Comment on Solar panel costs have plummeted from $6 per watt in 2000 to just 12 cents today

artyom@piefed.social ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

• TwiddleTwaddle@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Skimming the article I couldn’t find any definition of terms, but I assume this is production cost, not cost to the end user after markups from the manufacturer, distributor, and retailer.

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• boonhet@sopuli.xyz ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  €0.13/watt here, random store I found online in my country, but it is a legitimate business, I checked that much. Not quite $0.12, but close enough and I didn’t spend much time looking for it.

  Though I feel like just a few months ago I couldn’t find anything this cheap.

  Either way, for me personally, my geographical location makes it kinda useless in the winter and for some months I’d have nothing to do with the excess I would produce from just a few panels - in the summer, there’s no point selling to the grid during daytime and the nights are too short to make proper use of any stored energy, you’d have fully charged batteries all the time.

  Couple of months in spring and fall where things would run into a nice equilibrium though. Unfortunately not enough savings to pay for a battery. Think sodium batteries will change that over the coming years though, so I might go for it eventually.

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  • Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    I checked around in Alibaba and for bulk orders directly from a big manufacturer (with EXW terms, meaning pick-up at the factory, so no shipping and no taxes included) it was actually less that $0.12/watt, quite a bit less if enough units were ordered.

    Such consumer price in Estonia kinda dovetails with the indicative prices per watt that I’ve seen in Alibaba being less than $0.12/watt, as even though Estonia has 0% VAT on solar panels and the EU has no Duty Tax on them so there’s no tax paid, what’s left that’s on top of the factory price (so the shipping costs + a little margin for the seller) still requires the panels to be less than $0.12 at the factory to end up sold to consumers in Estonia for €0.13

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• moldy_rice@piefed.keyboardvagabond.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Most likely: alibaba

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  • octobob@lemmy.ml ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    My roommate is rebuilding his Volkswagen 2012 Golf R’s engine right now. We were watching on YouTube, you can get a whole engine on Alibaba for like $500. Seems like it’s 50/50 of it working and being like a brand new car, or just a huge clusterfuck that won’t run and turns into a shitshow disaster

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    • moldy_rice@piefed.keyboardvagabond.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Sourcing parts from China requires skill. Look for reviews, get samples, and don’t go cheap. You can get great quality stuff there. They will build to spec. So if you know the exact geometry and thickness and grade of material, you can be very specific and get something great.

      But if you just buy something cheap without discussing it with their engineers and confirming specs and tolerances, you’ll get something cheap.

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