Talk:Grid parity

1366

The '1366' paragraph of this article reads like marketing material for this company. I'm sure there are many other solar manufacturers using novel techniques to try to achieve grid parity. This section should be removed or broadened into a section on techniques the market (and not a specific company) is using to achieve grid parity. 208.87.58.82 (talk) 06:07, 9 September 2009 (UTC)EC

Frist Solar

Why are the costs in the Frist Solar section in cents per watt instead of ¢/kwh? This should be converted to be easier comparable. --Zukunft (talk) 12:49, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Costs of solar energy

The fully-loaded cost (cost not price) of solar electricity is $0.25/kWh or less in most of the OECD countries. By late 2011, the fully-loaded cost is likely to fall below $0.15/kWh for most of the OECD and reach $0.10/kWh in sunnier regions.

I wonder how this was counted as it's absolutely out of reality... (at least for Czechia) ...even if counting with "energy cannibalism" (dotations via cheap fosil or nuclear energy for manufacturing solar plants) I'm unable to get under aprox $0.40/kwh (fosil&nuclear E costs aprox $0.03-0.05/kwh) Not even counting with electricity transportation/regulation costs, which are huge for solar (building and maintaining extra stabilization gas powerplants) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.177.73.67 (talk) 12:26, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

The paragraph about the companies of 1366 technologies and Abengoa need to be modified or removed. This gives the impression of a marketing message for the two companies rather than unbiased and neutral information about solar's grid parity —Preceding unsigned comment added by Vishshri (talk • contribs) 03:03, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

I would like to have more facts about grid parity. It is constantly discussed in media but it is hard to find hardcore facts. Wikipedia would be the right place to have it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Candorg (talk • contribs) 16:21, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

I'd also like to see more info. Do these numbers include the incredibly gargantuan subsidies that solar power typically receives? I want to know how expensive it is without subsidies, and I'd like to see how those numbers add up. Surely someone on the internet knows where to find this info? Maybe if we make more things link to this page? 146.6.202.160 (talk) 18:28, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Effect of the deflation rate of panels

Let's say Alice installs solar panels immediately, while Bob waits a year before installing them. If the price of panels falls by 20% over that period, Bob will be much better off than Alice. So we need to make reasonable estimations of fair value depreciation, before the section is any good. -- Nic Roets (talk) 23:08, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Bias

This article seems to assume that "grid power" is synonymous with "fossil-fuel or nuclear power". This may be the case in some of the regions mentioned (California, Hawaii, Spain...) but it is certainly not the case everywhere. Grid power in Norway is 95.2% hydroelectric, 4.1% thermal (mostly from household waste) and 0.7% aeolian (2010 figures from SSB). The average retail price is around USD 0.15 per kWh (2009 figures from SSB). DES (talk) 12:37, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Wind power

Grid parity can also be discussed in the context of wind power. Wind power is the dominant renewable at the moment and should be covered in this article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Stieltjes (talk • contribs) 23:59, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

Wind power is not the “dominant renewable” by any stretch of the imagination. Hydroelectric power represents 88% of the world's production of renewable power, wind power only 2%. DES (talk) 09:19, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

I appreciate the correction. I should have said that wind power is the fastest growing renewable and has issues with approaching grid parity in some locations. Therefore, I think a discussion regarding wind power in the context of grid parity is warranted. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 158.35.225.231 (talk) 21:22, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Well, if you have something more concrete to say than just "issues with approaching grid parity", why don't you write about it yourself? DES (talk) 07:37, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Out of date predictions

Perhaps the many out of date predictions could be gathered into a Historical section ? - Rod57 (talk) 08:39, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Grid Parity "includes network distribution costs"

There seem to be two definitions of grid parity, one that includes, and one that excludes network distribution costs. My understanding was the former - technology achieves grid parity when, for a consumer, the kwh cost is equal to or less than buying power from the local electrical company whose rates include network charges.

Should this article's opening line clarify this? Alternatively, the article should clarify that there are two definitions. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 38.110.81.34 (talk) 17:04, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

Yes, this is definitely the case. The solar section goes into more detail on this. I'd be happy to put something in the LEAD as well. However, it's worth pointing out that it's difficult to put a wind turbine on your roof, while a PV panel is easy. For this reason, only solar can really compete on the retail side of the wire. So yes, such a distinction exists, but it only really exists for one form of power ... while we wait for Mr. Fusion anyway! Maury Markowitz (talk) 19:03, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Effect of lower utilization of base load power production

I have no sources to back up this thought, however... when intermittent power is produced, base load power production is lowered, but since coal and nuclear plants have a significant initial investment as well as fixed operation costs, they must raise the price on their produced energy, so even though grid parity is reached, it would probably still be cheaper for the consumer, if the intermittent sources were not there, since base load plants then could run at full efficiency. Narkogrib (talk) 00:20, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

You say "base load power production is lowered", but it is not always possible. This article gives an example of surplus conditions causing electricity prices to go negative [1].

