News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Solar and Batteries Make Up 81% of New US Electric-Generating Capacity in 2024. Parent comment

Re:Solar and Batteries Make Up 81% of New US Electric-Genera... by schiffern on Friday February 16, 2024 @04:26AM (#39394916)
The graph looks rather exponential (and decidedly _not_ logarithmic) to me.[0]

The story is actually "the growth rate becomes more rapid as you accumulate experience manufacturing, which also grows as a function of the stock." AKA Wright's Law.[1]

You may notice this is faster than your definition of exponential growth, because Wright's Law also counts the decommissioned panels too. The industry still got that manufacturing experience, even if the panels don't count as 'stock' today. So technically the growth rate scales with total all-time production, not current stockpile size.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Growth_of_photovoltaics

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experience_curve_effects

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Solar and Batteries Make Up 81% of New US Electric-Genera... by pfdietz on Friday February 16, 2024 @06:14AM (#39395519)
PV has been growing with a time constant short compared to the lifespan of PV modules, so most of the cumulative production is still in operation today.

This is also why PV recycling hasn't had a chance to really get going -- very limited potential input to the process yet.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Solar and Batteries Make Up 81% of New US Electric-Genera... by schiffern on Friday February 16, 2024 @07:09AM (#39395864)
Yes that's true. My point is simply that solar (in this early phase) does show exponential growth.

Spangry's "the growth rate becomes more rapid as the stock of the thing gets larger" was confused enough to made exponential growth sound vaguely absurd, but in fact it's perfectly expected (and indeed observed).

[ Parent | on HN ]