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San Francisco Adopts Law Requiring Solar Panels On All New Buildings (theguardian.com)
San Francisco will soon become one of the first major cities in the U.S. to require solar power on new buildings. The rule, which received approval from San Francisco's Board of Supervisors this week, is set to go into effect in January 2017. According to the legislation, all new buildings with 10 stories or fewer -- both residential and commercial -- will have to use either solar panels for electricity or a solar system to heat water. The Guardian notes that smaller Californian cities such as Lancaster and Sebastopol already have similar laws in place, but San Francisco is the first large city to adopt the new standard. "In a dense, urban environment, we need to be smart and efficient about how we maximize the use of our space to achieve goals such as promoting renewable energy and improving our environment," Supervisor Scott Wiener said in a statement. Vox has more details.
and if I'm building on the north side of a hill??? idiots....
San Francisco Adopts Law Requiring Solar Panels On All New Buildings
What about heat pollution? What if you wanted to build a nice roof garden instead?
Why does absolutely everyone have to do exactly the same thing all the time?
With the ridiculous land values, installing a system like this would only be a tiny fraction of the home value, at least.
Now it's time for the rest of the country to catch up. Could you imagine some city in Alabama doing this?
How will small businesses that are just making ends meet cope with this mandate? Are they (SFBS) granting subsidies of any kind?
I also think it's strange that buildings over 10 floors are exempt. They'd seem to be the most ideal candidates.
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
Not all locations are conducive to solar energy. Some properties are in shadows most of the day due to topography and surrounding terrain. Some properties face the wrong way so sun only hits directly half the day.
How many of these systems will be installed and never maintained? How many of these systems will just be shut off?
There will be many systems that will never recoup their costs installed under this new regulation.
So the most expensive city in the country is now more expensive because solar panels are mandatory? How crime free is this liberal paradise? Oh wait its dangerous as hell.
what happens when you spend thousands on the infrastructure to install solar, then a slightly taller building goes up right beside you, putting your array in shade and rendering it useless?
people already bitch about losing their views when a new building goes up beside them. and the view costs nothing.
I hope those SJWs in San Francisco realize that all those solar panels will contribute to the Sun burning out sooner. There's already not enough sunlight to go around. Just ask Greenland.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Mandatory installation of solar energy for newbuilt houses is nothing new in many European regions.
But these buildings usually have lifetimes of 60+ years. (If noone starts a war..)
As far as my outsider's knowledge goes, many Americans choose to build 'cheap and lightly' with resulting lifetimes of less than 20 years.
Photovoltaic cells may last a lot longer. So... have things changed or will the solar cells be simply transferred to a new roof, when the old house is rotten?
Solar panels are great until you have to fight a fire in a building that has them on the roof.
http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com...
Since when does San Francisco allow people to put up new buildings?
I thought they just put up as many barriers to build things as they could. Hey, wait a sec...!
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
Just another regulation that is designed to increase the cost of housing in order to keep poor minority people out.
What do solar cells to to your fire insurance rates? I would think the fire department wouldn't go near them since they're almost always generating electricity at the panels.
San Francisco seems to be having a pretty major housing issue. What's the best fix? Make it more expensive to build things!
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
Now, if they could only adopt a law to actually allow the construction of NEW buildings.
Oh Danny, this isn't Russia. Is this Russia? This isn't Russia, is it? Didn't think so.
How will small businesses that are just making ends meet cope with this mandate?
How do small businesses cope with mandates of elevators and wheelchair accessibility and sprinkler heads and exit signs and the thousands(!) of other code requirements?
[Buildings over 10 floors] seem to be the most ideal candidates.
Probably not. For one thing, tall buildings tend to be located near other tall buildings. Unlike low-rise buildings which are often approximately the same height, the height difference of skyscrapers can be 100s of feet. Shading becomes more of a challenge. But probably more importantly, the roof space of tall buildings is essentially too valuable -- it's needed for communication and mechanical units. Finally, skyscrapers make up a remarkably tiny percentage of roof space in San Francisco, so their inclusion or exclusion has a trivial impact on achieving the goals of the legislation.
Support a few technologists in Washington.
OK so which SF politicians just coincidentally also own a solar panel company?
About other buildings cutting of the sun to one's solar panels.
what about rooftop gardens
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
a solar system to heat water
You need an entire solar system to heat up water? I know water has a high heat capacity, but geez...
Way to kill an already struggling new construction market!!!
I thought everyone in SF was pissed because housing costs so much? For all those wondering, this is why no one cares.
