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California To Become First US State Mandating Solar On New Homes (ocregister.com)
OCRegister reports that "The California Energy Commission is scheduled to vote Wednesday, May 9, on new energy standards mandating most new homes have solar panels starting in 2020." From the report: Just 15 percent to 20 percent of new single-family homes built include solar, according to Bob Raymer, technical director for the California Building Industry Association. The proposed new rules would deviate slightly from another much-heralded objective: Requiring all new homes be "net-zero," meaning they would produce enough solar power to offset all electricity and natural gas consumed over the course of a year. New thinking has made that goal obsolete, state officials say. True "zero-net-energy" homes still rely on the electric power grid at night, they explained, a time when more generating plants come online using fossil fuels to generate power. In addition to widespread adoption of solar power, the new provisions include a push to increase battery storage and increase reliance on electricity over natural gas.
Only difference now is they made it law.
Solar is great but the problem of storing power in an eco-friendly manner remains.
Batteries are poison. What would be better would a mechanical solution of some kind, like power-winding up a turbine during the day while it's sunny and letting it run and generate power at night.
lucm, indeed.
Pretty easy to enforce when you don't allow new homes to be built anywhere.
This will solve California's affordable housing problem. Brilliant!
The median price of a new home in Cali is over half a million now. Add another 20% to that for solar panels.
Put another way, Cali has a few wealthy people who can afford that, and many many poor and homeless and it has gotten worse.
And guess who is running the show out there.
Just imagine how mind-blowing it must have been when some municipality dictated that all home built after a certain date MUST have flush toilets. "Oh, come on, the outhouse idea has been working for a long time. Why change it? Now I need to reserve space in the home and put in plumbing. Home prices are going to skyrocket so only the rich can afford it."
Especially since California is so anti-solar right now!
Trying to get solar on my home in LA for a while, they come up with every excuse and confusion from the permit process to how to hook it up, etc. etc.
What a scam.
Only difference now is they made it law.
Building standards have been common place for hundreds of years and are constantly updated. Just because the latest proposals conflict with your chosen religion doesn't make it any different.
I'm an atheist. I have no religion. I get it, in your religion, solar panels are free. Hate to break it to you, but your religion is fake.
If you came here to post about "commiefornia" get the fuck out
Wow... this is yet another taxation without representation. The cost of home ownership in California has already skyrocketed to epic proportions... and now this? Oh wait... this is the same mentality that loves their local tax (state tax) and abhors and wants to reject a federal tax?
Easy answer. Every time there is a wildfire, landslide, flood, tornado or other natural disaster.. the federal government does some quick math to see how much California taxpayers... actually paid federal tax and responds in kind.
If their effective federal tax rate... was not equal to the effective tax rate for all other states nation-wide... the response should reflect the delta.
We learned this as kids...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ant_and_the_Grasshopper
I'm a contractor in California. I'm currently dealing with the latest Title 24 energy standards. I can tell you, they are very expensive and will only get more expensive. I was just thinking earlier today that home remodels and new construction will be only for the rich. (not that they aren't already) I believe we should manage our energy use/carbon footprint, however we need to be aware of the consequences.
Finally! This is the direction we need to move all newly constructed homes. We could power almost every home off of isolated power systems (solar+battery) if we only made the effort. It doesn't solve all our energy needs but if you are looking for a silver bullet then you aren't really looking for a solution.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
"But that $25,000 to $30,000 will result in $50,000 to $60,000 in the owner’s reduced operating costs over the 25-year life of the home’s solar system, Herro said." So the proposed legislation will make homes more efficient, and cost less to own in the long term. Let's see how the fossil fuel lobby try to twist this.
I get it, in your religion, solar panels are free. Hate to break it to you, but your religion is fake.
Nobody claimed they were free but dude, solar panels are cheap as hell now. I mean, have you even looked at the price per watt in recent years?
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Some HOAs will demand that you only install/replace roofs with cedar shake. Can't use tile, metal or asphalt. Because "Muh aesthetics!" And in spite of houses burning down right and left because embers land on flammable roofs, not one fucking politician has ever overruled an HOA. So just move into a neighborhood that prohibits solar for similar reasons.
Have gnu, will travel.
Yeah, let's make houses even more expensive. :(
Great nature and weather, shame about CA politicians.
Toilets aren't free, but they require every home have one of those, too (except in West Virginia, I think). In Texas, the state mandates that every house have heat, and furnaces aren't free.
You're not happy about solar energy. We all get that. But don't act like renewable energy is some kind of pie-in-the-sky myth. It just makes you look ridiculous. We've passed the point where solar panels now pay for themselves. Having one on a house actually brings down the cost of home ownership over time.
You are welcome on my lawn.
This could have unintended consequences such as jacking up the cost of new homes. That will hurt the poor.
Or perhaps that was intended.
To this day... utilities in Florida (Hurricane central) have supported laws and legislation that make it illegal to isolate yourself and use solar power to stay self-supporting. Welcome to the new carbon reality =P
https://boingboing.net/2017/09/18/rep-ray-rodrigues.html
Not only are you a church member, you are preaching its gospel.
The Church of California as the Demon may be recently formed, but you are a regular member of its choir, and you have sworn unthinking devotion to its tenets.
You think nobody noticed the dogmatic approach to scapegoating and castigating the state and its residents that you have adopted over the past decade?
It is the commandment you have received, and you will follow your doctrine. Never mind that saved utility expenses from these measures will pay for themselves, the sheer indignity of not being able to have a roof of flammable paper is intolerable!
Slavery was the most common and persistent institution in human history. By you logic since something is so common and standard we should follow it.
Fact is building standards are not designed to ensure people have good homes. Building standards are created by the rich elite to ensure that only the companies they own and control can build houses. Humans, just like all animals have an inherent ability to create a home for themselves. That house might only be a box on the side of a trail, but it will be something they can build and afford themselves without going into debt for 40 years.
In this pathological social construct we call civilization the rich elite have convinced the masses that by removing a person's inherent ability to construct a house for themselves and ensuring a monolopoly for the construction companies they are somehow protecting people.
In the good old antebellum South the rich entitled land owners also had convinced people that blacks were incapable of housing and feeding themselves on their own and that the white slave owners were really helping the poor dumb negros.
Things have not changed. The only difference is that they are controlling people by telling them chattel slavery they are controlling them by telling them that they must work 3/4 of their life just to pay of a mortgage so that they can have a house constructed according to code with solar cells on it. The elites own the solar cell plants. They own the city council. They own the constrruction companies. They own the banks, and they own your mind. They have convinced you that all the laws they write to controll you are done for you own good.
Why force solar panels on a home built in the shade of a forest, especially if the demand is for break even? That's extremely inefficient - it makes more sense to use the existing infrastructure to redistribute energy from areas where it's easily generated to areas where it isn't.
I'm thinking a credit system would address the desire much more economically.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
I get it, in your religion, solar panels are free. Hate to break it to you, but your religion is fake.
Nobody claimed they were free but dude, solar panels are cheap as hell now. I mean, have you even looked at the price per watt in recent years?
The cost of the solar panels themselves is only part of the issue--the cost of building a roof capable of supporting the weight of solar panels also has to be taken into account, as well as the simple fact that California has areas with serious problems with affordable housing. They shouldn't be adding to the problem for anything not required for safety or basic habitability.
If they want something like this, it'd be better to offer money up front for new houses to have solar panels on the roof than flat-out assume anybody wanting to own a house or build their own has money to burn.
