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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."
What is median?
by taking money from other people... that isn't free.
Well, he does live in California. The Bay Area is outrageous.
>> initiative...launched with funds gathered under the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GCRF), the state's cap-and-trade program ...and you wonder why California has no money for the basics.
>> London had wanted a solar array for years, but couldn’t afford it...
And I'd like a pony. Please Santa?
(Come to think of it, a good 10% the readership of this site probably REALLY does want a pony.)
1600 solar panels have shown up at local pawn shops.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
...right now California has subsidies to people who have solar panels; any power they don't use during the day is sold 'back to the grid' at retail prices; hence, many of the wealthy have virtually no electric bill for their 10,000 square foot homes while those who can't afford the few thousand dollar lease initiation costs pay full prices.
So, if this what I consider to be unfair state subsidizing of solar panels is going to happen, and it is for now, I'm okay with some people having their burden relieved because right now the subsidies only help those who don't need it.
"Who are you?" "No one of consequence." "I must know." "Get used to disappointment."
You need a roof on a home to mount solar panels. Not an apartment, a home.
Have you seen housing prices in California? My house cost $389,000 in 2002 and it's only 750 square feet.
So, how do the "poorest residents" own a home?
I've been buying solar panel units here in Seattle that are placed on public buildings through our Seattle City Light program, since my townhouse faces north, and it works even if I sell the house and buy another one somewhere in Seattle (costs about $150 per unit, due to large scale installations that drop the costs).
As to poor people using solar panels, some cities way up here give homeless veterans Tiny Houses (250 sq ft) with solar panels on their roofs so they don't have to camp outside.
Adapt. Cause emissions don't care about your excuses, and change is now.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Isn't the whole point of stuff like SolarCity that you have no up-front cost (because you lease the system) and a negative monthly cost (because the monthly lease is cheaper than the cost of the electricity you saved)?
Why does the government need to give people free solar panels when it costs them zero dollars to get a full solar setup from SolarCity?
Let's say he has a 1,500 square foot home that he purchased for the bargain price of 450,000 dollars back in 2005, then he has a mortgage payment of about $2,500 a month. Then he has two kids to feed along with himself, so that's another $700 a month. Then everything else in the state costing about 30% more than anyone else, along with an effective tax rate of about 35% for him...carry the one...leaves him with about $600 a month, which may be needed for cars and everything else. So yeah, sad to say, he's almost poor in California.
"Who are you?" "No one of consequence." "I must know." "Get used to disappointment."
No way, man. He can only afford a new iPhone every other year! That's bordering the poverty line.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
In Canada, the official poverty level is around $25,000 per year for single persons. It shows you how rich the Americans are compared to the rest of the world, even compared to another first-world country.
Hey don't lump the rest of us in with those Bay Area folks.
First off, $70k isn't poor. Not even in California. Can people afford to put a solar array on their house with $70k income? No. But that doesn't mean they are poor.
Second: Truly poor people don't own homes. Middle class and upper class own homes. Poor people rent. Renters have no choice where their power comes from.
Third: The solar panels are usually the cheapest part of adding a power source to your home. The transfer switch, batteries and inverter are the bulk of the cost.
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
The populist bullshit campaign is succeeding.
In Canada, the official poverty level is around $25,000 per year for single persons. It shows you how rich the Californians are compared to the rest of the world and even compared to other states.
What utter bullshit.
This is the same kind of crap that de-legitimizes (that a word?) the real good alternative energy can be.
Wow, merchant seamen make 50%+ more than the VB coder positions I see in emails
Why don't you buy him a Prius as well? It saves gas and money, right?
In Canada, the official poverty level is around $25,000 per year for single persons. It shows you how rich the Americans are compared to the rest of the world, even compared to another first-world country.
In California, at least anywhere south of the Bay area, somebody making $25k/year is probably living in their car. $70k is hardly poor, but it's not much more than a comfortable middle class living.
Looks like taxing the shit out of yourselves is the way to go!
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Remember that DeLeon is the same idiot who spoke unintelligible gibberish in his "ghost gun" speech. He's not trustworthy enough for me to believe this isn't loaded with graft and assorted other corruption.
