California Gives Final OK To Require Solar Panels On New Houses (npr.org) 563
Solar panels will be a required feature on new houses in California, after the state's Building Standards Commission gave final approval to a housing rule that's the first of its kind in the United States. From a report: Set to take effect in 2020, the new standard includes an exemption for houses that are often shaded from the sun. It also includes incentives for people to add a high-capacity battery to their home's electrical system, to store the sun's energy. "These provisions really are historic and will be a beacon of light for the rest of the country," said commissioner Kent Sasaki, according to The Mercury News. "[It's] the beginning of substantial improvement in how we produce energy and reduce the consumption of fossil fuels."
The rule marks a new phase in California's environmental policies, which have often set trends and established standards nationwide. The state has set the goal of drawing 100 percent of its electricity from renewable energy sources and sharply reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The solar panels rule was initially endorsed as part of the state's Green Building Standards Code by the California Energy Commission back in May.
The rule marks a new phase in California's environmental policies, which have often set trends and established standards nationwide. The state has set the goal of drawing 100 percent of its electricity from renewable energy sources and sharply reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The solar panels rule was initially endorsed as part of the state's Green Building Standards Code by the California Energy Commission back in May.
Building Design (Score:4, Interesting)
I am actually designing a house to build in California Desert. Good design and energy efficiency dictates sloping roof inclines in a northern direction. So how is this new requirement to place solar panels on a roof going to effect building design?
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In a similar manner that the regulations after Enron fucked the state altered building design.
New buildings will have to be significantly different than old buildings.
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Maybe reconsider the design to take the solar panels into account.
You say the roof "roof inclines in a northern direction" which makes it sound like it's already pitched to face south (inclines, meaning slopes up, as you go north). That's actually perfect for solar PV.
If you means the roof slopes the other way - high at the south side and lower on the north side - what is the rationale that makes this design better?
=Smidge=
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I am actually designing a house to build in California Desert. Good design and energy efficiency dictates sloping roof inclines in a northern direction. So how is this new requirement to place solar panels on a roof going to effect building design?
I'd love to know what are those good design and efficiency principles that dictate a north-facing roof. I spent ten minutes on google, but the only principle I found was traditional Vasthu from India. I'd love if you could point to something, please?
I'm struck that in hot climates, buildings have typically had flat roofs. I don't know why.
The roof/architecture style I'm familiar with for hot climates was to have huge overhangs on the roof, so the entirety of all walls are shaded during almost all the day. I
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If you don't already know the answer, then you aren't "actually designing a house to build in California Desert."
Re:Building Design (Score:4, Insightful)
Can you describe these requirements in detail? Seems like having solar on the roof (PV and hot water) would be the most efficient option.
If I were running for president (Score:3, Insightful)
It's all well and good to see what California's doing, but getting onto renewables should be a national effort. Not just to Shave the Whales, but because I'm tired of my country being OPEC's whipping boy. And I'd like to breath cleaner air. My family is prone to lung cancer from smoking, and while I don't smoke I get a lung full of carcinogens every time I go outside.
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Afterwards, the bonfire will be used for a huge book burning party. In the meantime, book publishers will be required to only produce books with a minimum rating of 4 on the Trump Book Flammability scale.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
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in 2020 I'd go to the coal miners (who are likely to swing the election) and offer them jobs in gov't run factories building solar panels. That's the kind of infrastructure spending and green jobs that would make a real difference.
Did you miss something? That's exactly what Obama did and none of the jobs materialized, and the solar panel factories shut down, if they simply didn't go bankrupt in hand. The Obama administration threw assloads of money at this and all you got nothing. Compared to the auto industry which had a least a near-to-full payout on money in several cases, minus the screw-up of selling the stocks held early.
Hey this is the amount of of power that PV panel is making at the school schooI went to ~25 years ago. [enphaseenergy.com] F
The government doesn't hand money to companies (Score:3)
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You'd probably also need to offer a lot of new jobs to railroad employees. The railroads, especially on the East coast of the U.S., transport coal as one of their primary customers. As coal is killed off, it also takes freight rail with it.
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Also, protects shingles.. (Score:5, Informative)
I bet, in 30 years time when the shingles on the other side have to be replaced, the ones under the panels will be pristine. There's still a 2" gap between the shingle and panel so airflow can evaporate any moisture but the elements aren't beating down on them.
The cost of replacing shingles should probably be factored into the overall cost of the panels - which are coming down in price year over year.