There are places in California where housing is very expensive. There are places where it's not. If you want to live in a place where people really really want to live, that costs money.
But luckily those places are filled to the brim with existing homes. No solar panels needed on existing homes. No problem.
Also, everyone remembers the "there are good anti-Nazis and good Nazis" speech. Thanks for the reminder?
why are unelected bureaucrats allowed to invent rules that have the same power as an actual law? isn't this just a giant loophole around the entire concept of representative democracy? we can't even vote for or against the people ruling over us anymore.
It's not clear from that article how *much* solar has to be installed on a given house to meet the standard...a single power? The average power draw for a house in that area? A flat minimum per house? I'm pretty sure a single panel won't be quite what they're looking to accomplish (though it would definitely help costs).
I suspect those details ARE out there, but they don't seem obvious from the article.
Ferret
Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc
Why force sewage connection on a house built beside a flowing stream ?
thank you. people are literally blind to how much everything is under absolute control now. we're only "free" to live within very narrow bounds established by the ruling class.
Please stop assuming we are stupid and can't take care our selves. We been doing it a lot longer than you.
-Masses
You make people live in hell for all your new batteries. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4764208/Child-miners-aged-four-living-hell-Earth.html
Saving the earth by destroying it.
So is the State now liable for my roof being in shade due to tree, nearby highrise, raised freeway, billboard, etc?
If State is going to mandate zero-net, then all roof must be slanted toward the south.
Oh wait, I'm buying 1st floor of multifloor building, how do I meet that requirement?
There is plenty of standards that go beyond habitability - there are rules about power, water, heating, even storage space.
Heck, in my neighborhood there are rules about requiring fencing, a minimum number and maximum height of screening plans, the paint color, the current state of your shingles, there are rules about car washing, parking large vehicles and so on and so forth.
If there was a rule about solar power it would be just an additional item on the list of things one has to do to build and own a property.
Do you think that people who are building/buying homes pay for the whole thing up front? You know pretty much everyone buying a house uses a home loan, right? Even the rich tend to get loans to buy their homes since they can typically invest the money they would have paid up front and get a return higher than the interest rate on the loan. Lending institutions take into account what your living expenses will be when deciding how big a loan to approve you for. That includes utility costs. So, basically, this shouldn't hurt home buyers at all. Anyone who was going to pay up front from their savings instead of get a loan, but now can't afford the house can still afford the house by getting a loan to cover the extra costs and then pay less to pay back the loan than they would have for electricity.
I just don't see any way that the logic in your post holds up to reality.
I mean, solar panels are light and easily put on roofs that weren't designed to 'handle the weight.' you undermine your argument of increased cost when you stretch into the ridiculous here.
Well, Nero definitely was a rich elite. I think that it can be argued that the building codes that he introduced limiting the height of Roman apartment buildings to five stories were probably a good thing. At the time, typical Roman apartment buildings were up around 9 stories, the first 3 or four made of stone and the top floors made of wood. Landlords would try to squeeze on extra rickety wooden floors along with overhangs and all kinds of other unsafe construction. Aside from the danger of collapse, the buildings were fire hazards. If Nero hadn't implemented the building codes, then Rome probably would have burned down a second time at about the same time the landlords were done rebuilding after the first fire.
This is California's revenge on the energy companies for the Enron crisis when the state was forced into expensive long-term energy contracts.
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There is plenty of standards that go beyond habitability - there are rules about power, water, heating, even storage space.
Heck, in my neighborhood there are rules about requiring fencing, a minimum number and maximum height of screening plans, the paint color, the current state of your shingles, there are rules about car washing, parking large vehicles and so on and so forth.
If there was a rule about solar power it would be just an additional item on the list of things one has to do to build and own a property.
The difference is, if you don't like the rules of an HOA, you can go find a different neighborhood. If your job is in California, you can't just go find a different state.
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I've done the math. It doesn't work out for 99% of locations on Earth (based on population). Maybe solar will get there some day (though, the more solar we extract, the less energy there is for natural processes). It's not now.
Why force solar panels on a home built in the shade of a forest, especially if the demand is for break even?
First off, homes have a tendancy to be sold, so enforcing minimum standards helps insure the next person does alright. Second, in that specific case you could likely apply for a waiver on that specific rule with the building division. That doesn't mean you will get it, if it looks like your deliberately trying to scam your way around a rule. Still, they probably will be reasonable. If you do something else that reduces energy usage such as go beyond what the minimums require for insulation or hvac efficiency, you may be able to work something out with them.
Overall though, if your going to require something it should be in the majorities interest. For instance going beyond r-13 wall insulation may not make sense for a builder who never has to pay to heat the house, but for the family that has to live there, it does, particularly if the temperature extremes demand it.
(As an aside, if you want to improve your houses design, assuming you already have some insulation, first air seal, then maybe when you put new siding consider a rain screen. If you have insulation right under your roof sheathing, you may want to consider the equivalent for your roof, next time you reroof..
First they required indoor plumbing and now solar panels. The government is out of control!
Thanks OBAMA!
Building standards prevent builders from installing electric sockets behind kitchen sinks or in stairwells, ensuring that staircases have adequate foot depth and maximum step height, balcony walls are a sensible height and there are railings at any steep change in height, or there aren't holes between stairwells and floor levels (a modern flat with minimalist staircase had 6 inch gaps between the last step and the mezzanine level). When there aren't these codes, accidents happen.
Sometimes it does get carried away, when they require that garage driveways must not face the front of the house.
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right?
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Velcome to Californiastan, please leave you balls by the door before entering our friendly state.
I don't get it. California are taking steps to improve energy usage. WTHolyF is making so many posters aggressively against this? I can't understand educated engineers pooh-poohing a positive step forward.
You make a few good points and then destroy your credibility with paranoid ravings.
Photocell manufacturers in the U.S. are publicly owned corporations, the rest of them are foreign. Most of the companies that make arrays are small to moderate sized, and almost all of the installation companies are small. There are a few publicly owned construction companies like Meritage, and very many small companies that are little more than contractors.
The proposed law forcing new construction to have solar power is the result of leftist fools who think their whims should be law; that society should fit their Procrustean bed. That the citizenry of California lets them have their way shows that the whole state is insane.
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From the article:
- Exceptions or alternatives will be allowed when homes are shaded by trees or buildings or when the home's roofs are too small to accommodate solar panels
...
- Builders installing batteries like the Tesla Powerwall would get "compliance credits," allowing them to further reduce the size of the solar system.
Polluting the water running by your house violates the property rights of people living downstream. Handling sewage properly prevents that rights violation. Forcing a solar installation protects nobody's rights.
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Sure you can... you can move to one of the republican paradises like Kansas, Wyoming, or Oklahoma where low regulation and and taxes have produced places where everyone wants to live.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
"Forcing a solar installation protects nobody's rights."
It can, indirectly. For example, if it obviates a need for burning carbon for heat, which differs from your water example, only because it's atmospheric.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
So, no exemptions for hydro, geothermal, wind, or simply outsourcing w/carbon credits (isn't carbon the impetus)?
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
In this pathological social construct we call civilization the rich elite have convinced the masses that by removing a person's inherent ability to construct a house for themselves and ensuring a monopoly for the construction companies they are somehow protecting people.
What? I can only conclude one of two things from the tone of your post:
Option A, you have never actually tried to build your own home and so have no idea what the process actually entails
Option B, You actually tried to build your own home, but your own ineptness caused you to fail so miserably that the local building department put a stop to you, probably saving your life in the process.
