Email or username:

Password:

Forgot your password?
Information Is Beautiful

The world’s solar capacity reached 1,419 gigawatts in 2023, way beyond any predictions. 1 gigawatt = power for a medium sized city ☀️

62 comments
Brian Dear

@infobeautiful

Solar is still completely, absurdly, laughably non-viable and impractical from a simple economic standpoint here in #NewMexico.

Maltimore

@brianstorms @infobeautiful
could you elaborate on why that is? Clearly, there's enough sun in NM :)
The #wikipedia page about it is indeed quite outdated.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_po

Brian Dear

@maltimore @infobeautiful

Sorry, meant residential solar.

As for utility-scale solar, in sunlit #NewMexico, sure, you’d think this state should already be running on 100% renewables, except for one pesky detail: this state and its government is utterly and wholly captured, owned, and controlled by the oil and gas industry.

My guess? NM will finally be 100% renewable once both polar icecaps are long gone and the sea levels are so high, NM is now on the west coast of what’s left of the US.

Aeon.Cypher

@brianstorms @maltimore @infobeautiful

I don't understand. New Mexico should be great for residential solar. So why are you saying it's not economically viable?

Brian Dear

@AeonCypher @maltimore @infobeautiful

It's insanely expensive. Still.
Sure, components have come down in price. But installation/labor hasn't.

Aeon.Cypher

@brianstorms @maltimore @infobeautiful

energysage.com/local-data/sola

??? Is this page wrong?

Like, there's been grid parity from a TCO perspective in most of the USA for years.

There is a problem that: it's a huge upfront cost, drops in price often result in demand spikes that cause delays, landlords have no incentives to install them.

Gurre Vildskägg

@brianstorms @AeonCypher @maltimore @infobeautiful
Are there special fees and regulations in NM that makes it so? Other places with clearly less sun has it being a very good thing to get economically.

Iain Collins

@Gurre @brianstorms @AeonCypher @maltimore @infobeautiful

Yeah am also interested in why that is.

In the UK it's still viable, to the extent that the government no longer provide the ability for new customers (who are not grandfathered in) to get paid to feedback to the grid as an incentive, because it makes enough sense to do for personal reasons, to reduce bills (even with high cost UK labor costs).

I can imagine maybe electricity from the grid is a lot cheaper in NM than in UK (and EU)?

Brian Dear

@iaincollins @Gurre @AeonCypher @maltimore @infobeautiful

Grid rates are relatively low in NM (a reason the economics of solar are hard to justify or many, I suspect) but the major utility here has a proposal before the public utility commission right now seeking to raise rates by like 40-50% which, if solar costs keep dropping, will only boost solar adoption here.

Me, I wanna be off-grid asap. But I’m still waiting.

Ariaflame

@brianstorms @AeonCypher @maltimore @infobeautiful Certainly if the system there isn't set up to give you much if you sell it back you shouldn't oversize your installation but it should still be possible, though I do see that it's got a comparatively long pay back period compared to other places, but that presumably assumes grid costs won't go up.

cd ~

@brianstorms @infobeautiful This needs explanation. But even if so, there's more than that viewpoint.

kurtsh

@brianstorms @infobeautiful I assume he's alluding to the US Dept of Energy Information Administration 2024 reporting that solar accounts for less than 1% of US energy production.
eia.gov/energyexplained/us-ene

That said, between solar's innovation & tumbling costs, I believe we'll see accelerated uptake in the consumer sector nationwide in the next 2-3yrs as temperatures change. Never underestimate people's desire to reduce their electical bill. And constituent acceptance will cascade to legislation.

@brianstorms @infobeautiful I assume he's alluding to the US Dept of Energy Information Administration 2024 reporting that solar accounts for less than 1% of US energy production.
eia.gov/energyexplained/us-ene

That said, between solar's innovation & tumbling costs, I believe we'll see accelerated uptake in the consumer sector nationwide in the next 2-3yrs as temperatures change. Never underestimate people's desire to reduce their electical bill. And constituent acceptance will...

Ariaflame

@kurtsh @brianstorms @infobeautiful I'm also wondering if the EIA data includes rooftop solar. Here certainly rooftop solar is counted as a reduction in demand, not as a generation.

random thoughts

@brianstorms @infobeautiful
No worries, Brian, fixed my typo. Thank you for letting me know.

Brian Dear

@hittitezombie @infobeautiful

No idea what THAT is supposed to mean either. Perhaps if I use the block feature….

bhahne

@infobeautiful The IEA has been notorious for wildly underestimating solar growth in its forecasts. What's pathetic is how they did so year after year after year. There's some kind of strong institutional anti-PV bias within the IEA.

bhahne

@infobeautiful Vox covered this IEA problem 9 (!) years ago, so it's been going on for a long time:
vox.com/2015/10/12/9510879/iea

"The International Energy Agency consistently underestimates wind and solar power. Why?"

Marius

@bhahne @infobeautiful
The simple answer might be that the IEA's interest is mostly in forecasting the large numbers, which are still the fossil fuels. For that, it doesn't matter if PV is 0.02% or 2% of the total, both are lost in the noise. So their PV model was just a placeholder, instead of making a difficult model that would still likely be wrong.

That might not work anymore for the next decade, but it has worked for a full decade after that Vox article.

@bhahne @infobeautiful
The simple answer might be that the IEA's interest is mostly in forecasting the large numbers, which are still the fossil fuels. For that, it doesn't matter if PV is 0.02% or 2% of the total, both are lost in the noise. So their PV model was just a placeholder, instead of making a difficult model that would still likely be wrong.

