Solar Power Capacity Installs Surpass Wind and Coal For Second Year

Lucas123 writes: Residential rooftop solar installations hit a historical high in the first quarter of 2015, garnering an 11% increase over the previous quarter and a 76% increase over the Q1, 2014. New installations of solar power capacity surpassed those of wind and coal for the second year in a row, accounting for 32% of all new electrical capacity, according to a new report by GTM Research and the Solar Energy Industries Association. Residential solar installation costs dropped to $3.46 per watt of installed capacity this quarter, which represents a 2.2% reduction over last quarter and a 10% reduction over the first quarter of 2014.

Comments

Did not RTFA

[mystuff]

I know the average Slashdot reader doesn't bother to click through to the linked articles anyway. But to then just provide no clickable links whatsoever is a bit harsh, don't you think?

Re:Did not RTFA

[Stoutlimb]

So it's not just me. How embarrassing.

Re:Did not RTFA

[Anonymous Coward]

I know the average Slashdot reader doesn't bother to click through to the linked articles anyway.
But to then just provide no clickable links whatsoever is a bit harsh, don't you think?

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Why bother with installed capacity?

[Elledan]

One of the hallmarks of PV solar and wind (turbine) power is that its installed capacity is so completely out of sync with its utilization rate. While a coal, nuclear or gas plant can hit utilization rates of 90 - 99%, PV solar and wind tend to fluctuate around 20-30%.

In short, 70-80% of installed PV solar and wind capacity has to be discarded in order to close to the utilization percentage. It also means that you need 3-5 times as much installed capacity to get near the power delivered figures for baseload power sources.

In summary, in terms commonly used here in /., I believe this article is what is referred to as a 'circle jerk' :)

Re:Why bother with installed capacity?

[thegarbz]

What do you mean by utilization rate? Do you mean the amount of energy a solar cell generates or do you mean the amount of energy generated at a time it is consumed?

You can call it circle jerking all you want, but an increase in the amount of renewable energy regardless of your other metrics is always a good thing providing the energy source pays for itself and offsets the energy that went into getting that energy. For solar we've reached that point a long time ago meaning at this point more = better regardless of how it compares to other energy sources.

Re:Why bother with installed capacity?

[fustakrakich]

Yeah, but it can only help mitigate peak demand in the daytime. Building one less coal plant won't kill anybody.

Re:Why bother with installed capacity?

[rjmnz]

I noticed you left out two other base load options.
Geothermal at >95% utilisation (usually 100%)
Hydro at 30 - 40% utilisation.

Here in NZ wind is nearer 40%
All of these numbers are well known and factored in when the economics of power generation are considered.

In practice Hydro and wind often go well together as a working pair.
Our neighbours over the ditch (Australia) have just had their government cut funding for renewables because windfarms are ugly and noisy (in favour of coal).

Re: Why bother with installed capacity?

[Anonymous Coward]

Storage. Water, air, flywheels, etc. Or batteries, if you want to make money.

Re:Why bother with installed capacity?

[MrKaos]

While a coal, nuclear or gas plant can hit utilization rates of 90 - 99%

I'm curious how you arrive at this figure. You are implying that a Nuclear reactor is utilized for 99% of its lifetime which can't be true simply because of the Availability of the plant when it is being refueled and serviced pushes that figure well below 99%.

How do you arrive at a 99% utilization rate for a Nuclear Reactor?

Re: Why bother with installed capacity?

[renergy]

The right keyword here is "capacity factor". There is a decent article about it on wikipedia. Solar power tends to have around 15%, nuclear around 80%, generally - but it varies from country to country. Basically it is a portion of time the plant is able to run at peak rated power; and since for solar the peak can be attained only around noon and without any clouds, it is so low, compared to other types of powerplants.

Re: Why bother with installed capacity?

[oobayly]

Well, there's no downtime if you use the Russian's incredibly safe RBMK design - online fueling is a doddle, just watch our for that positive void coefficient.

I think think the CANDU reactors have online fueling too, but yes 99% is nigh on impossible.

Re:Why bother with installed capacity?

[rossdee]

"Geothermal at >95% utilisation (usually 100%)"

Are they building any new geothermal installations?
Or are they still worried about reducing the flow to the geysers, or upsetting the Tangata Whenua?

"In practice Hydro and wind often go well together as a working pair."

They should put some wind turbines in the hills around WGTN

Re:Why bother with installed capacity?

[viperidaenz]

They have a wind farm in Wellington. It's called West Wind
They're also building Mill Creek which is in Wellington as well

The single turbine on Brooklyn hill is likely to be upgraded to a much larger one too.

Re:Why bother with installed capacity?

[Anonymous Coward]

coal and gas do not reach 90% utilisation rate, try maybe 40% once you account for maintenance and times when it's uneconomic to produce (e.g. at night).

Re: Why bother with installed capacity?

[Anonymous Coward]

All of which are expensive and never accounted for when promoting the "cheap" unreliable electricity they produce.

Wind and solar installations are primarily useful for harvesting subsidies, not energy. Accounting by actual energy produced, rather than the deceptive capacity metric, illustrates how pitiful a contribution these make, and at great cost. Worse yet, they never replace base load coal or natural gas.

Re:Why bother with installed capacity?

[arglebargle_xiv]

They have a wind farm in Wellington. It's called West Wind.

That's Wellington's secondary wind farm. The primary wind farm is called The Beehive.

Re:Why bother with installed capacity?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Or are they still worried about reducing the flow to the geysers, or upsetting the Tangata Whenua?

"In practice Hydro and wind often go well together as a working pair."

They should put some wind turbines in the hills around WGTN"

The former, most likely. What's your point?

Re: Why bother with installed capacity?

[matfud]

http://www.world-nuclear.org/i...

The section on improved performance is quite interesting. The US averages 81% utilisation

Re:Why bother with installed capacity?

[Anonymous Coward]

Same thing for nuke and coal and oil and gas. They too use installed capacity, since you do not know what demand will be before it is demanded.

100% of the production from solar will be used until well past 20% of total capacity being solar, we know this from other countries that HAVE passed that 20% level.

Meanwhile, why do you use "utilised rate" for nukes? They spend nearly half their time out of service for either scheduled maintenance (about 20%) or failure (another 20%), so your utilisation ignores the 40% of the time it's unavailable.

In summary, you are butthurt because you see a "lie" when all it is is a metric you don't want to use because you prefer your own "lie".

Re: Why bother with installed capacity?

[Anonymous Coward]

You never account for backup when nukes or coal go out of production (some of them for months at a time).

So you can't whine about the same backup not being accounted for with renewables with any validity of your complaint.

Since solar tracks USAGE far better than any other source of power, the fact that your fiction of "BASELOAD" isn't possible since the power production varies over the day is just a shibboleth of the anti-environmentalist crowd, who hate it not for any actual reason but because some group they loathe with passion are for it.

Baseload was a term invented to define how many large power stations that can't be changed quickly you need to start your system.

Since your baseload systems would be out of action for a while you need MORE than base load baseload. Which, since it can't be changed quickly, means you overproduce at troughs. So you dump it cheap rather than change your production which would make your energy production more expensive, losing money anyhow.

This is why France is so fucked up. They massively overproduce at night so sell at dump prices their production (eg to Germany) and have too little production for peak so have to buy from those whose production peaks during the day (eg from Germany) when the cost is much higher.

So Germany, by using much more solar power, may have a slight deficit in the MWh they produce but have a massive positive balance of payments in euros for their power.

Re:Why bother with installed capacity?

[Anonymous Coward]

"One of the hallmarks of PV solar and wind (turbine) power is that its installed capacity is so completely out of sync with its utilization rate. While a coal, nuclear or gas plant can hit utilization rates of 90 - 99%, PV solar and wind tend to fluctuate around 20-30%."

Is that you, Mr. Koch?

Re:Why bother with installed capacity?

[Anonymous Coward]

The point is that a 100MW nuclear power station is a perfectly good substitute for a 100MW coal power station. When it's mid-winter and the big game is on, and everybody is running heaters, lights and TVs and goodness knows what else, either of those plants will put out 100MW unless it's shut for maintenance. Not a problem.

But a 100MW solar station is useless as a replacement, it will produce only a fraction of the power, because "100MW" is peak, not mean or median output and the solar station produces its peak output for a few hours here and there, not regularly and certainly not on demand.

A 500MW solar station is a replacement, so long as it's coupled to a 100MW medium term energy store, just as pumped storage. But the headline power of that plant is five times as much.

So when "solar surpasses coal" that doesn't mean what it appears to, for example if you had 100 years of building the same capacity of solar as coal, you might think half the power generated would be solar, right? No. More like 10% would be solar. Only when there's 10 times as much solar as coal are you actually producing more power with solar than coal.

Not because solar is "bad", it's just _different_ and that matters.

Re: Why bother with installed capacity?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wind and solar installations are primarily useful for harvesting subsidies, not energy.

Wrong.
They may not be that useful for replacing a big powerplant, sure. But they are useful for getting some cheap extra energy. Water heated by solar works fine in Greece, where you find towns where every house has a sun-heated tank on the roof. This is not generic power, it cannot run your computer - but it is basically free hot water.

solar/wind+a battery is also a fine combo for powering installations far away from other power sources. you don't power a mountaintop telecom mast with its own nuclear or coal powerplant, especially if it only needs a few hundred watts.

Besides, coal power is not "useful". In the long run, we can't add more CO2 to the atmosphere than nature removes. Even if global warming thing turns out to be wrong or "easily fixable". We can't breathe with 1% CO2, it is that simple.

Re:Why bother with installed capacity?

[Whiteox]

Our neighbours over the ditch (Australia) have just had their government cut funding for renewables because windfarms are ugly and noisy (in favour of coal).
Someone said that there's 300 years of coal and natural gas supplies. The newer power stations are gas fired though.

Re:Why bother with installed capacity?

[Anonymous Coward]

"A 100MW wind farm is a perfectly good substitute for a 100MW coal power station. As demonstrated in Spain, Greece, Germany and the UK."

In other words, you didn't even read the previous comment you are replying to, where he clearly explains why a 100MW wind farm is NOT a "perfectly good substitute" for a 100MW coal power station. Jesus...

Re:Why bother with installed capacity?

[Mr D from 63]

Actually, he was specifically speaking to the amount of renewable electricity that would be generated, which you have to agree is the important measure, otherwise its just cheering. The solar industry will continue to tout capacity rather than actual generation because most folks don't understand the difference. Since they use it in a comparative way, it is intentionally misleading. They installed more capacity than wind in that time period, but the wind installed in that time period will generate more electricity.

Is it the 'best' way to spend our money to get carbon free electricity? That matters when you look at what needs to happen to make a real impact on a global scale. Seems like that is a question many don't like to ask.

Re:Why bother with installed capacity?

[Anonymous Coward]

No I did read them. They were assertions of false claim. You apparently didn't read my post. Or at the very least conspired to fail to understand it.

I explain why a 100MW solar farm (which is what this story is about) is a perfectly good (indeed in many ways superior) substitute for a 100MW coal power station.

Read it.

Re:Why bother with installed capacity?

[ChumpusRex2003]

It depends on the nuclear plant design, but in general a LWR nuclear plant has better load following characteristics than a coal plant (the compact core has low thermal mass compared with the large furnaces and boilers of a coal plant). Load following, however, may not be permitted under regulatory regimes (for example, in the US). The availability characteristics of a typical LWR are not much different to coal - there are longer, less frequent maintenance/refuelling periods.

A 100 MW wind farm is not a perfectly good substitute for a 100 MW coal plant. Typically the load factor for wind is in the 25-35% range, with off-shore wind being higher. However, the "firm capacity" (i.e. the capacity that can be relied upon) is poor - about 2% in the UK, whereas for coal it is about 85%.

Both wind and solar have very poor load following capacity - as they cannot automatically respond significantly to changes in grid frequency (except in the case of overfrequency), whereas most thermal plants have the capacity to automatically increase power, provided they are not at capacity, in response to a drop in grid frequency. Im Germany, this is partly mitigated by requiring that rooftop solar installations be electronically limited to 70% of their nominal capacity and/or be able to receive remote configuration updates from the utility, so that there is frequency reserve margin.

Small scale embedded generation (i.e. rooftop solar) has an additional problem which is that of grid failure detection and anti-islanding (i.e. the embedded generators must not be allowed to supply energy to the local area in the event of failure of grid connection). The problem is that grid instability is not easily discriminated from grid islanding, hence there is a tendency for a severe grid imbalance to trigger cascading disconnections of small generators, which makes the imbalance worse.... This has happened in the UK, and very nearly caused a country-wide blackout. It was only arrested when underfrequency protection started blacking out regions of the country in an attempt to reduce load on the grid.

Re:Why bother with installed capacity?

[thegarbz]

Is it the 'best' way to spend our money to get carbon free electricity? That matters when you look at what needs to happen to make a real impact on a global scale. Seems like that is a question many don't like to ask.

Actually it's a question that many have asked and determined that, yes right now it is. It allows the re-use of existing infrastructure co-located directly at the energy consumer negating transmission losses. Combine it with storage which I think everyone can agree is something that is becoming mainstream and you have a system that can take a very serious dent out of the daily energy peak and cut household electricity carbon emissions (I'm so specific here because as we all know electricity is only a small portion of our footprint).

Funny side note we just installed 35kW of solar panels on the roof of our main switchroom at work to offset our huge air-conditioning bill. The panels made the switchroom cooler by keeping the sun off the roof and covers the air-conditioning energy. The punchline: I work at a natural gas power station.

Re: Why bother with installed capacity?

[Anonymous Coward]

I love how so many people are experts on power generation and transmission (what by virtue of their amazing programming skills?) , when in reality they are totally clueless.

None of this matters, all the economics are based on net production.

Re:Why bother with installed capacity?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but a load following plant is yet more expensive than nuclear, which is the most expensive method of large scale power generation we have currently.