I have built 1 house completely from scratch, and renovated almost a dozen others in the course of my life. I am not a builder by trade (Software engineer currently). I do not have any professional certifications or licenses in the building trades, and I live in NY state, second only to California when it comes to building regulations. In spite of that, I have never had undue trouble with the building department or the building inspector. On the very first house, I did have to hire an architectural engineer to draft the plans for the renovation I wanted. They didn't know me from adam, and they wanted some assurance that the walls I was planning to move weren't just going to fall over. All of my other work was very straight forward. I did all of the plumbing and electrical myself. The inspectors all came through and sometimes asked for some changes for relatively minor things, but never made me take anything out or completely redo anything. Truth be told, the most trouble I ever had was with a lineman from the electric utility. He didn't like the electrical entry I had planned, and was of the opinion that it did not meet code in spite of the requisite signatures from the building inspector. I had to spend about 2 days playing phone tag with the chief building inspector and the utility supervisor before the whole thing finally got straightened out.
If you want to get along with your local building department, seek them out before you start work on anything, and be sure to do your homework as far as what regulations apply so that you can have plans in place to address them appropriately. The first time you deal with them, expect to have to pay somewhat extra for certain engineering related costs, but once they know you, and trust you are not a nitwit, they will start working with you to help you save money on the things you don't need. If you go in with a combative attitude in the first place, you can expect the most miserable and expensive process imaginable, and you will deserve every minute of the pain you get for being a douche.
I wish I had a good sig, but all the good ones are copyrighted
the cost of building a roof capable of supporting the weight of solar panels also has to be taken into account,
It has been taken into account. No additional changes to regulations to support the weight of solar panels. I guess you don't know about fire codes but your roof has to be able to support a fully geared up firefighter.
California has areas with serious problems with affordable housing.
And that literally has nothing to do with the cost of the houses themselves but rather their scarce availability.
They shouldn't be adding to the problem for anything not required for safety or basic habitability.
This is required for the basic habitability of our planet.
Congratulations on failing to make a competent argument!
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit.
Burn unit has been notified.
Plenty of people would love Wyoming. Until they realize it's cold as balls and mostly flat and empty.
California attracts population despite the political climate, not because of it.
If they have all the equipment to allow them to disconnect from the grid, its fine. The just cant stay connected to the grid during an outage to prevent utility workers from being electrocuted. The equipment and batteries for that are not cheap like panels are these days, so most suburban houses dont have it. In off grid situations, that doesnt apply.
And that literally has nothing to do with the cost of the houses themselves but rather their scarce availability.
Why do you suppose that is? Is there not enough room for housing in California? What makes California so different from other states that housing is so expensive?
The reality is scarce availability is a direct result of out of control NIBYism implemented by those with power over the states regulatory regime. This solar thing is just one more drop in California's massive over-regulation bucket that is hurting real people in order to protect those with money/power by erecting even more barriers.
One need only look at the epidemic of "illegal" additions where single family dwellings are being converted into mini-apartments and the growing homelessness epidemic (Home to 1/4th of the countries homeless population) to see that California's legitimacy has been eroded by insane racist policies that disproportionately disadvantage the poor.
This is required for the basic habitability of our planet.
Since when has decentralized generation ever amounted to anything other than inefficient token gestures? Has always been the case much better results and higher efficiency are realized with large scale industrial production. Edison lost this fight a century ago.
It would be better policy and more environmentally sound simply to levy some kind of tax on power consumption to support large scale solar projects vs piecemeal rooftop installations operating at low efficiency power conversion that won't be professionally maintained or tracked. It isn't like there is no space in California for solar farms. Mojave desert by itself has more than enough land area to supply the energy needs of the entire country.
...aren't quite high enough yet.
I mean, solar panels are light and easily put on roofs that weren't designed to 'handle the weight.'
Agreed. In addition, about half the cost of rooftop solar is the installation, which should be significantly cheaper if it is done as part of the construction.
Also, the cost issue is bogus. The FHA is offering 3% down mortgages to first time buyers, at less than 6% APR, and the cost of solar can be part of the mortgage. Since solar in California (where power costs are high, and sunshine is plentiful) has an ROI of about 8%, this means the house with solar has LOWER monthly payments than the same house without.
for each room. please.
I'm an atheist. I have no religion. I get it, in your religion, solar panels are free. Hate to break it to you, but your religion is fake.
My solar broke even in four years making them effectively free for the next 15 plus years. Only people who don't understand what TCO is think they add cost.
which doesn't want to build more capacity to meet demand. That's what this is really about. California's either going to have to do this or start building more power infrastructure, which cuts into power plant profits. They'd much rather get paid to barely maintain infrastructure paid for with tax dollars decades ago.
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Just as if Americans weren't into enough debt already...
The proposed law forcing new construction to have solar power is the result of leftist fools who think their whims should be law;
You failed to explain how which is usually a bad sign...
Solar panels reduce the cost of home ownership (ie their cost is recovered by savings made over time). But somehow to you this is crazy leftist thinking. In the non-foolish right universe we all prefer to pay more for electricity?
That the citizenry of California lets them have their way shows that the whole state is insane.
If by insane you mean the wealthiest state in the nation then sure....
We would be better off keeping Diablo canyon open and planning the construction of new reactors throughout the state. Of course the intention of this bill is to increase costs not to decrease pollution.
Why force solar panels on a home built in the shade of a forest,
Is this common where you live? Because to me that seems like an extreme use case which would probably be dealt with int he fine print. For the other 99.99% of us that build our houses with some sort of exposure to the sun, it is isn't a big deal.
While I think it would be awesome to be able to install solar panels and NOT be dependent on government bull shit the reality is you are absolutely right. And if solar is competitive (without subsidies) it's not like private interests both massive solar farms and homeowners/builders can't install em in a free market. The problem is everything ends up getting subsidized by the government so you can't even reasonably compare the costs of solar vs coal vs nuclear vs whatever. We need to just get government out of making the decisions so that the efficiencies of a free market can take over and do a better job- even if its still imperfect. Where I live in New Hampshire there is zero chance of solar working. Besides the lack of daylight during much of the year we're heavily surrounded by trees. But if I were having a house built and able to avoid government and corporate programs (ie like electricity) I would. I probably would cut down the trees and give myself some sunlight for solar panels.
You shouldn't have to beg the state for permits to build yourself a house- or for any thing else for that matter. People should do there due diligence when purchasing a house. It's not like you don't have to do that already anyway. You could end up regretting it later if you don't. Ask for inspection paperwork. If someone didn't do things "properly" it's going to be up to you to decide if that risk is worth it. Houses that don't have the certs may come at a cheaper price and to some thats worth it. So while standards and certifications are I'd argue a good thing the state shouldn't be dictating them. The government should generally stay out of peoples business unless there is an actual victim of violence, theft, or coercion. They should not be issuing drivers licenses. That doesn't mean people shouldn't learn the protocols of the road. It's like education- it's a great thing- until the government gets involved and screws it up.
Just as if Americans weren't into enough debt already...
America over consumes and under invests. Going into debt at 6% to invest at 8% is very sensible, especially since that 6% is tax deductible for most low and middle income homeowners.
Yes- there isn't enough room. The problem isn't that there's no affordable housing int he state- go out to central valley or Bakersfield. The problem is that there's no affordable housing in San Francisco (LA and San Diego to a lesser extent) because there's no more land to build on and they won't allow them to build up to higher density.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
I guess this better need legislation preventing home owner associations forbidding people from installing panels on their homes because it "spoils" the look of the neighborhood.
