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A comment on The price of solar power just fell 50% in 16 months. Parent comment

Re:The price of solar power just fell 50% in 16 months by toomuchtodo on Tuesday May 03, 2016 @01:36PM (#11622671)
Chuck's sibling reply is spot on, but something else you must realize is that both renewables and energy storage are only going to get cheaper.

This means if utilities attempt to squeeze people with solar on their roof, they will simply move to batteries eventually. This already makes sense, today, in Hawaii (where the local utility was stalling on additional grid tie capacity, and with their per kwh rates so high, is was cheaper to go off grid). The more people who move off grid, the less people the utility can spread its costs across, increasing the rates for those remaining (which then rapidly incentives those people to move off grid).

This is called "the utility death spiral". Its a very real possible outcome, and utilities are aware of it. [+]

[+] http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/this-is-what-the...

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Re:The price of solar power just fell 50% in 16 months by dragontamer on Tuesday May 03, 2016 @01:48PM (#11622760)
Indeed.

But what's to stop utilities from purchasing or creating cheaper large-scale projects?

I know you've seen my previous comments on Reddit with regards to Redox Flow batteries, CAES, and Pumped Hydro storage technologies. Utilities simply have access to battery-technology that the common people do NOT have access to. Some energy storage technologies only make sense in larger-scale 50MW applications or more.

If utilities serve a cooperative role in energy service, they will switch to the most cost-effective technology BEFORE the typical homeowner can switch.

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Basically, solar pricing is moving FASTER than rooftop solar. Rooftop solar will always require insurance and roof-workers, while solar utility companies can just buy out a field in the middle of no where and install solar on the ground.

Cheaper and safer for utilities to work with. And then everyone in the town benefits, instead of just a few rich people who can afford panels (and the insurance of the rooftop workers)

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Re:The price of solar power just fell 50% in 16 months by kragen on Tuesday May 03, 2016 @02:05PM (#11622893)
At some point the price for the panels will drop below the price (and losses) of the transmission lines to transmit the energy from the large-scale project to your house. This happened long ago if you live in certain parts of the Rocky Mountains, and it will happen in areas of progressively greater population density.

Rooftop solar only needs roof-workers and their insurance until you have a cherry-picker-style robot arm to stick the panels up there with.

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Re:The price of solar power just fell 50% in 16 months by jabl on Tuesday May 03, 2016 @02:06PM (#11622898)
Utilities have a lot of capital tied in their existing fossil fuel plants, and their economics are probably tied into running these at capacity for their remaining lives.

So from their perspective it makes sense to lobby politicians to stall residential solar as long as possible, the environment be damned.

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Re:The price of solar power just fell 50% in 16 months by dragontamer on Tuesday May 03, 2016 @02:16PM (#11622968)
Last time I checked, it was the motivation of utility companies to make money.

http://www.exeloncorp.com/companies/exelon-generation/solar/...

Look man, you may not notice it. But the big utility companies out there are investing heavily into solar.

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