EGEB: Bifacial spurned, ‘Oil Fall’ in California, 10 plus 10 is 25, Solar Tariff today?, more

Electrek Green Energy Brief: A daily technical, financial, and political review/analysis of important green energy news. Featured Image Source

Bifacial technology was likely reason world’s lowest ever solar bid was rejected – !! – One Chinese PV manufacturer told PV Tech that it was aware that the exact make-up of the bid’s proposed system was P-type bifacial modules and single axis tracking. A requirement of the tender is that proven technology be used. The Masdar bid was around 25% lower on an LCOE basis. About the same improvement as can be achieved by using bifacial technology paired with trackers. My heart is broken. A big part of the logic I put forward with the Saudi bid was based on the possibilities put forth by new technology, and it was exactly the newness of the technology that has slain the lowest price solar power on the planet. Nonetheless – I am hopeful having learned about this data because it shows us a path forward that is repeatable outside of the Middle East as this technology matures. And that 10%+10%=25% rule of thumb is sweet knowledge.

Fossil Fuels Face a $1.4 Billion Solar Problem in Texas – Almost 15 gigawatts of solar power may crop up in the Lone Star state in the coming years, and every gigawatt stands to shave about $2.76 a megawatt-hour from wholesale electricity prices there when demand peaks in the summer, an analysisby Bloomberg New Energy Finance show. This could end up dealing a major blow to fossil fuel-burning generators that rely on those peak prices to weather the lulls in demand through the rest of the year. This is exactly where we’ve been expecting to see solar power attack. This happened in Germany already – the daytime peak pricing is gone, now its time to evolve folks. I love the fine tuned estimates put out here by Bloomberg – 1GW Solar = 0.276¢/kWh. Yes, that value is less than 1¢/kWh – but oh my does it add up fast!

Oil Fall: Part One, California ICE – Over the past year, I’ve had a chance to talk to investors, folks in the car industry, and transportation professionals, while traveling around the US and reporting on the energy sector. What surprised me: how fast this is all moving. Almost too fast to keep up. I think we readers on this website are lucky to be watching the EV evolution so closely. This chart below, from the Part One ($3) of the book published above, shows something real interesting to think about. ICE cars will not recover. What happens when it becomes broadly true – known – that an industry (or technique) is going down? As we’re seeing Tesla hope to deliver 200,000+ cars in 2018, we’re watching this chart roll out in real-time.

Audi aims to compete with Tesla Energy through a new ‘Smart Energy Network’ – Two things that interest me in this post – 1. There is an absolutely more complex interconnection of energy storage and energy generation that is arising, and it will involve your car. For now, Tesla might be laying back because it doesn’t make sense from a technology sense to invest person power while there are few regions with the power grid structures in place to pay customers – but that 50-100kWh battery in those cars are enough to run your house for a week with no additional energy generation. 2. A monopoly is being broken – the historical utility model of generation and delivery is going down, and one group that is breaking into this monopoly is the auto industry. Quite cool to see the battles roll out.

U.S. Solar Has a $1.5 Billion, Long-Shot Plan to End a Trade War – There’s been some talk out there that the solar tariff will come today and that it’ll be a compromise between the big numbers requested and the ITC’s recommendation. If any of you see something pop up – send us an email to tips at electrek dot co or myself, john at electrek dot co. I wonder if JinkoSolar possibly coming to Florida is connected to a broader deal as well.

My sentiments exactly sunnybloke:

Amazing – @longi_solar announces wafer production capacity expansion to 45GW !!! by 2020. To put things into perspective – just very recently, in 2015, global newly installed solar capacity was 50 GW/yr. https://t.co/nAa1JvqLC4

— Michael Schmela (@sunnybloke) January 22, 2018

Featured image was taken by Ghadir Shaar – and awarded as ‘Solar Industry Picture of the Year’. I’m glad that my aerial image of Mohammed Ben Rashid Solar Park has been awarded “Solar Energy Picture of the Year” during Middle East Solar Industry Association (MESIA) Solar Awards 2018.

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