I'm quite surprised by the hostility of environmental pushers on Slashdot. Yes we have to convert to greener methods, but accepting things that are done in a stupid way and being hostile towards people who point out when things are stupid and suggest how it could be done better is not the way to go. Rarely are generalized requirements the best way to handle everyone.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
I think buildings should focus on minimizing energy consumption for heating and cooling. It's not sexy, but low grade thermal energy is cheap.
I've seen a number of studies that tackle the limits of solar power from a number of angles, these include technical and economic.
A technical problem with solar power is that peak output is at noon but peak load is near sunset. Temperatures typically reach a maximum at about 4:00. People tend to go home to cook supper at about 5:00. Along with a few other factors that add to the electric load the viability of solar power peaks at about 30% of total production. Anything more and additional solar power can negatively affect the grid.
The economics are also problematic. If there is too much solar power then the price at solar production peaks can make the price go negative. That might seem nonsensical but if supply exceeds demand then there are people that would be willing to pay people to take their power just so that they don't have to go through the expensive process of shutting down power production to avoid the also expensive process of starting it back up once the sun goes down. Solar subsidies make this problem worse. The solar panel owners are paid subsidies by how much power they put on the grid, if the price is negative they still get paid the subsidy and if the subsidy covers the negative price then it's profitable. Again the estimates I've seen is that if solar power capacity exceeds about 30% these economic factors start to become a problem. In a free market this fixes itself but with mandates like this, and subsidies already in effect, the problem remains.
Those are just two examples on how too much solar can be problematic. Technologies like grid storage is not a solution because storage costs money and even if solar power were free this storage would have to be cheaper than things like wind, hydro, coal, natural gas, nuclear, or whatever else comes along. With nuclear, coal, natural gas (especially natural gas), hydro, and wind being so cheap the mandating of solar power on a market that's not ready for it is asking for disaster.
As terrible as it would be I'd feel a bit of schadenfreude if California sees blackouts because the solar panels overwhelmed the grid.
You want to tell me that can't happen? Consider this, with all the solar panels out there is it possible for the grid to see more energy coming in than going out. This means the grid will become unstable unless some of the solar panel capacity is disconnected. What mechanism is there to disconnect these panels? Who is going to see their personal income reduced from selling power so that the rest of the grid remains stable? This is the tragedy of the commons at work. The solution is not more government since that is the "commons" the tragedy warns us about. The solution is to let people chose, to let them take ownership. How is this done? I'm not sure. What I am quite sure about is that the solution would take more words than a Slashdot comment window would allow.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
I'm all for this. On cloudy days, we can both provide extra sunlight, reduce the nuclear weapons stockpiles, generate rooftop solar power, aaaand launch kilotons of hardy payload to the stars.
Land Of The Commies
...and not for any kind of reasons of profitability. There are severe infrastructure hurdles to overcome with any kind of off-site power generation, and SF has just declared that they are going to do all in their power to exacerbate them.
First, let's forget about how utilities generally have to pay you for what you generate that winds its way back to their network, although production at this scale can certainly become significant to a utilities bottom line (which means increasing prices per kWh for the rest of their power that you consume).
Instead, let's focus on the fact that above all else, the power grid wants to be in a stable state. Change produces waste. Every time demand surges, they've got to spin up some generator that consumes a natural resource and churns out a multiple of 60 Hz that can be efficiently transformed to the precise frequency expected. This usually means consuming more natural gas (faster to get up and running from a dead stop) and easing in cheaper (slower) coal plants if demand stays high. And if demand plummets again, you just produce more than you need. There's no practical way to store even a significant amount of power. Maybe other markets can siphon it off and buy it, and maybe they can't. God forbid that you should need to repeatedly disconnect and connect a generator, charging the lines each time. Into this less-than-ideal system, we're talking in the long run about injecting an entire city's worth of solar production and uncertainty into the mix. There is no guarantee energy will be produced or managed more efficiently.
There is also the issue that our system was set up to distribute power from a few generators to many nodes. Many nodes trying to send power back up the pipe to the plants won't necessarily be efficient.
If SF is very lucky, most new construction will opt for the water heater option, so all this new power stays at the site of generation. Dumping it into the grid would just cause more headache.
It should be required that all new buildings below 6 stories to have enough on-site AE electricity to equal the energy usage of the HVAC. In doing this, it will lead to using geo-thermal HVAC, along with aerogel based windows, as opposed to triple pane that are expensive and not as good.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Have we reached energy parity with PV solar panels yet? ie. does the amount of useful electrical energy generated over the life of the panel exceed the amount of energy required to manufacture it? It certainly wasn't a few years ago when I last looked.
Also have they sorted out the massive pollution that arises as from the PV panel manufacturing process?
I'd like to know, as I am considering installing a few but there's no point if they still do more harm than good.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
I'm with you on this one. It would be beautiful to see cities with flat roof gardens.