In general, the situation is not as tragic as the article makes them out: Electricity grids have always been designed to cope with variable demand through pump storage schemes, gas turbine generation. Some consumers can also intentionally lower their consumption when shortfalls are expected e.g. geysers. So, up to a point, "intermittent power" is just another source of variability and the grid can easily cope.

In a free market, prices are set by supply and demand. The cost of the initial investment and fixed operational costs to not impact prices in the short term. So "intermittent power" will cause prices to fall. -- Nic Roets (talk) 07:35, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Try and re-run your analysis again, distinguishing between short and long-term. The article says that the existing power generation plants take a financial caning when the solar and wind plants are generating a lot of power relative to demand. So the obvious free-market long-term effect will be that either the oldschool plants will close, and we'll have no electricity when the sun/wind don't shine/blow, or the price of electricity from the older plants will rise when solar & wind are off. There is no such thing as a free lunch. Short-term the old plants are suffering financially- so you want to bank the gains, put it down to the wondrous effects of wind power, and expect the old plants to lose money permanently. Dream on.

You state that intermittent power is "just another source of variability"- oh yeah!- you can cycle up a 1 in 5 hill so cycling up a 1 in 2 hill is "just another source of variability" so you can "easily cope". That is a seriously underwhelming thinking process.

Gravuritas (talk) 00:14, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

"Oldschool plants" will not close if they generate enough revenue to cover their running and maintenance costs. The "significant initial investment" that the OP was referring to does not affect the decision if the plants will close or not. (Investors may takes some losses, which may make them more risk averse but that's a topic for another article)

If you read my sentence that says that the "grid can easily cope", you will see that I said "up to a point". -- Nic Roets (talk) 03:24, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Plants are closing all of the time- where have you been? Given the government-mucked-about oligopoly that is power generation in many/most/all countries, (not the perfect free-market that you naively assume), which ones do you think get closed? And given that you've now said it twice, what precisely does "Up to a point,.. the grid can easily cope." actually mean, other than precisely nothing? Up to a point, I can easily prevent myself from laughing?

Seriously, the OP has an interesting point and amidst the welter of special pleading; ecodoom; government meddling when not needed and inaction when action is needed; strategic interests; and geopolitics it would be nice for some serious economists and engineers to be heard on the real costs of the various power-generation strategies.

Gravuritas (talk) 23:16, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Any power generation added to a network, from any source, reduces the amount of power produced from the other sources.

Around 1/3 of the average wind power entering a network is considered reliable at the 95% level; so that much power can be considered baseload; it requires backup supply, but only one part backup for twenty parts of supply.

The other 2/3 may be regarded statistically.

If the wind has a high market penetration though, you would need more backup; wind power acts as a big generator, much like a big power plant. If you were trying to get a lot of your power from one power plant then you need to deal with the problem of what happens if it drops offline. If a single power plant was giving you 30% of your power, and it failed, you would need enough other capacity to deal with that eventuality. Wind dropping is similar statistically to a big power plant failing.

That's why most proposals for wind power limit it to some percentage of the total power, the costs increase as the market penetration increases. But there's no upperlimit and the extra costs are usually pretty modest.GliderMaven (talk) 23:58, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Solar parity

I wish to propose a new phrase solar parity to mean that point in the civilization-planet relationship where total energy expenditure becomes equal to the amount that falls from their sun. I think it can be reasonably argued that a civilization going past this point, accounting for stored solar credit (in the form of oil reserves, etc.), is on a sure course to catastrophe. Average64 (talk) 21:43, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

Inadequate journalism

@Nigelj The secondary source does say the sentence that you quote. "In 2013, Germany's Deutsche Bank was particularly optimistic about solar power price parity in India, the U.S., China, Germany, Spain and Italy."

But because that seems unlikely to be true (for the UK, at least), refer to the primary source. https://www.deutschebank.nl/nl/docs/Solar_-_2014_Outlook_Let_the_Second_Gold_Rush_Begin.pdf That makes no such statement. It is optimistic about the volume of installations of solar power in the UK, but makes no direct mention of current or future grid parity in the UK. It does include a table in which it is clear that solar power in the UK is not at grid parity for either residential or industrial markets, and the UK is not included in the chart showing graphically some countries that are at, or partially at, grid parity.

Hence in this respect at least, Technology.org is not a reliable source. Don't quote it without checking the primary source. Gravuritas (talk) 23:48, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

There are a number of problems with this - and your reinstatement of your removal.

