kamoylan t1_ivdk3r8 wrote
Reply to comment by Bryllant in Rooftop solar trumps all fossil fuels as renewables smash more records on main grid [Australia] by EnergyTransitionNews
Rooftop is better than in desert because:
-
Rooftops are already built environment. There is no ecological cost vs the ecological damage for installing solar in a desert.
(A desert might be barren to us, but many creatures live there.) -
The infrastructure for moving electricity in urban and suburban areas is already there. It might need modifying to cope with the changed loads caused by electricity flowing in from houses rather than out to houses, but there won't be the need for new, large electricity transmission lines.
FishMichigan t1_ive5zp0 wrote
Rooftop is $2.50-$3 a watt. Solar in a field is $1 a watt.
netz_pirat t1_ive7jlj wrote
Solar on my roof was 1,40€/ watt... And I didn't need any transmission lines on top of that.
WazWaz t1_iveqq66 wrote
Nonsense. Over 3 years ago I paid AU$12000 for 9kW.
And the benefit to the homeowner is way more, since they're saving retail electricity costs.
kamoylan t1_ive76p2 wrote
What is the total cost of ownership?
$1/watt in a field. Does that also include:
- Aquiring the land?
- Changing the land to suit the solar power? (e.g. changing the crop to not shade the cells, clearing trees, etc.)
- Building the electricity transmission lines to where it'll be used?
$2.50 - $3/watt on a rooftop. The points above are already paid for (maybe electricity infrastructure needs upgrading).
Fausterion18 t1_ive9no3 wrote
The $1/watt includes all of those.
Rooftop solar is by far the most expensive option. The installation costs way more and the equipment does as well.
[deleted] t1_ivepzdq wrote
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Surur t1_iveoddk wrote
According to Tony Seba solar panels are now becoming so cheap, they can be used as construction material.
Mernic666 t1_ivgrryd wrote
Up vote for having watched Seba's latest series. I think I rewatched 6 times over the weekend (road trip in sunny Australia). Heh.
I suspect that this example was hyperbole on Seba's part, as the retail cost of structural plywood is still a hell of a lot cheaper than solar panels in AU, and I don't think they have the same structural qualities.
However, the point that they can be used as a substitute for exterior wall flashing, even if the primary purpose of producing electricity is significantly reduced by not being positioned for maximum efficiency, was not lost on me.
I wonder what purposes they'll serve at the end of the decade when they have reduced in cost by another 75%, and the 'possibility space' continues to open...
Surur t1_ivgvo29 wrote
Funnily enough, I came across a real-life example where a guy on youtube said the same thing, but in practice.
https://youtu.be/bXd-aP06lug?t=502
With the price of wood these days it may actually be true.
hangingonthetelephon t1_ivdwgmb wrote
I think another benefit of rooftop solar related to your second point is that it also lowers the demand on the grid. It also adds some ability to develop disaster resiliency in terms of having hyper-local power generation.
Solar still needs to contend with the fact that demand peaks are not aligned with output peaks (ie the famous “duck curve”) - which is of course where storage and other power sources need to be used in tandem. Still, rooftop and large solar installations will both need to be used.
Neil_Live-strong t1_ivevij8 wrote
Thank you for pointing that out. Many people see no downside to solar but if a solar farm is being built, then step 1 is to build a massive parking lot. Anywhere you wouldn’t want a parking lot, you wouldn’t want a solar farm. There’s plenty of rooftops that can have solar panels on them before we start building massive lots all over the place.
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