What about around mounting hardware (Score:3)
We have some people around us that have a large range of solar panels on the roof, like yours they cover most of the shingles... however I've always wondered if that many support struts being attached to the roof did not create a lot of opportunity for leaks over time.
That's why I've been kind of waiting for true solar shingles, which would act like real shingles and be more durable also. They seem to be coming along really slowly though in terms of wider adoption, and it seems like they would probably be
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When I had my panels put up, I suspected they'd have that benefit too of prolonging the life of the shingles under them.
Problem I ran into was, they didn't want to install panels that covered the entire roof, like you describe. I was told that building codes prohibited that, in fact -- and a gap had to be left between the panels and the edges of the roof.
how is a government to handle this? (Score:3, Insightful)
The laissez-faire in me says that people should be allowed to do what they find most economically rational and desired, within the rules of the market and forecasts of costs that they believe.
On the other hand, most / many people will not do something unless required to, and then later they get mad when energy costs (for example) suck 50% of their paycheck. cf. Paris riots right now.
So what is a government to do? Act in its (society's) long-term interest and piss some people off who think it's not in their short-term interest? Or act in government's short-term interest to help people now, but face long-term costs that they didn't act deeply enough to address?
I think in democratic govts, it ends up being the 2nd choice. That is one shortcoming of that way of governing I suppose...
In the spirit of capitalism (Score:4, Funny)
"Set to take effect in 2020, the new standard includes an exemption for houses that are often shaded from the sun."
I'll be forming a company to plant full sized shade trees in new developments so they can be exempted. /s
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Great first step. (Score:3)
I am not opposed to this, but ... (Score:4, Interesting)
We are at the tipping point already. Solar is 1.25 $/watt installation cost at utility levels. Battery is 125 $/kWh at pack level already. We consume 11 Terra Watt hours a day. Making that much at in 8 hours of sunshine would need 1.4 TW of installed capacity, costing 1.75 trillion dollars. We need to store half that energy in battery for night use, so at 125 $/kWh we need 750 billion in battery. Works out to 2.5 trillion dollars. Interest on that investment would be 100 billion a year at 4%. This cost needs to be added to annual production 11 Twh /day * 365 days, 4 billion kwh, works out to 2.5 cents per kWh. Electricity retails for about 6 cents/kWh, not counting distribution. Fuel, the sunlight, is free. So only other cost is maintenance of equipment. It is far simpler to maintain solar panels than powerplants. So the economics will work out.
The existing power plants all have life running into decades. But as they die off, replacement will be solar panels and batteries.
It makes economic sense to use solar, wind and batteries. Whether or not you believe in climate change or environments, pure economics is going to drive this industry.
Soon the traditional fossil fuel companies and powerplants will come with hats in hand begging for tax payer assistance.
Out of control elephants killing nanny state (Score:2, Informative)
Here we are a century and change later. People are apparently still confused about efficiency and economies of scale. Apparently way too hard to grasp increased efficiency and less environmental impact is achieved when done at scale rather than thru piecemeal generation.
But this is California the land of bureaucratically imposed artificial scarcity whether energy or housing the state does its level best to fuck over its citizens for no reason.
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You are very wrong relative to rooftop solar.
What specifically is wrong? Do you think residential neighborhoods can compete with a commercial solar farm in any dimension? Cost, capability, efficiency, reliability? If so please explain.
The benefits of local generation are huge.
Local generation is nice and in some areas and situations coupled with local storage off-grid it's totally awesome.
My assertion is simply benefits of centralized generation are hugeeeer.
but it reduces the homeâ(TM)s dependence on the grid.
When the power goes out grid tied homes go dark the same as the rest of the neighborhood. The grid must be engineered with assumptio
Little mention of the pooling option (Score:5, Interesting)
So, here's what's interesting. The new autocratic dictates...er...breakthrough regulations don't require you have the panels on your house. TFA mentions you can pool together and install the panels somewhere else if you'd like.
What I don't know is how far away those panels can be. Can I put them 100 feet away? 100 meters? 100 miles? Because what I'd like to do is buy a 5 kW share of a solar farm in the middle of the Mojave desert. I expect that will be, by far, the cheapest way to install and maintain "my" panels, and keep them upgraded as solar technology improves.
Of course, this begs the questions of why couldn't I buy a share of a wind farm instead but I guess the fine people on the building codes committee thought about that and realized there is no doubt that solar panels are and always will be the most economical and effective approach. Wow, I wish I was as smart as they are! I can't even tell what the price of eggs will be next week let alone the relative price of solar vs. wind 20 years from now.
good idea; horrible implementation (Score:3)
Re:Perfect democrats (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah, adding 10k to the cost of a 550k home ( https://www.zillow.com/ca/home... [zillow.com] ) is going to be the tipping point to price the middle class out of homes in California. You're a frick'n genius.
