[alexey-salmin]

The title is misleading. $135 is not "money saved", it's "money not spent on fossil fuels" (even for that I couldn't find how it was calculated by solarpowereurope, but the number seems plausible).

To the discussion of whether $50B/y is a big figure or not. EU has around 400GW of PV installed. Cost to install per 1kW ranged between $600 and up to $4000 because a big chunk of that capacity was built when prices were much higher. If we consider average price at $1000 this means $400B on capex alone + yearly operational expenses. It can still be profitable (assuming current PV prices can be sustained + installed capacity doesn't grow faster than storage) but it's going to be many years until the investment is recouped and it starts to actually "save money for Europeans".

In any case, of course it's still nice to depend less on imported oil, even if not for money savings.

[pshirshov]

Over last several years the cost to install 1kW was, ehm, less than €200 if you do it the retail way - 2..4 500W panels from the warehouse next street and a microinverter.

Thanks, China.

In addition to my primary system, I have a toy installation with 6 500W panels and a micro. I paid around 500 euros for that last August and by this time this toy installation generated me 1281 kWh. That's around €400 in terms of retail energy prices. So, I'll break even this August.

So, everything generated after would be exactly the "money saved".

[thelastgallon]

Yes, you are right. The money saved is not just $50B.

1) Add the money saved from fossil fuel subsidies, that don't need to be spent

2) Add ethanol/biodiesel subsidies

3) Add defense spending to protect oil pipelines and fossil fuel assets

4) Add healthcare spending, fossil fuels are linked to nearly every kind of disease (except STIs, mad cow, polio, etc)

5) Add deaths/injuries from fossil fuels and the associated hospitalization costs, lost productive human years. Fossil fuels have the highest deaths/TWH.

6) Add the money saved from demand destruction (Less demand --> cheaper oil)

6a) Immediately, decreasing the price of fuel.

6b) Slows down fossil fuel multibillionaires becoming richer. Oil is profitable at $10/barrel, but with global demand skyrocketing, Oil is extracted from costlier sources (fracking/sands) which need a minimum price. However, the cheapest extraction (Saudi) will profit immensely and with that money buy everything else in the world, extracting wealth via rentier capitalism or stock market, making housing, healthcare, everything else costlier for all of us.

7) Creating the initial demand for solar panels, enabling scale production, making solar panels dirt cheap now and forever.

There are probably more.

[ZeroGravitas]

For point 6 a UCL study on Wind energy in the UK suggested that over the 13 year period they studied the new wind power had saved 14 billion in electricity costs, because it was cheaper than gas generation.

But it saved consumers 140 Billion by lowering demand for gas and so cutting prices.

So a 10x multiplier.

[nonethewiser]

Cleantechnica is a solar advocacy group and they consistently frame things in misleading ways like this.

[random3]

I was making a related point in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48462628 Got downvoted as I assume some didn't parse past the first line.