I have heard this is pretty common in the states. These associations putting random restrictions on what a person can do with his own home. Luckily, this isnt something that ever caught on in Europe. It would be illegal in most EU countries anyhow.
I mean, have you even looked at the price per watt in recent years?
Sorry, your link is very misleading
The cost of solar panel (plus installation) comes to $2.71 ~ $3.57 per watt
Plus, the average gross cost of solar panels before tax credits is $18,840
That's $18,840 extra cost a new home owner must cough up, in California
Sure you can... you can move to one of the republican paradises like Kansas, Wyoming, or Oklahoma where low regulation and and taxes have produced places where everyone wants to live.
The trendy thing for Californians to do these days is move to Phoenix and drive up our housing prices. It's so rare these days to find another person besides myself who is actually from this area.
Enron wouldn't have been a thing at all if the State of California hadn't have been in the business of fixing energy prices.
"His name was James Damore."
It isn't the state's fault that people want housing there. If you don't want to pay the cost, drive until you qualify or head somewhere else. Affordable housing means someone subsidizes the bills, likely the landlords. Just because people value quality of life there doesn't mean that they can hand freebies out.
if you have a straw roof... yeah, maybe. if you have a roof built any other way, then the weight of the panels is neglegable relative to what the roof could support without panels.
if my roof couldn't support the extra weight without modification, then i wouldn't sleep under said roof... becuase it could fall on me at anytime.
Panels are not that heavy. I just installed 7.2kW (24 panels pin my roof, 1/2 flat roof, half angled.
Seriously, worry about climate change, not your roof (and save on electricity whilst you're at it)
What happened to the concept of heat pumps? If the goal is to be "net zero", then heat pumps should be considered for new buildings, using solar panels and wind energy to drive compressors.
Rubbish. ROI is 3 years... I'm sure the house will last longer than that.
(based on 7.2kWh install too... ample power)
"the cost of building a roof capable of supporting the weight of solar panels also has to be taken into account,"
If your roof can't handle the additional weight of (for example) 3KW of PV, then I agree you've got more important things to worry about.
Honestly, that's such a stupid argument.
They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom
the cost of building a roof capable of supporting the weight of solar panels
I have never seen a roof in a developed world that needed to be reinforced to support the weight of the small number of panels we are talking about. Such a roof would not be safe to step on.
as well as the simple fact that California has areas with serious problems with affordable housing
One of the great things that keep the poor poor is that we put them in housing so cheap that it becomes expensive to run. Poor insulation, poor quality windows, lack of solar panels, expensive to run hot water systems, cheap flooring that scratches and breaks when you look at it funny.
There is nothing quite as expensive as cheap housing.
They shouldn't be adding to the problem
They aren't. In countries that actually give a damn about global warming and reducing their carbon footprint, energy price rises cause a lot of financial stress for the most vulnerable (reads: poor, or low income retirees).
I get it, in your religion, solar panels are free.
I didn't realise economics was a religion. I suppose you haven't read The Book of Smith 24:10 "Things that have a short payback period and then save you money effectively are free."
Do you folk in the USofA get special training in this heavily-partisan "attack mode" version of discourse?
The whole state is insane? Because they choose something that you don't like? How does it affect you? Do you live in California? Do you work for a fossil-fuel electricity generator company? Or perhaps yours is a job peripheral to that, such that PV uptake threatens your future. Tell us, please.
While you're at it, tell us if the air quality in Ca generally is better now than, say the 1960s and 70s.
They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom
Building standards are created by the rich elite to ensure that only the companies they own and control can build houses.
Are you too stupid to read a regulation or too weak to lift a 2x4? Or why not both.
Building a house to code isn't hard.
We would actually prefer if you keep flying on past the Midwest and move to the land of Milk and Honey like Detroit. Or if you need to visit the Midwest then I suggest Chicago. I hear the gang wars are lovely this time of the year. I used to live in San Jose and Gilroy. Simply put, there are too many people.
That is absolutely fine. They are free to choose to move to California if they find certain benefits there. If their political and ideological stands places them too much at odds with the political landscape they find they are free to fuck right off again.
But what they cannot do is move to California and expect the entire state to conform to what they want it to be just because they decided to move there.
On another note, arent these dipshits able to think that if California is so attractive to them, maybe they should reconsider There Stands that California politics produces a bad place to live.
Bitcoin mining pretty much makes this a moot point.
Then raising taxes to subsidize poor people. Causing people with money to flee the state.
The solar panels are of course from specific companies.
It is always fun for the elite when government orders its subjects to buy specific products.
Spoken like a person that never dealt with building inspectors. One example...
One inspector cites me because the casement windows don't open all the way as a fire escape. So we adjust the windows.
The next inspector cites me because the windows open all the way becoming a potential hazard for children to fall out.
Then there is the time that they decided to order a structural analysis when the building was almost finished even though we supplied that early on in the process. That delayed us a month.
That's pretty close to my situation. I will break even this year at the 4.5 year mark.
This move is not about making California a greener, more eco-friendly state. It is about making the solar energy companies wealthier and further driving the cost of homes up, thus helping realtors earn larger commissions. Just about every law passed can be traced to a certain population that stands to benefit from it.
If you are building a house from scratch and if you are sensible you'd use the solar PV tiles instead of roof tiles plus panels, there won't be much in it.
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
Look up using solar PV tiles (also called solar slates/shingles) for new housing i.e. the solar PV tiles are the solar collectors so you don't need to cover the roof in ordinary tiles and then put panels on to.
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
One of the nice things about living in the midwest is that you don't have to live in a congested urban shithole.
But it is the state's fault. Meaning 'state' as in government. If the state allowed market mechanisms to define housing density, prices would shift towards much more affordable housing.
Right. And disallowing ANY home-built computers protects us all because it reduces power consumption and thus our carbon footprint. Restrict PC design to the experts at Dell, HP, Lenovo and Acer, who will build integrated-graphics wonders that can play sensible games like Breakout (only the versions without ecxessive animations, mind you).
We all need to work together to achive the Common Good I value greatly.
'CA would be in even better shape'
Are you here all week? No, I'm not going to order the overpriced cod fillets.
California has areas with serious problems with affordable housing.
And that literally has nothing to do with the cost of the houses themselves but rather their scarce availability.
Not so. California's housing prices are a huge part of their affordable housing problem. In the booming tech cities, housing prices have gone up so much that minimum wage workers can't afford to live in the city they work in.
Here’s how many minimum-wage hours it takes to afford a two-bed in SF
Low-wage jobs are plentiful in S.F., but where can you live?
I tried living on an $8 per hour salary in San Francisco and it was a disaster
This is required for the basic habitability of our planet.
You are dismissing an entirely valid line of thinking. In this specific case, the real goal is to make houses energy efficient, or carbon-neutral, or something like that. There's many ways to do that other than solar panels. Maybe someone wants to use a geothermal energy system, or a wind turbine. Or maybe they don't want to connect to the grid at all. Maybe they want to use a passive cooling design and a green roof. Often times regulations that tell people *how* to solve the problem are really corporations trying to use the regulations to steer people toward their products. Like requiring a particular safety valve, that only one company has a patent on. This prevents other companies from innovating by developing similar products.
