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California to become first U.S. state mandating solar on new homes

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glenn1 said:
These are companies with some of the largest revenues and stock market caps in the world (that you coincidentally think are evil and have labeled as "big oil") and they have all of a sudden enter a market space you support. Which do you think is more likely, (A) Exxon-Mobil has suddenly developed a progressive mindset and "saw the writing on the wall," or (B) they've done market research and see people like you as a vast untapped market of people willing to pay premium prices for alternative energy consumer products as a means of virtue signaling, and now indeed are successfully lobbying the government to mandate their purchase) and they want in on that gravy train? These companies believe in alternative energy as much as Halliburton believed in "bringing democracy to the Middle East" during the Iraq War, which is not at all except for convincing a government to keep on spending money that will go into their pockets while praising your "wisdom" in supporting such an obviously good strategy.
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Or the simpler answer is that they are energy companies that operate on an infinite time horizon and rightly conclude that their current investments have a limited future so they need to diversify. It has nothing to do with some made up ‘progressive mindset’, it’s just common business sense.

The pro-choice side has already argued a zero value for the "yet to be born," so that's not a valid argument in favor of solar now.
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Now you’re being silly again. First, what you said is false and second, even if it were true pro-choice positions and pro-solar positions have nothing to do with each other. Total fail.
 
glenn1 said:
Or they see a vast market of suckers like you willing to pay premium prices for the stuff.
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Renewable power is getting built because it's cheaper in many cases than fossil energy. Lots of utilities are plunging headfirst into wind because their old coal and gas plants aren't economical to run anymore.
 
glenn1 said:
The pro-choice side has already argued a zero value for the "yet to be born," so that's not a valid argument in favor of solar now.
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Some shoe-horn you have there. Do you want to try and get Israel/Palestine and gun control into this as well?
 
K1052 said:
Renewable power is getting built because it's cheaper in many cases than fossil energy. Lots of utilities are plunging headfirst into wind because their old coal and gas plants aren't economical to run anymore.
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Hey great then remove all the tax subsidies.
 
glenn1 said:
Hey great then remove all the tax subsidies.
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The argument for subsidies would be based on those unaccounted-for externalities, plus disagreements about what's the correct future-discount rate. But I'd accept such subsidies need to be designed very carefully. The whole area is a battlefield of clashing vested interests.
 
K1052 said:
Same for fossil energy.
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I've been asking for that for a long time as well, glad to finally have you aboard. Energy doesn't need to be made artificially cheap by the government any more than it should be made artificially expensive.
 
BoomerD said:
You’ll notice...that’s from 2014.

When we left CA in 2012, some of the local electical providers had stopped solar rebates, and a few were talking about rolling back their net metering programs...for being too costly to the utility in maintenance costs.

Me, I’m fine with mandating solar systems on new construction...as long as it’s also mandated that the power companies pay a fair price for any excess power added to the grid by these systems.
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Define "fair price" is it the going wholesale price they'd pay a power plant? There retail price of that power? Or the fully delivered, fully burdened retail price?

Net metering is a subsidy. I think the fair price should be the current (with time of day adjustments if applicable) retail rate for just the undelivered power, but not include delivery costs.
 
Zorba said:
Define "fair price" is it the going wholesale price they'd pay a power plant? There retail price of that power? Or the fully delivered, fully burdened retail price?

Net metering is a subsidy. I think the fair price should be the current (with time of day adjustments if applicable) retail rate for just the undelivered power, but not include delivery costs.
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How do you determine the actual “delivery costs” though? Where utilities break that out in a power bill, does the customer get charged the same rate for sending power to the grid as receiving it? If so, that’s reasonable.
 
BoomerD said:
How do you determine the actual “delivery costs” though? Where utilities break that out in a power bill, does the customer get charged the same rate for sending power to the grid as receiving it? If so, that’s reasonable.
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My previous per companies always listed a power/generation charge, a fuel adjustment, and a delivery cost. The delivery was about 50% of total rate.
 
Paladin3 said:
You guys missed the word "REASONABLE" in my post. We need to go solar, reduced emissions, wind, recycling, biofuel and anything else we can *if* it's reasonable for the location and application and at an acceptable expense. It's going to be painful to some extent, but the sooner we get to it the better. But not blanket application of every silly idea. Only alt energy where and if reasonable, which will take time to iron out.

And SOLAR FRICKEN ROADWAYS are not a reasonable idea!
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I think it's a reasonable idea for as you say the right location. One day every inch of a building road etc might be covered in some sort of solar collector and you would even know it.
 
glenn1 said:
I've been asking for that for a long time as well, glad to finally have you aboard. Energy doesn't need to be made artificially cheap by the government any more than it should be made artificially expensive.
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Don't tell Bob Murray that. He thinks if he can just get a little more of that sweet, sweet government cash that he can bring all those coal jobs back.

Well, he probably doesn't really believe that, but he definitely believes he'd get a lot richer.
 
With this the devil is in the details. It makes a difference how the law is written. It could say you must have solar panels with a total wattage rating of 1,00 - 5,000 or more. Or the law could say you must do a calculation for the wattage usage of the house which depends a lot on what kind of equipment you have like air conditioner, furnace, Lights, Oven, Refrigerator, freezer, etc. Than take the calculation and use that to determine the wattage requirement.

Then there is the question of whether a battery storage device is required. With that is also charge controller, inverter, and a possible 12v access for lights, etc.

Then there is another point about leasing the solar system as an optional way to address this. Some states were against the leasing method because of how the Green Energy rebates worked.
 
Greenman said:
Distributed being the key. If you're producing what you need and not trying to sell excess there is no need for further infrastructure. I haven't looked into it lately, but the buy back rates weren't all that great around here last time I checked.
If we had decent storage a lot of places wouldn't even need to be on the grid.
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Until better and cheaper storage solutions are available it simply isn't possible to "produce what you need". Your system produces the most power while you are at work, this is generally good for the electric company because it's also the time that businesses and industries are using the most power too and ACs, especially their ACs, are working the hardest. So you kind of need to stop thinking of it as selling power back to the utility and instead think of it as trading power. They use your power when it's generated and return the power when your solar isn't producing anything as an even trade.
 
FelixDeCat said:
I love the idea of solar. This should be a nationwide mandate with tax incentives for home builders and home owners.

It is true however that home prices are now so outrageous the average family is having a hard time buying in high cost states. I blame landlords and real estate "investors" who buy up all the affordable homes and make slaves out of common folk. 🙁
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You sound like one of them communist fellas.
 
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