Actually, the poorest residents are not getting these panels. The poorest residents rent, not own. Now its nice that a few poor homeowners will get some of their power bill paid for them. But its really insignificant when it comes to actual renewable generation.
The amount they will save is overstated. Cal residential rates average about 15cents/kwh, a 2.5KWH panel would need about 17.8 cents per kwh to save them $818 in the first year. They also assume power rates increase for stating the total 30 year savings of $22K, but don't talk about who covers insurance/damage/maintenance, etc. How will the lucky few be selected? Who pays for panel removal/replacement when the roof needs repairs?
If you take the 14.7 million and divide by 1600, you get >$9K per system. What solar company is benefiting from selling these at such a high cost?
"Poorest residents"
:|
"three-bedroom home"
Note that he owns his home and in Calf there is the Prop 13 thing that effectively
freezes his property tax to levels as much as decades ago.
Except my tax rate went up 17% last year in San Mateo for special assessments.
A good thing... sure. A smart thing I suspect not.
California revenue is largely based on the performance of the tech stock market (all of the employees stock plans are taxed as employment, and they have 10% income tax), so when the market tanks, Sacramento passes all of these emergency measures to 'make sure the schools are well-funded' and raise all the rates by a percent or more. Then the market goes up, and the newly raised rates stay constant...I love the land of California, I can't stand the government.
"Who are you?" "No one of consequence." "I must know." "Get used to disappointment."
$70k in no way puts you in the "poorest residents" category in California. That income places him at the very top of the third quintile, above the median state income, which is around $60k.
In some areas, $60k/year is homeless.
That's poor for the Bay Area. I assure you, that's not the poverty line in the US. We have plenty of minimum wage workers who make nowhere near 70K a year.
Hell, I made only $26K a year in my first job and I had to cut corners to pay my school loans, but mostly I did okay. Granted that was almost 20 years ago now, but inflation hasn't been *that* bad.
Next up, free food for "poor" people making $70K.
It's called Soylent Green, and it is what CA plans to do with the people who make less than $25K a year.
"It's the People's Food, that's why it's made with 100% People!"
The state giveth, the state taketh, all hail the state!
Average rent in Orange County for a studio - no actual bedroom - is, last time I checked, over $1,000/month. Cars are not cheap, nor is the insurance it is a crime to drive without. Food, other expenses, taxes, it adds up. yeah, it's possible to live on it, but to live alone is, at best, difficult. And is a very shitty way to live.
Plus,
but still put away money every month, thanks to medi-cal covering insurance
translates to "thanks to welfare paid for by other people who make more than $25k/year." You've actually agreed it's damned difficult to get by on that amount.
I'm not a California resident so can't speak directly about the situation out there, but I can speak for solar here in Maryland. The power we generate with solar panels is purchased by the utility company, but technically NOT at "retail prices". (That's generally a fallacy perpetuated by the folks against solar.) They DO probably pay more than they'd prefer to pay (a rate that's a bit higher than their true cost to generate the same amount of electricity themselves), but we have to pay the transmission costs for it to get carried down the wires back to the utility company.
In general, what I've observed around here is that quite a few people who are more "middle class" than "rich" are the ones with PV solar on their roofs. Most of the time, they did a solar lease or "PPA" agreement so their up-front cost to have the panels installed was as little as zero, or as much as maybe a few thousand dollars paid up front in order to secure a better deal on the terms of the lease agreement.
I'm one of the exceptions in our town who decided to buy my panels straight out, but our family couldn't really afford to do that either. I had to get a "solar loan" from a lender offering it, after scraping up about $9,000 to pay upon completion of the work. (That will come back to me as the Federal tax credit for going solar, but they pay it back in stages, at least given my own tax situation. So I have to wait until next tax year to recoup the rest of the credit.) The rest of the cost will get paid off over the next 12 years on this solar loan, at an interest rate of close to 8%. So essentially, I'm gambling here on whether or not the whole project EVER really gives me a positive return on my investment. I *think* it can, but it's really a long term projection..... They estimate the panels will last as long as 25-30 years, and I bought SunPower branded stuff (which has a little less performance drop-off over time than many other cheaper panels). The inverters will almost surely need to be replaced once or twice during that length of time ... but they're under warranty for the first 10 years. By then, you've got to think they'll have better and/or cheaper replacements available to put in their place than what's available today.
