Tesla Wants to Build a Battery for Your House

[Sunking]

No it dont, it gets a bit quieter for a while and the dodgy little operators scurry away to find something else to do and the good operators downsize a bit, but the old solar juggernaut keeps on rolling along. Been through it all over here. 2 things, power prices cost per kWh keeps on going up and 2, people just love solar and hate getting large electricity bills

Well Pete being down under your Market is upside down ole friend. Here in the USA electric rates have been going down since 2008. In some states 28% lower. National Average is 11.2 cents.

[SunEagle]

In more than a few ways, I'd suggest human foibles account for most market movement in one form or another. That's why there's advertising.

Doesn't everyone stand in line for a couple of days to purchase the newest version cell phone?

[J.P.M.]

So the market depends on squishy human factors too? That could never happen here, we are too logical.

In more than a few ways, I'd suggest human foibles account for most market movement in one form or another. That's why there's advertising.

[inetdog]

No it dont, it gets a bit quieter for a while and the dodgy little operators scurry away to find something else to do and the good operators downsize a bit, but the old solar juggernaut keeps on rolling along. Been through it all over here. 2 things, power prices cost per kWh keeps on going up and 2, people just love solar and hate getting large electricity bills

So the market depends on squishy human factors too? That could never happen here, we are too logical.

[solar pete]

Bingo, aka Market. The market always decides and never makes a mistake. The market is self correcting. Always has been and always will be. Currently the goberment is trying to make a market, a false market with Tax Subsidies and Net Metering. Truth be told Net Metering is a tax, a hidden tax imposed on rate payers in the form of artificially increased electric rate payers paid by the working class and poor. It is hidden in your electric bill.

Take away the incentives and Net Metering and the solar market collapses.

No it dont, it gets a bit quieter for a while and the dodgy little operators scurry away to find something else to do and the good operators downsize a bit, but the old solar juggernaut keeps on rolling along. Been through it all over here. 2 things, power prices cost per kWh keeps on going up and 2, people just love solar and hate getting large electricity bills

[Sunking]

You make RE technology with energy from RE technology.

You just keep right on dreaming away. You could eliminate all solar right now and there were be no change in generation capacity. Solar is less than 1% after 60 years and contributes nothing of any values and has not saved 1 drop of fuel.

[J.P.M.]

Utilities won't have to be forced to use RE if fossil fuel are priced at cost.

I'm not sure that is a realistic goal. Also, until a way is found to determine such a cost and, a bigger hurdle, get a majority of folks to agree on how to determine such a cost, it's a moot point.

[J.P.M.]

Why would RE prices, being technology rather than fuel based, rise?

What trend do you expect in smartphones? Maybe worse price/performance in two years?

The most recent lowest utility scale solar bid is $.06/kwh without rebates. Wind is less expensive in good locations. How could those prices increase in the future?

1.) While the cost of producing R.E. may be controlled by tech. advances to some degree, I'm of the opinion that R.E. prices TO THE CONSUMER are competition based against the alternative: POCO prices. If/As those POCO prices rise, for whatever reason. at, the R.E. faction will sell to the market at whatever price is allowable. The ceiling price will be whatever the R.E. business can convince the consumer is less than the POCO price and in the consumers best financial interest, true or not.
If I can produce a product for $1.00 and make money selling it for $2.00, and my product does the same thing as another product costing $10.00, why would I sell my product for $2.00 ? Some would think that's not smart, particularly when I could sell my product for much less than $10.00 (but probably much more than $2.00) and be more profitable.

2.) Regardless of were utility scale wholesale pricing is, I'm of the opinion that utility scale per kWh prices are lower than they would be if it were not for gov. programs to subsidize alt. energy. BTW, that's the lowest Wholesale price. My POCO claims their cost is about ~ $0.052/kWh avoided cost for what they buy, probably from all sources.

