logoalt Hacker News

Leherenntoday at 12:54 PM1 replyview on HN

What makes large scale solar no longer profitable? Distribution costs have outpaced the efficiency gains of the large scale installation?


Replies

dhotsontoday at 2:19 PM

Yeah, it's tricky because basically all solar arrays (rooftop and utility) all come online at more-or-less the same time so there's a huge influx of supply which drives the price down.

You can get a sense of it if you look at the daily breakdown:

https://explore.openelectricity.org.au/energy/nem/?range=1d&...

You can see the demand peaks around 12pm and 6pm.

The price goes negative around 2pm most days, in which case, as a solar only operator you're losing money to generate power, so quite often there's curtailment.

And then at 6pm, the sun is down so solar-only operators can't capitalise on the opportunity.

So unfortunately it's just a very limited opportunity to make a profit on your investment each day. More demand during the peak generation time would help!