This has not always to do with HOAs. There are also historical districts that set strict rules. Most codes are more practical in nature, such as how many windows a house can have. That matters for fire safety especially in densely built neighborhoods.Or the pipe coming from a sump pump, it is usually not allowed to be connected to the sewer line, but has to dump outside and away from structures. That is to protect the sewer system during a rain storm. There are other codes such as no longer allowing aluminium, iron, or knob and tube cabling, no lead water or drain pipes, have cabling in conduits up to 30 ft high, working smoke alarms in multi-unit dwellings.... That all costs money, not only for new construction, but also for remodels. Those rules exist for a reason. Adding solar panels will increase cost, but there is a general benefit to the community. The lack of affordable housing has many other reasons, mainly that municipalities shy away from being landlords and that those who already live in an area are typically strongly opposed to have any affordable housing in their area. Administrators and politicians deciding otherwise tend to be looking for a new job soon after. Companies are not bound to turn a big profit on affordable housing either. The housing crisis is not due to cost, but because we as a society don't want low income households next door. Once that attitude changes and profit maximization is not the core focus, the issue can be resolved in rather short time.
I'm not familiar with CA building codes, but I wonder which requirements they have for insulation. Preventing from heat to come into the house will significantly lower the power consumption for cooling and thus lower the power needs of households...which, by the way, are on average three times higher in the US than in Europe.
And where everyone has zero public services of any kind. Yep, low housing cost, but you pay for tons of stuff out of your own pocket while earning significantly lower wages. Most of the municipalities and in case of Kansas have critical budget shortfalls because taxes are constantly cut, which benefits a few already rich folks. Look up how well Brownback's Reagonomics worked in Kansas: massive budget shortfall due to significant lower tax revenue, which caused many public employees to get fired and especially school funding to be cut, while at the same time not enough private sector jobs were created, increasing overall unemployment. Sure, low taxes and no regulation, but also an administration that was rendered inoperable and forced to cut everything across the board. That is what massive republican tax cuts get you. Reagonomics didn't work for Reagan and didn't work for anyone who tried after.
Buying a house is typically a good investment. Even in bad times owning realty is always beneficial. Many look at home ownership as a pure investment opportunity where they aim to make a profit. I know times changed and people are moving more than they used to, but at some point it is better to stay put and pay off a mortgage making it far more reasonable to stay in your home once retirement comes. In most cases buying is even cheaper than renting, even with any additional cost of maintenance and upkeep....which is rolled into rent anyway. I used to rent a house and then bought a house two lots up the street. Doubled the living space and saved over 200$ per month ever since.
I guess in the USA, you have a lot of natural gas and coal fired plants. In NZ here its mostly hydro. I guess no matter where you are, the argument is always going to be that the houses use electricity at night from the grid.
Well i always say the solar on houses sold back to the grid can power our workplaces, electric roads etc during the day, so the hydro water supply, coal or natural gas can be turned down and reserved for use in the evenings.
In NZ our lake levels drop some years due to all the heating in use during winter, and so there is a price rise in electricity. But if they didnt need to run as much water through the dams during the day then they can save it for the evenings. Over time the lake levels will drop less and less. The same goes for burning coal and carbon output.
Water heating can also be a major way to save carbon emissions - in NZ we use utility controlled load switches which turn on water heaters when demand is low- the local utility guarantees xyz number of hours of heating time and your power retailer gives you a discount if they can run your water heater at off peak times of the day. However there is nothing stopping you from using your excess solar generation to heat your water during the day.
SO, Take a 500sqft home that cost a million and now add $120K worth of solar panels to power it. If CA homes were not expensive enough...
What Solar company greased the wheels to get this law passed? I doubt there was a lot of $ tossed in to these democrat's pockets from companies that don't stand to massively benefit from this bill least they think they will benefit.
I'm just wondering. For a country that always prided itself on personal freedoms, capitalism, and democracy, it would seem like there's a lot of new laws forcing people to do things in certain ways.
Adding solar panels will increase cost, but there is a general benefit to the community
You haven't said what the benefit is.
But the point is that home prices are already so out of control that this really only affects rich people. And just because you put panels on a roof doesn't mean they'll be hooked up, or maintained, or replaced.
This is just another CA feel good law, designed mostly to create demand for Solar and put the cost burden on the upper class.
they are still subsidized. That needs to be stopped.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Absolutely, just as soon as fossil fuel companies have to clean up the pollution they are producing... and we cut the subsidies that they get too.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
.... that don't want "ugly" solar arrays polluting the esthetics of their pristine neighborhoods...
"The GOVERNMENT made me do it!"
First, people should do THEIR do diligence. Second, most houses have these things called walls that cover up wiring, plumbing, and ductwork and that generally prevent inspectors from seeing potential problems.
Building permits and inspections generally mean that you can expect your house to not fall down or burn up, killing you and your family in the process.
Without them, the consumer is totally at the mercy of shoddy builders, contractors, and nitwit DIY'ers who have no compunction whatsoever about running, say, an under-gauge wire directly against too-thin imported drywall that's on 2x2 studs 3' on center on a "load-bearing" wall.
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
California's housing prices are a huge part of their affordable housing problem. In the booming tech cities, housing prices have gone up so much that minimum wage workers can't afford to live in the city they work in.
It's called price and demand. High demand with limited availability results in scarcity which drives up the price. This isn't rocket science.
There's many ways to do that other than solar panels. Maybe someone wants to use a geothermal energy system, or a wind turbine.
But neither of those are for housing and would imply they must be subsidized in some manner to displace existing energy producers. This is an inexpensive way to ensure the proliferation of renewable energy. Also, geothermal by a fault line? A bold move for sure!
Often times regulations that tell people *how* to solve the problem are really corporations trying to use the regulations to steer people toward their products. Like requiring a particular safety valve, that only one company has a patent on.
Nobody is requiring any special patented solar panels, just solar panels. Considering most solar cells are from China, it's quite clear this isn't corruption as you imply.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Right. And "tax the rich and give it to the poor" is working so well for the 45,000+ homeless in LA county alone.
Enron wouldn't have been a thing at all if...
Spoken like someone who doesn't understand what actually happened. You should watch Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room which is on Netflix.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
The cognitive dissonance is strong with these people.
Polluting the water running by your house violates the property rights of people living downstream. Handling sewage properly prevents that rights violation. Forcing a solar installation protects nobody's rights.
Except for Progressive rights to feel smug and mighty.
California isn't all sun and desert. Up north, they have huge trees that block the sun, so will those people be required to clear the trees around their homes to make solar work?
I live in a forested home with huge trees around providing shade most of the year - except about 4 months of winter when the sun can get through about 50% and heat the house at tad. The solar industry says to use 4 hrs of solar/day for estimating power output. I've seen fewer than 6 homes with solar power in the area. Because we have relatively cheap power, solar isn't as clearly a no-brainer here. Over the next 10 yrs, we'll probably pay about $8K in electrical power costs. So ... it only makes sense to me if the costs are $12K total, all-in, or less. Got an estimate of 16yrs to break even, which I find suspect. Regardless of the inputs to the calculator, the answer was always 16 yrs to break even.
And I'd rather not cut any trees, since those will add about $5K to the costs and require permits here.
Of course, solar makes since for lots and lots of people. I hope it does here, someday, too.
Hate to break it to you but Athiesm IS a religion, meaning you actually believe in nonexistence. If you were non-religious then you could say you have no religion, meaning you just don't care one way or the other.
No, but they might as well be compared to solar systems.
