the allotted space for batteries is entirely utilized and no space for expansion exists then replacement is the only option to regain capacity.
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Then there is the whole Self Immolation situation that can take out more batteries than just the overheating megapack.
BATTERY SYSTEM CAPITAL COSTS, OPERATING COSTS, ENERGY LOSSES, AND AGING
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/battery-system-capital-costs-losses-and-aging
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Utility-scale, battery system pricing usually not made public, but for this system it was.
Neoen, in western Australia, turned on its 219 MW/ 877 MWh Tesla Megapack battery, the largest in western Australia.
Ultimately, a 560 MW/2,240 MWh battery system, $1,100,000,000/2,240,000 kWh = $491/kWh, delivered as AC, late 2024 pricing. Smaller capacity systems cost much more than $500/kWh
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Annual Cost of Megapack Battery Systems; 2023 pricing
Assume 45.3 MW/181.9 MWh; turnkey cost $104.5 million; 104,500,000/181,900 = $574/kWh
Amortize bank loan, 50% of $104.5 million, at 6.5%/y for 15 years, $5.484 million/y
Pay Owner return, 50% of $104.5 million, at 10%/y for 15 years, $6.765 million/y (10% due to high inflation)
Lifetime (Bank + Owner) payments 15 x (5.484 + 6.765) = $183.7 million
Assume battery daily usage, 15 years at 10%; loss factor = 1 / (0.9 *0.9)
Battery lifetime output = 15 y x 365 d/y x 181.9 MWh x 0.1, usage x 1000 kWh/MWh = 99,590,250 kWh to HV grid; 122,950,926 kWh from HV grid; 233,606,676 kWh loss
(Bank + Owner) payments, $183.7 million / 99,590,250 kWh = 184.5 c/kWh
Less 50% subsidies (tax credits, 5-y depreciation, loan interest deduction, etc.) is 92.3c/kWh
Subsidies shift costs from project Owners to ratepayers, taxpayers, government debt.
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Excluded costs/kWh: 1) O&M; 2) system aging, 1.5%/y, 3) loss factor 1 / (0.9*0.9), HV grid-to-HV grid, 4) grid extension/reinforcement to connect battery systems, 5) downtime of parts of the system, 6) decommissioning in year 15, i.e., disassembly, reprocessing, storing at hazardous waste sites. Excluded costs add at least 15 c/kWh
COMMENTS ON CALCULATION
Almost all battery systems operate at less than 10%, see top URL, i.e., new systems would operate at about 92.4 + 15 = 107.4 c/kWh. They are used to stabilize the grid, i.e., frequency control and counteracting up/down W/S outputs.
About 40% annual throughput, at about 23.1 + 15 = 38.1 c/kWh, by absorbing midday solar peaks and discharging during late-afternoon/early-evening, as in sunny California, would be extremely hard to achieve. The more solar systems, the greater the midday peaks. The c/kWh is on top of the c/kWh of electricity taken from HV grid to charge the batteries.
See top URL for Megapacks required for a one-day wind lull in New England
40% annual throughput is close to Tesla’s recommendation of 60% maximum throughput, i.e., not charge above 80% and not discharge below 20%, to perform 24/7/365 service for 15 y, with normal aging.
Tesla’s recommendation was not heeded by the Owners of the Hornsdale Power Reserve in Australia. They excessively charged/discharged the system to maximize profits. After a few years, they added Megapacks to offset rapid aging of the original system, plus they added more Megapacks to increase the rating of the system.
http://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/the-hornsdale-power-reserve-largest-battery-system-in-australia
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Regarding any project, Banks and Owners must be paid. I amortized the Bank loan and Owner’s investment
Divide total payments over 15 years by the 15-y throughput to get c/kWh, as shown.
Loss factor = 1 / (0.9 *0.9), from HV grid to 1) step-down transformer, 2) front-end power electronics, 3) into battery, 4) out of battery, 5) back-end power electronics, 6) step-up transformer, to HV grid, i.e., draw about 50 units from HV grid to deliver about 40 units to HV grid. That gets worse with aging.
A lot of people do not like these c/kWh numbers, because they have been misled by self-serving folks, that “battery Nirvana is just around the corner”.