But it still has a worse load following pattern than the one built in to solar power.

"A 100 MW wind farm is not a perfectly good substitute for a 100 MW coal plant."

Only by definition a perfectly good substitute would only be another 100MW coal plant. Which isn't a substutution at all. Indeed in many characteristics the solar plant would be a BETTER substitute. That is definitely not perfectly matching the results of a 100MW coal plant, though.

"Typically the load factor for wind is in the 25-35% range"

Given we're talking about solar, so what?

Given that coal is somewhere around 40% to 60% for a more expensive CHP system, and less for a carbon capture coal system, and nuclear is around 60% too, again, so what? All that difference means is you have more panels installed. Or you make them solar tracking, which is more expensive. But since you can place solar panels where they won't add any more used land, the additional acreage is a nonissue: it's worse for coal or nukes since you can't put them on your roof or in your basement. Not at 100MW scale.

"Small scale embedded generation (i.e. rooftop solar) has an additional problem which is that of grid failure detection and anti-islanding"

It isn't small scale. 1,000,000 solar panels on the roofs of a city is not small. It's just not taking up any new space.

Moreover, your nuke plant has problems with grid failure detection (this caused a recent problem with a nuke plant in the USA, remember). So if it applies to all energy generation at industrial scale, it is not a problem of solar.

"hence there is a tendency for a severe grid imbalance to trigger cascading disconnections of small generators"

But since we have Spain, Greece, Germany and several other countries and states in the USA that have large solar installation but have not found any new problems with having done so. Indeed the use of renewables was blamed for the shortage when both the UK's largest coal and nuclear power stations went offline unexpectedly for long periods of time when in actual fact the presence of so much renewable meant our balance of payments was less affected than would otherwise have been the case.

It seems you make up problems and posit them as problems solar have to overcome when it's either entirely hypothetical or a feature of every generation system, therefore not a discriminating factor.

"This has happened in the UK, and very nearly caused a country-wide blackout."

No, that was due to the above mentioned fossil fuel and nuclear power station going offline taking their massive production offline, in the case of the nuclear power station, for nearly a full year.

Building a new Dungeoness isn't considered an expensive problem of nuclear power, though, despite such a thing being necessary to back up the generation of energy via nuclear reactors.

Re: Why bother with installed capacity?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just because France has too little adjustable power doesn't mean solar is somehow the saviour of energy production. Yes, it's works very well for some areas, and completely suck in some others. It's way more dependable than wind, as in you know how much the panel array will produce at any given time (no, cloud cover doesn't really affect this much). Seasons do, however, at least in some parts of the world. Where I live solar produces pretty close to 0 w / h for three months of the year. There is no way that much energy could be just stored away in summer time. (pumping water uphill would be the only way that could even come close). Solar is also 4 times more expensive that the market price for electricity(average around year, here). This is a fact, as we do have companies that actually have panels, and who sell the power produced by them to people who are willing to buy solar produced energy for a higher price. That price is not subsided by anyone as far as I know, so that's the current reality in this part of the world.

In somewhere where the sun always shines solar is a damn great option, as it's production scales exactly with the need for cooling. You still need something for the nights, but solar can easily act as adjustable power during day time. Just don't build too much of it, or you are in a situation where you have to subside the baseload power plants (because they won't turn profit if they have to compete against cheap solar at day time, but you still need them to be there for when the sun is around the world)

Re: Why bother with installed capacity?

[Anonymous Coward]

Even if global warming thing turns out to be wrong or "easily fixable". We can't breathe with 1% CO2, it is that simple.

You telling me there will be a market for fresh air? Start bottling it now?

Re: Why bother with installed capacity?

[Anonymous Coward]

How much of the power produced is used.

THAT is the only metric that they need and should have. It doesn't matter how much it could have sold. It doesn't matter why it didn't produce more. It only matters how much of the energy was used.

Well, if you count it like that the every power station is at 100%. If you want to take into account the energy that is simply burned to heat because of "over production" nuclear is still at 100%, because other energy production methods are used for the part of the load that changes. Solar can just drop production as needed, so it, too, stays at 100%. Overall the percent stays pretty close to 100%, because production always has to match load, and the system is built so that it will.

Re:Why bother with installed capacity?

[Mr D from 63]

That "yes" does include a nice $$ gift from us taxpayers though, correct?

Re:Why bother with installed capacity?

[Anonymous Coward]

The article doesn't just say "More solar is a good thing.". It says "There is more solar capacity being installed than coal capacity.". In that context, it's overwhelmingly important whether it means "These new installations of solar power will, on average, generate more electricity than these new installations of coal power." or "These new installations of solar power can, at noon on a cloudless day, generate more electricity than these new installations of coal power, but on average they'll generate about ten times less.".

The summary (deliberately?) leaves this point vague, which makes me fairly certain that the latter interpretation is correct. In which case it's seriously misleading in its representation of the current status of solar power.

None of this contradicts your assertion that more solar power is a Good Thing and, in fact, I agree on that point myself. But the summary, rather than providing useful information, is a piece of trash designed to make people think solar power is more widespread than it is, and the article isn't much better.

Re:Why bother with installed capacity?

[NotDrWho]

It also means that you need 3-5 times as much installed capacity to get near the power delivered figures for baseload power sources.

Don't worry, Elon Musk will save us all. You just have to have faith in him, follow his edicts, and do your daily Elon Musk devotion, and all these issues will be taken care of.

Re: Why bother with installed capacity?

[Anonymous Coward]

You were talking about the grandparent post, yes? Or your own?

Because all I see is an assertion here that somehow someone is not competent to know anything about energy production.

If the economics are based on net production, then solar wins fine. 100% of it will be used when it's available, and even at 30% of total generation being renewable, we haven't yet found a case where some of that generation is being wasted or shunted off at a loss.

Re:Why bother with installed capacity?

[NotDrWho]

I explain why a 100MW solar farm (which is what this story is about) is a perfectly good (indeed in many ways superior) substitute for a 100MW coal power station.

Yeah, just as long as you build it somewhere where there's 24/7 sunlight and no clouds. Non-geostationary orbit maybe?

Re:Why bother with installed capacity?

[tbannist]

Isn't Austrlia's current government essentially owned by Rupert Murdoch? I sure we can all understand that he has to make sure someone will buy the coal from his mines.

Re:Why bother with installed capacity?

[Maury Markowitz]

> It also means that you need 3-5 times as much installed capacity to get near the power delivered figures for baseload power sources.

Which is perfectly fine, when you consider it costs 3 to 5 times less to build.

http://www.lazard.com/PDF/Levelized%20Cost%20of%20Energy%20-%20Version%208.0.pdf

Wind is the cheapest form of power. Period. Solar isn't, but unlike wind it can be installed on the residential side, where it's at parity.

Re: Why bother with installed capacity?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're right, things are fine the way they are. The government should put an end to this solar energy moral travesty.

Re:Why bother with installed capacity?

[Maury Markowitz]

> scale embedded generation (i.e. rooftop solar) has an additional problem which is that of grid failure detection and anti-islanding

Really? Every grid-tie inverter, ever, has this built in.

> The problem is that grid instability is not easily discriminated from grid islanding

Yeah, this has been tested to death and it's not a problem. In one case they randomly failed an actual island, just to be safe.

Pointer to the UK issue you're referring to?

Re:Why bother with installed capacity?

[Maury Markowitz]

As opposed to the trillions received by all the other energy sources over the years?

Re: Why bother with installed capacity?

[Maury Markowitz]

> or you are in a situation where you have to subside the baseload power plants

Which is a problem why?

We subsidized their construction, and the construction of the wires to bring that power to us, so why are we complaining about subsidizing the power output - which we already do anyway?

Is the real problem here that you don't like subsidies going to big companies, or the other way around?

Re: Why bother with installed capacity?

[Anonymous Coward]

Read again: "primarily useful". The other cases cited are valid but niche uses. That's fine, but coal needs replacing on a global scale, and renewables aren't up to the task.

The only way to reduce CO2 levels is to provide clean and reliable energy cheaper than from coal. Until then, economics win and we will all be choking on pollution as the developing world rapidly scales its coal fired generation. Wishful thinking isn't going to stop them from pursing the most reliable and economical power source available, as the net benefit of that power far outweighs any possible consequences of global warming.

Moreover, the responsibility for those consequences is on us for not providing them with better options. On the "environmentalists" who endeavor to destroy the prospects of nuclear at any cost. Nuclear is the only proven option capable of displacing fossil fuels on a globally significant scale.

Re:Why bother with installed capacity?

[ChumpusRex2003]

> Really? Every grid-tie inverter, ever, has this built in.

Exactly. This is why it has been a problem. In the event of a grid disturbance, a large amount of grid-tie inverters falsely detected an island and tripped out simultaneously.

> Pointer to the UK issue you're referring to?

http://www2.nationalgrid.com/a...

Although the initiating cause was 2 large thermal plants tripping, the rapid reduction in grid frequency caused approximately 300 MW of grid-tie inverters to trip simultaneous, accelerating a grid frequency collapse event.

National grid has recommended new grid-tie inverter firmware configurations, which should be present in new inverters, but this reduces the sensitivity to true islanding, but this is now considered a lesser issue than loss of embedded generation.

Re:Why bother with installed capacity?

[Andy Dodd]

I think he's talking about nameplate capacity vs. capacity adjusted for capacity factor.

Nameplate capacity - The power the system generates at full rated capability.

Capacity factor - Actual production divided by nameplate capacity averaged over time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Nuclear stations usually have 80-90% capacity factor as do most other "baseload" plants including coal

Natural gas plants often run intentionally at lower capacity factor since they're usually built specifically for peaking. In the US, that's around 42%

PV Solar is usually only 13-20% (13-15% in MA, 19% in Arizona)

Concentrated solar power often has a lot of "inertia" in the plant along with built-in storage, so apparently CSP in California achieves a 33% capacity factor

Wind is 20-40%

Hydro varies widely since many countries intentionally overbuild nameplate capacity in order to use a hydro dam for energy storage. (I believe Norway's hydro stations operate at a pretty low capacity factor, but this is partly because Norway acts as Denmark's "battery" and is the sole reason Denmark can achieve around 20% grid penetration of wind/solar.)

So if the installations of solar nameplate capacity matched new coal nameplate capacity installations, in terms of actual contribution to the grid, solar is only contributing 20-30% of what the new coal/nuke/whatever plants are contributing. Another way of thinking about it is that you need MUCH more solar nameplate capacity along with a vast improvement in energy storage in order to match a baseload plant such as a nuclear station.

Also note that this is new installations - most gas/coal plants have already been built, and when renovated/modernized they don't count as "new".

Re:Why bother with installed capacity?

[ksheff]

Fourth, the nuke plant has long term radioactive waste problems the former doesn't.

That can be addressed by recycling the fuel, but IIRC, there are weapons treaties that complicate that. Coal use emits more radioactive material into the environment than what is used by the nuclear power industry, so I wouldn't say that it doesn't have a radioactive waste problem. It's a different problem. http://pbadupws.nrc.gov/docs/M...

Re: Why bother with installed capacity?

[Andy Dodd]

As I understand it, the US capacity factor has been improving over the years:

around 88% from 2006-2012, but only 70% averaged from 1970-2009 - http://www.nei.org/Knowledge-C... and http://www.nei.org/Knowledge-C... from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:Why bother with installed capacity?

[oh_my_080980980]

Your reading comprehension skills are piss poor. If you RTFA you would have known that the article talked about residential sales of solar increased in the 1Q this year compared to 1Q last year and that costs dropped this year compared to last year. It's standard business reporting. Moron.

Re:Why bother with installed capacity?

[Anonymous Coward]

That long term waste problem is just a regulation issue and cost; I suggest looking at the radiation released by a properly operating nuke power plant compared to a coal power plant. Tim S.

"a 100MW nuclear power station is a perfectly good substitute for a 100MW coal power station."

No it isn't.

For one, they don't have the same load following abilities. Second, they have different availability characteristics. Third, the nuke plant is far more expensive. Fourth, the nuke plant has long term radioactive waste problems the former doesn't.

A 100MW wind farm is a perfectly good substitute for a 100MW coal power station. As demonstrated in Spain, Greece, Germany and the UK.

The acreage of that 100MW plant isn't the same in all locations, but the 100MW solar likely means a better load following character that ensures less waste and less overproduction of unwanted electricity.

And the infrastructure for that coal plant would be different depending on where IT is, too.

And the last mitigation is that much of that solar could be in places where it takes up no space anyway. E.g. roofs.

Re:Why bother with installed capacity?

[catchblue22]

One of the hallmarks of PV solar and wind (turbine) power is that its installed capacity is so completely out of sync with its utilization rate. While a coal, nuclear or gas plant can hit utilization rates of 90 - 99%, PV solar and wind tend to fluctuate around 20-30%.

Did you research that yourself, or did you get it from an anti-solar propaganda site? Is it focus group tested? Are you being paid to post? Or are you just passionately opposed to free low-cost solar energy that helps us reduce the money we send to corrupt middle eastern regimes? Personally, I think it is the former.

Re:Why bother with installed capacity?

[Anonymous Coward]

Combine it with storage which I think everyone can agree is something that is becoming mainstream and you have a system that can take a very serious dent out of the daily energy peak and cut household electricity carbon emissions (I'm so specific here because as we all know electricity is only a small portion of our footprint).

Storage is certainly not becoming mainstream - ok, Tesla is starting to sell some expensive batteries, but there's really very little value in them for most people who have grid access. I've been evaluating a solar install for the roof of my office too; it's really only financially viable here in the DC area when you count the tax advantages, and even then just barely. And the solar install people dismiss the idea of storage out of hand, since it makes no financial sense.

Re:Why bother with installed capacity?

[Anonymous Coward]

The availability characteristics of a typical LWR are not much different to coal

Coal is not a destination so wouldn't "X are not much different than Y" make more sense?

