Comment by mlyle
1 year ago
Most of what you say was anticipated by the comment you replied to:
> > I do agree you need big panels to not have excessive labor from connections.
> You're just setting yourself up for a long day of checking connectivity only to have the fence shift again.
If only we had ways to make long runs of wiring relatively reliable.
My point is: there's second order effects: expensive panels need to have as high of a capacity factor as possible; high capacity factor constrains installations and increases other costs. If you cut 2/3rds of the cost of the panel away, other costs decrease, too, and more types of installation become reasonable.
There are also non-linearities. Obviously there are some regions in in the cheapness/efficiency/durability space that vastly increase the practical ability to deploy these things. If we had 99% efficient panels that cost pennies per square meter, and last for years, then lots more applications could potentially open up. A 50% cheaper panel may not unlock that now, but it brings us closer.
Even if we never get to any of these thresholds, its worth a shot. Cleaning up the energy sector needs to be all-hands-on-deck and people researching this stuff doesn't preclude policy changes (subsidies, federal job guarantee/new CCC, etc.) to address the labor angle.