1. WP:BRD doesn't get you to reinstate your edit just because you create a new Talk section - you have to get consensus first.
2. You say that "Technology.org is not a reliable source" and so cannot be used, yet you leave it as the cited source in the article. WP:RS has a number of ways to approach the issue of reliable sourcing. One person asserting that that is the case, for no reason stated, is not one of them. If after discussion we agree that Technology.org is not a reliable source, then we will remove it, and the unreliably sourced statements that were based on it from the article.
3. You say that we should check the primary source upon which the Technology.org article is based, but you give us a URL to a Microsoft Word document that is dated 6 January 2014, when the Technology.org article is dated April 11, 2013. How can the secondary source be based upon something written nearly a year later? You may argue that the Technology.org article is out of date, but you leave it in the article as a citation for something it does not say.
4. The Technology.org article says that it is based in an article from Phys.org, which says, "To achieve grid parity, solar power must be cost competitive with coal or other sources without relying on government or corporate subsidies. The German Bank is particularly optimistic about solar power price parity in India, the U.S., China, the U.K., Germany, Spain and Italy and because of that is forecasting a 20 percent (30 GW) increase in worldwide demand this year—it's already pushed above 100 GW."[2] This includes the UK, and so is perfectly in line with the Technology .org source. Are you saying that Phys.org is wrong too? On what basis? We need citations (specific ones, not just URLs of 30 page documents, but quotes) that show either that the situation has changed in the UK since these articles were published, or that they were specifically identified as wrong for some reason. WP:IDONTLIKEIT does not cut it.

Please revert your last edit and discuss the points that are relevant. --Nigelj (talk) 14:53, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

I'm not going to reinstate innumerate stuff, and I'm surprised that you would want me to. Here's why not:

1. Talk section- my initial posting of "inadequate journalism" imo adequately demonstrates that the statement was wrong- so why wait to remove it?
2. With regards to the UK, the statement on grid parity was incorrect, and was clearly incorrect, so I've removed it, and commented on technology.org's reliability. The remainder of the sentence (i.e. its reference to several other countries) was broadly correct, so I've left it in. It preferably ought to be supported by a different source- possibly a deutsche bank primary source if a secondary one can't be found- but I suggest that supporting an accurate statement with an good source is less important than deleting something which is technological bollox.
3. Can't find the original document on which the technology.org and phys.org reports are based, but the update to which I gave a url is directly contradictory to the statement that the UK is reaching grid parity for solar, and there is a no comment on any major change- so the strong implication is that the earlier Deutsche Bank report was pretty damn similar in its assessment of the UK position. Please note that I am not asserting a generalization that technology.org is not reliable, I'm pointing to a specific failure on their part. I can see why they've done it: the headline is that they (Deutsche Bank) are very bullish on the size of the solar market in various countries including the UK. The problem for a lazy, incompetent, or over-stretched journalist is that, while the primary report goes on to say that grid parity has been reached in a number of places, they don't say that about solar power in the UK. In the UK, at least at the present, solar power is based on subsidies. You'll find that in the January 2014 document in the absence of the UK from Fig 1 (Markets at Grid Parity), and the positive numbers for the UK in Figure 2 (Summary of Solar Economics (Self Consumed system))
4. Yes, the mistake was made by phys.org, and copied by technology.org. If the writers actually understood solar power, they should have raised an eyebrow at the inclusion of the UK, and checked again. May I politely suggest that if you understand solar power, you will, with me, be appalled at WP including bullcrap on Grid parity and also be keen to keep it out.

Gravuritas (talk) 18:29, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

Germany

No. The cost of solar panels is much the same everywhere. It's mostly the latitude and weather that determines the price of solar power. Here's the location of Germany relative to the UK:

The latitude of Germany and the UK is virtually the same.

kWh per kWp

Then there's the weather. Here's a diagram showing kilowatt hours generated per kilowatt (peak) of solar panel:

Again, virtually the same.

And you already acknowledge that Germany is at grid parity.

The only remaining thing is the price of electricity. The UK price may be cheaper, the price of electricity in Germany is higher because they're trying to pay for shutting down their nuclear power plants, but it's not so much cheaper that solar doesn't ever reach grid parity, particularly not in places like Cornwall which are further south - at least for domestic use- but I don't think commercial grid parity is there yet in the UK, domestic grid parity is about there now.

Basically, you seem to have just assumed that it cannot be at grid parity, even though the sources say something different.GliderMaven (talk) 19:25, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for showing me where Germany is, but that was unnecessary, I assure you . Please take up your dispute about solar power grid parity with Deutsche bank's research department: I'm sure they'll be most interested. My only assumption has been that, given the UK's weather, latitude, and the price of electricity, there will be a large number of other countries that achieve solar power grid parity first. To test that assumption, I checked the primary source (or rather, as Nigelj has pointed out, the updated primary source), and found that my assumption was correct. Now re-read figure 2 in the source, looking for a negative number for the solar premium for the UK, and you won't find one. That means that the UK at January 2014 was not at grid parity. If you can find a more recent reliable source that says different, please quote it.

Gravuritas (talk) 21:20, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

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