Solar Energy Saves Europeans $135M a Day

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.

With oil prices and wars, the adoption for renewables and not just solar should accelerate to wean the world off oil.

I installed a solar system at my home in Massachusetts for 17k last year (after tax credits), 7.82 kw.

So far it's covered about 70% of my usage and 5.7 Mwh. I don't have a full year of data yet so I expect that number to grow as it includes the summer months. I drive an EV and this includes the car.

Just installed my plug-and-play panel this week in my small garden. 400W so not enough to power all my appliances. But I'm happy that I'm at least a little hedged against the negative geopolitical developments we're going through.

If I look at a electricity bills the last year, consumption costs sits around 20-25% of the total (with tax). The remaining 75% is grid connection fees and infrastructure fees that pay for expansion of future transmissions. The argument why those grid and infrastructure fees exist is primarily because of the intermittence problem cause by solar and wind.

This makes calculating the cost saving from solar and wind a bit complex.

This equates to about 20 cents per day per person, or about $73/year. It is a move in the right direction for sure, but I'm not sure I'd call this a significant statistic.

My solar panels amaze me every day. It is just crazy that a flat panel, that doesn't have any moving parts, and requires a once a year cleaning (at most), just eliminated my power bill completely.

My roof mount system is saving me $1000 a year in electricity, plus more in natural gas that I I disconnected, and it was $0 of my own money thanks to a grant and interest free loan.

Electricity is pre approved to increase a minimum of 5% a year (it just went up 16% this year for people out of town), so the savings will only increase.

I’ll pocket something like $35k in 25 years for $0. Best investment ever.

I’m in canada in a tight valley where it snows a boatload.

This seems highly doubtful. If solar saves money, why does Germany (with a lot of solar) have higher rather than lower energy prices?

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And yet all solar gear installed comes from China. Source: I am electrician installing it.

$135M a day is almost nothing (~$50b/yr) for an area with combined GDP of ~$30T.

Edit: People's general understanding of the scale of economies is genuinely terrifying to witness.

There's virtually an infinite number ways to assess something like this, and a single figure out of context is meaningless.

What's the deprecation schedule? Which financial "context" is it calculated within? A household may benefit from governmental support and profitable, while the aggregate financial situation may or may not be so. What timeline is it calculated on? A 5-10 year window may be unprofitable, while a larger one may be. An even longer one may change numbers completely...