3.) The generation cost may or may not increase in the future, but if the POCO product cost to the consumer increases, it seems natural and a consequence of human nature that the cost of R.E. will follow in the same direction. For it to do otherwise is to leave money on the table. It seems to me that POCOs are smarter than a lot of their users and so would tend not to do that.

Just opinion.

[SunEagle]

Utilities won't have to be forced to use RE if fossil fuel are priced at cost.

I am afraid it will be a long time before RE is cheaper than coal.

[donald]

See my comments in bold type above.

Utilities won't have to be forced to use RE if fossil fuel are priced at cost.

[donald]

[QUOTE=Sunking;155862][QUOTE=donald;155850]Why would RE prices, being technology rather than fuel based, rise?

What makes you think panels are not based on fuel cost. It takes a boat load of energy to make a solar panel. Most of the silicon used to make solar panels comes from the scrap semi-conductor market, so fuel prices are not included in the process and pricing. The price will have to be a multiple of the source fuel.

You make RE technology with energy from RE technology. What is at first a low EROI improves exponentially with time.

Huge amount of manual labor was needed at first to produce fossil fuels. Later energy from fossil fuels was the primary mover of fossil fuel growth.

Both RE technology and fuel based energy "bootstrap" growth. Both are forms solar derived energy.

[SunEagle]

Why would RE prices, being technology rather than fuel based, rise? It depends on the cost to manufacture that technology and where the material, labor and energy to do that is coming from. What would it cost to build an iPhone here in the US instead of overseas where labor is cheap?

What trend do you expect in smartphones? Maybe worse price/performance in two years? Technology has set a trend of getting cheaper but that is usually the older models which get phased out. Newer versions can drive the cost per unit back up to cover the R&D it took to develop it.

The most recent lowest utility scale solar bid is $.06/kwh without rebates. Wind is less expensive in good locations. How could those prices increase in the future? Forcing Utilities to change over to different type of generation comes with a cost that will be passed on to their customers. Some of those fossil fuel generators are still new and working. It would be hard and expensive for the Utility to walk away from them and just install RE generation

See my comments in bold type above.

[Sunking]

I don't know if solar will collapse, but I bet solar will get a lot cheaper from the vendor.

How so? Panel prices have already bottomed out.

Keep in mind a Electric Utility is not a Free Market. It is regulated and regulators put mandates on utilities like forcing them to pay retail prices for the product they make and sell. There is no other market I know of where that is done. Utilities if given the choice would not buy at retail prices, no biz does that as it is insane, they buy at market spot pricing which is wholesale by the lowest bidder. If someone wants to build a wind or solar farm at their own expense/risk, and compete, then OK that is free market. Lowest bidder wins.

If you stop and pay attention to what is being said, utilities are exposing the truth being hidden. When goberment mandates Net Metering on a utility, the goberment allows the utility to pass those losses onto the customer in the form of higher electric rates.

Utilities do get some benefit with higher profit margins, and throwing their hands up not building generation capacity. They know in the end the public is going to demand more generation, and when that happens, goberment will relax the energy and environmental policies to get out of the way making it feasible again. Until then utilities just enjoy the ride paying higher dividends to share holders. All you have to do is listen.

[Sunking]

Why would RE prices, being technology rather than fuel based, rise?

What makes you think panels are not based on fuel cost. It takes a boat load of energy to make a solar panel. Most of the silicon used to make solar panels comes from the scrap semi-conductor market, so fuel prices are not included in the process and pricing. The price will have to be a multiple of the source fuel.

[donald]

........ In the end, the market will tend toward preserving/increasing it's profitability, probably by the easiest (combination of) means as dictated by social entropy, which may well mean increasing prices, which may allow R.E. prices to increase, which may cause use to drop, and all prices to go down, etc., etc. etc.

........

Why would RE prices, being technology rather than fuel based, rise?

What trend do you expect in smartphones? Maybe worse price/performance in two years?

The most recent lowest utility scale solar bid is $.06/kwh without rebates. Wind is less expensive in good locations. How could those prices increase in the future?