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decimalenough 57 minutes ago [-]
Oceania too: Australia installed 442 MW of residential solar and 2.5 GWh of residential batteries in the month of April alone. Both numbers are partly juiced by changes to a rebate program from May, but the overall trend remains explosive growth.
very jealous of how cheap AUS solar prices are. < $1 AUD per watt after rebate
programmertote 56 minutes ago [-]
I'm assuming that China, with its industrial power and leadership position to produce a bunch of green energy components (like solar panels), is well-positioned to benefit from this.
decimalenough 54 minutes ago [-]
That's a bit of an understatement. Essentially all residential scale solar panels and batteries are now built in China.
observationist 16 minutes ago [-]
So is it bad that governments don't allow the processes and manufacturing to take place in their own countries, allowing independence and market dynamics and economies of scale to result in yet another order of magnitude cost reduction in solar? Or is it good that China doesn't do ecological protections, worker protections, or the things that western countries do, so we get to profit from the exploitation and pollution of their people and land?
It'd sure be awesome if regulations and regulators in Western countries weren't stupid. This whole game is just insane.
Let's just pawn it of on China, arbitrage the regulatory and human rights differential, and pretend the value is the same as if it's locally manufactured. Then we pocket the difference! Number go up!
toomuchtodo 24 minutes ago [-]
Indeed, China exported 68GW of solar PV in March 2026, double the prior month and 14GW more than total solar PV capacity installed in Spain.
I’m confused a bit, the premise they produce essentially all solar panels got an “indeed” with article-based assertions that exports doubled in one month, and it’s 14 GW more than the total amount installed in Spain ever.
Is there anything there about Chinese share?
I had the understanding they produce the vast majority as well, but that seems belied by exports doubling near instantaneously with demand?
toomuchtodo 14 minutes ago [-]
> I'm assuming that China, with its industrial power and leadership position to produce a bunch of green energy components (like solar panels), is well-positioned to benefit from this.
My comment points out that, yes, China is wildly benefiting from this. They have 80%+ of the global solar PV market. They also have a deflationary macro environment encouraging persistent exports, along with 1/3rd of global manufacturing capacity.
TLDR China has enough manufacturing capacity slack to support scaling exports at this scale immediately.
(tangentially, they have the capacity to build 20M EVs per year, roughly 1/4th of annual global demand for light vehicles)
> The IEA has stated that China’s solar photovoltaic exports account for 80% of the global market. While there is a wide variety of products that make up the solar supply chain, panels, cells and wafers make up the majority of exports by trade value, and can be expressed in GW terms. Ember tracks these products to give a clearer picture of the global solar supply chain.
> China has invested over USD 50 billion in new PV supply capacity – ten times more than Europe − and created more than 300 000 manufacturing jobs across the solar PV value chain since 2011. Today, China’s share in all the manufacturing stages of solar panels (such as polysilicon, ingots, wafers, cells and modules) exceeds 80%. This is more than double China’s share of global PV demand. In addition, the country is home to the world’s 10 top suppliers of solar PV manufacturing equipment. China has been instrumental in bringing down costs worldwide for solar PV, with multiple benefits for clean energy transitions. At the same time, the level of geographical concentration in global supply chains also creates potential challenges that governments need to address.
cyberax 32 minutes ago [-]
The Chinese Politbureau is toasting themselves so hard, they're going to be drunk for the next decade.
It's a perfect storm for China, they're leading in EVs, battery production, renewables. While the US is busy undermining itself from all directions: as a military superpower, cultural, political, economical.
Europe is waking up slowly, but it is shackled by high internal energy prices, not enough labor, and low desire for innovation.
shevy-java 3 minutes ago [-]
Is there still a Politbureau?
To me it seems it is a dictatorship with cult leadership again. Xi reminds me more of a modern version of Mao Zedong (without the focus on starving millions to death though). The main reason I see China having a dictator again is so that he can push ahead with his plans of invading Taiwan.
