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
Not all states offer subsidies as generous as the solar industry thinks they deserve.
Its about long term thinking.
The fossil fuel industry has so many tax and environmental subsidies and costs that go ignored by most people. Duke power dumps a shit load of coal ash into a river and WE the taxpayer pays for it in more ways than money. And there''s the economic consequences - that cost Duke nothing.
Fossil fuels are old, polluting - MUCH more than the manufacture of solar cells and other green energy, and cause health problems that are paid down the line in increased healthcare costs and deaths.
When fossil fuels are drilled or mined is has environmental and health costs. When it transported and burned it has environmental and health costs.
When a solar cell is made, that's the end - all the environmental and health costs are over with. And nuclear? Pfft. The used fuel is nothing compared to the shit: mercury and other crop being spewed by fossil fuels.
Why we can't progress beyond 19th century energy sources?
...as long as their corporate/special interests "freedoms" take priority from the public's interests, everything will be peachy.
Also see: Tesla vs. State auto dealership associations.
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.
" 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."
Frankly, as someone that worked in the PV industry, I don't blame them for being nervous.
Commercial PV is now cheaper than nuclear and highly competitive with both coal and NG turbines. Rooftop systems are nowhere near as competitive, but as they are on the retail side of the meter, they don't have to be. So that's one thing that's scary.
And then there's the fact that PV, especially west and south-west mounted, provides power on-peak, precisely when the companies charge the most for their power. That's where they make almost all of their profit, so this is doubly super-scary.
> 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/
Where did you POSSIBLY come up with that?!
My guess would be Fox News, they are very knowledgeable when it comes to insolation.
Ezekiel 23:20
Corporations have "captured" the government. They have discovered that by "investing" a relatively small amount of money in politicians, they can gain a high return in getting laws and regulations passed with protect their monopolies, enabling them to charge high rent.
This takes place in most (?all) governments but the dollar amount of this return on investment in the US is probably the highest or any country in the world.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
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.
I wish they had sued. They would have lost as a matter of law, without risk of a jury trial.
I can just see the hearing now.
"Your honor, I'd like to enter into evidence Exhibit A: a solar powered calculator from Dollar General.
"Your honor, I'd like to enter into evidence Exhibit B: a solar powered yard light from Home Depot.
"Your honor, I'd like to enter into evidence Exhibit C: a gasoline generator from Harbor Freight.
"These products are legal in the state of Virginia, are they not? And they all generate electricity? So we're agreed that my client purchased equipment, and not electricity?"
"Yeah, case dismissed, with prejudice. Plaintiff to pay defendant's court costs and attorneys fees."
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.
That definition turns ugly repeatedly so often that the government has to get involved to stop the excesses (company stores, interlocking trusts, monopoly pricing, collusion, vertical market lock).
The bad thing here is that the government was subverted by business and is no longer acting as a check and balance.
A "free market" works for small businesses but not for large multi-national corporations and not even really for simply "large" corporations. It's sort of like how libertarianism can work under a strong government but fails badly when you have a weak government and very powerful people who use that power to abuse weaker people.
There's also a "moral" component which makes capitalism work and be beneficial and that's eroded a lot since 1980.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
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.
Except none of your examples involve selling the power. DVP isn't saying you can't generate your own power. They are just saying that you cannot sell it, especially over their grid. They have a mandate to provide power to everyone. If others can generate and sell power, they will pick the low hanging fruit, and sell power only in dense areas, and only to customers with a load profile that matches their generating source. DVP will be left with rural customers, and those with demand during peaks. Getting rid of the monopoly means also getting rid of the mandate, resulting in many people paying higher prices.
If government didn't have the power to regulate this or that, corporations wouldn't be buying it off.
Or as P. J. O'Rourke put it When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators.
One definition of free enterprise that the US government conveniently chooses to ignore:
Business governed by the laws of supply and demand, not restrained by government interference, regulation or subsidy, also called free market.
This is a definition of a free market that even Adam Smith would not have recognized. It was not regulation per se that he was opposed to, but mercantilism and state granted monopolies. He looked favorably regulations which protected workmen (citation Wealth of Nations I.10.121). He was also in favor of regulating banks where their actions endanger society, even at the expense of curtailing natural liberties (citation: Wealth fo Nations II.2.94
).
The free market is free of price or supplier choice regulations. It's not necessarily free of regulation per se, such as regulations of weights and measures, of worker or consumer safety, or even of public morality (e.g. drugs and prostitution).
In any case you can't use the actions of states to indict the federal government for hypocrisy, although there is plenty of other material for that.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
At the same time, they sure do like the granted right-of-way that allows their grid to exist.
Voters. The elected official are put there by voters, every time.(Not it some rare, and temporary situations)
Educate the voters. Let them know what's going on.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
> 2) The electricity companies are not under any obligation that I know of to take your electricity.
They are in locations where the utility regulators require "net metering". In a fair situation, the homeowner still pays a line charge, to cover line maintenance and provisions for current flowing backwards through transformers, and not overloading the lines in times of high output. Then they pay and earn fair per kWh rates (which may be different and vary by time of day) for power used and generated.
> 4) The cost of taking your crappy, varying pittance of power
Is nothing like the way you describe it. Unless surplus solar is a majority of the power on a distribution line (the line that goes from the substation to houses), it will simply go from your house to some other house on the line. The utility then pushes the difference through their substation to meet the remainder of the demand. They already have to handle varying demand on the distribution line, since demand varies all the time in normal use. Only if solar were more than what is needed to power the solar houses *and* everyone else on the distribution line, would the utility need to make provisions at the substation for running power to other substations.
At the same time, they sure do like the granted right-of-way that allows their grid to exist.
As does the vast majority of the population. Imagine how much your utilities would cost if the utility companies had to pay rent to each property owner that their wires, pipes, cables, etc., crossed.
If I can be modded down for being a troll, can I be modded up for being an orc, or a balrog?
> 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)