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NOTE: EV battery packs cost about $135/kWh, before it is installed in the car. Such packs are good for 6 to 8 years, used about 2 h/d, at an average speed of 30 mph. Utility battery systems are used 24/7/365 for 15 years
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NOTE: Battery system turnkey capital costs and electricity storage costs likely will be much higher in 2023 and future years, than in 2021 and earlier years, due to: 1) increased inflation rates, 2) increased interest rates, 3) supply chain disruptions, which delay projects and increase costs, 4) increased energy prices, such as of oil, gas, coal, electricity, etc., 5) increased materials prices, such as of tungsten, cobalt, lithium, copper, manganese, etc., 6) increased labor rates.
Thanks wilpost, I’ve been using your numbers for years. As you show 4 hours is off the chart too expensive so the new standard is 2 hours of “storage”, but it’s not “storage”, its as you report: “ They are used to stabilize the grid, i.e., frequency control and counteracting up/down W/S outputs”.
I had a difficult time convincing Copilot AI that an installed commissioned battery storage system wasn’t $134/KWh (down to $125/KWh in 2026), that value being the battery alone at the manufacturing plant gate, but actually more like $500/KWh for a commissioned functioning storage system. Copilot AI finally “got it”, but low information/STEM challenged/liberal progressive bloggers don’t like your numbers, they call them total bullshit and call me a climate denying oil shill for posting them.
Bryan,
if only solar advocates and those that mandate it could do arithmetic.
Even with such an astronomical capacity of solar and battery, it doesn’t help the fact that solar is not suited for grid supply as it lacks inertia, adverse weather significantly reduces output so even with such huge outlay in cost you still cannot rely on it, so back up is necessary.
It is too silly for words to use solar on any grid.
Yep, Solar is really only good for three things
Powering a small usage home “Off Grid”Powering a desktop calculatorRecharging batteriesEven the first option, powering a small use home off grid, is still basically just the last option … Recharging Batteries
“Even with such an astronomical capacity of solar and battery, it doesn’t help…”
… when the sun is not shining on it.
Grid stability is an engineering challenge.
SV is a physics challenge.
Batteries are both physics and engineering challenges.
I’ll take the engineering challenges.
Physics tends to be heartless when one tries to pick a fight.
“Cheap Solar” actually doesn’t need subsidization… at all.”
True enough.
Control the language, control the ideas.
“Cheap Solar” … simply does not exist!
Absolutely correct.
Every fuel used in energy production starts out free. Wind, sun, petroleum, coal, nuclear, hydro-electric, natural gas are all free. We do not buy any of those from Mother Nature (aka Gaia).
The costs are soup to nuts, getting the fuel converted into useful form and delivering it where needed.
Your 24 availability calculation shows how poor solar power is.
Is it even possible to calculate the design and cost for a one year available solar system?
Even in the south? How about north of fifty? The redundancy would have to be huge.
The redundancy would in fact be quite large … And, since Solar is Always On or not in direct sunlight, would lead to tremendous overcapacity generation on prime solar days.
HIGH COST OF SOLAR ELECTRICITY PER kWh
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/high-cost-of-solar-electricity-per-kwh
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The video linked below shows, among other things, a comparison between the
Blevin Solar Complex in Texas, a 270 MW solar complex covers 2300 acres.
Bridge City gas plant, 1200 MW, covers 26 acres, or 88 times smaller area than solar complex.
Gas plant nameplate rating 1200/270 = 4.4 times Solar Complex.
Gas plant annual production about 1200 MW x 8760 h/y x 0.8 CF = 8,409,600 MWh, 24x7x365
Solar Complex annual production about 270 MW x 8760 h/y x 0.22 CF = 520,344 MWh
Gas plant production is 8409600/520344 = 16.2 times Solar Complex
Solar Complex life about 20 – 25 years
Gas plant life about 40 – 45 years
The Solar Complex required mining ore-laden materials, extracting minerals and refining them, transporting the refined materials to a solar panel manufacturing plant. All these steps are very energy intensive, require lots of electricity, usually produced by coal in China. The panels are transported to Texas for building the Solar Complex. Ultimately the solar panels need to be stored in a hazardous waste landfill.
Solar production peaks around noontime, when demand is low. That means the OTHER plants must reduce their outputs as solar production increases in the morning, then they must increase their outputs as solar production decreases to zero during late afternoon and early evening peak hours, to maintain the production-demand balance on the grid, 24/7/365.
Then the solar production is zero from early peak hours to early morning hours the next day. That means the OTHER plant must provide the entire electricity supply for that period to satisfy demand.