Disco3000

@bhahne @infobeautiful they have been historically favorable towards nuclear so they had to compensate I guess 🤗

Mr. Muffin

@infobeautiful is there a chart that shows net capacity,ie, less what comes offline?

peachfront

@infobeautiful

if not for intentional destruction of energy like LLMs, AI, crypto, & NFTs, we'd be well on our way to being independent of fossil fuels

for the greed & ambition of the few, we will lose the entire planet for all

zl2tod

@infobeautiful
As usual, New Zealand's new far-right government, led by skinhead Christopher Luxon, is jumping in exactly the wrong direction, opting to start importing liquified natural gas instead of accelerating the rollout of solar energy in a system which often achieves 100% renewable generation already.

Jayne

@infobeautiful in American Journalism Units, that's enough energy to send a DeLorean back in time 1,173 times!

argv minus one

@infobeautiful

I'm reminded of the growth curve for #computers. They used to be huge, million-dollar, room-filling machines, and people optimistically predicted that one day they'd be twice as fast, cost about as much as a luxury car, and be the size of a fridge. Instead, they are a zillion times as fast, cost a few days' blue-collar wages, and fit in your pocket.

Mastodon Migration VOTED

@infobeautiful

This is one exponential growth curve we can all celebrate!

David Adam

@adonm this is the opposite of the "treasury wage growth predictions" graph

Martin Vermeer FCD

@infobeautiful Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition, or exponential growth

she hacked you

@infobeautiful That line needs to be going up beyond what markets can even do for it to make a difference unfortunately

Then there is the waste problem

But I'm sure the market will find a solution, before time runs out :) lol

Nini

@ekis @infobeautiful By which you mean the market will steal from a publicly-funded university research team in their "finding" of a solution and repackage it.

Disco3000

@ekis @infobeautiful modern panels can be recycled easily. Not so some types from 15-20yrs ago. Also the average lifespan is at least 2 decades

sleepy62

@infobeautiful

Yes! And we are seeing the cost of large scale grid storage tumble even faster than PV. Its become freaking obvious to anyone paying attention that this is the future. These studies are appearing almost daily now.

Thats why I was so frustrated today when I heard the conservative candidate for #BC claiming that we need to develop #nuclear power in BC to ensure "low cost" energy!

Classic #FossilFuel con play, the weird notion we can all have crazy cheep nuclear power to delay renewable rollout and keep the fossil industry ticking along.

No one is going to build a nuclear reactor on the Cascadia fault line!

#BCpoli

@infobeautiful

Yes! And we are seeing the cost of large scale grid storage tumble even faster than PV. Its become freaking obvious to anyone paying attention that this is the future. These studies are appearing almost daily now.

Thats why I was so frustrated today when I heard the conservative candidate for #BC claiming that we need to develop #nuclear power in BC to ensure "low cost" energy!

Peter Widmayer

@infobeautiful impressive graph. Does anyone have a link to the source of this analysis? Did try to find at IEA w/o success. Thanks!

Edit: Seems to be paywalled 🙁 about.bnef.com/blog/3q-2024-gl

notsoloud

@infobeautiful
For perspective: 1'419 GW of solar, with a conservative capacity factor of 10-15% means 150-200 GW.

The EU production in 2023 was 308 GW averaged.

Of course not all the cells will go to the EU. But then again, the curve doesn't look like it's turning around either.

Jim Rootham

@infobeautiful Is that nameplate power or delivered electricity?

Christian Vogel

@infobeautiful very similar to Cryotpcoin Bros HODLing on their stock/coins/..., because *next* year, of course, will be the breakthrough of Dogecoing (or whatever) contrary to any serious analysis, experience or prediction. It's basically a religion by now, renewables are bad, so they cannot and must not succeed.

random thoughts

@th @infobeautiful @cstross
Watson of IBM was right when he was saying the world needed 5 Itanium computers.

mathew

@th @infobeautiful @cstross A third chart in the series might be IPCC predictions vs reality, though that one's less cheery.

jnpn

@infobeautiful hopefully this will fund more research and improvement in efficiency and longevity

Anke

@infobeautiful looks like 2011 is the only year where less was installed than the year before, otherwise always growth. Nice 👍

Jess

@infobeautiful what's a medium sized city? Columbus OH or more like Eugene OR?

SkaveRat 🐀 :verified:

@infobeautiful continuing that growth, by 2035 we should have that dyson sphere up and running

thefathippy

@infobeautiful

Ok, I'll be honest. Every time I look at one of these "2 joined dots" charts, it seems to reflect the opposite of what's claimed. Am I missing something obvious?

Never mind. I've looked again and worked it out. I was missing something obvious to chart makers, but not at all clear to this particular chart observer. AFAIAC, it's a terrible way to graphically display the intended information.

I want 2 plots, one above the other, showing actual and predicted for each year. Easy.

Abel MS

@infobeautiful I’m assuming that 1,000 GW is 1 TW, and according to

ourworldindata.org/grapher/ele

The 2023 world demand is (at least) 29,500 TW (actually TWh; unsure of unit conversion/equivalency). So, solar capacity is currently at about 5% (rounding, and assuming I am understanding correctly; corrections welcome).

Disco3000

@amsiix @infobeautiful yes, but they predicted much less then 1% so the adoption rate and especially the projections are based on the same false assumptions. If the real world trend continues the 2030 figures will be much much higher

Oscar Acedo Nuñez

@infobeautiful esto es #turbocapitalismo en su máxima expresión y no tiene nada de verde pero si de sostemible

Bernd Paysan R.I.P Natenom 🕯️

@infobeautiful And the predictions are still off every fucking year. They never get it that we are in the exponential growth phase.

Go Up