Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by Fnord666 on Wednesday December 26 2018, @10:42AM   Printer-friendly
from the future-looks-bright dept.

Tesla's SolarCity lost ground to Sunrun in 2018

The first three quarters of 2018 show that Sunrun's residential solar panel sales have outpaced SolarCity's residential solar panel sales, according to data from analysis firm Wood Mackenzie. Though Tesla, the owner of SolarCity, has been losing ground in the solar panel market-share game for years now, Sunrun's new upset shows just how far Tesla has pulled SolarCity back. [...] SolarCity has gone from cornering 33.5 percent of the US' residential solar panel market share to holding on to just 9.1 percent of the same market, according to Wood Mackenzie's numbers.

[...] Sunrun has pursued none of the same cutbacks that Tesla has imposed on SolarCity. As a result, Sunrun's market share rose in the first three quarters of 2018 to 9.5 percent. The company said in its third quarter financial report that it "added 13,000 customers and 100 megawatts of deployments," which represents record volume for Sunrun.

The Wood Mackenzie numbers show that Sunrun installed 163 megawatts (MW) of residential solar panels in the first three quarters of 2018. SolarCity installed just 156 MW. An analyst said that, as SolarCity's sales have faltered, large regional solar installers have picked up the bulk of the slack.

Sunrun Inc.


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by VLM on Wednesday December 26 2018, @03:04PM (1 child)

    by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday December 26 2018, @03:04PM (#778557)

    installed 163 megawatts (MW) of residential solar panels

    Means very little even to technical readers.

    Some context would be electrical use in the USA flatlined around 2000 and has slightly decreased, if you're looking for evidence of permanent economic decline or income inequality or whatevs.

    In typical marketing way, 163 MW probably refers to theoretical winter peak noon power output under ideal conditions and pristine clean glass etc. So assuming less than 12 hrs a day of production (because... night) and angles and blah you could claim 50 MW "average per day" or 400K or so MWh of energy come from 163 MW theoretical peak power.

    As a rule of thumb estimate the USA uses/generates about 4000 billion KWh or 4000M MWh and as per above thats flatlined and in decline.

    Or another way to look at it is my house draws about a KW on average (to one sig fig, LOL) so an average daily production from newly installed panels of 50 MW means about 50K houses converted entirely to solar (from whatever they were using).

    So its kinda a drop in the bucket, but it does add up over time. Between permanent economic decline and decrease in standard of living and increased income inequality on the demand side, and growing installation of solar on the supply side, we're probably only a couple generations from all our electricity being renewable. However much or little that may be.

    The days of the 24 hr grid will likely end a lot sooner than people expect. Maybe by 2030 or so. In practice demand billing means running your clothes dryer at noon might cost as much as 5 cents, but running at midnight might cost 5 bucks when you're competing with amazon/google data centers for hydro power. Also we might be nearing peak data center wattage per sq foot for similar economic reasons.

    Coal is better used as a chemical plant feedstock when we no longer have cheap petroleum. Coal to methane to liquids, then to everything we use oil for now (plastics, medicine, vehicle fuel, etc). Likely to sunset coal power plants, very unlikely to stop mining coal. For long term investors there's going to be turmoil in the logistics sector both in general and specifically related to transporting mined coal.

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +2  
       Interesting=2, Total=2
    Extra 'Interesting' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   4  
  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by takyon on Wednesday December 26 2018, @04:08PM

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Wednesday December 26 2018, @04:08PM (#778583) Journal

    Some context would be electrical use in the USA flatlined around 2000 and has slightly decreased, if you're looking for evidence of permanent economic decline or income inequality or whatevs.

    This could be due to increasing energy efficiency, along with the "rebound effect" [time.com] not holding true.

    Most families have AC/heating, a TV, fridge, a number of light fixtures, etc. These eventually get replaced with more efficient versions, or new families/households buy efficient appliances from the start. We may have reached the point where people don't need so much more energy. Most people don't need ten 60W-equivalent LED fixtures in every room, or a fourth fridge. New homes could also require less energy for cooling/heating due to building standards, materials, or methods.

    Now if we manage to drop the average cost of electricity from $0.12/kWh to $0.01/kWh using cheap solar or fusion, then maybe we will see a consumption increase. But it may be a modest increase rather than an order of magnitude.

    --
    [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]