Re: Perfect democrats (Score:4)
$10k seems low for a 5-6kw system unless they're still being subsidized.
I assume they still are. . .
Re: Perfect democrats (Score:5, Insightful)
For a single individual it would be too low. For a major home developer buying in bulk and likely doing the installation themselves it's probably about right even without subsidies.
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They are subsidized, often as much as 50%.
Re:Perfect democrats (Score:5, Informative)
(In addition, poor people tend to face more negative health affects from pollution because they tend to live in more polluted areas, so they will likely experience more of the benefits as well.)
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Re:Perfect democrats (Score:4, Informative)
It's not quite as large a difference as you suggest. Assuming a 5% rate of return on the market, if you invested the $10k you would indeed have about $43.2k at the end of 30 years. However, if you spent the $10k on solar panels up front and invested the $52.78 you're expected to save in energy costs each month at that same 5% rate then you would have $43k at the end of 30 years, plus some 30-year-old solar panels which may or may not be worth something. Disregarding any residual value in the used panels, that means buying solar panels only costs you about $200 after 30 years compared to investing the same money in the market, which is practically zero given all the approximations and unknowns involved.
Of course, the expected market rate of return makes a huge difference. At 4.75% APY the panels come out $950 ahead; at 5.25% the investment wins by $1400. The 5% rate used as a baseline is very nearly the breakeven point (~4.96%). Similarly, a 5% variance in the energy savings (~$50-55 vs. the estimated $52.78) would shift the balance by around $2100.
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This assumes you have $10k cash to invest, rather than adding $10k to a long term loan (mortgage).
Obviously if you do have $10k then you can still invest it and still add $10k to your mortgage and still make a profit on both.
Re:Perfect democrats (Score:4, Informative)
Hmm, $43,219 vs. $41,786 after 30 years. I suppose you're right.
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Like water, which is 11% via home use "requiring" tiny toilets and limit discs. These are literally an old psychological tool to ready you for bigger intrusions.
This is a textbook example of innumeracy.
The rest of the nation thanks you for kicking yourselves pointlessly in the nuts so you can water a desert so we can have winter vegetables and avocados.
Re:Perfect democrats (Score:5, Insightful)
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Taking a $610k mortgage isn't going to hurt you in terms of monthly payments spread over 20 years.
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The cost is about $10k on a house that costs $550k. That $10k is not going to be the tipping point.
The costs for complying with the earthquake protection parts of the building code are much, much higher.
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Being that this is part of a New House build. Adding Solar panels would be a drop in the bucket compared to all the other costs involved.
And I don't see many Middle/lower class people buying new homes. If they are a home owner they will buy an existing home, or a fixer upper.
As well the savings of lower power bills may compensate for the extra costs.
It is more expensive for those you need to add solar panels to existing homes, as their infrastructure may not be suited for them.
Re: Perfect democrats (Score:2, Insightful)
You misspelled government regulations and overreach.
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When you agree with it, it's a good thing for one state to dictate to the rest of the nation such as how California required DVD players to use less than a certain amount of power which forced it on the whole nation.
Somehow, I don't think requiring solar panels on all houses will be such a great benefit for Alaska.
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What is wrong living in California? You don't need to live in the Cities. They are a lot of wonderful rural areas available.
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Regulations and Taxes are not bad. However something that is missing is the ability to objectively evaluate the effects of the actions.
I would be find paying Taxes for an idea that didn't work. However if shown it doesn't work, it needs to stop.
Both political sides love to point out how their idea often many decades old, is better then the other, however with little showing on what works and what doesn't
Re: Perfect democrats (Score:5, Funny)
Name one california regulation or government over reach? Name one? Waiting?
Requiring solar panels on new homes.
Re: Perfect democrats (Score:5, Insightful)
Isn't California trying to mandate gender quotas on corporations?
Nope. California is considering requiring a percentage of board members to be female. Less than 50%.
Didn't California mandate pro-life agencies had to post info on how women can obtain abortions?
Nope. California required "Crisis Pregnancy Centers" to disclose they do not provide abortions and abortions are available elsewhere. Apparently, having to tell the truth violated the religion of the people operating these centers.
Re: Perfect democrats (Score:4, Informative)
Nope. California required "Crisis Pregnancy Centers" to disclose they do not provide abortions and abortions are available elsewhere. Apparently, having to tell the truth violated the religion of the people operating these centers.
