Will tariffs kill solar? No politics, please

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hillbilly1 said:
1.They will reduce the tariffs on our products, don’t know where you get subsidizing from.
2. Ever heard of natural disasters? Hurricanes? Hail? Tree’s falling on roofs? Insurance pays for that.
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If a solar array covers most of a composition shingle roof surface, most likely most of that roof will be saved from hail damage and it will largely be the uncovered roof that needs to be replaced.
 
winnie said:
Nuclear power plants ideally operate in the steady state. In fact if you had a power grid that was only supplied with nuclear power, you would probably need energy storage to compensate for the fact that consumption is highly variable.
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France is the poster child for this. They went all in on nuclear, and choose to deliberately run some plants at less than 100%, exactly to give headroom to avoid overgeneration. Any questions on what a high nuke gird looks like, check France.
 
CoolWill said:
The alternative of doing nothing about how trade was conducted around the world is worse. In the short term, there is pain while the band-aid is ripped off. But ultimately, negotiations will take place and things will stabilize and be better than before. The extreme we are witness is like Jesus flipping tables in the temple. You have to get the point across that the old ways are dead.
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I agree. we need to bring a few panel manufacturers to the US. can't rely on others for all of our stuff. Problem is, its been decades of this, so its gonna take a minute to be self sufficient again.
 
I don't think you can adequately discuss this situation without politics being a part of it. The political climate has changed and there is not much public support for the huge direct and indirect subsidies that have previously driven the solar market. If those subsidies go away, there will not be a solar market at all other than a few small niches.

No private company is going to be dumb enough to invest in a US plant for a product that has no market to speak of.

I do think there is some chance of a breakthrough in energy storage that could potentially make solar a profitable enterprise. But I don't see one anywhere near ready for prime time.
 
Another way that this discussion will be inherently 'political' is that customer's (mis)understanding of how solar (and energy systems) work has a direct impact on the perceived value of these systems.

I think that it is a pretty well supported fact that electricity produced by PV systems is currently very cheap (even without subsidies), with the huge caveat that it is cheap when the sun is shining. Energy storage on the other hand is extremely expensive.

But the arguments about the 'fairness' of net metering, or the fair value to pay for solar over-production are almost all based on a misunderstanding of electricity as some sort of easily storable material.

IMHO most of 'politics' is people trying to spread their own version of misunderstanding, rather than really trying to understand the details of any given situation.
 
petersonra said:
. The political climate has changed and there is not much public support for the huge direct and indirect subsidies that have previously driven the solar market. If those subsidies go away, there will not be a solar market at all other than a few small niches.

one anywhere near ready for prime time.
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That is an unnecessary and irrelevant political comment. It actually has nothing to do with the OP's question and the thread topic.
 
petersonra said:
I don't think you can adequately discuss this situation without politics being a part of it.
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Subsidy, and mandate are not fighting words, even if affected by political cycles.
petersonra said:
If those subsidies go away, there will not be a solar market
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Good point, but not always the case.

No subsidy is needed for Solar to satisfy demand for reliability in areas prone to outages.

EVSE demand increased after utility & permit subsidy incentives went away.

People kept buying EV’s, just changed brands after getting mad at Elon. Maybe thats why I’m noticing more rival RIVENS on the road.
 
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Also keep in mind that as the years go on, fossil fuel just becomes more expensive to extract and the sun shines for free every day. Whatever happens now is temporary in that sense. Not that whatever happens now can't affect someones livelihood in the meantime.
 
ramsy said:
EVSE demand increased after utility & permit subsidy incentives went away.

People kept buying EV’s, just changed brands after getting mad at Elon. Maybe thats why I’m noticing more rival RIVENS on the road.
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This is pretty much were I'm at. Replaced the roof not quite three years ago, and had the roofer use the rubbery self-sealing stuff on our southward facing portion with the expectation that we'll eventually put panels up there to feed the Primes when they finally arrive. Now if only we could find an outfit that will sell the gear outright rather than retain ownership while "renting" your roof.
 
petersonra said:
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No private company is going to be dumb enough to invest in a US plant for a product that has no market to speak of.

...
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Tell that to Silfab and Q-Cells.

What's dumb about the tariffs (aside from 'self sufficiency' being the official ideology of North Korea and a recipe for poverty) is that companies were reshoring panel assembly and even cell manufacturing already, due to (ahem) other policies. But taxing all the other ancillary stuff, especially batteries, sure that will increase the consumer market and this the demand for manufacturing (not).
 
mtnelect said:
When you change the rules of the ball game ... the winners & losers will always change.
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This is very true. Tariffs, subsidies, and other regulations are simply an attempt by the government to pick the economic winners. Even where good cases can be made for such actions, Uncle Sam is still putting his thumb on the scale. And what may have been a good idea 50 years ago may be a terrible one today. US consumers pay 2-3X the world cost of sugar, just so we can protect US sugar beet farmers.
 
gadfly56 said:
This is very true. Tariffs, subsidies, and other regulations are simply an attempt by the government to pick the economic winners. Even where good cases can be made for such actions, Uncle Sam is still putting his thumb on the scale. And what may have been a good idea 50 years ago may be a terrible one today. US consumers pay 2-3X the world cost of sugar, just so we can protect US sugar beet farmers.
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This is off topic ... Worked at a place that was adjacent to Union Pacific railroad. Whenever "The Beat Train" passed once a week, we all took a shot.
 
tthh said:
I'm thinking that short term, it is badly disrupted. The current administration favors fossil fuel and is even pushing coal now. But, in the long term, the facts aren't changed. There earth (basically) isn't making more fossil fuel and the sun shines every day.
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There enough “fossile fuel” for the foreseeable future.
 
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