In colder climates at higher latitudes, the solar capacity factors, CFs, are less, say about 0.15, which means the Solar Complex would produce a lot less electricity and would have a higher capital investment per MW.
Also, during winter, solar panels likely would be covered with snow and ice for a week or more, which means near zero solar electricity production, which means the OTHER plants must provide all electricity, 24/7/365
https://robertbryce.substack.com/p/sunblock-the-global-fight-to-save
https://media4.manhattan-institute.org/sites/default/files/mines-minerals-green-energy-reality-checkMM.pdf
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If little wind and solar, aka DUNKELFLAUTE, there is near-zero output of wind and solar, and a large fleet of OTHER plants, must provide the missing electricity up to demand, 24/7/365.
If the OTHER plants are insufficient, electricity needs to be imported at high wholesale prices
If too much wind and solar, much of the electricity needs to be exported at low wholesale prices
These OTHER plants must be fueled, staffed, kept in good working order to instantly provide what is missing.
The more wind and solar tied to the expanded/reinforced/more complex grid, the more OTHER plants.
THAT TWO-SYSTEM COMPLEXITY DOES NOT COME FOR FREE.
Hidden Costs: These are the A-to-Z costs (wind/solar system to land fill) almost all folks are kept ignorant about.
At a future 25-30% W/S annual penetration on the grid, based on UK and German experience:
– Onshore grid expansion/reinforcement to connect far-flung W/S systems, about 2 c/kWh
– A fleet of traditional power plants to quickly counteract W/S variable output, on a less than minute-by-minute basis, 24/7/365, which means more Btu/kWh, more CO2/kWh, more cost of about 2 c/kWh
– A fleet of traditional power plants to provide electricity during 1) low-wind periods, 2) high-wind periods, when rotors are locked in place, and 3) low solar periods during mornings, evenings, at night, snow/ice on panels, which means more Btu/kWh, more CO2/kWh, more cost of about 2 c/kWh
– Pay W/S system Owners for electricity they could have produced, if no curtailment, about 1 c/kWh
– Importing electricity at high prices, when W/S output is low, 1 c/kWh
– Exporting electricity at low prices, when W/S output is high, 1 c/kWh
– Disassembly on land and at sea, reprocessing and storing at hazardous waste sites, about 2 c/kWh
Total: 2 + 2 + 2 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 2 = 11 c/kWh
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Offshore wind full cost of electricity FCOE = 30 c/kWh + 11 c/kWh = 41 c/kWh, no subsidies
Offshore wind full cost of electricity FCOE = 15 c/kWh + 11 c/kWh = 26 c/kWh, with equivalent of 50% subsidies
This compares with 7 c/kWh + 3 c/kWh = 10 c/kWh from existing gas, coal, nuclear, large reservoir hydro plants.
Some values increase due to inflation and as more W/S systems are added to the grid.
Regarding grid scale battery storage, battery cost dropped from $134/kwh to $125/kwh since last year, but the total cost for a commissioned battery storage system complete with overcurrent protection, fire suppression, transformers and inter connection remains at >$375/kwh, 3 x the battery cost alone and prohibitively expense for more than four (4) hours.
$375/kwh for 100 hours of cloudy, rainy weather =$37500/kwh, $37500 x 1000 to convert to megawatt = 37,500,000/MWh. Diablo Canyon is 2000 MW = 2000MW x 37.5 million = $75 billion for 4 days of cloudy/rainy storage. Not everyone knows that.
$75B is no small change AND an unnecessary expenditure with Nuclear or Gas
Cifford Simak wrote a fun scifi story called “The trouble with Ants” (1951). Basically, it has a threshold premise – give an ant colony a break from seasonal hardships and they will advance their society. In the story ants become very technologically advanced and take over the world. Basically, ants developed a positive gain. It’s a silly premise of course, unless tropical ants are just really dim.
I think if solar actually had a positive gain we’d see it in action – there would be solar powered industry making … more solar. But it just isn’t happening.
Absolutely.
A free market supply and demand is the only true democracy. People vote with their dollars.
If those obscenities were as economical and profitable as claimed, one would have to stand in a line that goes around the block to buy stock.
Solar is most probably the cheapest form of electrical generation.
As long as you want DC power and are willing to accept it only when the sun is shining.
Now all we need is for the demand to adjust to the supply constraints.