The applicable provisions in that law were struck down by the Supreme Court [supremecourt.gov] for violating the free speech of non-medical clinics and putting an undue burden on medical clinics.
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The applicable provisions in that law were struck down by the Supreme Court for violating the free speech of non-medical clinics and putting an undue burden on medical clinics.
Well that's inane for different reasons.
I don't see why people should be able to get free speech while under limited liability protection. Anyone should be able to speak freely as a private citizen.
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To be fair, the middle class was already priced out of buying homes in CA thanks to capitalism and property investors.
Care to explain what community based zoning boards, requiring solar panels on new homes, size regulations, density requirements, and arbitrary building restrictions have to do with capitalism?
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You can have all those things, but if you didn't also have movie millionaires and tech billionaires bidding up real-estate prices, you would still have rock-bottom prices. Maybe regulations don't help, but they are not the driving cause of lack of affordable housing in California—at least around Hollywood and Silicon Valley; you can find plenty of affordable housing "in the middle of nowhere", even in California.
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Zoning laws, density/size restrictions and the anemic permitting process definite affects housing prices. When you have more people moving into an area, that increases demand. All of those local policies restrict supply.
What do you get when there's more demand than supply? Higher prices.
Re: Perfect democrats (Score:4, Interesting)
Property taxes are completely artificial. The city wants homes/land to cost more. They collect more tax dollars and are just as greedy as those evil capitalists.
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This is one reason why property taxes should be replaced with a fee that covers only the property's actual burden on the city. For example, a property with a longer street frontage costs the city more in street and sidewalk amortization and maintenance, tree trimming, emergency response, etc. A property with more impermeable surface (roof, driveway) costs the city more in sewer amortization and maintenance. And so on.
The way property taxes are normally assessed transfers wealth from poor neighborhoods to af [strongtowns.org]
Re:Perfect democrats (Score:5, Interesting)
Really?
How much does a full roof of solar panels cost? Maintenance? Repair after storms?
I'm not saying it isn't a good thing to have them....however, right now I hear nothing buy young people complaining about the cost of housing, and mandating solar panels on all new homes, will add a not insignificant amount of extra money on top of the already $$$ new home.
And it isn't just going to be the cost of the panels and labor to install, the builder will also write in some profit on top of that.
Known moron Cayenne here to doubt the math. (Score:2, Interesting)
"According to the article, it increases the initial cost by $10,000 ($50 per month on 30-year loan) but decreases overall costs by $19,000 over 30-years of ownership ($52.78 per month over 30 years)."
You're a moron Cayenne. An ideological moron.
Re:Known moron Cayenne here to doubt the math. (Score:4, Informative)
The initial cost is closer to $10,000 when you figure in the subsidies. The latest figures I've seen show that solar costs the home-buyer $4 per watt and adds $4 per watt to the value of the home. When you figure in lower electric bills, it's pure benefit.
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It would appear you don't understand what the numbers mean. The first two numbers indicate that the additional investment holds its value. There's still an opportunity cost. The lowered energy costs needs to overcome the opportunity cost before they represent a benefit. Also, increased property value may result in additional costs.
Re:Perfect democrats (Score:4, Informative)
Net savings is about $30 a month, maintenance in the first 10 years is usually less than $1000, storm damage isn't really a thing, people have been mounting these things on ocean going sailboats for almost 20 years with no issues. Generally the mount wears out before the solar panel does. All these things were solved almost 25 years ago, it mostly sounds like either you are spreading FUD, or you don't understand solar, or possibly both.
Re:Perfect democrats (Score:4, Informative)
How much does a full roof of solar panels cost?
That isn't relevant, since the regulations do not require a full roof of solar panels.
To comply with this change, TFA says it would cost about $10k, on homes that cost on average $550k.
Also, if you're concerned about cost, complying with the state's earthquake protection parts of the building code cost several times more.
Maintenance?
Solar panels don't require much. The occasional washing which generally happens via this thing called "rain".
Repair after storms?
Nothing in the building code requires the solar panels continue to function after the final inspection. So, if you can't afford to fix the panels after a storm, don't. Also, CA doesn't tend to get too many hurricanes or that much hail.
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You don't need much rain to wash the dust off the panels. And the horrible consequences of not doing so is they make less power. Since it's your house and not a power plant where you are banking on a particular generating capacity, that's not exactly a horrible consequence.
