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by konschubert 822 days ago
Solar keeps getting cheaper. Wind has kind of hit a roadblock - there is less innovation coming China than for solar.
2 comments

Very different things. There is basically only one solar panel size on the market. Which starts at $100. Making large solar installations means just getting more panels. This is great for cost reduction, as that most of the times goes along with ramping up production numbers. The production of the single panel doesn't get more complex though.

Wind energy is also getting constantly cheaper, both due to cost reductions and due to making the wind generators larger and thus more efficient. Onshore wind energy is the cheapest in Middle Europe and if they could grow further, costs would go down accordingly.

But even if production can deliver, getting the blades gets more and more difficult, so here we area.

Wind is just different too. There are subtle advantages to scaling up wind: fixed costs increase but capacity factors do too (taller turbines means they’re turning more % due to more consistent wind speeds at higher altitudes).