As far as the solar panel we could put them on the side of the house. Maybe even do some design to look good. And I'm not sure solar panels use the same light as plants. We could possibly develop transparent solar panels for an awning over the garden. This might let us have our cake and eat it too.
My dream home: Below ground living quarters; two or three floors; ground level parking lot and then a workshop and storage floor before the garden roof. Sort of reverse from most peoples expectations but way more efficient.
San Fran will now REQUIRE people to cover their buildings with toxic materials that this schizofrenic pack or activists/politicians have declared too toxic to be thrown in the trash. Either this stuff is toxic and therefore must be specially handled and disposed of, or it's not in which case it should be fine in a landfill.
Like most left-wingers, they believe in totally contradictory things.... and they see nothing contradictory in that. This is another sign of the death of the American intellect.
I am required to put panels on my roof. Do they need to be plugged in or can they just be roof ornaments?
If they have to be plugged in, then I need an inverter. Does it need to work?
If so, can I undersize the inverter or does it need to be the right size to handle the full generation of my panels?
If the latter, suppose I need two inverters and eventually one burns out. Do I need to replace it?
If so, what kind of monitoring do I need to detect when the inverter goes bad?
How long do I have to replace a broken inverter? What if I know nothing about inverters?
Do I have to grid tie it?
Etc
As soon they find it to be sexist somehow.
How much energy would be saved with a highly reflective roof with a low tech answer?
http://www.whiteroofproject.org/faq
"New Residential and Commercial structures!"
SF Council dives into the Butt-Hole again.
This will KILL new and renewed construction in SF!
Those old old old ratty buildings and moldy shitty residences will get even more old and ratty and more shitty in the salty air of SF Bay.
Ha ha
Mandating solar panels in a city that gets fog all year round is pretty idiotic.
To dumb things down to a level you already know but forgot to apply:
Silicon increases in resistance with temperature thus a hot PC is bad news.
Many photovoltaics are made of silicon.
It is nice to see at least some small parts of the US are finally catching up.
In Israel buildings up to 8 stories are required to use solar water heating and it has been this way for decades.
I'll point out to readers that the above poster is the imbecile that suggested that manufacturing is in great shape because despite a massive drop in both production and wages the wages dropped more - hence greater productivity! How wonderful! Far less income for the country, but look at those lovely numbers!
Ooloorie, I asked you some questions before as to why you felt justified in insulting me - please answer them instead of avoiding the topic.
Land is also "required" and "life enabling" but it is ownable and owned. Sleeping on public property violates sit/lie laws of many localities; therefore, land is required. And intruding on another's private property (the Goldilocks method) is trespassing; therefore, land is ownable.
> going from illegal to mandatory overnight
LIBERALISM IS A MENTAL DISORDER
Stop pretending to be stupid, you are not a cocaine ravaged former DJ so stop pretending to be one - a massive drop in expenditure on wages due to job losses. Also no innovation means no paying people to improve stuff so another false spike on "productivity" numbers.
You are pretending to be ignorant or actually are, so how about a little lesson?
In the early 1990s I worked at a steelworks with fantastic productivity numbers with almost exponential growth (tons of steel per man hour), yet somehow not enough steel could be produced to meet orders that had previously been met easily and the place started losing massive amounts of money. It turns out the hours of contractors were not counted in the "productivity" numbers and there was a process of shedding skilled staff to drive those numbers. All the numbers that mattered - revenue, product shipped, expenses, hours of lost production from breakdowns, accidents, fatalities - were bad, but that productivity number was great so it was all bonuses at the top end of town until the parent company took a closer look and shut most of the place down. Don't blame me (some idiots like to shoot messengers), the rolling mill I worked at was one of only two parts of the place that kept going.
That example illustrates why "productivity" numbers are entirely useless without context. If you were not born yesterday you should be able to find a few more of your own.
In general the [potential] wind velocities on the roof of very tall buildings make installing solar impractical.
Then why not mandate turbines?
Throw a .5 watt Radio Shack solar cell on the roof and you complied with the law. ;-) That would be funny.
Where did I mention an amendment to anything?
Your SIG loser. Are you going to have to hand your guns back when you turn 45? No? Then obviously being an imaginary part of a militia has nothing to do with your gun rights, or your freedom (which seems to vanish the second you step into the airport and no longer have the freedom to avoid your balls being squeezed by the TSA).
You may have guns (like I do), but you are not free.
You are also living in the past on the power generation thing, following the same stupid party line that tells you that you are free while taking your freedom away.
Perhaps it's time to start thinking for yourself instead of spreading propaganda from those who convince you not to think and behave like a good little "comrade".
Where did I say long term?
I was addressing how you were pretending the ongoing crash since 2008 never happened you obtuse idiot.