Re:Perfect democrats (Score:5, Interesting)
I thought I'd read, at least in the past...that in CA they had laws/regulations against even watering your yard, due to rain shortages out there. If this is still true, have they provided exceptions for using your water hose to go up and wash your solar panels?
If not, I can just see the "to collect and serve" police guys out there catching people washing their mandated solar panels.
Not trying to be funny, I'm serious.
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I thought I'd read, at least in the past...that in CA they had laws/regulations against even watering your yard, due to rain shortages out there.
No. They have pricing structures on their water bills to make it very expensive to use a lot of water. Use a little, pay X. Use 50% more, pay 2.5X. Use 100% more, pay 10X.
You'll find that all of the 'extreme' stories about CA are primarily about convincing non-CAians that they're better off not being in CA, not about reality.
Re: Perfect democrats (Score:3)
Where would that NOT suck?
Re:Perfect democrats (Score:5, Informative)
How much does a full roof of solar panels cost? Maintenance? Repair after storms?
I can add some personal experience.
Cost: Very little in comparison to the power it offset. Admittedly there were good incentives at the time which caused the system to pay for itself in well under 2 years but now with those incentives gone I see systems cost less than what I paid for for my 10kW setup.
Maintenance: $0. I mean when it doesn't rain for a long time the power output goes down but a good storm sorts that out. Once I washed them. Waste of time, next time I'll just wait for another good storm. My inverter has only been running for 7 years so I expect it it about half way through it's life but effectively this system has paid for itself over many times.
Repair after storms: Not sure what you mean. I mean the last big storm we had damaged roof tiles, wrote off two cars, and I had to replace 3 windows thanks to first size hail which was about at round as a tetrahedron and just as sharp on the edges. My neighbour was hospitalised because she was out at the time both her cars were written off too, but the panels? Zero damage. I mean they are made of tempered glass mounted against a rigid metal structure. I highly doubt I could break them if I attacked them with a hammer. During the 2013 storms we had the area of my roof with solar panels was the only area which didn't need repairs.
right now I hear nothing buy young people complaining about the cost of housing
Now imagine if they had solar panels to reduce their utility costs. I drew on my mortgage to buy solar panels. Best investment I ever made.
Re:Perfect democrats (Score:5, Informative)
That's nonsense.
1) The cost of solar panels includes all the costs associated with making them, including energy. If it took more energy to make them than they would ever produce, then they would never pay for themselves. Even without incentives, that's no longer the case, so obviously this is wrong.
2) Solar panels stand up to extreme weather just fine, excluding things that destroy your home. They will still be producing plenty of power after twenty years. The question isn't when they will stop working, but when it will make sense to replace them with newer panels.
3) In the short-term these regulations will increase house prices, but they will also lower utility prices, so the total cost of ownership may go down. I believe some banks take into account expected utility costs in determining mortgage qualifications, so this may not impact the ability of people to buy homes.
4) Companies have always been motivated to use the cheapest tech, and existing solar installations have been extremely reliable. Regulations like this won't change that.
4 [sic]) Lithium Ion batteries are easy to recycle. Also, like solar panels, they don't typically just fail; they degrade in capacity over time. Battery systems being installed today will likely stay in use for a decade or longer.
The tech does meet real criteria: efficiency, longevity, and safety -- you just don't want it on your rooftop.
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Batteries are stupid. You're plugged into an electrical grid which can shift the load wherever is most-efficient. You're producing 2kW more than necessary? The laundromat down the street is getting 2kW from you, with lower transmission distance, thus lower loss.
You're hooked up to battery power instead of the grid? You lose 10% to 30% of your energy to charging (in the ideal case, with voltage just slightly above battery voltage, Li+ can charge at 99% efficiency; but you don't have a choice, you have
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> Off-grid in general is a huge waste.
Difficulty: The laundromat down the street is busiest after 5PM when your solar panels aren't producing as much. You're probably also home at that point, using more power yourself.
Now, there is a LONG WAY TO GO before energy storage becomes necessary, but there's no reason there can't be benefits to it now. Especially for solar, where peak production does perfectly not coincide with peak consumption.
That said I think energy storage is better handled upstream at the
Nonsense? Not so much, and I own solar panels .... (Score:4, Interesting)
I've discussed this at length with people before .... but there are many reasons your statements aren't quite accurate.
1. The costs of many of the cheaper solar panels in use absolutely did NOT take into account all of the associated costs of producing them! One of the problems the industry has struggled with are all the cheap Asian panels on the market, often sold at below cost, thanks to government subsidies from China. They were willing to fund these losses at the government level, to help destroy the competition and gain a secure foothold selling them in places like America.