Re:Why bother with installed capacity?

[Mr D from 63]

That would what is called 'dodging the question'.

To answer your question, NO. As opposed to $$ directly received by the end consumer for a particular power source. Of course if you want to talk percentages of actual cost, not other source has benefitted nearly as much. If you want to talk $$ per KWH generated in return, solar is many times above any other source wrt getting $$$$. Not even remotely close.

Re:Why bother with installed capacity?

[ArcherB]

I live in Texas. There are several months out of the year where the LOW is still above 90. Good luck sleeping through that without AC. Maybe we should put some light bulbs above our panels so we can run our AC.

Re:Why bother with installed capacity?

[blue9steel]

and you have a system that can take a very serious dent out of the daily energy peak

This is the best use of rooftop solar. It makes efficient use of our current infrastructure and actually makes the existing plants more effective. We should change building codes to require all new buildings to provide solar capacity equal to their peak usage - base load.

Re:Why bother with installed capacity?

[Uecker]

For nuclear, load-following may be technically possible to some degree, but of course it makes bad economics even worse. So nobody in their right mind would ever build a nuclear plant with the intention to not run it as much as possible, i.e. for base load (not that anybody in the western world builds nuclear plants for base load - this is also already too expensive). Also a big problem with nuclear are unplanned shut-downs which cannot be predicted.

"Both wind and solar have very poor load following capacity - as they cannot automatically respond significantly to changes in grid frequency (except in the case of overfrequency), whereas most thermal plants have the capacity to automatically increase power, provided they are not at capacity, in response to a drop in grid frequency"

I think you are confused. This is not a technical issue. Of course, solar and wind could follow load very easily if they are not run at capacity. The thing is, once you have such a plant it does not make sense to not run it a full capacity, because the marginal cost for production is close to zero. For thermal plants it makes sense to save fuel if you have a producer with less marginal cost. So it is simply an economical decision to max out the renewables when they are available and balance with other sources.

But in general, this discussion gets more ridiculous every time with people claiming that renewables cannot possible work for the some reasons (intermittency, grid stability, ...), , when they already work just fine in practice and on very large scale and all these issues turn out to be quite manageable. And still some fans present nuclear as *the solution* on slashdot over and over again, while in *the real world* nobody builds nuclear anymore because it is simply too expensive. At some point you just have to acknowledge reality.

Re:Why bother with installed capacity?

[Ice Tiger]

Am not so sure, for example does the cost for nuclear have the thousands of years of storage of radioactive waste factored into its $$ per KWH or is that picked up by the current and future generations of tax payers?

Re:Why bother with installed capacity?

[Mr D from 63]

So, you are talking nuclear specific? Just so you 't avoid conveniently all other forms?

The customers generally pay waste costs through fees added to generation payed by the plants. Costs really are not that high, particularly calculated on a per KWH generated basis. Again, nothing close to what solar is getting on those terms.

But solar subsidies are unique in that a particular group of people get part of their power bill paid by the taxpayer, and many others have little or no opportunity to do so. So general industrial infrastructure support is one thing, giving money to just certain individuals is another.

Re:Why bother with installed capacity?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hydrocarbon energy shills are going to be badmouthing solar up to the very day everyone has blue shiny roof shingles and we all have a smart decentralized and resilient power grid with lots of local, municipal, and regional storage.

And only then, because, solar will have reduced the demand for traditional energy so much that they won't be able to pay the shills anymore (just like in your example)

Their rebuttal for your example, I shit you not, is that your reduction of demand hurts their ability to build more infrastructure.. To supply demand that no longer exists.

Re:Why bother with installed capacity?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes it does, in Ontario at least. I have consistently seen and read from official Hydro sources in the media that it's 6 cents per KWH. If the world got it's act together and started using modern reactors that use the nuclear waste from older ones as the input fuel this is far far less of an issue.

Forgive me posting as anonymous, I can't remember my logon ID.

Re:Why bother with installed capacity?

[tomhath]

"These new installations of solar power can, at noon on a cloudless day, generate more electricity than these new installations of coal power...".

Which is no surprise, considering the current administration has essentially outlawed the construction of new coal plants.

Re: Why bother with installed capacity?

[matfud]

As bad as 59%.

But yes I was commenting on the current performance and it is over 80% in the US. World wide 1/4 is over 90%. But many are 70% and above.

Re:Why bother with installed capacity?

[shutdown -p now]

You didn't. You have conjured up a bunch of other points, which have nothing whatsoever to do with OP's original assertion, which is comparing things solely on the basis of how much power they can generate. This is the baseline that we need to establish before we go into which one is more polluting etc.

Re:Why bother with installed capacity?

[Anonymous Coward]

The only dumbass is the person that says "when its night...Nobody is cooking...No shops or factories are open...".

WTFAU to say what should or should not be open?

Re: Why bother with installed capacity?

[matfud]

I think you need 2 to 5% CO2 to starts causing problems for humans but that is a very long way from 500 ppm.

Still it probably not a good idea.

Re: Why bother with installed capacity?

[matfud]

Remember that many plants are old and never lived up to their expectations.
In the UK
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

They never managed the uptime or output required.
Similar in the US. They could never be run at anywhere near capacity for numerous reasons (many not related to operating them)

Re:Why bother with installed capacity?

[Areyoukiddingme]

Hydrocarbon energy shills are going to be badmouthing solar up to the very day everyone has blue shiny roof shingles and we all have a smart decentralized and resilient power grid with lots of local, municipal, and regional storage.

I dunno about you, but when I have blue shiny roof shingles and "lots of local ... storage", I'm unplugging from the grid entirely. No fees for maintaining infrastructure I don't need, no worries about EMP from either natural or man-made sources (however tiny the possibility), and eventually no more poles on my street. I don't want a smart decentralized resilient power grid. I want no more grid, at least in suburbia, where our roofs are large enough to provide over 65 kWh/day, using the conservative 5 hour/day estimate and off the shelf cell efficiencies. Once we can get our hands on cells with higher than 16% efficiency, that number only goes up.

Yes, there's going to be much whining about their inability to build more infrastructure we don't want anymore. They're going to have to start charging their industrial and commercial customers more, instead of nickel and diming millions of individuals in order to subsidize unnaturally low rates for those customers.

Re:Why bother with installed capacity?

[david_thornley]

How are MW of installed capacity counted? A windmill will produce more or less electricity depending on how hard the wind blows. If the wind isn't blowing hard, it will produce less electricity than its rated capacity. If the wind is blowing really hard, it might be necessary to shut the windmill down. So, the windmill will, on the average, produce less electricity than it would with ideal wind. If you spread out the wind farm, you might well get a situation in which it almost always produces the required 100MW, but the sum total of the maximum production is going to be higher than that 100MW, perhaps considerably higher depending on how the wind usually blows.

However, a nuclear power plant is capable of producing a given amount of electricity for years on end, without significant variation.

Re:Why bother with installed capacity?

[MachineShedFred]

Reprocessing isn't limited by weapons treaties - it's just a political hot potato because reprocessing of nuclear fuel is damn close to extracting plutonium for weapons creation. So the countries that have nuclear weapons and know how to do this aren't big on building reprocessing plants, lest they get repurposed.

The physics, though, were worked out in the 1940s during the Manhattan Project.

Re:Why bother with installed capacity?

[thegarbz]

No. The economics of it still work out regardless. The tax incentive is there because people in general are absolutely crap at planning what is happening in their lives next week let alone 5 years from now, and as a result don't invest in something that will in most parts of the world pay for itself, cut their electricity bill, and reduce their carbon footprint as well.

The tax incentive and net metering simply makes it happen in half the time.

Speaking of gifts from tax payers, thank you for paying for cleaner air and less pollution. And you're welcome for your subsidised schooling too. My gift to you.

Re:Why bother with installed capacity?

[DanielRavenNest]

> The solar industry will continue to tout capacity rather than actual generation because most folks don't understand the difference.

The solar industry reports capacity because the whole electrical industry uses that to size their wires, from transmission lines to the wiring in your house. Every electrical device you plug into the wall outlet has peak power draw listed in Watts or Amps. That's so you don't overload the circuit (typically 20 Amps or 2400 Watts). In the same way, transmission lines that carry power from plants to cities have a maximum capacity, and the grid operator has to know what peak power level each source can provide.

What you are calling "actual generation" is just "energy", or power x time. For a power plant, it's typically listed as "Peak capacity (MW) x capacity factor (%) x 8766 hours (in a year) = Energy output (MWh)". The capacity factor is the average output divided by the peak output. It varies from 90% for nuclear, to as low as 15% for solar in a bad location like Seattle (not recommended). Every power plant, without exception, has less than 100% capacity factor, although the reasons vary. A hydroelectric dam might theoretically run nearly all the time, since individual turbines can be shut for maintenance. But that does not account for weather. During a drought, there may not be enough water behind the dam to keep running at full power.

The job of a grid operator is to have enough power sources and transmissions lines to meet demand every minute of every day. That demand varies all the time: daytime vs night and weekends, seasonal cycles, weather variations. They prefer to use generating plants with the lowest operating costs first. So solar, wind, hydro, etc. that don't burn fuels are the preferred choice when available. They also prefer to use long-running plants like nuclear for "base load", the demand at the lowest point of the day, because they are slow to start and stop. "Dispatchable" plants (like Hydro), which can be turned on and off quickly are preferred to adjust supply to match demand as it varies. It's not as simple as "X is better than Y"

The grid operator also has to have enough reserve capacity for when something unexpected happens. A severe storm could knock out a bunch of demand (by downing distribution lines, or people are snowed in and don't go to work, thus businesses stay closed). A power plant can shut down unexpectedly, and other sources have to fill in. A heat wave or cold snap could drastically affect demand.

Re:Why bother with installed capacity?

[Anonymous Coward]

OK, so I see the problem: you're a redneck hick moron who thinks environmentalists are commies therefore solar power is a communist plot to destroy america.

1) Does all of Texas get its power from a 100MW coal power station? Because if not, your complaint is meaningless drivel
2) Have you considered not building crap housing? Build something substantial with high thermal inertia.
3) What a fucking pussy you are. NOWHERE have I seen in the movies of the Old West people in Texas with AC, but they all seemed to be able to sleep. Why are YOU so delicate?

Re:Why bother with installed capacity?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, because you have no right to limit only to how much power it can produce.

In which case, you can produce the same power. 100MW.

It may cost more or have more panels in Weehauken than in Austin, but it will still produce 100MW.

So if the need is only to produce 100MW, then solar power is able to do that just fine.

Re:Why bother with installed capacity?

[Anonymous Coward]

The same way it's counted for anything else.

They don't just use "maximum wind speed times energy extract efficiency" or "area of solar panel times the solar constant times energy extract efficiency".

Just because you can consider a dumb way of doing things doesn't mean that people you don't like must have done it that way.

When you get an installation, you get told what capacity you can expect in that installation. If you site your panels north then you get one figure, if you site them south facing you get a different figure. But you get that figure.

Same with coal power stations. Cheap lignite will create a different power output, and if you buy to power with lignite, you will be told you'll get so and so out of it. If you used anthracite, you get a different figure. Energy cost per unit will be higher with anthracite, but the installed capacity higher.

Re: Why bother with installed capacity?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, Exactly. Why is that wrong?

If it costs me $X to produce A Watts then it doesn't matter what its nameplate capacity is when coming to a conclusion about what is the cheaper energy generation. A system that has 90% runtime that costs 20x to produce energy than something with 10% runtime is not worth paying for, no matter that one produces less per GW nameplate capacity. All it means is producing 9x the nameplate capacity and getting the same energy for less than half the price.

Most of the southern half of the USA would have solar EXCESSIVELY CHEAP. Most of Alaska would have it very expensive. Therefore solar would be a no-brainer move in Texas (unfortunately many proud texans lack even the absence of brain, they have negative brain), but unworkable in Alaska. Still solar power, so complaining about solar power being too inefficient (in Alaska) is lying (because you didn't say just in Alaska).

Why you don't want it is because poor load following characteristics of some generation systems make their apparent efficiency in "capacity factor" worthless, since they have to either ramp up and down, killing the cost figures per watt, or produce energy that isn't wanted, dropping their demand solution efficiency. Whereas solar has poorer capacity factor, but being load following, a much better demand solution efficiency.

Re: Why bother with installed capacity?

[matfud]

Just some comments to say that nuclear power stations are no where near your 99%. 70 to 90 % depending on many factors.

The nameplate on a new reactor is 4500MW. The produced electricity 1600MW. They take many billions to build and at the moment are running many years late. I quite like them but they are not cheap.

Re:Why bother with installed capacity?

[lsatenstein]

The point is that a 100MW nuclear power station is a perfectly good substitute for a 100MW coal power station. When it's mid-winter and the big game is on, and everybody is running heaters, lights and TVs and goodness knows what else, either of those plants will put out 100MW unless it's shut for maintenance. Not a problem.

But a 100MW solar station is useless as a replacement, it will produce only a fraction of the power, because "100MW" is peak, not mean or median output and the solar station produces its peak output for a few hours here and there, not regularly and certainly not on demand.

A 500MW solar station is a replacement, so long as it's coupled to a 100MW medium term energy store, just as pumped storage. But the headline power of that plant is five times as much.

So when "solar surpasses coal" that doesn't mean what it appears to, for example if you had 100 years of building the same capacity of solar as coal, you might think half the power generated would be solar, right? No. More like 10% would be solar. Only when there's 10 times as much solar as coal are you actually producing more power with solar than coal.

Not because solar is "bad", it's just _different_ and that matters.

If my costs for hydro based electricity is $0. 077/kwh cents 7.7/kwh, should I even consider transferring some of the conventional load away with solar? I have a 4 bedroom home. Winter daylight is 7:30 to 16:14 hrs, Summer daylight 4:15am to 21:30pm

Re:Why bother with installed capacity?