The problem of course is not the issue of whether or not the demand can adjust, it’s the stupidity of those in government and their advisors who insist that it must and that anyone who doesn’t is a denier, or worse.
It might be useful for some, but you can’t make steel from ore using it and you can forget about glass or anything with a sizeable kiln, like bricks or tiles. And transport, well that will be interesting, waiting overnight for your 5 hours of charging to commence only to discover that today is another cloudy day.
“cheapest” is a baseless assertion. Give the evidence and include the cost of all the apparatus involved in collecting and storing and distributing solar radiant energy and the market conditions for consuming direct current electrical power
Not to mention all the ecological damage by converting farms and forests to industrial solar. And loss of wildlife habitat and aesthetic ugliness of solar on the landscape.
Don’t forget food production. Mad Ed’s idiocy could lead to 25% of the UK’s farmland being taken out of production and his successor is likely going to go even further.
in stating, cheapest, they ignore slave child labor in many of the supply chain countries. They then ignore all the money the Regimes pour into their industries that build that solar panel.
Nor can you use it to grow silicon crystals for new solar cells…
Does this make me a “denier”?
Makes you a “realist”… the very opposite of a “denier™”.
For that you need Coal to purify the silica! Without Coal, Solar PV can’t exist.
Also required are some very toxic chemicals to wash out any impurities.
NOT powered by solar..
Here’s what it requires for solar power equipment to run a home and shop for two weeks of overcast winter skies in North Idaho. https://youtu.be/ccBM0iSvqIc
Total cost was $50,000, three years ago. Cost to bring power to the property was $20,000 plus connecting it up, plus the never ending cost for the electricity. Going off grid solar was a good decision in their case. Any time power was out in town, they still had power.
Since getting the installation finished, they didn’t have to do any maintenance, other than seasonally changing the tilt of the solar panels.
They also installed more solar panels on the west side of the “barndominium” as an awning for the upper level deck, built a equipment storage building with solar panels, and a 20 foot container tiny home, with its own solar power.
They also added a propane backup generator as a backup to the military surplus diesel generator, and they bought the big propane tank rather than leasing or renting it.
And they just sold the property so they didn’t get to use it long enough to pay back the invested cost by not having to pay that never ending electricity bill. But the new owners I bet are enjoying not having a power bill.
Omg $70k for solar. How many years would it take to make that up?
What a waste of capital
Nope. Greg got it wrong. It cost $50k to buy and build but the cost to bring power to the property was $60k (not $20k) so solar was the obvious and definitely cost effective choice.
The amount of power they have for their $50k is way overkill for normal use but they’ve allowed for much greater needs in the future including the workshop with welding.
A friend installed solar a number of years ago. Between multiple subsidies and grants, his $350,000 solar installation cost him between $50,000 and $100,000 (it has been a long time and some numbers elude me now). At the time, his electric bill for his house (big) and farm (also big) was about $1000. He essentially used the grid as a battery–he fed into it in the sunny daytime, and drew from it at night. He figured his payback was going to be 3-5 years. I haven’t asked how it has worked out. But the only way it made sense was getting the grants and subsidies. Without those, it didn’t work out.
If he had to pay the grid to take his surplus it would be a lot worse.
Individuals don’t typically pay for surplus energy when the price goes negative. At least not in Australia. I doubt you’ll find anything like those subsidies anywhere today.
As I recall, the meter ran backwards, essentially, when the system generated a surplus, and forwards when he was drawing from the grid.
That’s right in principle. But smart meters aren’t that simplistic. Backwards reduces the chargeable cost to the consumer.
Precisely.
That was people making choices, aka liberty and freedom, and did so without other people’s money (aka tax payer government subsidies).
The opposition is primarily to government mandates and command economics.
I am curious about where they get the free diesel and propane. Idaho is pretty far north.
I suspect that they would run on generators half the year.
Watch the video. They wouldn’t need to run the generators at all as the solution was way more than they needed…unless he was running the workshop and welding.
On my highest use day I use 47KWh in a 24 hour period. To last 2 weeks I would need 7 Tesla 100KWh batteries and sufficient rooftop solar to recharge them reasonably quick.
Pumping in 100KWh a day would take 7 days to recharge and a solar array that’s 25KW devoted just to the battery. Recharging in 3.5 days would need a 50KW Solar array and sufficient rooftop to support it.
