this post was submitted on 17 Nov 2024

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Solar modules now selling for less than €0.06/W in Europe (www.pv-magazine.com)

submitted 4 hours ago by ArtikBanana@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/technology@lemmy.world

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[–] JustEnoughDucks@feddit.nl 22 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago)

Here in Belgium there used to be big government subsidies for solar panels 5-10 ago.

Now the same wattage battery + solar setup without any government subsidies is a good chunk cheaper than that time with the large subsidies.

Pretty cool and shows the power of government renewables subsidies. A huge percentage of houses in Belgium have solar panels now.(and electricity still costs 0.30€/kWh average because of fossil fuel energy lobbies)

Now that there is a local industry around it, most renovations and almost all new builds include them.

[–] wewbull@feddit.uk 11 points 2 hours ago (4 children)

$60k per MW or $210M for a nuclear reactors worth (3.5GW). Sure... the reactor will go 24/7 (between maintenance and refuelling down times, and will use less land (1.75km² Vs ~40km²) but at 1% of the cost, why are we still talking about nuclear.

(I'm using the UKs Hinckley Point C power station as reference)

[–] Benaaasaaas@lemmy.world 5 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

Because there are nights there are winters there are cloudy and rainy days, and there are no batteries capable of balancing all of these issues. Also when you account for those batteries the cost is going to shift a bit. So we need to invest in nuclear and renewables and batteries. So we can start getting rid of coal and gas plants.

[–] suzune@ani.social 5 points 1 hour ago (2 children)

But Germany has no space for nuclear waste. They haven't been able to bury the last batch for over 30 years. And the one that they buried most recently began to leak radioactivity into ground water.

And.. why give Russia more military target opportunities?

[–] elucubra@sopuli.xyz 1 points 29 seconds ago

I'm not a rabid anti-nuclear, but there are somethings that are often left out of the pricing. One is the exorbitant price of storage of spent fuel although I seem to remember that there is some nuclear tech that can use nuclear waste as at least part of it's fuel (Molten salt? Pebble? maybe an expert can chime in). There is also the human greed factor. Fukushima happened because they built the walls to the highest recorded tsunami in the area, to save on concrete. A lot of civil engineering projects have a 150% overprovision over the worst case calculations. Fukushima? just for the worst case recorded, moronic corporate greed. The human factor tends to be the biggest danger here.

[–] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 2 points 22 minutes ago (1 children)

If France can find space, surely Germany can.

[–] Lumisal@lemmy.world 3 points 6 minutes ago (2 children)

If Finland could find space, Germany definitely can.

[–] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 minute ago

Idk, Finland has a much lower population density vs Germany. France is something like 1/2 the population density, but they also have >50 reactors, so surely Germany can find room for a few...

[–] Valmond@lemmy.world 1 points 3 minutes ago

And Sweden.

[–] frezik@midwest.social 9 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago) (2 children)

I think there's a contingent of people who think nuclear is really, really cool. And it is cool. Splitting atoms to make power is undeniably awesome. That doesn't make it sensible, though, and they don't separate those two thoughts in their mind. Their solution is to double down on talking points designed for use against Greenpeace in the 90s rather than absorbing new information that changes the landscape.

And then there's a second group that isn't even trying to argue in good faith. They "support" nuclear knowing it won't go anywhere because it keeps fossil fuels in place.

[–] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 1 points 15 minutes ago* (last edited 13 minutes ago)

What isn't sensible about nuclear? For context, I'm coming from the US in an area with lots of empty space (i.e. tons of place to store radioactive waste) and without much in the way of hydro (I'm in Utah, a mountainous, desert climate). We get plenty of sun as well as plenty of snow. Nuclear should provide power at night and throughout the winter, and since ~89% of homes are heated with natural gas, we only need higher electricity production in the summer when it's hot, which is precisely what solar is great for.

So here's my thought process:

nuclear for base load demand to cover nighttime power needs, as well as the small percentage of homes using electricity for heat
solar for summer spikes in energy usage for cooling
batteries for any excess solar/nuclear generation

If we had a nuclear plant in my area, we could replace our coal plants, as well as some of our natural gas plants. If we go with solar, I don't think we have great options for electricity storage throughout the winter.

This is obviously different in the EU, but surely the nordic countries have similar problems as we do here, so why isn't nuclear more prevalent there?

[–] Devorlon@lemmy.zip 1 points 2 hours ago

I'm very much in the first camp and need to remind myself whenever I think about arriving due nuclear

[–] alcoholicorn@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 1 hour ago) (2 children)

A MW of solar averages out to about .2 MWh per hour. A MW of nuclear averages about .9 MWh per hour.

But even so as the UK does it, nuclear power isn't worth it. France and China are better examples since they both picked a few designs and mass produced them.

China's experience indicates you can mass produce nuclear relatively cheaply and quickly, having built 35 out of 57GW in the last decade, and another 88GW on the way, however it's not nearly as quick to expand as solar, wind, and fossil fuels.

[–] 486@lemmy.world 3 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

MW/h

There is MW which is a unit of power and then there is MWh which is a unit of energy, but what is MW/h supposed to mean?

[–] alcoholicorn@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 hour ago

Thanks for catching the typo.

[–] MonkderVierte@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago) (1 children)

Nuclear actually around 0.6, because 1/3 is always off for repair and control.

[–] alcoholicorn@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

Maybe in the UK where each plant is basically unique instead of having improvements from all the previous iterations. In the US it's around 93%. I don't know how to search China or France's numbers, but I suspect they're similar or better.

[–] Venicon@lemmy.world 19 points 3 hours ago (5 children)

Good news perhaps but I’m sure I won’t see any benefit in Scotland, still thousands to add solar panels.

[–] frezik@midwest.social 18 points 3 hours ago

Scotland has really good wind power, anyway. Between that, nuclear, and a few other renewable sources, you guys are down to 10% fossil fuel energy use. So don't worry about solar.

[–] BananaTrifleViolin@lemmy.world 4 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

For electricity generation: Solar across the UK was about 5% in last year, while Wind was about 29% and Nuclear 13.9%, and hydro 1.3% - so 49.2% of electricity generation over the last 12 months was carbon neutral.

That's a huge success story - still a long way to go, particularly as that does not include Gas burned in homes, but the UK is moving in the right direction. And Scotland is a huge source of Wind & Hydro power for the whole country.

So even if the barriers to solar in your home are still high, the grid is getting cleaner and cleaner every year. There are also community projects installing wind generators which you can join/invest in if you do want to try and get a slice of cleaner energy and solar is not realistic.

Edit: Source on UK electricity generation: https://www.energydashboard.co.uk/historical Good data on UK electricity generation

[–] brsrklf@jlai.lu 7 points 3 hours ago

You know, if you people wanna ditch the Kingdom and join the club, I don't think it's too late.

[–] Bosht@lemmy.world 6 points 3 hours ago

Yup. Average here in south US is 25k for a home system without battery backup.

[–] Olap@lemmy.world 4 points 3 hours ago

Installation the trouble. Roofing is expensive. Next time you have to redo the roof: then it's time

[–] hendrik@palaver.p3x.de 2 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 11 minutes ago)

Any good store that will sell me a super cheap and good set including inverter here in Germany? I mean they're on Amazon for 250€, but maybe there is a better shop?