> Europe is waking up slowly
Where do you see that? I don't see it anywhere. They are sleeping.
idle_zealot 27 minutes ago [-]
Really? Europe looks primed to follow the US, just a few steps behind. They're electing their far right leaders and primed to start mass deportation, and are even ahead of us on cultural decline with respect to mass surveillance being used to actively police speech. What moves have they been making that you think indicate an upward trend? How are they going to recover from stagnation and demographic collapse?
toasty228 43 seconds ago [-]
Mass deportation of who? The far right governments of most EU countries just play on basic fear tactics, none of them will ever do anything remotely close to your mass deportation fantasies. The most hardcore things they'll do is apply the laws which already exists regarding foreign people committing crimes and people illegally entering, and even that isn't given
Just look at the post brexit UK or Meloni's Italy...
slaw 43 seconds ago [-]
Far left will continue to rule in Europe.
cyberax 18 minutes ago [-]
> They're electing their far right leaders and primed to start mass deportation
No amounts of deportations meaningfully affect the demographics. They can at most slow down the new immigration. For all his bluster, Trump deported barely more people than the long-term average in 2025.
But more importantly, the "far right" in Europe is far less crazy than in the US, and they support re-establishing local industry.
> police speech
Europe has never had absolutely free speech like the US. It's by design.
shevy-java 5 minutes ago [-]
Well, they act clever. The more important question is why other countries are not as clever. I am getting tired of the "democracies are the better model", which I would agree with, but then China just pushes through with bulldozer sinomarxism turned mega-capitalism. And that's working. So what the heck are those democracies doing other than failing really hard right now?
This is the only good thing to come out of this unnecessary war.
hx8 19 minutes ago [-]
I haven't checked the numbers, but wouldn't reducing the global oil supply have a direct and positive impact on carbon emissions?
0cf8612b2e1e 32 minutes ago [-]
Well there is the real possibility that this is going to cause a Blue Wave, which will at least slow down some of the more insane actions.
pstuart 25 minutes ago [-]
Yeah, that would be wonderful too, but I didn't want to engage the downvoters (like you apparently did). This is a forum for discussing "hacking", not for political tribalism (not addressed to you but to them). SMDH.
karmakurtisaani 18 minutes ago [-]
Here we only discuss how cool tech the Torment Nexus has inside it. Not who is building it and why.
yesbut 8 minutes ago [-]
silver linings
shevy-java 6 minutes ago [-]
I am still pissed at Trump and the oligarch bros. They really
need to pay for the costs they caused here. I also blame
them from rising RAM prices. Why do we have to pay for any of
that? We also need to get off of oil. I know this is not realistic
for many reasons, but it is a weakness of many economies that
they are so insanely dependent on a few countries with a lot
of oil and gas. It basically gives other countries ways to
blackmail.
FrustratedMonky 43 minutes ago [-]
What if? Trump is playing 5.7-D chess. He knows his base is full of idiots. He bombs Iran to create a crisis that wakes up his base to "wut, oil, need oil".
This was only way to get them to use renewables and re-think that maybe electric vehicles are not just 'woke' but also can help 'national security'.
Create Crises, to swing economy to electric and renewables faster than EV subsidies ever could.
dbt00 17 minutes ago [-]
I mean, what if he's not?
actionfromafar 26 minutes ago [-]
... is this a common sentiment?
firefoxd 58 minutes ago [-]
Remember, we didn't know how to pronounce hormuz until bombs started falling on people's head. The bombs and those who dropped them caused the problem. This isn't an energy issue.
vizzier 54 minutes ago [-]
> This isn't an energy issue.
Renewables don't have the same level of external dependence on a constant flow of instantaneously used fuel. So while I do agree with you, it is an energy issue regardless of your politics.
dbt00 17 minutes ago [-]
I cannot stress enough how historically ignorant of a perspective this is. I don't know how you meant this, but Hormuz has been one of the most critical geopolitical choke points since 1979, and Iran has spent 45 years preparing to use it for leverage in exactly this situation. None of these facts should be a surprise to leaders of nations.
KaiserPro 39 minutes ago [-]
> we didn't know how to pronounce hormuz until bombs started falling
I mean that might be true for you, but its been on the radar over here for a number of years. (it was also a key risk with Iran identified by a number of key intelligence think tanks. especially around the time of the anti-nuclear treaty negotiations)
But to your point, youre right its not an energy issue, its an energy and materials issue. There are lots of pre-cursor chemicals and products that come out of that region that the modern world needs to function.