I love the idea of having my own electrical production and think it's a good idea but all good ideas shouldn't carry the force of law.
Peace is easy to achieve, just surrender. Liberty is much harder get/keep.
The affordable housing problem has fuck all to do with what it actually costs to build a house, and everything to do with investors from all over the world buying up California real estate.
Spoken like someone that only likes half of the story in order to protect the demonstrably bad Statist price fixing ethic they have.
but thanks for playing the information game.
Enron could only do what it did because California thought it was better than the free market at setting energy prices. The ensuing arbitrage across State lines was PREDICTABLE, the politicians of California were WARNED IT WOULD HAPPEN, but they thought their good intentions would beat market forces... again.
You Californians are suckers for excuses that cover for Californian political stupidity.
"His name was James Damore."
if new buyers don't like the look of solar panels on the roof, maybe there will be an incentive for existing houses not to have them.
They had a lot of methane explosions in the early days, which was part of why the crapper valve was invented (flush toilets had been around prior sans valve, not sure for how long, but in many cases, hand filled rather than run off pressurized pipes.)
arguably, with that affordable housing thing, if you're looking to buy/build you do have money to burn :)
your statements are correct but seem to be assuming that by "cost of the house" he means "price of the house", where I would expect he means "cost of construction"... the majority of the price of a building in the bay area is the land. The structure on top of the land is just gravy.
Why not just mandate clotheslines for all homes in California?
Add to that, whole house fans.
The major electricity users in my California home is the electric clothes dryer and the air conditioning system.
Both of these are a lot cheaper than solar electric systems and will provide significant electricity savings.
Stupid government.
The cost of the solar panels themselves is only part of the issue--the cost of building a roof capable of supporting the weight of solar panels also has to be taken into account...
I've installed a dozen or so PV systems. They are lightweight- much lighter than typical roofing systems (clay tile, asphalt shingles, etc.) In most areas of the US, roofs must be designed to withstand a freak snowstorm and resulting "snow load", which again, is magnitudes more than the weight of the roof itself, or PV panels. Incidentally, PV panels tend to shed snow, thus reducing the roof load.
The _only_ problem I know of is their tendency to catch wind and pull up on the roof, so hurricane ties and other better roof framing techniques should be used (or done regardless). The wind catching problem can be minimized by keeping the PVs as low as possible, and maybe some kind of air dam around the system, and keep the top row a foot or so below the roof peak.
Help! Help! I'm being repressed!
Come and see the violence inherent in the system!
Because of it
The diversity in CA workforce makes our products the envy of the world
Look, if the subsidies for AE on new homes is stopped, this will be more expensive. As such, builders will have incentive to insulate better and switch to geothermal heat pumps. That way, less money goes into project, while lowering all prices.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Geothermal near a fault line? That's just nuts.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
I am so confused. Are the naysayers saying that this will hurt the rich, or the average joe? I thought the argument that started this was that non-rich people would not be able to afford houses anymore.
Look who knows zero about wind load. Acting like an expert.
Dipshit. Your house would fall down pretty fast.
the cost of building a roof capable of supporting the weight of solar panels also has to be taken into account,
It has been taken into account. No additional changes to regulations to support the weight of solar panels. I guess you don't know about fire codes but your roof has to be able to support a fully geared up firefighter.
I guess you don't know, but building codes and laws are different depending on where you live.
Where I live? It's a major issue if you want rooftop solar installed, because some only are strong enough to support an adult if that person is very careful about where they step. If memory serves, you also still are generally warned against trying to stand on a solar panel.
California has areas with serious problems with affordable housing.
And that literally has nothing to do with the cost of the houses themselves but rather their scarce availability.
Actually, it does, but I was assuming you were bright enough to not need to be told that you can increase availability by building more. Even if the additional supply is outside of the cities it can still relieve the stress, especially if you couple it with a quality mass transit system to let people travel reliably in from the resulting exurbs.
They shouldn't be adding to the problem for anything not required for safety or basic habitability.
This is required for the basic habitability of our planet.
No, rooftop solar on every house is not required for the basic habitability of our planet. One-size-fits-all solutions generated by the ruling elite are inherently and unavoidably bigoted against those who are not part of that group. It's better to say that the switch must be made, but not setting by fiat from on high the exact method and means, especially since it will pick whatever is most fashionable and/or has the best lobbyists--not their quality as an option for sustainability.
While it may be a few decades before we have a huge mass of solar panels needing to be properly disposed of--recycled, preferably, since some of the materials involved are toxic and/or damaging to the environment to obtain--we need to start getting the systems in place now. (Recent source on the issues here, though I'd argue it's optimistic to assume that you have the expected lifespan of the panels to get the recycling systems in place--we have that long to plan for large-scale, yes, but we need to have started the small-scale recycling efforts, even if it's just ways to store panels safely in the meantime.)
An individual panel is "light".
How many panels are we talking about?
Also, how much does the rack they sit on weigh?
Also, what kind of downforce do they produce with a wind load?
If the roof hasn't been sufficiently engineered to support those loads, you get a cave in of the roof, possibly pushing out walls on it's way down.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
It has been taken into account. No additional changes to regulations to support the weight of solar panels. I guess you don't know about fire codes but your roof has to be able to support a fully geared up firefighter.
You're talking about a point load.
With solar panels, they're talking about sustained load and wind load.
A firefighter in full gear doesn't stand up there 24x7, jumping up and down on the roof.
And yes, there's a real, measurable difference.
And that literally has nothing to do with the cost of the houses themselves but rather their scarce availability.
Okay you're on hallucinogens.
Housing is NOT scarce in California.
The problem is, foreign investment has driven housing prices up out of the realms of affordability.
There are places all over the state where homes stand empty. Unrented. Un-lived-in. Owned by people in China, India, etc. Bought as "investments".
The median income in California is about $62K/year
The media home price in California is over $400K.
And basic cost-of-living in the state is nearly 30% higher than the national average.
Basically, if you want to live at the $75K "comfortable living" standard, in California, you need to be making nearly $100K.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
That whooshing sound is you missing the point. There are companies that will put solar panels on your house for zero dollars, in exchange for being able to sell you the power, and sell any excess power back to the grid. That means this does not inherently drive up the price of the home. It does, however, inherently mean that homeowners will pay less for electricity.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
AC wrote...
>Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit.
>Burn unit has been notified.
He he he. Gave me a smile. I loved "That 70s Show".
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Which brings up my only concern. About 5 years ago a Dietz & Watson warehouse in our area caught fire and they couldn't do much about it, so it burnt to the ground. We know one of the firemen and he corroborated the story here. The solar panels interfered with their ability to get on the roof and suppress the flames.
If not for that being an issue, I'd love to go solar.
http://www.nj.com/burlington/i...
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
Since solar in California (where power costs are high, and sunshine is plentiful) has an ROI of about 8%,
Do you have a source for that that isn't a solar manufacturer/installer? How does that number look when your utility doesn't pay much for the electricity generated by solar residential customers, but doubles the rate residential solar customers pay for electricity in the evening after the sun goes down (SDG&E)? Then consider that many homes in CA are small and don't have high electric bills (mine never gets much above $100 per month, even with central AC on).
not all buildings are near fault lines.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
That doesn't really square with what the state has actually already done: approving utilities' move to pay rooftop solar providers the normal retail rate for the electricity they generate in the afternoon, and then charge them over double the normal rate for the energy they consume in the evening.
It's called price and demand.
Supply and demand actually, but close enough. You got the point.