2. As far as I've seen? Solar panels do stand up pretty well to the weather. But they won't work in the normal configuration, supplying AC power back onto the grid to earn your credits on your electric bill, unless you have expensive inverters attached to them. My installation has 2 inverters -- one for a set of panels on my roof, and a second one for a set of panels on my detached garage roof. The inverters generally only get a warranty for about half the length the panels are warrantied, and they're more likely than the panels themselves to have a failure.
3. I've never heard of these banks you speak of, who would allow a person to take out a larger home loan if they felt the person might use less electricity thanks to solar panels (or anything else)? That would be risky on a lender's part, especially not having any guarantee the new homeowner wouldn't just use additional power, knowing some of their bill was supplemented by solar.
4. As for battery technology? I looked into that, but it's really too costly to make much sense in many situations. When the financials work out on it? It's usually only because that person's utility company decided to arbitrarily give discounted electric rates for power used at night ("off peak"). If you're able to time-shift your power consumption via battery storage, while making the power during the peak period when the sun is out -- that saves you money. But again, that's just an artificial construct the power company decided to put in place. My power company bills the same amount for my electricity, no matter when I use it. I'd hate to invest a lot of money in battery storage for PV solar on a home, only to find the power company decided to change the billing around shortly after that and eliminated the only reason it made financial sense!
As an overall thing? I can see how solar does pay for itself in the sunniest parts of the country. Nevada, California or Hawaii? Yeah ... probably a good investment. In much of the country though? You'll really not even do better than possibly breaking even on them. Here in Maryland, for example? A solar system installation similar to what I've got (a 7.64Kw sized setup) will typically cost a person around $34,000 to install. You can shave 30% off of that with a Federal tax credit, for now -- but that's still money you only get back a year after you have to buy the thing. But ok -- you're at $23,800 after said credit. Most people don't have that kind of money just lying around to pay up-front, so now you're looking at some kind of loan to cover that $23,800. Interest on that is going to chip away at the monthly electric bill savings the system makes, until you've got the thing paid off. Meanwhile, given our power rates out here? I'd say at BEST (only a few summer months out of each year), my panels make enough energy to shave about $100 per month off the bill. In months like December or January, it's likely the panels will generate as little as maybe 800 watts of power total on a snowy or rainy/overcast day. Enough of those, and you're looking at a month where the panels only saved you $20-30.
The people out here who brag that their solar panels make their monthly power bills 0 are usually living on farmland where they put rows and rows of panels up on metal frames or poles, taking up a big chunk of land. Not only did that probably cost them FAR more money than they'll ever recoup -- but it means they
Re:Nonsense? Not so much, and I own solar panels . (Score:4, Informative)
The costs of many of the cheaper solar panels in use absolutely did NOT take into account all of the associated costs of producing them! One of the problems the industry has struggled with are all the cheap Asian panels on the market, often sold at below cost, thanks to government subsidies from China.
These circumstances applied only to panels from specific manufacturers for a fairly limited period of time. Most solar panels are not "dumped", not even from China.
I've never heard of these banks you speak of, who would allow a person to take out a larger home loan if they felt the person might use less electricity thanks to solar panels (or anything else)?
You may be unaware of it, but all banks consider the monthly expenses of every prospective loan recipient. Power very much factors in to their loan-making decisions, varying only by the demands of the local power company for money.
As for battery technology? I looked into that, but it's really too costly to make much sense in many situations. When the financials work out on it? It's usually only because that person's utility company decided to arbitrarily give discounted electric rates for power used at night ("off peak").
Which applies to quite a few people's houses. You may not be one of them, but millions upon millions are, including all of California. Even I am subject to time-of-day billing here in the Midwest.
A solar system installation similar to what I've got (a 7.64Kw sized setup) will typically cost a person around $34,000 to install.
That is indeed a stupidly high price, and it's largely an artifact of yesteryear's panel prices. When a solar panel cost $5/watt, installers could demand premium prices and know their demands would be lost in the noise. Now that panels are right around $1/watt (post Trump tariffs), installers charging double or triple what the equipment costs is really noticeable. It will change. It will obviously change. There were a whole helluva lot of people clambering around on my roof when I replaced my shingles after the last hail storm made a hash out of them, and it didn't cost me any $20,000. It cost half that, including the price of shingles. So $28,000 to install less than $8,000 of panels is ludicrous, and can't last.