You'll note that spike corolate with lots of civil unrest
netsharc 50 minutes ago [-]
Well, the Trump-Netanyahu axis turned it from "We're going to have an inhospitable planet within the next century" problem to a "We need an affordable alternative source of energy right now" problem...
kakacik 53 minutes ago [-]
Hormuz was in the news quite a bit in the past decade, if you followed the region at least a bit. Anyway electric cars will have some boom now.
https://reneweconomy.com.au/households-still-going-big-on-so...
It'd sure be awesome if regulations and regulators in Western countries weren't stupid. This whole game is just insane.
Let's just pawn it of on China, arbitrage the regulatory and human rights differential, and pretend the value is the same as if it's locally manufactured. Then we pocket the difference! Number go up!
Chinese solar exports double in a month to hit record high amid energy crisis - https://ember-energy.org/latest-updates/chinese-solar-export... - April 23rd, 2026
Is there anything there about Chinese share?
I had the understanding they produce the vast majority as well, but that seems belied by exports doubling near instantaneously with demand?
My comment points out that, yes, China is wildly benefiting from this. They have 80%+ of the global solar PV market. They also have a deflationary macro environment encouraging persistent exports, along with 1/3rd of global manufacturing capacity.
TLDR China has enough manufacturing capacity slack to support scaling exports at this scale immediately.
(tangentially, they have the capacity to build 20M EVs per year, roughly 1/4th of annual global demand for light vehicles)
China’s Solar PV Export Explorer - https://ember-energy.org/data/chinas-solar-pv-export-explore... (“The latest solar PV export data from the world’s largest exporter, China, by country or region of destination. Data updated on a monthly basis.”)
> The IEA has stated that China’s solar photovoltaic exports account for 80% of the global market. While there is a wide variety of products that make up the solar supply chain, panels, cells and wafers make up the majority of exports by trade value, and can be expressed in GW terms. Ember tracks these products to give a clearer picture of the global solar supply chain.
https://www.iea.org/reports/solar-pv-global-supply-chains/ex...
> China has invested over USD 50 billion in new PV supply capacity – ten times more than Europe − and created more than 300 000 manufacturing jobs across the solar PV value chain since 2011. Today, China’s share in all the manufacturing stages of solar panels (such as polysilicon, ingots, wafers, cells and modules) exceeds 80%. This is more than double China’s share of global PV demand. In addition, the country is home to the world’s 10 top suppliers of solar PV manufacturing equipment. China has been instrumental in bringing down costs worldwide for solar PV, with multiple benefits for clean energy transitions. At the same time, the level of geographical concentration in global supply chains also creates potential challenges that governments need to address.
It's a perfect storm for China, they're leading in EVs, battery production, renewables. While the US is busy undermining itself from all directions: as a military superpower, cultural, political, economical.
Europe is waking up slowly, but it is shackled by high internal energy prices, not enough labor, and low desire for innovation.
To me it seems it is a dictatorship with cult leadership again. Xi reminds me more of a modern version of Mao Zedong (without the focus on starving millions to death though). The main reason I see China having a dictator again is so that he can push ahead with his plans of invading Taiwan.
> Europe is waking up slowly
Where do you see that? I don't see it anywhere. They are sleeping.
Just look at the post brexit UK or Meloni's Italy...
No amounts of deportations meaningfully affect the demographics. They can at most slow down the new immigration. For all his bluster, Trump deported barely more people than the long-term average in 2025.
But more importantly, the "far right" in Europe is far less crazy than in the US, and they support re-establishing local industry.
> police speech
Europe has never had absolutely free speech like the US. It's by design.
This was only way to get them to use renewables and re-think that maybe electric vehicles are not just 'woke' but also can help 'national security'.
Create Crises, to swing economy to electric and renewables faster than EV subsidies ever could.
Renewables don't have the same level of external dependence on a constant flow of instantaneously used fuel. So while I do agree with you, it is an energy issue regardless of your politics.
I mean that might be true for you, but its been on the radar over here for a number of years. (it was also a key risk with Iran identified by a number of key intelligence think tanks. especially around the time of the anti-nuclear treaty negotiations)
But to your point, youre right its not an energy issue, its an energy and materials issue. There are lots of pre-cursor chemicals and products that come out of that region that the modern world needs to function.
The more pressing issue is the fertiliser price spike: https://ycharts.com/indicators/fertilizers_index_world_bank which has yet to fully mateirlaise.
You'll note that spike corolate with lots of civil unrest