Slashdot Mirror
Floridian (and Southern) Governmental Regulations Are Unfriendly To Solar Power
An anonymous reader writes with a link to a story in the LA Times: "Few places in the country are so warm and bright as Mary Wilkerson's property on the beach near St. Petersburg, Fla., a city once noted in the Guinness Book of World Records for a 768-day stretch of sunny days. But while Florida advertises itself as the Sunshine State, power company executives and regulators have worked successfully to keep most Floridians from using that sunshine to generate their own power. Wilkerson discovered the paradox when she set out to harness sunlight into electricity for the vintage cottages she rents out at Indian Rocks Beach. She would have had an easier time installing solar panels, she found, if she had put the homes on a flatbed and transported them to chilly Massachusetts. While the precise rules vary from state to state, one explanation is the same: opposition from utilities grown nervous by the rapid encroachment of solar firms on their business."
While that's true for lots of the objections raised, it isn't true for all of them. This, for example:
When Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Va., installed solar panels a few years ago, for example, the local utility, Dominion Virginia Power, threatened legal action. The utility said that only it could sell electricity in its service area.
Government-created incumbent monopolies seem to be playing their part as well.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
Nah, here is what the prices are where I live - both before and after the credits. For my house (2 adults and 4 kids) we need the 3.3 kWh system which is $13.8K before credits, $8.3K after. That is parts + installation + 25 year warranty on inverter and panels. (This works out to a break-even of 7 years after the credits because it would offset $100/mo in electricity bills.)
I am left wondering how it could be $35K / cottage in Florida. Maybe it's to go off-grid altogether, thus requiring storage? I'm getting just enough to ensure I'll rarely produce a net excess in any single month. The rate at which the power company buys excess electricity isn't attractive so I don't want to over-produce long-term, but you can over-produce during the day and 'bank' it until night, and carry a little (up to $50 worth) over from one month to the next.
> Florida gets half to one quarter the solar energy at the rooftop that California
Where did you POSSIBLY come up with that?!
Bakersfield gets 1461 kWh/kW/year
Tampa gets 1364 kWh/kW/year
Here, do it yourself if you don't believe me:
http://rredc.nrel.gov/solar/calculators/pvwatts/version1/
I have lived in Florida for 59 years and can tell you that at times the state is pretty much like an insane, psychopath who is loaded up on meth. So yes there is always corruption in play here. But when it comes to what seems to be over regulation keep in mind that most of Florida will have violent storms rather frequently. We build against a very real wind hazard. Some serious design challenges exist if one needs to safely mount solar collectors. Windmills would really have to be special as winds that gust at 200 mph will rip most things right out of the ground and your windmill may well become a missile that hits other homes. Our roofs have very little pitch to avoid being crushed by wind. They also tend to have very little overhang for the same reasons and our rafters must be far stronger than in other states. People in most states would be shocked if they understood the design differences require in our homes. Despite all of this we do have people going solar. It is just a bit more difficult here.
If they had purchased equipment, then that would be the case as you put it.
But these instances focus on a particular business model where "customers" do not buy or install the panels. Instead, they allow another party to install panels at their expense (the installing company remains the owner of the panels throughout) while agreeing to buy electricity generated from the panels.
In other words, they allow someone to build a solar electric plant on their property and further agree to purchase electricity from that plant. Kinda like Verizon and Sprint giving you "free" phones so long as you agree to a two year contract for cellular service. You might not buy the $800 phone otherwise.
This keeps the property-owners initial costs low while locking them into a long term electricity contract. And it makes the provider a public utility--they build plants and sell electricity to customers--and therefore are unhappy to find themselves categorized and regulated as such under the laws governing public utilities.
> You aren't considering weather.
*sigh*
Solar insolation numbers *include all effects including weather*. Did you even bother to click the link before playing the fool?
As a homeowner in Florida who just installed solar despite the obstacles, you are wrong. A good 25% of the cost of my system went into satisfying bullshit governmental regulations.
To wit:
1. Paying for "engineering" to prove that the panel mounting system met hurricane code, despite the panel attachment system being a commercial off the shelf product used with those panels and on roofs typical of my roof construction on thousands of homes already.
2. Paying for "engineering" for the electrical system with a stamp on it from the Florida Solar Energy Center, again despite the fact that one can easily point to the engineering done for thousands of similar systems. Doubly stupid considering my system is micro-inverter based, so in the end it's all phase-locked AC power going into a single 10 gauge cable that any electrician could tell you is big enough to handle the peak amperage of my system.
Those engineering fees and doc stamps cost several thousand dollars. In the end, I think the panel cost of my system was probably only 20% of the total.
The state government could EASILY reduce the cost of systems 20% by codifying and approving standard products, much like the Miami-Dade country certification for hurricane windows instead of requiring bespoke engineering for each project.
So the article is correct--the Florida government is making harder and less financially viable for its citizens to have rooftop solar PV. I'm rich. I live in an expensive part of town. I'd say less than 1% of homes, maybe only 1/10th of 1% of homes have solar PV my area. (The number for solar hot water is substantially higher though)