And Solar really Isn’t THAT cheap. The batteries and panels and support system (my roof can’t support the weight without reengineering/replacing the trusses) would cost far more that I would ever save on the bill in my lifetime AND the panels would need replacing a few times over before the break even for the original install.
Turn off your electrical devices during the solar eclipse is the best offered solution.
There is cost, and then there is value. In Europe surplus solar energy has negative pricing.
You have to pay to get rid of it between nations.
Most western nations force utility operators to buy it at a fixed price. It is mostly worthless.
“…enough to power about 45 million homes…”
How many “steel mills” is that? (Did someone mention “24/7”?)
““…enough to power about 45 million homes…””
Or NONE.. for about 2/3 of the day !
Powers 22M homes from 8am-10am
Powers 45M homes from 10am-2pm
Powers 22M homes from 2pm-4pm
Powers Zero homes from 4pm-8am
Remind me, when is Peak Demand again?
In California, peak demand is typically 7PM. Which, of course, makes your point.
Ayup. And you can easily halve/quarter those numbers in Winter and at latitudes higher than 50°(N/S)Lat with numerous Summer days also far reduced.
You failed to calculate the 24 our average number of homes. 🙂
(22×2 + 45×4 + 22×2) /24 = 11M (11.167 calculated)
But unfortunately Solar doesn’t deliver an averaged generation at any time (except when Nature decides to deliver the “free fuel”). Only a 2 hour ramp up, a not constant 4 hour peak and a 2 hour fall off with a guaranteed 16 hour of Absolutely Nothing
That is quite true.
But using the same marketing techniques and language any claim of powering more that 11M homes is bogus to the point of lying.
Story Tip.
Yet another study linking warming to reduced cloud cover…… not CO2.
Another New Study Links Modern And Past Global Warming To Natural Changes In Cloud Clover, Not CO2
“Two-thirds of the global warming since 2001 is sulphur dioxide reduction rather than carbon dioxide increases.”
-Peter Cox, Professor of Climate System Dynamics at the University Of Exeter
Due in large part to the adoption and mandating of Ultra Low Sulphur Diesel Fuel for vehicles and heavy equipment, and Very Low Sulphur Fuel Oil for ships.
Due in large part to the adoption and mandating of the various clean air acts starting in the 1950s.
Hmmm, didn’t the IPCC claim that global warming became detectable in the 1950s?
Not arguing SO2 has an effect, disagree but not going to debate the “2/3s” guess.
Eliminating particulate carbon (aka smoke) had much to do with it, too.
There is a full spectrum of other factors that contribute one way or another.
My point?
The is no single control knob.
Anyone with eyes, or who has ever been outside, has experienced the change in temperature when clouds pass over.
The the CO2 to temperature “climate models” have to parameterize clouds is proof positive the models are less that worthless.
Let us say they are right and solar is cheap. I don’t care how cheap it is if it isn’t producing power because it is cloudy out or surprise the sun has gone down it is completely worthless.
The filthy manufacture and disposal of solar panels
The mining, acid leaching, high tonnage coal use for heat treatment and smelting with associated fumes and silicosis disease from dusts and much more makes solar manufacturing one of the filthiest manufacturing processes ever. At the end of their short life, it costs 3x more to recycle than landfill, so recycling is nearly non-existent. The toxic heavy metals used in parts of the panels leach out over time.
The first step in cleaning silica to produce metallurgical grade silicon is to rinse it with a mixture of one part acid to one part water. This process is called acid leaching and is used to remove impurities such as iron, aluminium, and calcium from the silica. The purified silica is then heated with carbon in the form of coal or charcoal in an electrode arc furnace at a temperature of 1500-2000°C to produce metallurgical grade silicon that is 98% pure.
The hydrometallurgical purification method is done with different types of acids as solvents to refine MG-Si. Some of these acids are hydrochloric acid, hydrofluoric acid, sulfuric acid, and nitric acid. These are often used in combination with each other as a solvent for purification of MG-Si can be used. These are of used then dumped in toxic lakes.
The majority of impurities contributing to this absorption band are entirely eliminated after the third leaching.
Note: Yes, three (3) separate leaching steps! Toxic acids at each step.
Waste
Due to the rapid growth in manufacturing in China and the lack of regulatory controls, there have been reports of the dumping of waste silicon tetrachloride. Normally the waste silicon tetrachloride is recycled but this adds to the cost of manufacture as it needs to be heated to 1,800 °F (980 °C).