But neither of those are for housing
They most definitely are! A simple web search will show some of the options.
This is an inexpensive way to ensure the proliferation of renewable energy.
How does mandating things make them inexpensive?
Nobody is requiring any special patented solar panels
I never claimed they were.
Before long, you wont have to worry about returning California to Mexico...before long, there won't be any U.S. citizens left!
the majority of the price of a building in the bay area is the land.
I'm with you in that the cost of the land might be a significant part of it, but I'm not sure that the cost of the structure is "gravy." If it was that simple, then everyone would be putting solar panels on their houses today. In reality, people place solar panels on houses if they can afford the initial cost, and if the payback is worth it. That varies based on their electricity rates, proximity to trees, local climate, etc. California is a big state and those things vary.
Strange little anecdote here: In Palm Desert, CA - where it is sunny 364 days per year, where you can hardly grow a tree more than 1 story, where everyone has 2 air conditioners on their 1500 square foot homes - there are almost no solar panels. Reason? Building codes require a particular kind of roof, which isn't suited to putting panels on them. So basically, aesthetics. *shrug* Seems crazy to me. I'm curious how this state law like this would interact with a local ordinance.
I presume there will be regular recertifications that will be necessary, say every 3-5 years that will require some State representative to come out to the house, make sure your system is opperating up to snuff and give you a renewed cert, or cite you for repair and replace. Whoever votes to allow that kind of lunacy deserves the consequences.
Enjoy!
making /. a bigger turn off than it's been the last year.
The solar panels interfered with their ability to get on the roof and suppress the flames.
If not for that being an issue, I'd love to go solar.
Fire code prevents you from placing a solar panel within three feet of a roof edge to give firefighters access which makes this a non issue for houses. However, fighting a fire atop a warehouse is much different. With 7000+ panels on the warehouse, it sounds like they did not leave adequate room for firefighters.
Contact your local FD and they can tell you how they deal solar on houses because they don't just let those houses burn.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
It's called price and demand.
Supply and demand actually, but close enough. You got the point.
A) I'm very disappointed in myself for such a dumb mistake.
B) I was making the point to you.
But neither of those are for housing
They most definitely are! A simple web search will show some of the options.
Yeah and they costs they incur is far higher than solar panels.
This is an inexpensive way to ensure the proliferation of renewable energy.
How does mandating things make them inexpensive?
I'm not saying mandating them makes them inexpensive, I'm saying that they are already inexpensive.
Nobody is requiring any special patented solar panels
I never claimed they were.
You implied corruption by mandated monopoly and I was pointing out that was not the case.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
With solar panels, they're talking about sustained load and wind load.
Yep... that's why you hear about all these people being unable to get solar panels on their house because their roof is weak as fuck. Oh wait, I've never heard of that in my life. ;)
Housing is NOT scarce in California. ...
There are places all over the state where homes stand empty. Unrented. Un-lived-in. Owned by people in China, India, etc. Bought as "investments".
If someone removes it from the market then the remaining pool of available homes is decreased. It's scarcity, be it artificial or otherwise.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
One-size-fits-all solutions generated by the ruling elite are inherently and unavoidably bigoted against those who are not part of that group.
Yep... that makes you seem like a stable individual. Just tell everyone in town about how the ruling elite are ruining your life.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Solar panels are cheap, but the infrastructure backend that can take the power from solar panels and turn that into the ability to watch tv, have lighting, and maybe even use an oven is far from it. You either need a power grid designed around millions of homes producing solar power or expert home owners and a basement full of super expensive controllers and battery banks with minimal lifespans.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Clever that you left Texas off that list. Texas was a deep conservative bastion was it not? Now look at all the californians rushing to move to Texas.
I get it though, they arent moving there to enjoy what conservatives have created, they are going to "fix" it with their liberalism, right?
Silicon Valley is located on the peninsula. San Franscico is the desirable place to live because of the moderate micro-climate, having a city that is walkable and close to an international airport as well as large conference centers.
The cities to the south of San Francisco and north of San Jose became overspill commuter cities for those who couldn't afford those two cities. Eventually the number of mega large campuses grows so much that given the ratio between the number of employees (100,000) vs the size of a housing lot means that 10x as much space is needed for housing. Those that can't afford to live on the peninsula have to commute from the other side of the bay by car or bus over the bridges. Building high-rise apartment blocks would only lead to more single people competing for family homes. Building on the desert is practical because of the lack of water and problems with fungal diseases in the soil.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
"Oh wait, I've never heard of that in my life."
Talk with people using ground-mounted solar arrays about ALL their reasons for doing so.
Because, apparently, you haven't had enough exposure to the install side of the equation.
Now, to be FAIR, we ARE talking about installs on NEW construction.
So making sure that the roof system is appropriately engineered won't really add MUCH.
But it IS NOT a zero-cost proposition.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
California offered a bunch of incentives to get people to "go solar" and this included the ability to sell energy back to the grid when your panels are producing surplus energy. Seems great. You'd buy into it, right?
I did. I have enough solar to cover all my energy needs from sun-up to sun-down.
Not long ago, however, the big energy providers demanded a change and the corrupt democrats who run the state knew which side of their toast needed butter - so they went along with it. "Campaign contributions" ( [cough] Bribery [cough] ) won out and they changed the rates they charge and pay based on time of day.
Now, if you buy electricity from the grid during the day, they claim it must be expensive (because EVERYBODY including all businesses and schools) needs it then, BUT if you are trying to sell it back to them (the same number of kilowatts at the same time) they claim it's cheap because there are so many solar providers (and thus they pay a low price). In the evening and at night when your panels are not generating, you have no option to sell surplus to the grid and they can claim they need to charge high rates because total production is so low due to all the solar homes not providing. Net result is lose-lose for home solar, and this is by design. You should NEVER make long-term plans based in the incentives offered by corrupt politicians. Unlike individuals and businesses, politicians have no legal requirement to keep to an agreement. If too many people decide to install batteries (another big expense) they will find a way to suck the benefits out of that too as soon as people stop paying attention.
Electric car people should be similarly wary - they originally encouraged people to go electric by advertizing that (among other things) such drivers pay no gas tax. Recently these very same politicians have complained that electric car owners are not "paying their fair share" of road costs and now they are talking about a tax tied to miles driven.
it's always nice to swoon over "world peace" and puppies and unicorns and such, but then there's the REAL WORLD.
Normal, sane people live in the REAL WORLD.
In the REAL WORLD, every added government mandate has costs attached to it. All those nice to have items mandated by do-gooders in the California legislature have added (as of 2016) an average of $87000.00 USD to the price of every new home in the state. When you consider that the vast majority of homebuyers need to borrow money to buy their homes, that means they end up not only paying that $87K but they also end up paying interest on it, and then of course because it's an inflation of the house price and the taxes are based on the value of the home which is pegged to its purchase price, they end up paying taxes on those regulatory costs.
To see the problem in all this before it is implemented, you have to have the intelligence to consider the 2nd- and 3rd-order effects of actions, which admittedly most progressives are incapable of comprehending. Normal people tend to notice that housing ends up in short supply and being very expensive. The progressives then call for even more regulations and higher taxes and "public housing" (which none of them plan to live in but they hope to capture some ethnic minorities into as part of making them permanently dependent upon Democrat politicians).
But it IS NOT a zero-cost proposition.
Nobody said it was. However, it's also not a costly proposition.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
"cheap as hell now." ... if I actually get all of those incentives which isn't a given I'm still at $25K.