Not only did that probably cost them FAR more money than they'll ever recoup
They didn't. Ground-mounted solar panels are far cheaper to install, even in this over-inflated installer market, and as stated above, installation price is the expensive part right now. Installing on the ground is incredibly easier than a roof-mount install. There's zero money or effort required to evaluate the load-bearing capabilities of the roof, since there's no roof. The insurance costs are dramatically lower since no one is climbing around on a roof. Even the time required is much lower since there are no logistics of dragging heavy, awkward panels up onto a roof to worry about.
It would be a really BAD idea to mandate solar panels in our state, and even worse for Missouri, where I was born and raised. They get less sun than we do.
Fact checking you, I see that NREL [nrel.gov] shows that Missouri is at least one category better than Maryland in almost every month of the year for solar insolation.
All of your opinions seem to be informed by your personal experience, which is obsolete or inapplicable. A decade ago, you were suffering early adopter tax, and definitely paying more for the non-financial benefits than any financial benefit you could hope to gain. Today and in the coming years, things are different and will become still more different. It will be (and already is) considerably easier to buy solar panels for the financial benefits, as well as the quality of life benefits.
You should definitely buy the geothermal heat pump system though.
Re:Perfect democrats (Score:5, Insightful)
It it wasn't for the Oil Iobbies putting doubt in Green Energy, Solar Energy would seem to be a Conservative dream.
Take your homes off these Highly regulated and expensive infrastructure, allow you be independent and generate your own power for your own land, with less government control on the power you make. In case of war the American Power infrastructure would be resilient. As there would be less of an infrastructure to attack, and every self sufficient citizen could carry one and endure.
If you want less government, green energy is a good solution, because you yourself can make your own power.
Re:Perfect democrats (Score:4, Interesting)
Solar energy is a conservative dream. Problem is, it's not a capitalist dream because a) most countries missed the boat on panel manufacturing to China and b) constant consumption is more profitable than efficiency and self-sufficiency.
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We have extreme weather -- shorten lifespan.
Hey Anonymous Coward - Other than the occasional heavy rains, and very hot days, what "extreme weather" does California have?
Hurricanes? Nope. Tornadoes? Nope. Blizzards? Nope. Ice Storms? Nope. Sandstorms? I guess maybe.
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Yeah, California does NOT have storms.
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
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Your English is too good to be a surfer dude!
Re:Perfect democrats (Score:5, Informative)
The US is the only sovereign nation which allows non citizens to own land.
Except of course for Argentina, Australia, Belize, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic. All right, I got to C. You can read the rest at https://internationalliving.co... [internationalliving.com]
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Unless they also start making grid-tie optional state-wide, what is the incentive here?
A house. Can't pass your final inspection without it, so there's a pretty strong incentive to install it.
And while we are at it, what is the minimum capacity? Can I put a single 300 watt panel on my roof plus a grid tie and call it a solar roofed home? Does it have to be a whole roof fixture?
If only there was some sort of article that covered these questions.
What about houses at elevation where the panels may be more likely to fail under snow weight?
What about houses where you'd like to have lots of South-facing windows? South-facing windows got limited by the building code after Enron's fraud caused CA's power problems.
The answer to both is: the architecture is changed to comply with the building code.
Will it become mandatory to repair the solar system when it fails?
Building codes everywhere are only enforced during construction. If you rip of
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It doesn't need to be traditional ugly rectangle solar panels. Take a look at solar roof tiles, some of those designs actually look quite nice.
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Imagine what it would look like with electric utility poles and telephone poles and cell phone towers everywhere! DIsgusting.
We must BAN ALL Electric Utilities, Telephone Companies, and Cell Phone Towers! The more quickfully this happens the more gooder it twill bee.
Re:Super dumb for California especially (Score:5, Informative)
Uh, we do not get as much fog as everyone thinks. Maybe 7-10 days where there is fog for more than 8 hours during the day. And it's just in the northern section of the city, by the bridge. We have microclimates here, it's a thing. I would guess daytime fog is closer to 3 days. Regardless San Francisco is only about 800,000 people in a 7x7 mile section of the state, in a state that represents about 65% of the west coast and 40 million people.
Most of the bay sees 280-300 days a year of sun.
Also most of Oregon is desert, and very sunny.
Also, most of the central valley of california is flat and dry, and blisteringly hot.
Please reference a map. Thank you.
p.s. Germany has way worse weather conditions, like snow, and being way further north, and they have more installed solar than we do and produce more solar power than anyone else in Europe.
Given how cheap solar is, there are few places in the world where installing solar is not a net positive. Even in as you say "foggy" san francisco. Get out more dude.
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Also most of Oregon is desert, and very sunny.
Nope [wikipedia.org].
