Energy Prices Are Driving Demand for Solar Panels and Heat Pumps

(nytimes.com)

30 points | by lxm 20 hours ago ago

16 comments

  • adjejmxbdjdn 17 hours ago ago

    Electrification is a no brainer.

    Electricity is essentially an abstraction layer that decouples the source of energy from the consumer.

    Even if you want to remain 100% fossil fuel dependent, it still makes a lot more sense, outside of some industrial uses, to generate electricity with those fossil fuels and then use the electricity to power your actual device, whether it’s your air conditioning unit or your automobile, than to ship liquid gas to hundreds of thousands of gas stations all over or build pipes to send gaseous natural gas to every house.

    Not only is it more efficient, as any abstracted system, it allows far more flexibility and resilience due to that flexibility.

    • anon7000 16 hours ago ago

      100%. Also, fossil fuel is a bit ridiculous compared to renewables because you have to spend a huge amount of effort to find a new resource patch, extract the fuel, ship it all over the planet… just to burn it and it’s gone forever. Not a sustainable system for our energy at all.

    • stockresearcher 8 hours ago ago

      > Electricity is essentially an abstraction layer that decouples the source of energy from the consumer.

      Highly recommend a visit to Greenfield Village in Dearborn, MI. They have a belt-driven workshop that demonstrates that this abstraction/desire has existed for a very long time. Electricity is currently our best-known way to put it into practice.

      PS - depending on their schedule of interactive demos, you might even be able to make something in the workshop :)

      • dnemmers 5 hours ago ago

        Running an entire workshop from a shared overhead pulley seems very akin to running individual thin-clients off a mainframe.

  • belviewreview 18 hours ago ago

    Remember how fossil fuel promoters always say its big advantage over solar and wind energy is reliability?

  • niij 13 hours ago ago
  • dzhiurgis 16 hours ago ago

    Interesting timing that China is ending solar panel and battery export subsidies this year.

    Panel I've bought 15 months ago is 20% more expensive now.

    • hdgvhicv 14 hours ago ago

      Isn’t a lot of that due to currnecy and inflation?

      12 months ago 4300 yuan would cost 1000 NZD. 4400 yuan today (3% increase) would be about 1100 NZD.

    • chabes 13 hours ago ago

      Federal tax incentives in the US are also drying up and not being renewed. Unfortunately, the same thing is happening with state incentives in California. Many of these programs ended in the beginning of this year.

      • pstuart 6 hours ago ago

        No worries! We just install our own oil wells and refineries for energy independence to take advantage of those sweet federal subsidies that have shifted back to fossil fuels.

  • ChrisArchitect 18 hours ago ago

    Some discussions:

    Heat pump sales rise across Europe

    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48012003

    Iran war sparks renewables boom as Europeans rush to buy solar, heat pumps, EVs

    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47601310

  • Ati985 18 hours ago ago

    [flagged]

    • anon7000 16 hours ago ago

      You look like an AI bot. Someone should report you

    • belviewreview 18 hours ago ago

      Recover 98.04% of waste heat energy? That may follow the 1st Law of Thermodynamics, but it definitely violates the 2nd.

    • seventytwo 17 hours ago ago

      Seems legit

    • bastawhiz 18 hours ago ago

      Julius Robert von Mayer has entered the chat