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."
>> 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?
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
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
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
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"
$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.
Yes, I have always loved the concept of my paying more taxes so other people could have for free the things I can't afford for myself.
It is, however, misleading. Giving stuff to poor people is fine, but the word "free" does imply that it comes from some government largess that is somehow magically separated from the actual taxes that people pay.
Of course, it's all okay, because it's the rich people who are paying for it and they have plenty of money.
Except of course, it isn't. It's mostly the middle class paying for this sort of thing because there aren't enough rich people out there to have even their higher tax assessments (when they pay them) make up for the amount you need to relieve the middle class from to assert that the rich are actually "paying" for it.
It doesn't have to be loaded with graft & corruption to be a waste of time.
TFA talks about a 2.5KW system. Which is about 10 panels. So this whole program is going to provide free solar to 150-200 homes in a State with 38.8 million people.
Wow, a program to provide free solar to 0.0025% of CA's population!! Really generous program you've got there, guys....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
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!"
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 state giveth, the state taketh, all hail the state!
And who do you suppose pays extra for the things those companies make? You know so they can pay for his FREE solar panels.
Are you freaking serious? Like that's better?
It's worse. It's still a made up new tax on the economy (which always hits the poor hardest), but first rich people get to take their cut, as they buy, sell, profit off of other people's money. So the state takes the tax, and then sells that tax to rich people, who resell it back to us for a profit.
We pay twice. Why not just a straight up tax on carbon? Pay, and the state banks it. No rich people required. Cause it ain't about that, is it? It ain't about the environment or even tax revenue. It's about control.
Yes, I have always loved the concept of my paying more taxes so other people could have for free the things I can't afford for myself.
Share your wealth or they will share their poverty.
The more money people have, the less they tend to do for the poor. If it worked the other way around, you wouldn't be whinging now.
It's a shame the middle class won't band together and come after the rich, but those poor idiot fucks won't realize that they have a better chance to win the lottery than to actually work their way into the upper echelons of society. They still think they're going to be the ones looking down their noses at someone else someday.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
At first glance, at least, that sounds absurd. Zen Energy is advertising prices starting at $5,750, and that's New Zealand dollars - about US$4500 at current rates.
It isn't surprising that there's a difference, labour costs if nothing else, but four to five times seems excessive.
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).
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
No, the poorest do not rent. The poorest sleep on park benches and in alleys. Naturally, those people don't count, for some reason.
As a Californian making $10-$15K/year, excuse me if I don't think we need to donate charity handouts to people making $70K, which by the way is well above the median income.
As a Californian making $10-15k/year, you will be paying fuck-all in taxes. Depending on where you live, you may well be receiving back services whose cost is well in excess of what you're paying in.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
That's very untrue. Show some studies to back yourself up.
It's obviously true, because if it weren't, the poor wouldn't be poor. The rich have virtually all of the money, so they're the only ones who can help. And the wealthy have access to tax dodges that the poor can't use, and aren't we always having to hear on slashdot about how entitlements are where the taxes go and how the rich fly from point a to point b and don't use the roads, blah blah blah?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
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.
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
Why? Do you think theft is a virtuous goal to pursue?
I think sharing and cooperation are virtuous goals. The rich didn't earn what they have: for the most part, it is predicated directly upon the suffering of others, and it was mostly earned through the labor of others. And for what? So that people can stack up numbers in their bank accounts? Money they will never spend? Maybe they'll leave it to some progeny so that they can grow up to be useless, ignorant fucks as well?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
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.'"
"I take issue with the notion that I should have to support those that are unwilling to work for an income,"
For those truly not willing to work, fine. In my experience, most are willing, eager even, to work.
It is much more difficult to get a job than you know.
"especially those who sit on unemployment because they refuse to take work they consider beneath them"
Beneath them?
Or not sufficient in pay to get the bills paid. ( got a job, now, loose the house.. )
Or damaging to your C.V. ( yes, I am working in a 7-11/bowling alley/etc, but I am a really great coder, hire me! Does that fly?
I recall my last out of work experience ( thank God, a long time ago... ), having recently before been working as a programmer, contract ended, it was *hard* to convince the hiring manager I was worth a shot. And that was *before* the "send everything to India, pay less!" spree...
And it is much harder to get unemployment benefits than you know, having watched some friends go through it.
emt 377 emt 4