China solar module prices keep diving

[aitchnyu]

I have almost 5kw of panels and a 5kw inverter. If solar panels get cheaper than dirt, will future 5kw inverters allow 10 kw of panels, so that the power vs time graph is a wide "plateau" instead of a thin "hill"?

[philipkglass]

The ratio of DC panel wattage to AC inverter wattage is called the inverter loading ratio, and it has been creeping up over time in utility scale solar farms. The reasoning is indeed to give more of a plateau shape to AC output (which is limited by transmission line capacity) and to perform more steadily under hazy or partly cloudy conditions. In theory, this ratio could go up a lot if panel prices continue to decline faster than inverter prices.

In practice, inverters probably also need partial redesign for a high loading ratio. Higher ILRs in large solar farms has appeared to contribute to faster inverter failures in recent years.

[PossiblyKyle]

You can essentially already do that. I live in a place basking with sun most of the year, and have 22k of panels with a 15kw inverter (max allowed before being considered commercial). My production is a wide hill with a considerable plateau, thanks to the amount of panels (as an example, produced 140kwh yesterday). It is clearly not economically viable for most regions, but for us it luckily is

[Jedd]

There's no conditional on solar panel pricing -- you can do this now.

I have 12kW of panels, and a 10kW inverter. I get a nice 10kW flat-line for a few hours each day through summer, and a better-than-it-would-otherwise-be return through winter (though never reaching max).

[andruby]

5kW inverters already support 10kW(peak) solar panels. It’s mostly a voltage compatibility, not a max output.

[marcosdumay]

Does your inverter not allow that today?

They expect a number of panels to be connected in series, but you can have as many of those batches in parallel as you want.

[the_third_wave]

> will future 5kw inverters allow 10 kw of panels, so that the power vs time graph is a wide "plateau" instead of a thin "hill"?

Inverters already allow a substantial amount of undersizing, e.g. I'm using a 10 kW Fronius inverter with 14.5 kW of panels installed. This does lead to the plateau you are looking after so if that is something you want, go for it In my case the 10 kW inverter just happened to be the biggest one available in this series (GEN24 Symo, a 3-phase hybrid inverter using high-voltage batteries (which I have yet to install, waiting for prices to come down and my 5 year sell-back contract to expire)). I would have been fine with a "thin hill" instead of the wide plateau we get now since that hill would stand on top of the plateau, maximising production.

[chris222]

Yes, this is called clipping and it’s not a bad thing. Most areas don’t have perfect peak sunlight for very long at all.

[hbarka]

Yes. You’ll get inverter clipping, but the area under the curve in a clipped production is still better than a “thin hill” production. https://unboundsolar.com/blog/oversizing-pv-arrays

[jaredhallen]

If you're not putting it into the grid you can do whatever ratio. Have 20KW (or whatever) of panels, a suitably sized charge controller, a bunch of batteries, and an inverter sized for whatever max AC current draw you need. Or if you can run everything you need DC, skip the inverter altogether.

[RobinL]

Not sure if it's a comparable metric, but it seems to largely follow the long term time series here: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/solar-pv-prices

[dopa42365]

https://ourworldindata.org/learning-curve

> As the cumulative installed capacity increased, the price of solar declined exponentially. Solar technology is a prime example. For more than four decades, the price of solar panels declined by 20% with each doubling of global cumulative capacity.

[photochemsyn]

Some of this is related to China's apparent mastery of monocrystalline silicon PV technology. The article and the graph don't distinguish panels by mono vs poly but for non-thin-tech panels, monocrystalline is preferable. See (2018):

https://www.pv-magazine.com/2018/04/14/the-weekend-read-chin...

> "When potential expansions from other mono ingot and wafer makers are factored in, this points to a tectonic shift in the supply of monocrystalline silicon which threatens to reconfigure the entire upstream solar landscape and potentially push monocrystalline silicon solar into a dominant market position in much shorter timeframe than previously anticipated."

[tryptophan]

Hmm interesting, suggests that solar panel prices should drop to like 8c/W by 2030. At that point they are pretty much free because the ROI will be so high.

[bluSCALE4]

I keep seeing articles like this but install prices don't go down at all. Does news like this only apply to people building PV farms?

[cmrdporcupine]

So frustrating that pro-installed solar at the consumer level around here does not seem to have dropped. If anything it's gone way up.

[megaman821]

I am trying to figure when solar panels will have a lower LCOE than just a steam turbine alone. At that point even absolutely free fusion would have a hard time competing with solar for half the day.

[abeppu]

I mean, all the land that will eventually be used for solar has some cost.

[rgmerk]

I think we’re pretty close to that point already.

[earthling8118]

I don't see this being an issue. The reason I consider fusion important is so that we can have a total production that is several orders of magnitude greater than the current needs. Also for space when too far away from the sun.

[foota]

Plus batteries plus transmission?

[causality0]

Rather sad to me that none of these price drops seem to trickle down. Hurray for more solar farms but it would nice if the price of a backpack solar panel was a dollar less than it was a decade ago.

[eternityforest]

I don't remember what the price was a decade ago, but something like a 60W folding panel these days often goes on sale for really cheap, like, under $2 a watt.