Meanwhile, what will power cost in 20 years? The same price as today or close to it? Somehow I doubt that.... and I doubt that enough to take this type of bet as insurance against higher costs on it. But in any case, my system only covers about 60-68% of our total energy usage needs. There's just not enough usable roof space facing the right direction for it to be cost effective to add more capacity. (A problem I see with MANY homes doing solar.)
I guess my point, though, is this: PV solar isn't typically going to make this massive energy savings that some people think when they see the "cool looking solar panels" all over a property. When govt. started with the subsidies on it, it was because the tech. made NO economic sense at all without that padding added to the equation and they were just trying to use our tax money to jump start the whole industry.
Today, I think it *can* make some sense, but the wealthy really won't care about the small savings we're talking about seeing with it! If they do solar, it's merely for show and to give off that "feel good, eco friendly" vibe. The upper class can easily afford to pay their electric bills as a very SMALL part of their total income.
....
Except my tax rate went up 17% last year in San Mateo for special assessments.
Well San Mateo... that puts you in harms way of water department fines
and fee abuses.
If it does not rain up on the hills the SF bay area will have a handy dandy
excuse to reset the entire water delivery fee structure.
Almond growers are being vilified yet the domestic water delivery system
and the agriculture water systems are parted off way way upstream and
little is going to fix this issue and not kill a couple oddball fish in the delta.
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. Mark Twain.
I'll give you $50 cash for each of them.
Most will be sold by the end of the summer.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
In Australia it became a huge middle class gravy train and the working poor ended up worse off as their electricity bills increased to fund the grid upgrades required to deal with all the decentralised power production. Most of the working poor live in rental properties and there were no incentives to put panels on those properties, this excluded almost all of the people who should have benefited most. Giving power systems directly to the poor helps a lot, but what if they don't even own their own home?
It fills in for the daytime peak so means you don't need a few more GW of conventional power that only comes on line for a few hours each weekday. That can save large lump sum capital costs, and is easier to swallow even if it costs more in total because the money for GW of power from panels is spread out over years.
So it makes sense at some level of subsidy. Whether a subsidy is stupidly high or not in some areas as a vote buying exercise is a different story.
Reality is two steps ahead of you. In India homeless people are BUYING solar chargers for their phones. A group selling solar lights at cost in India found that people wanted phone chargers as well, so they built it into their solar light. Their phones may not fit the current definition of smartphone but they are far more so than the first iPhones.
and trailer parks. Anywhere you go you find them. I'm in Phoenix and we have million dollar homes across the street from them. Rich people don't like to pay top dollar for folks who can afford to live near them. I used to wonder how they kept all the poverty and human misery from spilling over until I realized that's what our drug policy is for. Any time the lower class gets out of line you can send the cops in to bust some heads and use the few ounces of pot that at least 1 person in your house probably has on hand as a pretext...
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
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).
Washington DC just announced they're going to implement green energy generators that run directly on poor people running on a giant hamster wheel.
For me, I had to find $350-$400/month for electricity, every month. I was lucky and got $10k inheritance. Various subsidies allowed me to install a $20k 3kw system (practical input about 2.3 kwh about 5 years ago. Legislature subsidy gave me 64c/kwh, dropping to 60c/kwh presently. As soon as my contract expires (any time now), I'll be paid 20c/kwh which is almost retail where I am (Australia). For the first few years it knocked 65% off my usage. Then when I got rid of the kids (sold for scientific experiments), I started to achieve credit in the summer months, almost evening out my winter usage, so I can say that I almost get a net 0 cost/year. It won't last though. When I get forced onto the reduced rate of 20c, my power bills will increase, but nowhere near what it was originally.
Now I didn't care too much *wasting* the $10k on the system because I didn't have to find $400/month, every month. That means that I had money for other things and much reduced stress on the family. After 5 years I worked out that I have almost paid the $10k back (there were 4 failures* in that time).
Doesn't matter about the capital expense! The long term savings in money and more importantly stress has paid for the system.
Failures:
The street voltage was too high for the inverter, so the inverter couldn't pump the power to the grid (2x). This was fixed by choking the street's line transformer.
The Inverter (cheap chinese shit) broke.
Birds ripped off the cover of a buss box on the roof and it filled with water.