Maybe you should actually try visiting places instead of just looking at maps.
I have travelled quite a lot through Oregon, and the actual desert area is kind of a small corner compared to the rest of the state. if you actually DO look at a map, which it seems you did not, you'd see an awful lot of forest in your "desert state". A small part is desert, at least a third is coastal region, and the rest semi-arid (which is descent for solar but also not as ma
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I'm not sure you reviewed the link you posted, average annual rainfall in the eastern two thirds of the state is well under 24", which would make sense if you've been there before... regardless, with that little rain, as you pointed out, makes eastern oregon an ideal location for solar.... as does most of california, except for the 10 miles closest to the ocean. That nullifies your weather point.
BrSolar install cost is far less than 1% of the total cost of the house, and begins paying for itself on day 1, w
Re:Super dumb for California especially (Score:5, Informative)
I'm from southern New York, which is about as far north as northern California. We also get lots of snow. Like actual snow, not just at ski resorts.
The largest PV installation in the US is the Long Island Solar Farm, which is slightly farther north than Redding, CA.
Our solar panels work just fine.
=Smidge=
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I am surprised at how many people instantly like to disparage solar power based upon temperature or amount of direct sunlight. If solar can pay for itself for even 3 months out of the year then it shouldn't matter much. Also, for alternate or traditional forms of electricity, having storage capability greatly increases the benefit.
The solar in California makes great sense because the peak electrical usage corresponds to hot days where the sun is out in full. Back in 2000-ish when we had rolling blackouts
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Also the California state capital, where this was decided, is actually north of San Francisco by ~45 miles. it is remarkably sunny there, despite, as you point out, being far north of palm springs
mandates vs incentives (Score:2)
California energy policies are penny-wise and pound foolish. The unwashed masses cannot think for themselves, so... mandate!
This same mentality didn't work out so well for French President Macron. What's truly ironic is that a band of miscreant French in Paris helped a young Ceasar Julian [wikipedia.org] overthrow his uncle - Byzatine Emperor Constantius II, because Julian lowered taxes, closed loopholes, and reduced corruption. Left to his own devices, Constantius would have continued taxing the shit out of everyon
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Solar panels don't pay off in many locations, even in CA. Good luck getting that exemption approved!
Further, the environmental cost of producing solar panels is huge. As is the environmental cost of producing large batteries to store energy (not to mention the safety issues of having one on your property for decades). At least the battery is only currently being "incentivized".
The cost of putting solar panels on a house and connecting them up is pretty big, and the cost will skyrocket now that it's requir
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If solar is so wonderful then why does the government have to force people to have it on their homes? Why do taxpayers have to subsiduze the installations?
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Panasonic gives a 25 year warranty on 80% panel efficiency compared to date of install... panasonic will likely still be around in 25 years to honor that warranty. They're in deep with Tesla. Their engineers are claiming closer to 92% efficiency after 30 years.
Even older poorer technology solar panels from the 90s are doing better than 80% after 25 years.... durability is not especially a factor in purchasing solar.
Re:And a perfect reason for rate hikes... (Score:5, Interesting)
This is actually a thing up here in the Pacific Northwest. I have city-owned power. They did a huge energy conservation program, promoting the transition from old bulbs to newer CFL/LED bulbs, plus replacing CRT TVs with LCD/LED TVs. The result? Power consumption dropped by a large enough margin that the city-owned power company didn't have the budget to continue to operate, so instead they just raised everyone's power bill rates. So after making the city more efficient, our bills remained the same higher price, even though "lower price" was the #1 "incentive" to change out all the equipment.
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A remodel can be regulated under the "new construction" standard if you change enough of the structure.
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You generally do not shingle under the solar panels, if they are being installed when the structure is built. You just use whatever underlayment would be under the shingles, and then the solar panels act as the shingles.
Which also means you generally do not remove the panels when re-shingling the roof. Because there are no shingles to replace.
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Just askin'
It's like a giant magical rainbow pile of money in Washington DC!
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I'm seeing $6,000 for 6,760W of solar panels (assembled in USA), or $8,000 for 8,190W (Canadian-made). Around $3,300 for a 10,000W power optimizer kit or $2,000 for 26 microinverters. Looking at about $2,000 of installation materials. The labor costs are negligible at home-build time, since you're basically bolting them to a roof and running electricity--you're already building the roof and running power anyway, just slapping in another $200 circuit breaker set.
So around $13,500 for an 8kW system, no
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...and no incentive for landlord to install panels since the landlord doesn't pay the electricity bill.