Time for 2026 updates to my annual “opinions about solar” thread, now with storage.
-
22. It should be all over for the new internal combustion engine car market. The only reason it doesn’t seem to be is that a lot of people don’t seem to realise how times have changed, and still repeat old talking points.
@solar_chase This is so, so true!
-
41. Achieving a low-carbon transition, for most countries, will not look like winning a war or marching while waving flags. It is the ability to say "no thank you, we do not want what you are selling" to the petrostates, and walking (or cycling, or taking a bus, or driving an EV) away.
(The End, for now).
@solar_chase As always, thanks very much for this!
-
@xenogon @flaki These are an older format of course, about 165x100cm each (12x 285Wp, 2+2 325Wp) but yes, the building is 6.8x4.15m (minus a corner) which would be a rather lovely sized room if it was in the house! The roof is in dappled shade until about midday due to some trees so yield won’t be amazing, but with that amount of area it seemed crazy to let the opportunity slide when we were re-roofing anyway.
I got these panels for €15/285Wp and €20/325Wp! -
@xenogon @pmdj yeah in the same way old EVs are finding new life in stationary storage for years/decades, I think franken-farms of old hand-me-down PV will be increasingly a thing, as space restricted installs (such as rooftops and balconies) will inevitably be replacing them as the tech and efficiency evolves way faster than actual panel life/degradation.
-
@xenogon @pmdj yeah in the same way old EVs are finding new life in stationary storage for years/decades, I think franken-farms of old hand-me-down PV will be increasingly a thing, as space restricted installs (such as rooftops and balconies) will inevitably be replacing them as the tech and efficiency evolves way faster than actual panel life/degradation.
@flaki @xenogon Yeah; there’s still a substantial cost to all the non-panel components - wire is very expensive these days, and the various safety components - fire service cutoff switch, overvoltage protector, string fuses, etc. - rapidly add up. Still, I’ll save over €1k vs brand new panels.
I’m still wary of buying batteries used, the discount isn’t that great and they’re much more of a black box. -
32. A few interesting bellwether markets! Bulgaria, with 2025 peak power demand of 7.4GW, already has 4GW of batteries and a further 2-4GW in the pipeline, for 16GWh total. It is well connected with neighbouring grids and may become a short-term balancing hub.
@solar_chase is it reasonable that I get a bit confused by posts like these that mix GW with GWh? The "for" suggests an addition that makes no sense; I'm not trying to be pedantic, just to understand what's going on.