[Maxo-Texas]

A trivial $$ gift compared to the gift we give every year (much less during the gulf war) providing "free" security to oil companies to protect oil fields, pipelines, and tankers. The annual ongoing subsidies dwarf solar subsidies. When you include the 2 trillion we dropped on the gulf war- it becomes obvious solar+batteries will reduce our dependency on oil. As a side benefit, it would also collapse the price of oil by surpressing demand for the most expensive oil (which sets the price for all the rest of the oil sold).

Which has the added benefit of hamstringing many facist and totalitarian governments with poor human rights records and religious extremist who use the money to commit mass murder.

Solar *isn't* the solution. Not ever. But even a small amount of reduction in demand and pollution by solar (say 10%) can make a huge difference.

Nuclear currently has the average failure rate of destroying a few hundred square miles of territory for several hundred years about once per 15 years. Nuclear is fine. Nuclear+human beings has a terrible track record. Humans do stupid things. They take risks. They cut corners. They under rate identified risks to avoid paying the full price of mitigation. It's becoming clear fukishima would have been as bad as chernobyl if the winds had been blowing the other way.

We massively subsidize all existing energy forms. And all of the new ones.

The good news is that solar costs are dropping like microchips due to subsidies creating demand. And batteries are improving about 5% per year.

Re:Why bother with installed capacity?

[Maxo-Texas]

One thing to keep in mind is that hydro dams will be much more expensive to build the next time. They currently benefit from extremely low labor costs available when many were built. Dams (as well as bridges) are aging and will require replacement.

They'll be multi billion dollar projects this time. And even adjusting for inflation, they'll probably be five to ten times as expensive this time. A lot of people died building them the last time. Life was cheap as well as labor.

Install is not a noun

[kriston]

The word "install" is not a noun.

Re:Install is not a noun

[Anonymous Coward]

Using "install" as a noun is common practice in several industries now. English is evolving all the time.

Re:Install is not a noun

[ShanghaiBill]

The word "install" is not a noun.

Any verb can be nouned.

Re:Install is not a noun

[Anonymous Coward]

Using "install" as a noun is common practice in several industries now. English is evolving all the time.

I don't understand why people need to turn "install" into a noun when "installation" serves the same exact purpose.
People need to stop repurposing or making up words when we have perfectly fine words to choose from already.

Re:Install is not a noun

[LMariachi]

More to the point, even if it were a noun, that headline is word salad.

Re: Install is not a noun

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do people say "cell" when they mean cellphone? Or why do they say "phone" when they mean telephone?
As words enter everyday speech they will get shortened, and sometimes overlap with existing words. Live with it.

Re:Install is not a noun

[GNious]

The word "install" is not a noun.

Any verb can be nouned.

Stop verbing nouns!

Re: Install is not a noun

[oobayly]

This is all perfectly cromulent grammar.

Re:Install is not a noun

[famebait]

But that's not an apply of nouning.

Re:Install is not a noun

[Anonymous Coward]

"English is evolving all the time" = "Stupid, thick idiots who can't remember simple words like 'installation' MISUSE words and then they become 'the norm' because of thick idiots"...

Are you one of them, perchance?

Re:Install is not a noun

[Livius]

They are not the same. "Installation" can be an action, and abstract category, or a result. "Instal" can only refer to an action. "Install" is spelled wrong.

Re:Install is not a noun

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah. I see you used the term "Perchance". See, once upon a time, that was a French phrase, "par cheance". But some stupid thick idiots couldn't get a simple two words of French right, so as the term was appropriated onto English, the words were mis-spelled and concatenated to form a new word. So I guess you must be thankful to those "idiots" for enriching your vocabulary.

Re:Install is not a noun

[NotDrWho]

"English is evolving all the time" = "Stupid, thick idiots who can't remember simple words like 'installation' MISUSE words and then they become 'the norm' because of thick idiots"...

So are you saying that English DOESN'T evolve? Because that's going to make it really hard on future generations, who won't have any words or phrases for anything created or changed after 2015.

Re:Install is not a noun

[Anonymous Coward]

Verbing weirds English.

Re:Install is not a noun

[dave420]

Like those muppets who use "connect" instead of "connection". Ugh. I know languages evolve, but if we are just going to conflate words, we're going to lose a lot of the awesomeness of English. We'll end up with one word, which will probably have its roots in the word "booty" or "pie", depending on which side of the Atlantic gets started first :-P

Re:Install is not a noun

[idji]

Any noun can also be verbed or anyed.

Re: Install is not a noun

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't Cromulent a planet in Star Wars?

Re:Install is not a noun

[Anonymous Coward]

If verbs cannot be nouned, only outlaws will noun verbs!

Re:Install is not a noun

[shutdown -p now]

Nouning the verbs (and vice versa) is part of what makes English awesome, actually. It's virtually always clear from context which one is which (esp. as English has articles to help disambiguate), and it allows for a lot of flexibility.

Solar Power Capacity Installs Surpasses Coal

[Anonymous Coward]

So what?

A 21st century economy doesn't need part time power.

Go Solar, it can make good financial sense.

[Calibax]

I installed 48 panels on my roof back in 2003 which generate up to 8.8 kW DC (7.5 kW AC). The installation generates 10,500 to 12,000 kWh per year depending on the weather. The total cost was $65,000 which after subsidies and tax breaks dropped to $31,000 - which is roughly the same as my installation would cost today before any subsidies. Since installation I've had to cover the meter rental (currently 16.3 cents per day) but I've had no other utility costs and no maintenance costs.

In the year before I installed solar, electricity cost me a tad under $3,000. Utility costs have increased considerably since then, so I've more than covered the cost of the installation. And I should have another 20 years of life in the panels. Perhaps more.

If you plan to stay in your house for 10 years or more, it may make good financial sense to consider solar. Based on my experience, it's certainly worth considering.

Re: Go Solar, it can make good financial sense.

[Anonymous Coward]

Your air doesn't look like China's. You're coming out ahead.

Re: Go Solar, it can make good financial sense.

[Anonymous Coward]

He already has paid us back by helping to jump start an industry where you
can get your own panels for cheap these days and by not spewing pollution
that you have to breathe.

Re:Go Solar, it can make good financial sense.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm always astonished at the high price of solar power in the USA. Here in Perth, Australia a 5KW system can be had (fully installed, no rebates or other breaks needed) for $5k AU (which is under $4k US). You can get a German (Bosch) 4.4KW system in the $7k AUD range.

Why is is so expensive in the USA?

Re:Go Solar, it can make good financial sense.

[Anonymous Coward]

the subsidies act as a loss leader to jump start the economy of scale.
this is basically Germany's reasoning, being closer to energy independence
and not fucking over the rest of the planet with externalized waste is just
a bonus.

get your projected head out of you ass, say what you want about them but
they are not selfish. most of what the greenies push is by definition "for
the planet" not for themselves.

Re: Go Solar, it can make good financial sense.

[someone1234]

Probably you could have done the same, you missed an opportunity.

Re:Go Solar, it can make good financial sense.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm always astonished at the high price of solar power in the USA. Here in Perth, Australia a 5KW system can be had (fully installed, no rebates or other breaks needed) for $5k AU (which is under $4k US). You can get a German (Bosch) 4.4KW system in the $7k AUD range.

Why is is so expensive in the USA?

Can you provide a link to a vendor's website that has those prices?
Even with shipping that would be a good deal for us US-aliens

Re:Go Solar, it can make good financial sense.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is it that if a corporation like GE or Microsoft takes advantage of the government subsidies or tax structures it's smart business, if a politician who ardently complains about spending taxpayer money takes federal campaign money he's just taking his fair share, but if a homeowner utilizes a government subsidy he's a selfish prick who's bad at math?

Do you quibble with Wall Street over earnings reports as well, because they're all bad at math? Or do you only whinge about people who you think don't support your political viewpoint? Seriously, what's your problem?

Re:Go Solar, it can make good financial sense.

[Rockoon]

I'm always astonished at the high price of solar power in the USA.

Why? Its basic economics.

If you think $5K is a good deal, you wont mind that its actually $10K so long as the other $5K isnt your own money. It doesnt matter that the extra $5K is actually going to be borrowed by the government, a debt that will have to be services by your children, and their children, and their children, and their children....

It would take a customer with principles to refuse to make the deal. We have seen that this customer in particular does not have principles since he claimed that his installation has already paid for itself, when in reality it isn't even half way there yet (using his own numbers) and in actuality can never pay for itself (since his great great great grandchildren will stil be paying interest on it, long after his panels are garbage.)

Re: Go Solar, it can make good financial sense.

[Maxo-Texas]

Providing a court system... stealing from other for personal gain using government force.
Providing a police system... stealing from other for personal gain using government force.
Building a road system... stealing from other for personal gain using government force.
Building tanks...stealing from other for personal gain using government force.
Building tanks and parking them immediately in the desert with no intention of using them...stealing from other for personal gain using government force.

My point... your point is not really as strong as you think it is.

You had a say in the matter. It was every election in an even numbered year since you started voting. I don't like a lot of stuff the government does using money it takes from me. But I live in a democracy, not a dictatorship of me.

Re:Go Solar, it can make good financial sense.

[niftydude]

I'm always astonished at the high price of solar power in the USA. Here in Perth, Australia a 5KW system can be had (fully installed, no rebates or other breaks needed) for $5k AU (which is under $4k US). You can get a German (Bosch) 4.4KW system in the $7k AUD range.

Why is is so expensive in the USA?

Can you provide a link to a vendor's website that has those prices? Even with shipping that would be a good deal for us US-aliens

Here: https://perthsolarwarehouse.co...

Re:Go Solar, it can make good financial sense.

[notequinoxe]

Probably as to discourage the use, Big Oil is more than a little uncomfortable on the subject, using all the rhetoric about subsidies you've seen above, that some people seem to buy into with rather ease.

Re: Go Solar, it can make good financial sense.

[Maxo-Texas]

Libertarians engage in magical thinking that somehow the wealthy and powerful to not step on everyone, take everything from everyone, and destroy everyone else. It's not a practical system of government. It never has been. It's an interesting small element of a successful government but it's impractical and really immature wishful thinking.

Your statement that the money was "stolen" by use of government force is incorrect, self centered, and shallow.

You voted for representatives. A majority of representatives voted for a policy and the executive officers of several states and the national government approved those policies. You don't get a veto. It was- by definition- legal and fair.

The rest of your statement is a pointless insult that shows little thought and isn't worth engaging.

Re: Go Solar, it can make good financial sense.

[Anonymous Coward]

Interesting that you're so certain his nth-great-grandchildren will be paying for it.

Here, where I live, many government buildings use power. Seems as if the subsidies, by removing 30 years' worth of the poster's demand for energy, might result in the power used by these buildings being cheaper. You know, by that supply-and-demand-curve thingy that you're probably likely to spout at any other opportunity.

Besides which, a significant portion of the subsidy is likely to have been paid by the power companies themselves. So, you know, the corporation's nth-great-grandshares don't have to pay interest on the bonds that would have funded another power plant.

It occurs to me to wonder, too, if the increased demand for solar panels brought about by the subsidy may have led to some manufacturing jobs in the jurisdiction- but then, I guess you'd be against job training programs or other social safety net stuff, so you'd probably be unwilling to count that as savings to the government

Re: Go Solar, it can make good financial sense.

[Rockoon]

Libertarians engage in magical thinking that somehow the wealthy and powerful to not step on everyone, take everything from everyone, and destroy everyone else.

Yep. I nailed it. You just wanted to rant against libertarians where none were even mentioned. And even now all you are doing is parroting.

Your statement that the money was "stolen" by use of government force is incorrect, self centered, and shallow.

Taken from poor people to give to a middle class person for the purpose of benefiting only that middle class person is theft.

Self-centered is ranting about libertarians while doing it.

Re: Go Solar, it can make good financial sense.

[danielzip53]

If he feeds back into the Grid... you're welcome!

Re:Go Solar, it can make good financial sense.

[Anonymous Coward]

Oil industry gets bigger subsidies than any "green" industry. Dont waste my time.

Re:Go Solar, it can make good financial sense.

[Anonymous Coward]

and when will you pay back the significantly larger subsidies for your gasoline ?

Re:Go Solar, it can make good financial sense.

[Anonymous Coward]

http://cleantechnica.com/2011/06/20/wind-power-subsidies-dont-compare-to-fossil-fuel-nuclear-subsidies/

Re: Go Solar, it can make good financial sense.

[Rockoon]

Interesting that you're so certain his nth-great-grandchildren will be paying for it.

Why? Americans are still paying interest on the debt accrued for the civil war. Thats 150 years and counting now, commonly accepted to be 6 generations. The Federal government was almost debt-free before the war, and hasnt been almost debt free ever since.

If the other 115 million homes in the country each also got a "free" $34000 in money for the same purpose ... the government would have to borrow 3.9 TRILLION dollars (about 25% of the current federal debt) .. luckily so far out great great great grandchildren only have to pay for a few greedy selfish fucks.

Re:Go Solar, it can make good financial sense.

[AmiMoJo]

It doesnt matter that the extra $5K is actually going to be borrowed by the government, a debt that will have to be services by your children, and their children, and their children, and their children....

The alternative is to do nothing, and break the planet so badly that our children's children find their homes under water and there isn't enough food for them to eat. But hay, at least there is no debt...

It's the much lesser of two evils. By subsidising solar to increase the pace of development and installation we are heading off a worse disaster than a relatively small amount of government debt in the future. A tax payer with principals would realize that sometimes things need to be done for the long term greater good.

Re: Go Solar, it can make good financial sense.

[thegarbz]

Did you learn to use those words at a taxpayer funded school, or are you under the delusion that you don't benefit in any way from other people's taxes?

Re: Go Solar, it can make good financial sense.

[Ice Tiger]

Libertarians engage in magical thinking that somehow the wealthy and powerful to not step on everyone, take everything from everyone, and destroy everyone else.