The backpacks with built in panels are still expensive because I'm guessing it's hard to find customers who want to be in direct sunlight long enough to get significant charge, while carrying a backpack.

[nico_h]

It practically did thanks to inflation.

[kinnth]

As a homeowner in the UK (or EU) how can I benefit from these cheap prices? What steps can I take to even just buy and hold the stock?

[tibbydudeza]

Living in S.A and our decade long power crisis it is rather noticable to see solar panels now appearing on homes and office parks.

I got 3.7Kw panels, 5Kw inverter and 10Kw battery - only our stove is not on the PV circuit - water heater is already solar based (not PV) and it has been brought some measure of sanity back to our lives.

The worst outages was 6 hours daily.

Should have done this a long time ago but it is now helped by banks tailoring financing packages for such installs.

[enslavedrobot]

In Australia they deregulated the solar industry. Now you can get rooftop solar for around 44 cents a watt installed (66 cents Australian).

[secondcoming]

My biggest use of electricity is my laptop and monitor.

Any ideas on a portable solar panel that could power those during the summer? Portable because I rent and can’t fix anything down, it doesn’t have to fit in a backpack or anything like that.

[syntaxing]

That’s…really surprising? A ceiling fan uses about 75W a hour. A MacBook Pro has a 100 Wh battery and last about 4 hours so 25W per hour. Your laptop and monitor should be lower than any other appliance.

That being said, there’s a lot of options nowadays which is exciting! For instance, you could have a 200W port panel and a 1kWh battery system from eco flow that should run both with room to spare. Anker has a new system meant for patios but it’s only for Europe.

[thinkcontext]

Portable panels are almost never used in a way such that the carbon emissions it took to make them are offset. Things like how many hours they are used, poor exposure and curtailment from the use of batteries all slash the useful electricity they produce.

For almost all people they are only appropriate when you are off-grid.

[yjftsjthsd-h]

Seems like the easy solution is one of those solar systems marketed as being for camping, right? Not sure it's economical, but easy.

Personally I'm interested in a DIY mod to add solar panels directly to the back of a laptop screen. It probably wouldn't be able to actually charge unless the machine is in sleep mode (which also would have the lid closed which would help), but it would extend the battery - if the machine averages 10W and the panel gives 1W, that's an extra 10% runtime for free, and better if it sleeps in the middle (which works, because I'm unlikely to use a laptop continuously for 10 hours).

[Symbiote]

Your fridge is probably using more power, unless it's a fairly new, highest-quality European market model.

(The range at the local big appliance retailer is about 35W for the cheapest models to 10W for the most expensive.)

[culopatin]

You don’t have a fridge or a water heater or a stove or a fan?

[PaulKeeble]

Ecoflow and others do battery and invertors with solar connectors for such a system. Much of their range allows up to 800W of solar panels and all in would be about $1500 total with 2 panels and that gives you 2KWh or so of battery storage. Your typical usage for a high end monitor is maybe 130W and laptops vary but almost certainly below 100W typically.

[noveltyaccount]

Something like this https://youtu.be/UnTJScmSLYs Eco flow can charge from solar, then charge a few appliances. I think Anker just released a similar product.

[invalidator]

How comfortable are you with DIY electrics? Can you lay out a panel somewhere in the sun? Do you want it to run at night? Do you want it to automatically switch to grid power if needed?

[rcarr]

Ditch the monitor and get some AR glasses like Viture or Xreal

[Animats]

Are those numbers inflation-adjusted? That big downward spike coincides with the US inflation spike.

[kurthr]

The Yuan has roughly been pegged to the dollar @ ~7Y/$ for the last few years, but it rose (falling ratio) during the pandemic and it has been falling a lot (rising ratio) recently.

https://www.macrotrends.net/2575/us-dollar-yuan-exchange-rat...

China PPI is in Yuan, but sales prices of panels are mostly in Dollars.

[spokeonawheel]

where does one go to purchase said diving solar modules?

[mensetmanusman]

China subsidized the worlds PV. That's great.

Practically this was possible by pegging the currency which lowers the purchasing power of all their citizens.

[egberts1]

Westinghouse (AC) must be rolling in their grave.

[marianatom]

China's PPP should reduce in half this year. It has seen massive layoffs from every industry (average 22% decline in revenue across all industries). It has seen 50% reduction in wages, even in stable positions like government offices. It has seen unpaid wages for anywhere from a few months up to a year!!

This is reinforced by 50% in price cuts in real estate listings in tier 1 cities, 10X increase in real estate inventory this year, and 90% physical retail decline

China’s Latest Source of Unrest: Unpaid ‘Zero Covid’ Workers https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/16/world/asia/china-covid-pr...

China's Industrial profits in the January-March period declined 21.4% from a year earlier https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-04-27/china-s-i...

[testhest]

Once the Chinese run out of money or they have killed off the last competition the price will increase again.

[yesbut]

And all of this cheap PV being produced required burning coal. We've basically outsourced this production, reduced our own coal burning, and then yell at China for increasing its carbon output.

[pengaru]

The disaster of the last century is not securing a renewable energy future while squandering the convenient non-renewable energy of fossil fuels on short-term interests.

If you want to shake your fists about fossil fuel emissions this is by far not the appropriate direction to aim them IMO.

[pfdietz]

Producing PV does not require burning coal.