Total cost to repair after insurance was about $500.
Loss of income from downtimes: $500 estimated.
Don't be apathetic. Procrastinate!
But still expensive. One would have to go as far as Davis or Tracy for prices to come down.
Well no one is forcing him to live in one of the most expensive areas in the world (assuming it actually is). I make less than 15k per year after taxes and I don't really consider myself poor. In the country I'm living in now the average income is about $250 per month or about $3000 USD per year. In Laos most people make about $1200 per year. In Cuba the average person makes less than $200 per year. No I did not miss a zero there. I don't see myself as poor.
But I guess making nearly $6000 per month is poor now. I've never made more than $2000 per month at any point in my entire life. I can't imagine what kind of job is worth paying someone that much. There are prostitutes who make much less than that. So is someone who makes $200,000 per year poor if they live in an expensive area of Manhattan and pay like 10000 per month in rent? That would be a very odd use of the word 'poor'.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
When did homeowners become 'poorest residents' in California?
Seems to me a person too poor to buy a house is, by definition, 'poorer' than a homeowner.
Ken
And there's no one in California poorer than this fellow with his $70K salary?
Ken
He's not only 'poor' he's among the poorest in California... Apparently he earns less than his unemployed neighbors.
Ken
If net metering were a good deal for the electric utilities, they wouldn't be fighting it tooth and nail.
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
I take your point and I have a hard time considering anyone making $70 thousand/yr as being anywhere close to the poverty line.
But what if its not a case of him choosing to live somewhere expensive but rather refusing to be forced OUT?
Lots of people have lived for generations in poor-to-middle-class neighborhoods and then been effectively evicted through gentrification.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
And what is $0K/yr? You know, like all the unemployed folks in the Bay Area earn?
Ken
Anyone who owns a home, other than perhaps a total shack they inherited, is not poor. Not even close. As usual, this is a giveaway to the upper middle class.
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No, the poorest do not rent. The poorest sleep on park benches and in alleys. Naturally, those people don't count, for some reason.
In the USA, the poverty level is about $14,000 per year for single persons.
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What they are fighting tooth and nail is kW/h that they cannot bill you for. If that means building huge new installations that only run for a couple of hours a day then they will happily do it so long as the consumer pays for it.
Network operators and governments may have different ideas and not be so horrified by people generating their own electricity and depriving power utilities of their God given grant to gouge.
So now we'll be seeing solar panels on shopping carts?
Have gnu, will travel.
Solar panels are inherently defuse power sources.
A nuclear powerplant that can supply power to millions can be relatively small. Most of the size of a plant is concerned with containment and not the reactor itself. But solar power plants are relatively enourmous.
It doesn't make sense to centralize and concentrate them. Rather, just put panels on every roof in town.
There is also no logistical reason to centralize. With nuclear power you want to keep dangerous materials out of the hands of idiots and you want the system overseen by someone that knows what they're doing. With coal or gasoline you need to worry about the logistics of fuel delivery and storage and you need to be concerned about the exhaust not washing over houses.
None of these things are relevant for solar. Rather than dumping billions into solar farms, we should instead LOAN panels to the community. Retain ownership of them since the government is paying for them or the utility is paying for them. But install them on the houses rather than concentrating them.
here someone will say "but that requires a control box at every house to allow each house to feed power back into the system"... yep. But that also normalizes that practice as being standard and to be expected rather than as the exception to the rule. That changes the way the grid words and that is change for the better.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
You're earning 500% the average income for the country in which you live, no shit you don't consider yourself poor. Your entire point is nonsense, of course you have to consider location when defining what 'poor' is. I don't care that someone earning $5k in another country can live like a king or not, someone earning $5k in the UK is poor.
Your inability to consider what is worth paying people decent money for says a lot more about your ignorance than anything else.
how much would be paid in subsidies for fossil fuels if he had not had solar panels installed ?
this answer is very hard to work out because of the complex politics of energy subsidies but my hunch is that its not far off the cost of solar installations per person
over a lifetime.
[site]
No, the poorest do not rent. The poorest sleep on park benches and in alleys. Naturally, those people don't count, for some reason.
I actually thought of that and was going to include them, but the article says poorest 'residents'.
Maybe some have boxes that the panels could be placed on.