Yep. I nailed it. You just wanted to rant against libertarians where none were even mentioned. And even now all you are doing is parroting.

Assuming that I am not ranting against libertarians how would refute the argument presented when history would indicate otherwise?

Re:Go Solar, it can make good financial sense.

[DerekLyons]

Based on my experience, it's certainly worth considering.

Well... not knowing where you live, or pretty much any other salient facts (such as the costs of the battery package and the measures you've taken to reduce consumption such that you "have no other utility costs")... your anecdata is pretty much useless. Nice cheerleading, but useless.

Re:Go Solar, it can make good financial sense.

[Barsteward]

well... lets check the maths. He said he was paying $3000 per year before installing, so in 22 years it would start paying for itself if the unit price he was paying remained the same as in 2003 but as we know that unit price would have gone up in 12 years so it would probably be less than 22 years. But as he got subsidies of over $30000, he's probably already getting a return after 10 years. The panels appear to have a estimated 25 year life time.

"Oil industry gets bigger subsidies than any "green" industry." - its a valid comment because if they didn't receive so much subsidy then you'd be paying a lot more your for fossil fuel power generation, you also have to work out just how many decades fossil fuel has been subsidised compared to the one decade solar has been subsidised.

Re: Go Solar, it can make good financial sense.

[Barsteward]

When you start paying us back for the taxes spent subsidising your fossil fuel usage.

Re:Go Solar, it can make good financial sense.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Interesting perspective. When other people pay over 50% for your stuff (they paid $34000, you paid $31000), you dont bother counting that."

Do you know how many billions the coal and nuke industry gets? This is peanuts.

Re:Go Solar, it can make good financial sense.

[Barsteward]

You must have a real dilemma when you fill up your vehicle with gas...

Re: Go Solar, it can make good financial sense.

[Barsteward]

you could remove all the fossil fuel subsidies and give a small part of it to the solar sector to vcover those subsidies and bank the rest

Re:Go Solar, it can make good financial sense.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like you are selling oil?

Currently, the whole economy would collapse without oil.

And that means the best idea would be to burn as much oli as we can.

Re: Go Solar, it can make good financial sense.

[drinkypoo]

But I live in a democracy,

Keep telling yourself that. Your corporate masters love you for it. You're precisely the kind of useful idiot they can really use.

Re: Go Solar, it can make good financial sense.

[Anonymous Coward]

People like Rockoon can't conceive of the possibility that debt is a good idea. For a person, a family, a business, or a country. They just can't imagine any investment that pays off. So therefore it could never make sense to borrow money to make that investment, because you're losing out.

Whereas the people running a country soon see that there are an amazing number of opportunities for investments that pay off. For example if you borrow $5M now to train some people to do X, and pay back $10M for the loan, but the ability to do X means you earn $12M you are now $2M up on the deal AND you keep these people who can do X which is awesome.

Why would it matter that we roll over debt from 150, or even 500 years ago? The length of time doesn't matter at all. Either the debt was a good investment, or it wasn't, countries, unlike people, don't get old and have to retire and stop earning, they can pay interest on a good loan forever.

Suppose Bank A offered you a loan up to $100k at 1% annual interest, guaranteed for five years. And meanwhile Bank B has an investment scheme, pays nothing until five years, then it pays 15%.

A smart person borrows that $100k, sets aside a little to make those annual interest payments, and puts the rest in the Bank B investment scheme.

Now, after five years, Bank A and Bank B both tell you they're happy to roll over their schemes.

A smart person would say Yes! in a shot. Because the combination was good last time, it's just as good this time. But Rockoon says "No" because he doesn't like to roll over loans. It's bad to have the same money owed for 150 years, even if doing that is producing incredible wealth, he's against it.

Re: Go Solar, it can make good financial sense.

[Anonymous Coward]

Now when do you plan on paying me and everyone else back?

He did. By installing the solar panels, as requested, which your representatives determined would provide a net benefit to society greater than the tax costs.

You're welcome.

Re:Go Solar, it can make good financial sense.

[tburkhol]

You must have a real dilemma when you fill up your vehicle with gas...

You're mistaken: Rockoon is so principled, he never uses any subsidized product. He obviously doesn't own a car, as the automotive industry itself has been bailed out far too often. Public transit is right out, obviously, He can't even bike, because the rubber subsidy means no tires. So, Rockoon walks everywhere on pure leather shoes, bought only from chain stores with over 1000 employees to avoid "small business" subsidies. He rents a house rather than accept the government subsidy on a mortgage. Even there, he has to sit in the dark to avoid subsidies on all forms of electrical generation. He eats no sugar, corn, wheat or dairy. He is fortunate to be able to wear wool clothes these days, because the cotton subsidy means no BVDs. But it's all worth it, to avoid selfishly taking money from other taxpayers.

Really, when you think about it, it's easy to understand why he's such an angry guy. If you spent your days in woolen underwear, you'd be a little irritable, too.

Re: Go Solar, it can make good financial sense.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why? Americans are still paying interest on the debt accrued for the civil war. Thats 150 years and counting now, commonly accepted to be 6 generations. The Federal government was almost debt-free before the war, and hasnt been almost debt free ever since.

Wow, you need to stop reading silly tracts of no-particular validity. All of the Civil War issued bonds are paid off, and have been long ago. Even the World War I nonsense was debunked.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2013/oct/23/andrew-napolitano/fox-news-andrew-napolitiano-says-us-still-paying-i/

If the other 115 million homes in the country each also got a "free" $34000 in money for the same purpose ... the government would have to borrow 3.9 TRILLION dollars (about 25% of the current federal debt) .. luckily so far out great great great grandchildren only have to pay for a few greedy selfish fucks.

Well, leaving aside the lack of sufficient solar panel production to do that in one fell swoop, so you'd spread it over years, that would be replacing several hundreds, if not thousands of power stations, decreasing pollution, thereby reducing pollution costs including health care expenses, it would also cut the expenses paid for feeding utilities, which is quite a considerable figure, so maybe the net gain would be worth it.

Let's say the average home spends 3,000$ on electric bills each year. Times 115 million. That's over 300 billion alone. 30+ years of that, how much would this massive solar program benefit America? For how long?

Ah, but you, you just go "It's money being spent, grr, grr, grr, I hate it, I hate it, I hate it!" without considering the gains.

Re:Go Solar, it can make good financial sense.

[Livius]

Do you quibble with Wall Street over earnings reports as well, because they're all bad at math?

Yes, I do.

Though I would use the word 'dishonest' rather than 'bad'.

Re: Go Solar, it can make good financial sense.

[guruevi]

Your utility company is still charging you the same amount, regardless whether or not he puts stuff back in the grid.

Re:Go Solar, it can make good financial sense.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you plan to stay in your house for 10 years or more, it may make good financial sense to consider solar. Based on my experience, it's certainly worth considering.

Mod parent up. I installed a geothermal system when we purchased our home. Calculated an ROI of 7 years and we plan to live in this home for 30+ years. There are additional fringe benefits of geothermal ... 74F/23C on the thermostat all summer with hardly any additional costs is nice.

Solar at 100% coverage we are still waiting on ... for the size of the system we need the ROI - even with the tax breaks - is about 15 years. We'd rather put the money to other uses at this point.

Re: Go Solar, it can make good financial sense.

[Anonymous Coward]

poor baby got his feelings hurt over ideology :(

Re:Go Solar, it can make good financial sense.

[Anonymous Coward]

Beyond the climate change argument there's also the opportunity to stop giving money to people who hate us and are, indirectly or otherwise, funding regimes we find abhorrent at best and who are actively working to hurt us. All those bombs and bullets flying around the middle east.. that our money that's funding that fuck up the same way every line of coke is paying for a bullet somewhere down in Mexico.

Re:Go Solar, it can make good financial sense.

[NotDrWho]

I installed 48 panels on my roof back in 2003 which generate up to 8.8 kW DC (7.5 kW AC). The installation generates 10,500 to 12,000 kWh per year depending on the weather. The total cost was $65,000 which after subsidies and tax breaks dropped to $31,000 - which is roughly the same as my installation would cost today before any subsidies. Since installation I've had to cover the meter rental (currently 16.3 cents per day) but I've had no other utility costs and no maintenance costs.

In the year before I installed solar, electricity cost me a tad under $3,000. Utility costs have increased considerably since then, so I've more than covered the cost of the installation. And I should have another 20 years of life in the panels. Perhaps more.

If you plan to stay in your house for 10 years or more, it may make good financial sense to consider solar. Based on my experience, it's certainly worth considering.

I'm curious, since there aren't that many people who've had solar for this long. Has the system required any maintenance in those 12 years? New inverter or anything like that? I'm thinking about solar too, but I want to be able to factor in maintenance costs as well. And I'm skeptical of the assumption that you just install the panels on your roof and forget about them for 30+ years. Even my ROOF isn't slated to last that long.

Re:Go Solar, it can make good financial sense.

[AntronArgaiv]

Power companies say solar is not constant and therefore not as useful to them as gas and coal generation plants.

But solar is perfect for handling the additional load from air conditioning, something that annually has caused power shortages here in the Northeast.

Re: Go Solar, it can make good financial sense.

[dywolf]

the person who brought up Libertarians was you.

Re: Go Solar, it can make good financial sense.

[dywolf]

Why? Americans are still paying interest on the debt accrued for the civil war.

Nope

If the other 115 million homes in the country each also got a "free" $34000 in money for the same purpose ... the government would have to borrow 3.9 TRILLION dollars (about 25% of the current federal debt) .. luckily so far out great great great grandchildren only have to pay for a few greedy selfish fucks.

You appear to have no idea precisely how large the economy is, or how such a thing would be spaced out over time. Nor do you seem aware of the other savings that would result from such an expenditure. You're simply looking at one number out of context and without any other background, and then based on that ignorance saying "no". The health savings alone from eliminating a tremendous amount of fossil fuel use would more than compensate.

So once again, you prove your ignorant and or shill nature.

Re: Go Solar, it can make good financial sense.

[dywolf]

note that claims about WWI, Civil War, and Revolutionary War debt all basically get the same refutation. the war used changes, but the reasoning is the same yet rooted in the same ignorance. thus the refutation is the same.

Re: Go Solar, it can make good financial sense.

[Anonymous Coward]

>Americans are still paying interest on the debt accrued for the civil war.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2013/oct/23/andrew-napolitano/fox-news-andrew-napolitiano-says-us-still-paying-i/

Re:Go Solar, it can make good financial sense.

[Anonymous Coward]

So two wrongs make a right?

Re:Go Solar, it can make good financial sense.

[Anonymous Coward]

Except that almost no electricity is generated by oil. Coal and natural gas are the fossil fuel sources used for electricity generation and you can't pin any appreciable foreign policy costs on them.

Re:Go Solar, it can make good financial sense.

[Anonymous Coward]

That assumes that the cost of money for the installation is $0. It isn't. The opportunity cost of his install is such that it isn't economical.

Re:Go Solar, it can make good financial sense.

[King_TJ]

I have a similar sized PV solar system myself, purchased for about the same price you quote as today's "unsubsidized price". (Well, maybe $32K, but pretty close.) I just got it online in the middle of December of 2014.

In my case, we still qualified for about $9,000 in Federal subsidies, although these are given back as tax credits at tax time, and last year I wasn't able to collect more than about $6,000 of that total. The other $3,000 will get put onto next year's tax refund.

Our house is over 100 years old and a 2 story with a total of 4 bedrooms. With a family of 6, and both my wife and I working in computers and I.T. for a living, our power usage is far more than what the panels generate for us. At the current utility prices out here, I estimate that in sunny months like May, June and July, the panels generate a little over $100/month in electricity for us. But the two heat pumps that run the upstairs and downstairs run quite a bit in the hot summer months too, leaving us with $400+ electric bills.

So in our case, it's pretty hard to really "feel" the savings the panels are supposed to be giving us, tax credits or not.... I still think it was probably a good investment, all in all. But at the end of the day, I still tell everyone PV solar amounts to a bit of a gamble. It's more like picking a few stocks to invest in and hoping you get the return you project than a "sure bet".

I mean, will the fact your house has panels already on it help your resale value enough to make the whole thing a net positive return on investment? It could, even if the electricity savings never really amounted to much for a person. Can anyone say for certain what electric rates will be in 10 years? Most inverters on PV solar systems have warranties far shorter than the panels themselves and they're costly to replace. How often do you think you'll need to do that "out of pocket" over the life of a system and what do you think one will cost down the road? Too many variables for any of this to have solid, certain numbers.....

Re:Go Solar, it can make good financial sense.

[dave420]

An even more interesting perspective is people like you who don't understand subsidies, yet scream about them as if they do. Oh hubris, you have another!

Re:Go Solar, it can make good financial sense.

[dave420]

Your scientific ignorance is only shadowed by your hubris. You know so little, yet are convinced you know so much. It must be hell to be you.

Re:Go Solar, it can make good financial sense.

[MerlynEmrys67]

I keep hearing this "Big Oil Subsidies", I also keep hearing about the billions of dollars the oil industry pays to lease land to extract oil, and the permitting/protest process they go through that looses money as well.

Can someone quantify what subsidies they get?

Is it simply a tax deduction for R&D that everyone gets?

Is it the fact that they extract 1B in oil value, but only pay 1/2 Billion in leases (In otherwords they make a profit instead of the government)

What are these subsidies i keep hearing about

Re:Go Solar, it can make good financial sense.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wouldn't it make more sense to just end the spagetti of subsidies? It's just robbing Peter to pay Paul to pay Sally to pay Peter again. Why not cut out all the bullshit and the book keeping? Wouldn't that save money by not paying all the bean counters to keep track of it all?

Re: Go Solar, it can make good financial sense.

[dave420]

So much fail. No wonder you're so confused about the world - you seem to believe some demonstrably-false notions.

Re:Go Solar, it can make good financial sense.

