alt Hacker NewsMake no mistake, this is happening all over the globe with enormous success.
Australians now get free power for three hours a day. India, Pakistan and many other developing countries are deploying solar and batteries insanely fast because it’s so cheap direct from China.
China themselves add more solar capacity in a few months than the entire US grid.
There really is only one country with prohibitively expensive solar and batteries thanks to tariffs. Fingers crossed that will change soon.
Replies
adrianN • today at 3:28 AM
What do panels cost in the US? I can order a 500W panel from amazon.de for a little under 100€. It looks like amazon.com only has panels for $300+. Is Amazon just very expensive?
ihsw • today at 3:04 AM
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Solar is also unique in that it is both affordable and practical to deploy locally.
Part of the difficulty in estimating growth is that a significant chunk of installed supply is not a "power station" that is easily counted and measured.
Residential solar is a few kw here, a few there. But it adds up quickly to mw and gw.
And yes, this results in a larger variable demand on the grid. Which makes planning harder. But it's cheap enough for any established business with a roof to install. It's cheap enough for residential. And from decision to power flowing can be measured in months not years.