I find it hard to consider anyone who owns a house (even with a mortgage), especially in one of the places with the highest property prices in the world, poor. This scheme seems very odd, because the poorest residents of California are renting, they don't own houses (well, the poorest are homeless), who can't just stick solar panels on top of a house that they're renting.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Fewer seamen suffer from PTSD than VB coders.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
This is why I hate the idea of raised federal minimum wage based on the most expensive places to live. Where I live, $15 an hour full time is more than I live on (not more than I make, more than I spend a year for me and my wife). And I'm not living as frugally as I could.
Give them free(mandatory) birth control BEFORE you give them the latest handout and you will finally start reducing poverty with government welfare.
Someone must be giving bankers modpoints. Or maybe Bing employees. Or maybe just some crybaby who also hasn't learned to internet.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
He got that from the suffering of others (I mean, sure Pacquiano suffered some, but he also got about $200M for his efforts)? Through the labor of others? He & Pacquiano didn't "earn it"? Who did Michael Jordan (billionaire) oppress? How about Oprah Winfrey? Who'd she make suffer to get her billions (other than husbands of women devoted to her shows)?
And while you piss and moan about "useless ignorant fucks", they're actually the great equalizer: you should be *hoping* these billionaires have stupid children to whom they leave their money just so that they can piss it all away in a mad bout of consumerism. Tears down the empire (never mind the people the empire employs) and spreads out the wealth quickly, right? And, it gives you someone to point at and ridicule for being a stupid fuck--he had it all given to him and he pissed it all away.
"A corporation may write its check to the Internal Revenue Service for payment of the corporate income tax, but that money must come from somewhere: from reduced returns to investors in the company, lower wages to its workers, or higher prices that consumers pay for the products the company produces."
Congressional Budget Office report "THE INCIDENCE OF THE CORPORATE INCOME TAX"
Through the labor of others? He & Pacquiano didn't "earn it"? Who did Michael Jordan (billionaire) oppress? How about Oprah Winfrey?
Yay, you can find a tiny handful of examples of people who support your argument! But most of the people who support mine, you'll never know their names, they're just in the background making money while you pay for it.
And while you piss and moan about "useless ignorant fucks", they're actually the great equalizer: you should be *hoping* these billionaires have stupid children to whom they leave their money just so that they can piss it all away in a mad bout of consumerism.
Unfortunately, they often wind up just shuffling that money between themselves, and it never trickles down to us poor ignorant saps in the trenches. It should not be a news bulletin to you that trickle-down economics does not work, but that's precisely what you're arguing. The truth is that the rich don't buy stuff from poor people. They shop on different streets than poor people, let alone in different stores.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
When accounting for mortgage, car loan, credit cards; who is actually poorer?
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Probably less likely to be obese, have ED, diabetes, and many other diseases that out of shape desk jockeys get. Work out, my IT comrades!
How much do you pay in Cap and Trade? If I read properly that is where the funds are coming from.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Cal residential rates average about 15cents/kwh, a 2.5KWH panel would need about 17.8 cents per kwh to save them $818 in the first year.
I don't know where you get your data, but I'm assuming that's the state average. In urban areas it is higher, much higher, especially if you go over "baseline." When I lived in Orange County we were never within baseline, because we actually turned on lights, cooked food, watched TV, and dared to run the AC when it was 100 degrees.
there has to be something wrong with it. Or it has to somehow ban guns.
afew years ago you'd be saying, "who did Bill Cosby oppress". Your ignorant if you think there are good rich. There are, used to be, good rich. Power corrupts and we've allowed it to accumulate.
Cheap storage VM.
1) Not California, but a non-profit based in Oakland???
2) Poorest residents making 70,000$ who can't afford solar panels???
3) ???
4) PROFIT!
Yes, it is a State average, as I said in my post.
http://www.electricitylocal.co...
Looks like that facebook investment is giving dividends. Lucky Californians.
....would have been ideal for this.
Too bad the company literally destroyed them when the bankruptcy folks were closing in:
http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.c...
Ferret
Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc
If I sell you something you are not paying my house or car payment. You are paying me. If you want to take it out that far you can say that your employer is paying your cap and trade payments. Or that their customers are... They are the same thing and not remotely realistic.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."