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you in Europe? By my rough calculations, if you are replacing $3000 of electricity annually with 12,000kWh from your panels, your old electricity rate was $.25/kWh. Most of the US rates I'm familiar with are in the $.08-.15 range today, yet you say utility costs have increased considerably since then. Hell, I am getting 100% wind power for $.11 right now.

I remember having a discussion with a friend in France 6 years ago; I couldn't figure out why he was so sure it made sense for him to do an install when I had been looking into it in the US & concluded it wasn't economically viable. Then he explained that the local utility would guarantee him .25 Euro per kWh and it all became clear.

Re:Go Solar, it can make good financial sense.

[Anonymous Coward]

It sounds like you haven't run the numbers in detail yourself and are just using your intuition which can be a deceiving thing to rely on if you're not used to making long-term financial plans. I think you are exaggerating the uncertainties - inverters come with warranties and you can budget with replacements. The only big thing I can see you're betting on is that the the price of power won't fall.

The fact that your wife and you work in computers shouldn't really matter terribly much. A modern computer won't use more than 100-200 W with the monitor on, unless you're running a gaming rig.

Still, your numbers seem high to me. Maybe it would make sense for you to invest in insulation. And/or more efficient heat pumps.

Re: Go Solar, it can make good financial sense.

[Maxo-Texas]

Actually not. I have libertarian elements and was a libertarian for over a decade when I was young. I don't dislike libertarians per se.

I just recognized that some libertarian policies are illogical. The biggest being that most of the little people really need a strong government to protect them from powerful corporations and powerful people. No one else will. And even a strong government can only protect them until it is captured by the wealthy and the powerful. I.e. we need more poor congresspeople and senators to protect most of us. Instead we have a bunch of very wealthy people who lack empathy for most of the citizens. As the other poster said-- you are the one who brought libertarians into the conversation and I was responding to your post.

Now on your last point, we may have a strong point of agreement. When you include state and local taxes, the tax system is regressive. We take a much higher rate of state and local taxes from low income people than middle income people and a higher rate on middle income than on high income and a higher rate on high income than on the wealthy.

The details can be found in "Who Pays, a distributional analysis" and it varies by states with some states being more fair than others but on average the poor pay about 10% of their total income in taxes while the upper income pay about 2% and the wealthy typically pay 1% (even less in some states).

When you include social security premiums (which are essentially but not legally a tax), the total tax rate on the low income approaches 40%, on the middle income is a little over 50%, on high income is about 40%, and on the wealthy is about 18%.

Despite this, the wealthy pay most of the taxes.. because they have MOST of the wealth and income.

Why is this so? Because people keep voting for parties who openly say the wealthy is their base and the bottom 50% are all leeches and losers. There are some valid reasons for this-- abortion is a single issue vote for many people. And then you have irrational thinking like the unemployed 59 year old who was railing on talk radio against safety nets when per his own words, he was going to lose everything and be homeless in the next couple months. Why would a person be so against their self interest? Why would a person be so against protection from age discrimination?

I still disagree that it's theft. That's like saying copying copyrighted material is theft. It's not. It's copyright infringement. Electing representatives who pass laws about collecting and distributing taxes to pay for policies and programs they promulgated is not theft.

And, you really need to be more aware of how much government spending really goes to helping the lower income. It's amazingly tiny if you exclude the elderly and military veterans. Spending on the military (of which 10 to 20% goes straight to the wealthy's bottom line) is tremendous and corporate welfare amount to billions or even trillions of dollars (if you include paying for a war to protect the interest of the large oil companies).

You seem very passionate so I take it that you are young. I recommend you go back and study what our budgets are actually spent on and who benefits (it's almost always the top 1% with table scraps dribbling down to the rest). Then think about how a libertarian government is actually supposed to function while assuming worst intent by the powerful. I hope you will see it is in your strong interest to have a strong government to protect you from abuse.

And if you look at the budget figures you will see that social services spending is teeny. With oncoming roboticization and automation, we are going to need a strong safety net (perhaps even a basic income) because we have a paradigm shift coming that will make the luddite thing looks like a drop in a bucket. Even the chinese at current income levels are already being replaced by robots.

Re:Go Solar, it can make good financial sense.

[Straif]

In fact according to the CBO, renewable energy receives quite a lot more in federal subsidies than oil and gas: $3.2 billion for oil and gas (+ $500 million in non-subsidy expenditures) compared to $7.3 billion for renewables (+ $1.7 billion in non-subsidy expenditures).

There are other general subsidies they both take part in but those are not specific to their industries and are just the normal accounting tricks most manufacturing industries use to spread out their costs over time.

Re:Go Solar, it can make good financial sense.

[Straif]

According to the CBO $3.7 billion for oil and gas vs $9 billion for renewable energy. This includes both direct subsidies and other federal investments.

Any other questions you don't really want to know the answers to?

Re: Go Solar, it can make good financial sense.

[Straif]

Renewable energy already receives more than double the subsidies received by oil and gas.

Re:Go Solar, it can make good financial sense.

[riverat1]

I foresee years of frustration for you as anthropogenic global warming continues to worsen despite your rejection of it. Maybe you'll eventually come around to the warmist side because the physical evidence piles up to the point where even you can't ignore it but I'm not holding out hope.

Re:Go Solar, it can make good financial sense.

[Straif]

Renewable energy in the US is already subsidized at more than double the amount of oil and gas. Green does not mean cheap.

Re:Go Solar, it can make good financial sense.

[Calibax]

There have been zero maintenance costs. Except that I do hose down the panels once a year, so there's the cost of the water and an hour of my time. It's likely that the inverters that convert the DC from the panels to AC for the house will be the first components to fail. Fortunately the cost of these items has dropped significantly in the 12 years since they current ones were installed, and I would only need one today compared to the three I have installed now. This change alone would drop the installation cost by over $10,000.

I have a metal tile roof that should last the lifetime of the house. If you have a shingle or composite roof that will be a limiting factor. On the other hand, installing on a metal tile roof is more expensive because the metal tiles have to be drilled to fasten the rails that hold the solar panels to the rafters, and flashing has to be installed around each hole to prevent water getting in. That was four days work for a specialist roofing company which bumped the cost by $9,000.

Re:Go Solar, it can make good financial sense.

[Anonymous Coward]

The numbers are irrelevant. The fact that a mature industry gets any subsidies at all is the problem. The whole point of subsidies is to incentivize and encourage something the government has decided is beneficial to the public. Why do we need to give $3.2B to an industry that pulls in that much in a day? That money would do a hell of a lot more good in an emerging market proven to help the environment, stabilize the energy economy and would allow us to stop caring (i.e. wasting $Trillions) about the middle east.

Re:Go Solar, it can make good financial sense.

[Zalbik]

That assumes that the cost of money for the installation is $0. It isn't. The opportunity cost of his install is such that it isn't economical.

Only if you assume the cost of money for his electricity is also $0.

If you assume 6% ROI and a 2% inflation rate, his break even point is at around 12 years.

At somewhere around 12% return he never breaks even.

The above assumes that electricity prices and solar panels both increase in price commensurate with inflation. This is likely not the case.

Re:Go Solar, it can make good financial sense.

[MattskEE]

The above article points out that the cost is now $3.46 per installed watt, he installed 8.8kW, so today the same installation would cost around $30.4k (his out of pocket cost 10 years ago).

In other words the subsidies accomplished their precise goal of helping to jump start a solar panel and solar installation industry which now gives a payback time in the above case of about 10 years.

Re:Go Solar, it can make good financial sense.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi. I'm a random computer nerd. I don't really get caught up in shit like this, and really don't give much of a fuck about the climate. I like to drink beer and fuck. Call me self-centered, but the climate is really not something that's on my mind.

That being said, to me, you come across as delusional. When you talk of "scientists manipulating data left and right", I mean, come on. Are you really that far gone? In science, as in literally every other human endeavor, you will find graft, corruption, wrongdoing of all sorts. Yet, much like in other human endeavors, this is generally the exception more than the norm. Your allegation amounts to a claim that basically every climate researcher is part of some grand cabal trying to scare people into being more environmentally-conscious, not for personal gain, but for no reason in particular. And furthermore, than among all of these countless researchers, nobody has spilled the beans. That not one of them has been corrupted by the drive for personal glory and revealed this conspiracy of unprecedented scale. Do you not understand how inexplicable and absurd that sounds to people?

Also, brief aside: no sane person uses the initialism "MSM". It outs you as one of those crazy fucks that were freaking out about how the jews did 9/11 or hillary executed state department employees in libya.

Re:Go Solar, it can make good financial sense.

[Anonymous Coward]

Power companies say solar is not constant and therefore not as useful to them as gas and coal generation plants.

But solar is perfect for handling the additional load from air conditioning, something that annually has caused power shortages here in the Northeast.

I see this comment frequently about solar being perfect for handling the load from AC. I have solar panels facing South. My peak production occurs at about 12:30PM daily. My peak AC load occurs about 4 hours later, maybe even after the sun has moved too far North and reduced panel production.

Re:Go Solar, it can make good financial sense.

[Whorhay]

It definitely sounds like there is a lot of room for improvement through insulation and such. I live in the deep south. My house has single pane, aluminum windows that don't even seal properly. I can feel heat radiating off of specific walls in the afternoon. And I know a few spots where I can feel outside air drafting into the house at a rather high rate. Even with all that my electric bill doesn't go much past $250 in the summer. And I leave my gaming PC running 24/7 and play constantly when I'm not at work.

Re:Go Solar, it can make good financial sense.

[AnotherSeattlePrgmr]

I foresee years of frustration for you as anthropogenic global warming continues to worsen despite your rejection of it. Maybe you'll eventually come around to the warmist side because the physical evidence piles up to the point where even you can't ignore it but I'm not holding out hope.

Someone who believes global climate change, almost certainly caused by humans has to give some reasoning why they think it's all a big lie: 1. Getting rich off research grants? This one's almost too stupid to list, but I've read it. 2. Trick people into giving up their freedom or something to reduce climate change? I never understand what this means really. Is it the idea that actions and choices in my own life might have any negative repercussions is unacceptable? 3. It's all a big lie? How come other areas of science are not all big lies, like evolution, geology, cosmology (the universe can't be that old, the bible told me so).

Re:Go Solar, it can make good financial sense.

[MrL0G1C]

It's thanks to those 'selfish pricks' who took a risk putting solar on their roofs that R&D in solar continued. Solar panels cost ten times less now because of the subsidies and R&D, and the prices are still falling fast.

Whilst the subsidies may have cost a few billion, solar panels in the future will save literally trillions in energy costs.

Battery technology is also progressing fast, in a few years we will have home battery systems that cost a fraction of the Tesla home battery system - several companies are about to join that market - a market that practically never existed before.

You're looking at it wrong, the politicians and the 'greenies' aren't. The exponential growth of solar is about to change the world.

Price history of silicon PV cells since 1977 - Price per watt

Cost Of Solar PV Will Fall To 2 Cents/kWh In 2050, Says Fraunhofer Study

Re:Go Solar, it can make good financial sense.

[Areyoukiddingme]

Why is is so expensive in the USA?

Mostly it's because installers severely gouge customers. German solar panels are now $1/watt, delivered. A pallet of panels with a nameplace capacity of 6615 watts is $6590 + $70 delivery fee.

Panels used to be such a huge fraction of the price that vendors marked up all other components outrageously and it still looked small. That pricing is lingering in the US. Cabling for panels runs $10/meter. Inverter prices have little or nothing to do with inverter capacity, and nothing at all to do with component prices, so a 2kW pure sine wave inverter costs the same as a 7 kW. Both run about $2500.

So a 6.6kW system costs $9k in parts. And $30,000+ in installation fees, most everywhere. Installers haven't yet adjusted to the fact that panel prices have plummeted, and suddenly their fees look as outrageous as they always have been.

Re:Go Solar, it can make good financial sense.

[Calibax]

Then you didn't do a good site survey before installing your panels. You should have considered that before installing panels.

At my request, 32 of my 48 panels face south west. On a per panel basis they produce about 91% of the 16 panels facing south, but they peek about 4pm during the summer. I know this because I have monitoring on my system that records energy production and panel diagnostic data every 5 minutes, and 10+ years of data sitting in PostgreSQL database.

Re:Go Solar, it can make good financial sense.

[cbeaudry]

Show me the data that demonstrates the direct effects of 0.85c increase in temperature.
Observable problems NOW.

Not bullshit sensationalist propaganda about Indias heat wave or the flooding in Texas, which is NOT unprecedented nor un usual.

Re:Go Solar, it can make good financial sense.

[cbeaudry]

The thing is, if it does increase dramatically, which it hasn't yet and the evidence becomes clear, which it currently is not, then I would change my mind about it.

If the reverse is true, would you? Somehow, I highly doubt it.

Re:Go Solar, it can make good financial sense.

[cbeaudry]

Look, stop trying to shape the argument by building strawman arguments.

They believe its a big lie, because the predictions do not match with observational data.

The statements about current weather being affected by 0.85c (approx) of warming, does not fit observable data.

When your theories do not fit observable data, what normally happens is you adjust the theory, not the other way around.

Re:Go Solar, it can make good financial sense.

[Anonymous Coward]

You could google just a little bit you know.
http://priceofoil.org/fossil-fuel-subsidies/
I'm sure that's a biased source, didn't even check it out, but it can get you started.
The part I'm familiar with is the production and exploration subsidies. You can actually buy the tax credits generated by putting money into oil and gas exploration investments. If you have a high enough taxable income those credits can be very valuable because credits reduce your tax on a dollar for dollar basis.

Re:Go Solar, it can make good financial sense.

[riverat1]

Maybe what you've heard about predictions doesn't match observational data but I suspect what you've heard about predictions have been hyped up and ignore the time frames that scientists put on them. To really understand the scientific predictions you have to get into the details and understand how the noise of natural variability affects them.