It is the cheapest energy source …in the Socialist sense, where anything you can make others pay for is counted as free.
(And when the media say it’s simultaneously nearly-free and subsidy-requiring, that’s clearly the definition they’re using.)
Cost of storage, backup, management, connections, blackouts — free.
Environmental damage in manufacture, construction, operation and disposal — free.
Land use, bird and bat deaths, palm-greasing, politics, bureaucracy — free.
(And if you are a social parasite who considers any of the above costs to be benefits, better than free.)
In the lead picture, all that destruction will have created shards of glass and other material that will be impossible to remove from the soil.
The land has been rendered totally useless for livestock, and probably crops, for decades. !
I assume this was some sort of sarcasm? If you can’t tell an AI picture from reality then life is going to increasing be less nice to you.
Story Tip.
The High Arctic is cold .. 36 of 41 days from July 1 in the DMI High Arctic have set new daily cold means.
It would have been informative if this article pointed out the reasons that solar is expensive despite its low generation cost.
because generation cost is only one small item. Installation costs are high. land footprint huge. The electronics wear out and remain expensive. batteries also wear out and remain expensive. the sun doesn’t shine 24/7 so a backup power supply is still needed. Occasional hail storms wipe out installations (see scottsbluff, NE), panels never put out more than 80% of their rated wattage.
those are the big ones.
Small nit. It is not low generation cost.
It is low/zero fuel cost.
Words matter.
Funny that renewable in the context of electrical generation means never having to replenish fuel.
However, the earth turns and the solar “fuel” disappears and is replenished the following dawn.
Therefore solar voltaic is not renewable.
However, the wind dies down to zero and the WTG “fuel” disappears. It is replenished when weather conditions develop that are favorable to wind flowing.
Therefore wind turbines are now renewable.
That photograph absolutely demonstrates just exactly how “safe and effect” are SV farms.
Or anything good should not need subsidies.
You can see how it happens. You are opening a small shop. You mortgage your house. Lease the premises. Stock it. Open it. After a few weeks, you realize that it is not making enough to pay its way. You consider opening longer hours, but the extra wages will not be covered by the extra sales you make.
You look around, and you discover solar subsidies. Arr, that’s what I can do, you think.
Your selling pitch is to say that you open for 8 hours a day. But costs are such that you need income for 24 hours a day. If you can be subsidized, your 24-hour income would cover it, and you would make a profit.
You develop a plan. You tell everyone that your store is a safe place on the way home from two schools, so it needs to be kept funded.
You place a few hundred notes in some brown envelopes and drop them into the hands of a few politicians. The law is quickly changed, and you are now subsidized 24×7 even though you are open and selling for only 8 hours per day.
Sounds familiar?
I have house solar system for 4 and half year and found by myself what does it mean. I received no subsidy for that. It looks that in our climate 48N Europe it is quite realistic to create system, which can provide up to 90% of year’s electricity consumption, with around 5-8 years return.
If there is need to create new grid electricity connection to house, it can return right away. I have 39m2 of panels on my 200m2 house roof. That is 8kW of panels, plenty of unused space. Currently in summer they are providing me above 40kWh daily, my base household consumption is around 12kWh daily, so I can afford to heat my hot tub to 39C, my garden pool 7m3 to 31-34C and run AC for whole house, to have inside 24C while outside was 42C.
I have 24kWh battery 21kWh LFP with oldest cells 4.5 year old and 3kWh of LTO which should be safest, have 20,000 cycles life and 30 years lifespan.
Battery is taking space size of bigger aquarium, plenty of space in cellar to expand.
I have 2 inverters capable to provide 9kW of power, plenty to run all my household without limits.
With this setup I can save 80% of my energy needs and during summer I have additional 50% energy excess which I can waste on pool, hot tub, AC, EV car eventually.
According my statistics, going from 8kW of panels to 20kW and from 24kWh to 84kWh battery should provide me full self sufficiency. And this is climate where during winter I have weeks long “dunkelflaute”.
Small around 1kW 250Euro petrol generator as backup would suffice to cover missing few hundreds kWh.
In climate as California, it is no brainer, you can divide needed solar panels capacity and battery by factor of two and still be self sufficient.
Installing solar on roofs of standalone suburb houses is niche where solar simply wins.