Slashdot Mirror
California Is Giving Away Free Solar Panels To Its Poorest Residents
MikeChino writes: Oakland-based non-profit GRID Alternatives is giving away 1,600 free solar panels to California's poorest residents by the year 2016. The initiative was introduced by Senator Kevin de León and launched with funds gathered under the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GCRF), the state's cap-and-trade program. SFGate reports: "Kianté London used the program to put panels on his three-bedroom North Richmond home, which he shares with two sons and a daughter. 'It helps me and my family a great deal to have low-cost energy, because these energy prices are really expensive,' said London, 46, whose solar array was installed this week. 'And I wanted to do my part. It’s clean, green energy.' London had wanted a solar array for years, but couldn’t afford it on his income as a merchant seaman — roughly $70,000 per year. Even leasing programs offered by such companies as SolarCity and Sunrun were too expensive, he said. The new program, in contrast, paid the entire up-front cost of his array."
It warms my heart, however, to see the money I must pay for the tax on air putting panels on the homes of other people.
Did you RTFA? I'm going to assume not, so here's the link again
The program is paid for by cap-and-trade - namely, companies creating environmental waste, not you, are the ones paying for his solar panels. There are plenty of reasons to complain about the CA government misappropriating the tax money you personally give them, but this is not one of them.
The submitter used the word "poorest", which seems chosen rather... poorly. The SFGate article uses the somewhat less extreme term "low income", but toward the end it is also more specific about the criteria: "To qualify, applicants must live in a neighborhood designated as disadvantaged by the state. They must own their homes and make no more than 80 percent of their community’s median household income." The provider, GRID Alternatives, promises "to make renewable energy technology and job training accessible to underserved communities", which seems more in line with what is actually going on.
So, one view of this is that this is a program to direct cap-and-trade money (generally collected to be used specifically for environmentally beneficial projects) into areas of the state that wouldn't get it otherwise. It uses donated equipment and labor as well as the C&T funding, so it's not at all tax funded. Besides helping recipients in the targeted areas get cheaper power, it is possibly reducing overall electricity demand in a green way (though this is debatable, given the limits of solar power as a baseload source).