For instance your statement of 0.85C of warming. It's an observed fact, not a prediction that temperatures have increased that much since the late 1800s. But if you look at the details they also predicted the overnight low temperatures would rise more than daytime temperatures and winter temperatures would rise more than summer temperatures. Both of those have been observed to be happening.

As far as projections of future warming and the supposed "pause" you have to look at the role of natural variability over short time periods (climatologically speaking) and take into account the various scenarios they base those projections on before you can make a valid judgement.

One area where they have been wrong is Arctic sea ice. The projections for ASI in the IPCC reports has always underpredicted how fast it would go. Most scientists in the field expect ASI to be gone (defined as less than 1,000,000 km^2 remaining) in the 2040-2050 time frame but the way things are going 2025-2040 seems more likely. If you heard "But Al Gore said it would be gone by 2016!" you heard at best an outlying prediction that most in the field would not support but more likely a failure to look at the qualifications the researcher put on their statement.

From where I sit observations are matching the predictions pretty well considering the details of the predictions. I think the failure here is in your understanding of what the predictions really are and what they mean.

Regarding your direct response to me I would happily change my mind if the evidence lead away from current climate theory but it hasn't yet.

Re:Go Solar, it can make good financial sense.

[MerlynEmrys67]

Ok - so these "Subsides" are simply tax deductions that every business in the country gets. I spend money on R&D/Salary/manufacturing - I don't pay taxes on my expenses. If the claim is I pay taxes on revenues - the analysis is wrong and back to my original complaint.

A subsidy is like the electric car business where the government pays me 15,000 dollars to purchase a tesla - causing the cost of the Tesla to go down. The cost of manufacturing being deducted from Tesla's taxes as an expense is not a subsidy at all.

Re:Go Solar, it can make good financial sense.

[Maxo-Texas]

You may not have noticed the small disagreement over oil security back in 1991 and 2003 but together they cost over 2 trillion dollars and 4000 lives. Lots of countries get invaded but the u.s. got involved because we needed a secure oil supply.

It's called "externalizing costs" and the oil companies are very good at doing it.

It is a subsidy even if some squirrelly alternate definition* of "subsidy" has been set up to show the oil companies have a smaller subsidy.

*
You know like "Binge Drinking" is now defined as 5 drinks in 5 hours. I don't know about you but I don't get above a .02 drinking at that rate. Personally I would define "Binge" drinking as drinking enough to get drunk- and then continuing to drink one drink an hour to stay drunk (and not pass out or die) for an extended period (5 hours would do then).

Money spent to help the oil industry is a subsidy even if you call it something else.

Re:Go Solar, it can make good financial sense.

[Trogre]

You have had no electricity costs beyond meter rental?

Are you using a battery bank to store excess power during the day to use at night, or are you factoring in selling power back to the grid and getting a zero sum?

Re:Go Solar, it can make good financial sense.

[jwhitener]

Or pay nothing for the panels http://www.solarcity.com/residential and have a lower electricity cost right now.

It's a dupe

[Crashmarik]

So that might explain why.

Apples to oranges

[Solandri]

Power generated does not equal installed capacity. Power generated = (installed capacity) * (capacity factor).

For the U.S.:

• PV solar's capacity factor is about 0.145 for the country overall. In the desert southwest (where most of the solar installations probably are) it's about 0.18.
• Onshore wind's capacity factor is about 0.20-0.25.
• Coal's capacity factor is about 0.6.
• Nuclear's capacity factor is about 0.9.

So solar has to have about 40% more installed capacity than wind to generate as much power. It needs almost 4x as much installed capacity as coal to generate a comparable amount of power. And it needs 5.5x as much capacity as nuclear to be comparable. Comparing power generation based on installed capacity is like trying to compare how much food people eat based on the size of their refrigerators.

Re:Apples to oranges

[guruevi]

Coal, wind and nuclear are also a bunch more expensive and less accessible. If anyone would sell me a small reactor (e.g. from a sub or whatever), I'd be more than happy to install it in my back yard. But for now, the only thing you can do yourself is solar unless you have a plot of land somewhere outside a city.

Re:Apples to oranges

[radl33t]

yet, solar's output can be tailed very conveniently to peak loads that would otherwise be served by peaking plants, which by virtue of their operation (low capacity factor) are 2-4X more expensive than regular generation, and, as it turns out 15%CF solar. That's before we throw all our natural gas on boats and sell it overseas for a 300% profit.

Re:Apples to oranges

[CrimsonAvenger]

If anyone would sell me a small reactor (e.g. from a sub or whatever), I'd be more than happy to install it in my back yard.

I'm curious - how big do you think submarine reactors are? And how big is your backyard?

A couple of useful hints, by the by:

1) a naval nuclear reactor is bigger than your house.

2) they require an ocean to provide cooling water for the system. Though they could probably manage with a decent sized lake or small river.

3) One man can't operate a naval nuclear reactor.

4) One house can't use the electricity they produce.

Re:Apples to oranges

[pipingguy]

Exactly. It's extremely misleading to quote nameplate capacity and then do victory laps, but it's done all the time with wind and solar (for obvious reasons).

Re:Apples to oranges

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

First thanks for the info. I was trying to find it myself.

The capacity factor definition uses 24 hour day. So for day time power generation without storage you would rate PV at 0.29 immediately. Further instead of averaging it over the entire day, you average it over just peak six hours of generation. The number is 0.58, not too far off from coal.

Why would you skew it like this in favor of solar? Because solar generation matches the peak demand so well. The peak demand is late afternoon in hot sunny states when everyone runs their A/C at full blast.

Solar installations targeting just to meet the peak load could replace coal 1.2 MW of peak solar capacity = 1 MW peak coal capacity. Solar installations spread over four time zones all linked by a grid can avoid issues of storage of electricity. Solar has reached parity with coal and is going down. When it crosses the 80% mark, all hell is going to break loose. This is what sending shivers down the spine of powerplant operators. Base load has very little profit. They make money in the spot trading of peak power. That juicy profits are being threatened by solar.

Already last year one Australian traditional operator had negative peak price, they had to pay people to connect to them!

Re:Apples to oranges

[AbrasiveCat]

If anyone would sell me a small reactor (e.g. from a sub or whatever), I'd be more than happy to install it in my back yard.

I'm curious - how big do you think submarine reactors are? And how big is your backyard?

A couple of useful hints, by the by:

1) a naval nuclear reactor is bigger than your house.

2) they require an ocean to provide cooling water for the system. Though they could probably manage with a decent sized lake or small river.

3) One man can't operate a naval nuclear reactor.

4) One house can't use the electricity they produce.

Hey, hey, you are being a little unfair here. I understand the nuclear reactor for the U.S. Navy's NR-1 is about the size of a garbage can.

Re:Apples to oranges

[Solandri]

The capacity factor definition uses 24 hour day. So for day time power generation without storage you would rate PV at 0.29 immediately. Further instead of averaging it over the entire day, you average it over just peak six hours of generation. The number is 0.58, not too far off from coal.

Coal's capacity factor during peak hours is close to 1.0. It only drops down to 0.6 because they shut down the furnaces during the night when demand is low. That's why nuclear's capacity factor is so high - the power generation shuts down too slowly for it to be scaled back every night. So they keep the reactors running 24/7, shutting down only for maintenance.

And if you do the math for angle of the sun (integral of sine from 45 degrees to 135 degrees is sqrt(2/2), or 70.7%), the effective capacity factor for PV solar during the peak 6 generating hours is 0.41, not 0.58. ((.41)*(6 hours) + .(17)*(6 hours) ) / 12 hours = 0.29. 0.58 is what you would get if the entirety of PV solar's power generation throughout the day happened in 6 hours.

Re:Apples to oranges

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Thanks. You are very well informed and I am learning more. So basically one needs 3.33 MW of installed peak solar capacity to meet 1 MW of peak coal capacity? The solar price needs to drop by a factor 3 before it could take on coal, it looks like.

Re:Apples to oranges

[Areyoukiddingme]

I understand the nuclear reactor for the U.S. Navy's NR-1 is about the size of a garbage can.

The containment vessel, maybe. By the time you add on all the piping and three steam turbines and a generator, your backyard is still quite full and you still need a heckuva lot more water than is usually available.

But don't let that stop you. :)

Re:Apples to oranges

[david_thornley]

Except that residential solar can be cheaper than the power company's electricity, under reasonable assumptions. If solar dropped by a factor of three, we'd have a very messy transition going on.

Re:Apples to oranges

[guruevi]

There are a lot smaller designs around. The NR-1 sub had one, the soviets built several and currently there is a resurgence in the design of self-contained miniature reactors with several companies promising 50kW designs that could be easily installed underground (like a pool).

Re:Apples to oranges

[Anonymous Coward]

Except because consistent unvarying coal (that 1MW figure you had) isn't load following, so you are wasting energy or underproducing, whereas your solar panels generally follow load very well, meaning that you don't NEED that 1MW that the coal plant produces continuously, you only need 600kw, as long as it peaks at 1MW.

So you "need" twice the nameplate for solar, not three times. And running costs for solar are practically nil: no resources needed to be bought, and a hell of a lot easier to clean, even if it needs it, which it won't any more often than your coal station does.

Lower running costs means that this is an investment that pays off with each month running.

Re:Apples to oranges

[Agripa]

Why would you skew it like this in favor of solar? Because solar generation matches the peak demand so well. The peak demand is late afternoon in hot sunny states when everyone runs their A/C at full blast.

http://instituteforenergyresea...

Re:Apples to oranges

[Bathroom Humor]

4) One house can't use the electricity they produce.

Challenge accepted.

Re:Apples to oranges

[Anonymous Coward]

1) stupid comment. What does the size matter if you don't also consider the output? BTW, the reactor of a 12MW 50 year old submarine is about the size of a couple of garbage cans stacked on top of each other. and sits in a room that is about the size of a small bedroom. You of course mean the entire power plant including boilers (which would be a fraction of the size for home use), turbines (which would be a fraction of the size for home use), reduction gears(which would be a fraction of the size for home use), motor-generators(which exist in the engine room but wouldn't in non-naval application), a

2) Stupid comment. Cooling is dependent on heat generated. Air is sufficient with heat exchanger that is equal to the load. Water cooled by underground piping could be used, too.

3) Stupid comment. Yes, one man can and often does operate a naval nuclear reactor. The other men work throttles (the equivalent of changing the amount of power used in the house - so a person would be required to operate light switches and turn on the dryer), support machinery, operate equipment that doesn't have any significance on land, provide maintenance, etc.

4) Stupid comment. Yes, one house could. The power generated by a nuclear reactor is dependent on a few different things, primarily on the temperature of the water entering the core (which is a direct result of the amount of energy pulled out of the system to generate power). If very little power is generated, the rods are pulled up to expose "fresh" uranium over decades instead of years and the reactor simply lasts longer.

Just because you have heard of nuclear power doesn't mean that you aren't completely ignorant about it. You have no clue, so shaddup.

Very misleading headline

[Anonymous Coward]

This is intended to make solar look splendiferous.... obviously since more are installing it, on the merits of course.

Two problems:

1. This is not a free market - the federal and state govts are massively subsidizing solar, which they do not for coal or oil. This means the relative numbers of installs are not a sign of the merits of each or an honest indicator of the free choice of the choosers; a very big government finger is on the scale.

2. Coal??? Really??? The house I grew up in had a coal bunker, but I have not seen one in decades. Nobody would be doing a new residential coal install even if windmills and solar were not available. Residential coal went the way of the dodo bird when propane, natural gas, and home heating oil became available. In fact, if none of those were available today and only coal was, people would STILL not do new residential coal installs; the society would go with coal gas. Pipes beat shovels any day.

Oh, and no doubt some left-leaning ninny will whine that I was wrong and "big oil" gets subsidies, but this is factually wrong no matter how many times propaganda sites funded by NAZI collaborator Soros post it. A Subsidy is when government gives somebody someone else's money to encourage some activity - this is not what happens with "big oil", but it DOES happen with EVERY so-called "green" energy source. A Tax break is when government lets somebody keep more of his own money, which is what indeed happens with "big oil". Tax breaks are NOT interchangeable with subsidies - they work differently and have very different effects which is why they both exist and governments use each of them in different situations.

Re: Very misleading headline

[Anonymous Coward]

Just so we are clear, you are calling Hungarian Jew George Soros, who was 15 in 1945, a nazi collaborator? Ok then Glenn Beck...

Re:Very misleading headline

[Anonymous Coward]

this is not what happens with "big oil

LIAR.

Re:Very misleading headline

[Anonymous Coward]

0. There is no free Market

Re:Very misleading headline

[dave420]

Coal and oil are also heavily subsidized. You might want to stop being so angry and start educating yourself. You seem to be woefully ill-informed. It's sad.

Re:Very misleading headline

[micahraleigh]

You're reinforcing his point.

If the government is dropping money from our pockets into ALL these energy providers, it doesn't really say much about which one is the most viable.

Also, I'm not sure what business you have telling people what emotions to feel.

Re: Very misleading headline

[Straif]

The Nazi/Soros things comes from an interview he did with 60 minutes where he talks about pretending to be the godson of a Christian neighbor whose job it was to confiscate Jewish citizens property. He called it the point of his life where his character was set and talks about how he feels no guilt because someone had to confiscate the property and why not him. Honestly, it sounds like the testimony of a sociopath.

His crashing the British pound in the early 90's seems very much in that same character.

"Spain is different"

[Anonymous Coward]

Electric companies have sooo many friends (politics)... it wouldn't surprise me if they finally ban solar power at homes (and any other way of being a bit more self-sufficient)

Here's the link

[Taco Cowboy]

Here is the link to the Slashdot article regarding Jackie Chan Solar Panel
http://hardware.slashdot.org/s...