Really? I just spent $40K on a 15KVA installation. WTF is cheap about 40K?
With all the government bullshit rebates and such
I could buy an airplane for that.
What if I assume that my power company will adopt environment friendly (wind, solar farms ) energy production in the forseeable future, why should I make the effort of producing energy myself?
But don't act like renewable energy is some kind of pie-in-the-sky myth. It just makes you look ridiculous. We've passed the point where solar panels now pay for themselves. Having one on a house actually brings down the cost of home ownership over time.
Agreed about Solar Power, It pays for itself quickly and gives a more reliable (when combined with a redflow.com / lithium battery) grid.
I upgraded the solar on my roof to 8.5kw/h (from 3kwh), it works well, and when you work out the rebates (15c feed in to grid vs 45c import from grid) the payback time is 2-3 years. In South Australia we are very energy conscious given that 2 years ago the grid failed and the blackout for several hours took the whole states infrastructure with it. Since then Musk installed the worlds largest battery (plus Sanjeev Gupta investing to build another large scale), so currently we are one of the world leaders in Solar Wind & Geothermal, and as the big coal plants come to the end of the working life, and when problems occur as happened last year, the battery system kept the nations grid up. Unfortunately our federal government has coal for brains, but on the ground with people like myself Solar and other renewables are essential.
We cant keep raping the planet, so any initiative to mandate solar panels I see as important as mandating plumbing ( and I would suggest double glazing to increase the energy efficiency of homes). The Extra $AU4,000 for the 5.5kw upgrade is negligable when you are building a home when you factor that in three years (largely depends upon your location) is paid for and for the next 20+ years you are in front.
Its time to be smart, so a little extra upfront is the greatest bargain, whilst its not mandatory here, I would guess about 40-50% of homes here have solar pv panels currently.
Darren
One of the nice things about living in the midwest is that you don't have to live in a congested urban shithole.
Chicago isn't in the Midwest?
Yes, but in the case of places like California, Washington State, Alaska, etc. the entire state is riddled with fault lines (and in some cases semi-active volcanoes) to the point that geothermal tapping would be an iffy proposition as you can't actively avoid their effects even if your building is 50+ miles away from the fault.
Virginia found this out a few years back when they had an earthquake hit in an area with places that use geothermal - many of the heat pump wells were seriously damaged or outright destroyed even though they were over twenty-five miles or more from the actual fault.
@Mindless Drivel: 100% of Twitter posts ever Tweeted.
Edison lost the fight to put a smoke-belching plant on every block because people don't want to live next to those. If Edison had been offering solar panels on every house/block (no waste gases, no fuel costs, no transmission losses), the idea of centralized generation would not have been as attractive. Improved batteries may very well mean the death of the gigantic power plant.
Really?
Yes, just look at the graph.
I just spent $40K on a 15KVA installation. WTF is cheap about 40K? ... if I actually get all of those incentives which isn't a given I'm still at $25K.
With all the government bullshit rebates and such
Oh, I totally believe you.
CO2 and global warming will go down as THE biggest scam mankind has ever known.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Well, yes. The next question is why California housing prices are so high - or, at least, in certain areas. I doubt all houses in California are that expensive, but in the San Francisco area they are.
The cost of a house is pretty much the cost of the building(s) plus the cost of the land. In rural areas, land is cheap, so raising the price of constructing a house has a relatively large effect on the overall price. In San Francisco, it's a matter of limited real estate, so the lot is really really expensive, and raising the cost of building a house has a relatively small effect.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
I just bought a new house in California. The way the builders get around this is they do PPA's that you end up paying on top of the Edison bill, or you are forced with-in the first 60 days of ownership to purchase the panels outright from the company that the Contractor used to put up the panels and service the PPA with no price negotiation on the cost. It's kind of a lose/lose situation for consumers, and it is how builders moved around this already for cities like mine that require panels on new construction. I could have put up the 10 panels myself with equipment much cheaper than the 15K they want for me to buy out the PPA and own it outright. I was a bit pissed and it is not required to be disclosed until closing started.
"America over consumes and under invests. Going into debt at 6% to invest at 8% is very sensible"
sure but going into debt to invest at somewhere between -30% and 30% maybe not so much. unless that 8% is guaranteed its not always sensible.
CO2 and global warming will go down as THE biggest scam mankind has ever known.
You found a previous reply..... ??? Yet you didn't say anything? I presume you hit submit before you realized you didn't say something there? I have to wonder. That's ok.
Just because someone thinks MMGW is a scam doesn't mean we're against technologies such as solar. In fact, that proves the point. If it makes sense we'll do it. We don't have to be bankrupt making a few people rich (like Al Gore) in the process. That's a big difference. Conservatives believe in change in the self. Progressives believe they have to change your mind with a club, gun, fines, name calling, etc. Not that they will change (they often won't eat their own dog food), they want you to do as they say.
Used to get a kick out of that. GW Bush's house and Al Gore's house. 43's house was very efficient and Gore's was like a power slug of the whole neighborhood. Seems to me he used to burn up as much electric as 40+ of his neighbors did. He's probably used more electric than you or I will in a lifetime already.
When my house is pumping out 5 kW more than I'm using, then I'm pretty much powering three houses that do not have solar capacity
Your extra 5 kW in the daytime doesn't cover your own needs at night time. That's the weak link I mentioned.
Solar is not the complete answer to the problem. That's like saying: let's use bikes to solve traffic problems in NYC. It's great, 6 months out of 12. It doesn't mean "fuck bikes let's use SUV" it means "the solution is incomplete".
lucm, indeed.
Keep digging that hole. Don't worry, you'll convince me when you reach China. ;)
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Cost (of building a house) has nothing to do with price (of renting or buying a house). Are you insane? Yeah, there are a lot of political reasons why the supply of housing in CA (SF/Bay Area more specifically) is way too small, but you cannot seriously think that the cost of building a house has nothing to do with rental or buying prices.
The data is out there. The historical graph clearly shows CO2 always follows GW. It's a symptom because life is here again, not the cause. There is still no proof at all that CO2 causes warming, traps gas... or whatever they're claiming now. There is proof for say methane, water vapor, things like that. Things that actually do cause warming.
Clues are out there. Remember in science when they taught us all that science is science? There is no "concensus". It's either a fact or it's not. If something disproves a theory and it only takes one counter case as Einstein pointed out - it's not valid. They keep revising their models because they didn't work, so it's not valid. I could have you refer to Al Gore's movie where we're supposed to be a lot hotter and no ice on the polls by now and gloom and doom. They trying to explain the GW hiatus... and so on. Mr. Coleman who was a meteorologist and founded the weather channel has a youtube video where he explains a lot of it. You know, a real scientist. A scientist that started out as a journalist and went though the education to become a meteorologist.
Ignorance I can do something about. There is no fixing stupid. You have to figure which side you want to be on. BTW it's often lonely being smart. Lots of stupid people out there.
Instead of the 1.6 million it would be without Section 8?
Absolutely. The rich get 88% of all gains from public expenditures
Let them pay 88% of ALL NET TAXES.
Like in the good old days, 1948-1972, when America RULED!
Not the legislature? Not the voters?
Just wondering.... (honest question) What prevents solar providers from jacking up prices on a now mandatory purchase for new homes? Sure it is or may be affordable now and an incremental expense to a new development but Is there anything in the law to respond to a scenario if the cost of solar panels exceed a certain value and become unaffordable?