It was said that with Mr. Chan's involvement the conversion efficiency jumped 22%

Doesn't cover grid costs

[Anonymous Coward]

The retail price of residential electricity, includes the electric grid cost. The electric grid has to be paid for somehow. Pricing will change, when residential solar becomes more common.

Re:Doesn't cover grid costs

[Anonymous Coward]

Other power companies selling to the grid don't pay for the grid. So why should he?

Moreover, it doesn't cost 16c per day to let him keep a meter, so I would suggest that most of that 16c is to pay for the grid.

But you're a moron.

Re:Doesn't cover grid costs

[Anonymous Coward]

Way to go, disagree with someone, call them a name. Go fuck yourself, dickface.

$3.46 per watt.

[Anonymous Coward]

Interesting because my house had solar installed last year, 5kW for $1.12 per watt, admittedly with a cheap inverter (Not SMA or ABB), monocrystalline.

Re:$3.46 per watt.

[radl33t]

Hmm. ASPS on Mono modules are on the order of 0.75 $/W to distributors, leaving BOS and installation at 37 cents. That seems possible if you did it yourself and had no inter connection, meter, or electrician fees. But that price cannot be right based on the details you have provided. Are you neglecting ITC rebate? That would give you $1.6, or about the cheapest rate utilities putting up MW projects now...

Deceptive wording

[Chas]

Capacity installs.

Basically it's talking about new installs versus already installed capacity.

Not overall capacity or utilization in the overall power budget.

Never mind that solar installs tend to be smaller and MUCH lower capacity than a coal burning plant.

Also, there's the fact that coal provides more power in the US by more than an order of magnitude.

So yay. We went from half a percent to 0.51% total power input.
And oh darn. We maybe stayed around 20% at coal.

Basically this is a "Rah Rah" article. Kind of like a small company that puts on big, slick productions and appears bigger than they are.

Re:Deceptive wording

[radl33t]

Do you feel threatened by a growing solar energy industry?

Re:Deceptive wording

[Alomex]

You must be one of those idiots who moans and groans when GDP grows by 3% which is such a small percentage of total and "only" 1% over the historical average.

Of course someone who understands math knows that 3% GDP growth is 50% better than historical 2% GDP growth.

Same withe electricity. We are not about to go around ripping out perfectly functional generating plants be them gas, oil, carbon or nuclear. All we can do is change installs.

For those renewables are kicking butt. Over the next fifty years as old plants are decommissioned we will wake up one day to a world where >50% of generated electricity is non-fossil fuel based.

Re:Deceptive wording

[Chas]

No. Currently the solar energy industry is in the neighborhood of "statistical anomaly".
Nobody's threatened by a statistical anomaly.

But trying to compare growth in the solar industry at this point, to something entrenched (and nearly peaked, as coal is in the US), it's like comparing baseball statistics between MLB and and the Poughkipsie Pee Wee League.

In other words, would it change how you look at the data if I told you:

"We sold 10 home sausage grinders last quarter, this quarter, we did 11. In this same quarter last year, we did 7 installs. While GrindCo, who only makes industrial-plant-sized grinders the size of a 4 story building, only had one install this quarter and none at the same time last year."

That's, essentially, what's being said here.

Again, I don't mind that the solar industry is growing. I just dislike the deceptive wording that makes the industry appear larger and attempts to magnify the contribution it provides.

Re:Deceptive wording

[Chas]

Oh, must I be?

I have nothing against the solar industry.

I simply dislike deceptive comparisons like this, worded in such a way that it magnifies the accomplishments and contributions out of any recognition with reality.

Re:Deceptive wording

[Anonymous Coward]

You just don't get it. Taking about installs here is the proper thing to do. There's nothing deceptive about it.

Re:Deceptive wording

[MattskEE]

Why so negative? This is a feel good article, and there's nothing wrong with that. It is pointing out quite rightly that solar has achieved a new milestone in adoption rate which is a good thing.

Yes it is well known that solar installed capacity does not correspond to generating capacity. And there is the problem of storing energy when intermittent renewable sources like solar become larger percentages of total capacity. But the solutions to these problems are available now if we choose to dedicate the resources.

Your numbers are also way off, solar has risen over 50% over the past year:

So yay. We went from half a percent to 0.51% total power input.
And oh darn. We maybe stayed around 20% at coal.

The correct numbers Source:
March 2014: Solar 0.4%, Coal 41%
March 2015: Solar 0.6%, Coal 33%

Most of the drop in coal usage came from the sharp uptick in natural gas. That same uptick is probably why solar outpaced coal. Solar is rising rapid though still very minimal, but accelerating the rate of install will get us to total renewable energy faster.

Re:Deceptive wording

[Chas]

The thing is, they're NOT talking about installs. They're comparing number of installs versus base installed capacity and trying to draw a correlation with the number of installs versus installed capacity in a different sector of the power industry. One that is supplying over 40x the power that total solar does, in facilities that take longer to build and are generally more energy-dense than solar is.

It's apples and pears.

Re:Deceptive wording

[Chas]

Again, I'm not being negative. I'm saying that the phrasing and usage is deceptive (the whole Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics thing).

And I acknowledge that solar has achieved new milestones in adoption. For that, I'm glad.

What I'm saying is that trying to compare it to another power generation sector that's producing 40-50x the power is misleading.

For Solar to be a truly major contender, they need at least an order of magnitude in growth. And I'm somewhat pessimistic that the US can actually achieve that level of growth. Even over a longer term.

As for "total renewable energy". I'm just going to laugh derisively and leave it at that. Quite simply, with our ever-growing energy demands, renewable energy quite simply CANNOT support the entire energy industry. You could carpet the US in PV cells and toss up solar thermal and wind farms willy nilly, and it still wouldn't cover it.

Geothermal and Hydro *might* cover baseload "right now". But remember that we're pretty much at peak hydro in the US right now, for environmental reasons. And geothermal isn't something you can just drop everywhere. So they can't grow to keep up with demand.

Realistically, some sort of solution that includes nuclear is our best option.
Sure, nuclear is dirty in its own way. But it's a way that can be managed and minimized. And you're not blowing the byproducts up a stack and into the environment.

Re:Deceptive wording

[MrL0G1C]

Over the last 10 to 15 years installed solar capacity increased 100-fold.

It will grow another 100-fold, long before 2050.

Re:Deceptive wording

[Chas]

Then it'll almost be on par with non-renewables. At least during the day...

Re:Deceptive wording

[MrL0G1C]

The other tech that is dropping in cost and improving in efficiency is battery tech, it won't be long before solar+battery is cheaper than grid electricity in 90% of the world - they are already cheaper in some places.

Re:Deceptive wording

[Chas]

"it won't be long" is usually rah-rah-speak for "yes it will be"

The current limits on number of charge cycles for newer battery tech is a major problem. One that rules them out, currently, as some sort of actual storage medium. Because they'd be getting replaced on roughly an annual basis. And I don't care who you are or how much money you have. They aren't THAT cheap.

Re:Deceptive wording

[MrL0G1C]

Funny because Tesla's home batteries come with a ten year guarantee extendible for another ten years.

Tesla's batteries are sold out for the next year. There are bug competitors about to enter the market roughly within the next 12 months. I'd expect battery prices to continue to fall quickly - it's potentially a multi-trillion dollar market.

The current limit on the number of charge cycles is definitely not a problem.

Re:Deceptive wording

[Chas]

Yeah. 10 years.

Look at the actual number of times the battery can be drained and recharged. With regular use, how much capacity do these units lose over time?
And how soon into the battery's life-cycle will a replacement be needed to continue meeting the needs for which it was bought?
Incurring, yet again, the cost of replacing the battery.

As for how long Tesla's batteries are sold out for? Who cares? It's code-speak for "They'd be great...if we could get one..."

More 'Agenda 21', 'climate change' bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

From 'Climatedot'.

I remember when this used to be a TECH news site, not a platform for nation-wrecking scumbags...

Re:More 'Agenda 21', 'climate change' bullshit

[dave420]

Your attitude is far more nation-wrecking than people calling for sensible energy policies.

Ending soon

[tomhath]

One of the factors spurring growth in solar power is the expiration of the federal government's solar investment tax credit (ITC).

We'll see how well solar competes when it gets (almost) the same tax treatment as other power sources. It will still get a 10% bonus though.

Re:Ending soon

[Maury Markowitz]

> We'll see how well solar competes when it gets (almost) the same tax treatment as other power sources

You mean when we dump billions of dollars of into a military side-project and let that flow downhill into the panel prices?

Yes, I await that day.

Re:Ending soon

[tomhath]

You mean something like the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and all the partnerships it has with DARPA? Or NASA's development and use of PV panels?

Re:Ending soon

[MattskEE]

NASA develops very high-end solar panels for space applications where weight and energy are both at extreme premiums. This has little to do with panels being produced for residental PV.

Re:Ending soon

[Anonymous Coward]

Only if the pollution and impacts of the fossil fuel power plants are taxed would it be an equal test. Otherwise they are still getting a free subsidy by not needing to cover the true cost.

Powerless Solar

[Anonymous Coward]

And yet solar power still fails to put any power output at night surpassing all other forms of power generation.

Re:Powerless Solar

[oh_my_080980980]

Same with coal once it's done burning. What's your point? The only continuous power generation is hydro. All other forms are limited based on the capacity of that source. Hell, even power utilities does not have limitless forms of electricity and need to "guess" how much they need at any given time. They can't just produce more electricity when there are spikes. That's why you have brown outs. So you still have the issue of storage regardless of source. That's why battery storage is important and will go a long way to help all power sources because you can over produce the current need and store it for later use.

those numbers?

[Anonymous Coward]

Calibax says he was paying $3000/yr for electricity? That's $250/mo. At the US avg of $0.10 KWH, that means he's using a 2500 KWH every month.
My bill, at $0.11 Kwh, is seldom over $100/mo ($1200/yr), and I have electric for everything but heat - and the furnace takes some electric to run anyway.
That says I'm using less than 1000 KWH/mo.
He'd have to be paying $0.25 KWH to make that $250/mo number using 1000 KWH/mo. I don't know, but is there an area in the US that has a $0.25 KWH rate?
BTW, he says his system generates 12,000 KWH/yr. At $0.10 KWH, he'd be saving $1200/yr off his $3000 yearly cost to the utility. And the time to retire his subsidized cost of $31,000 would be 25 yrs. Without subsidy, 50+ years. Solar cells lose generation capacity over time (they'll last 30 years?, I doubt it), so those numbers may increase the time to ROI. I wouldn't purchase/install a technology component or system that didn't have a ROI of less that 5 years. Think of your cell phone or PC, or flat screen. You expect more that 5 years use from them? And what about serviceability? Consumer products only have to be supported for only 7 years.
All in all, he got 'such a deal'. I hope he doesn't need his roof replaced during that time, also. The labor to remove and re-install the panels will be significant.

So much for the rant. If I were to install solar, it would be on a smaller that 'whole-house' scale. Just enough to charge a battery or two to use for recharging portable devices, so the wall-wart transformers can be unplugged from the grid. When the electrical code gets updated for household low voltage wiring, then solar could be really useful.

Re:those numbers?

[Calibax]

You happen to be lucky by living in a cheap electricity area. Here in northern California the cheapest rate is 16.3 cents/kWh. That's for baseline usage of 7 kWh/day (depending on where you live) and anything above that costs more in tiers that go up to 33.5 cents/kWh. If you have air conditioning, you are certain to end up paying far more than the baseline cost in non-winter months.

Supposedly, there's a 0.5% drop in solar cell output per year, but I'm not seeing that at all. Last year my installation generated more than the first year - of course, climate change affects that figure.

My roof is metal tile - don't you think I factored that into my purchase decision?

Maintenance costs have been zero so far. There are three components - the panels, the wiring and the inverters. The inverters are likely to fail first, and the cost of replacement is drastically lower than when my system was first installed.

Re:those numbers?

[MattskEE]

The price of installed solar has dropped by half so new panels without the subsidy would have the same payback time. 8.8kW installed capacity at $3.46 per installed watt (as stated in the article) would now cost $30.4k.

While solar panels will not last forever they already pay back much more than their installation cost (even subsidy free) in much less time that you think. It is folly to compare the reliability of cell phones to solar panels.

You seem to just be looking for reasons to bash solar. Solar is not a silver bullet, there's no such thing yet. But it works and it's available now. And over the long term it more than pays for itself.

Incapable of surpassing at night, lolz

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice numbers but the fact remains solar is incapable of surpassing hydro, wind and coal at night.

Fail article.

Coal subsidized?

[Anonymous Coward]

More like regulated to death.

Maybe you should start worrying about your own education.

Solar - Not Economically Competitive

[brownshoe]

I'm about to build a new house out in the country so I've been looking hard at solar. So far, my research has led me to the conclusion that solar power is simply not economically competitive in comparison to grid power.

Re:Solar - Not Economically Competitive

[Anonanonaon]

Sure.

So long as the power company is able to continue to reliably supply electricity at the rates you currently enjoy, and your income isn't interrupted for unforeseen reasons, and your savings are not destroyed over night for other unforeseen reasons...

You get the picture.

Invest now, and that's one fairly huge thing you don't have to worry about external forces screwing up on your behalf.

Plus, installing solar and tuning your house to run on 12 volts is fun! (It's not like you weren't going to spend it on something else less enduring and less satisfying).

Waranteed Life of 25 years.

[rahvin112]

Warranteed Life of 25 years. Panels have no known life span, manufacturers warantee that voltage levels will remain above a certain percent of their rated value within a 25 year period. Recent panels have been tested with a drop of less than 0.5watts per year resulting in panels that are still outputting 90+% of their rated wattage at the 25 year life.

The solar panels that Carter put on the whitehouse that Bush took down were still generating power when they were taken down, about 40 years later.

Not in AZ

[Anonymous Coward]

The power companies here in AZ have instituted what they call demand charges on solar customers driving down solar installations by 96%. The government here is allowing them to openly operate as hostile monopolies.