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California Gives Final OK To Require Solar Panels On New Houses (npr.org)
Solar panels will be a required feature on new houses in California, after the state's Building Standards Commission gave final approval to a housing rule that's the first of its kind in the United States. From a report: Set to take effect in 2020, the new standard includes an exemption for houses that are often shaded from the sun. It also includes incentives for people to add a high-capacity battery to their home's electrical system, to store the sun's energy. "These provisions really are historic and will be a beacon of light for the rest of the country," said commissioner Kent Sasaki, according to The Mercury News. "[It's] the beginning of substantial improvement in how we produce energy and reduce the consumption of fossil fuels."
The rule marks a new phase in California's environmental policies, which have often set trends and established standards nationwide. The state has set the goal of drawing 100 percent of its electricity from renewable energy sources and sharply reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The solar panels rule was initially endorsed as part of the state's Green Building Standards Code by the California Energy Commission back in May.
The rule marks a new phase in California's environmental policies, which have often set trends and established standards nationwide. The state has set the goal of drawing 100 percent of its electricity from renewable energy sources and sharply reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The solar panels rule was initially endorsed as part of the state's Green Building Standards Code by the California Energy Commission back in May.
I am actually designing a house to build in California Desert. Good design and energy efficiency dictates sloping roof inclines in a northern direction. So how is this new requirement to place solar panels on a roof going to effect building design?
I live in California and a Dem. This is really dumb. 1) Solar panels require more energy to produce than they will ever produce -- low efficiency, high silica purity, and short life span. 2) We have extreme weather -- shorten lifespan. 3) Agree with OP, hurts non-rich. 4) Companies will be motivated to use crappy solar tech -- higher margins; 4) Where will all batteries go when they die --- Robot Heaven doesn't exist.
Until the tech needs to meet real criteria: efficiency, longevity and safety -- just don't strap any crap on my rooftop -- we want a roof over our heads. Environmental theater.
Really?
How much does a full roof of solar panels cost? Maintenance? Repair after storms?
I'm not saying it isn't a good thing to have them....however, right now I hear nothing buy young people complaining about the cost of housing, and mandating solar panels on all new homes, will add a not insignificant amount of extra money on top of the already $$$ new home.
And it isn't just going to be the cost of the panels and labor to install, the builder will also write in some profit on top of that.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
This is actually a thing up here in the Pacific Northwest. I have city-owned power. They did a huge energy conservation program, promoting the transition from old bulbs to newer CFL/LED bulbs, plus replacing CRT TVs with LCD/LED TVs. The result? Power consumption dropped by a large enough margin that the city-owned power company didn't have the budget to continue to operate, so instead they just raised everyone's power bill rates. So after making the city more efficient, our bills remained the same higher price, even though "lower price" was the #1 "incentive" to change out all the equipment.
"According to the article, it increases the initial cost by $10,000 ($50 per month on 30-year loan) but decreases overall costs by $19,000 over 30-years of ownership ($52.78 per month over 30 years)."
You're a moron Cayenne. An ideological moron.
Holyshit you stupid fuck. THis will ensure that the price of Solar goes down, it will add negligible cost to a brand new home.
Again you dumb fuck, this is for NEWLY BUILT HOMES. Last I check the lower middle class generally can't afford to have a new house BUILT. They usually purchase existing homes.
So those people building new homes to sell will most likely be the upper middle class/upper class.
Property taxes are completely artificial. The city wants homes/land to cost more. They collect more tax dollars and are just as greedy as those evil capitalists.
We are at the tipping point already. Solar is 1.25 $/watt installation cost at utility levels. Battery is 125 $/kWh at pack level already. We consume 11 Terra Watt hours a day. Making that much at in 8 hours of sunshine would need 1.4 TW of installed capacity, costing 1.75 trillion dollars. We need to store half that energy in battery for night use, so at 125 $/kWh we need 750 billion in battery. Works out to 2.5 trillion dollars. Interest on that investment would be 100 billion a year at 4%. This cost needs to be added to annual production 11 Twh /day * 365 days, 4 billion kwh, works out to 2.5 cents per kWh. Electricity retails for about 6 cents/kWh, not counting distribution. Fuel, the sunlight, is free. So only other cost is maintenance of equipment. It is far simpler to maintain solar panels than powerplants. So the economics will work out.
The existing power plants all have life running into decades. But as they die off, replacement will be solar panels and batteries.
It makes economic sense to use solar, wind and batteries. Whether or not you believe in climate change or environments, pure economics is going to drive this industry.
Soon the traditional fossil fuel companies and powerplants will come with hats in hand begging for tax payer assistance.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
I've discussed this at length with people before .... but there are many reasons your statements aren't quite accurate.
1. The costs of many of the cheaper solar panels in use absolutely did NOT take into account all of the associated costs of producing them! One of the problems the industry has struggled with are all the cheap Asian panels on the market, often sold at below cost, thanks to government subsidies from China. They were willing to fund these losses at the government level, to help destroy the competition and gain a secure foothold selling them in places like America.
2. As far as I've seen? Solar panels do stand up pretty well to the weather. But they won't work in the normal configuration, supplying AC power back onto the grid to earn your credits on your electric bill, unless you have expensive inverters attached to them. My installation has 2 inverters -- one for a set of panels on my roof, and a second one for a set of panels on my detached garage roof. The inverters generally only get a warranty for about half the length the panels are warrantied, and they're more likely than the panels themselves to have a failure.
3. I've never heard of these banks you speak of, who would allow a person to take out a larger home loan if they felt the person might use less electricity thanks to solar panels (or anything else)? That would be risky on a lender's part, especially not having any guarantee the new homeowner wouldn't just use additional power, knowing some of their bill was supplemented by solar.
4. As for battery technology? I looked into that, but it's really too costly to make much sense in many situations. When the financials work out on it? It's usually only because that person's utility company decided to arbitrarily give discounted electric rates for power used at night ("off peak"). If you're able to time-shift your power consumption via battery storage, while making the power during the peak period when the sun is out -- that saves you money. But again, that's just an artificial construct the power company decided to put in place. My power company bills the same amount for my electricity, no matter when I use it. I'd hate to invest a lot of money in battery storage for PV solar on a home, only to find the power company decided to change the billing around shortly after that and eliminated the only reason it made financial sense!
As an overall thing? I can see how solar does pay for itself in the sunniest parts of the country. Nevada, California or Hawaii? Yeah ... probably a good investment. In much of the country though? You'll really not even do better than possibly breaking even on them. Here in Maryland, for example? A solar system installation similar to what I've got (a 7.64Kw sized setup) will typically cost a person around $34,000 to install. You can shave 30% off of that with a Federal tax credit, for now -- but that's still money you only get back a year after you have to buy the thing. But ok -- you're at $23,800 after said credit. Most people don't have that kind of money just lying around to pay up-front, so now you're looking at some kind of loan to cover that $23,800. Interest on that is going to chip away at the monthly electric bill savings the system makes, until you've got the thing paid off. Meanwhile, given our power rates out here? I'd say at BEST (only a few summer months out of each year), my panels make enough energy to shave about $100 per month off the bill. In months like December or January, it's likely the panels will generate as little as maybe 800 watts of power total on a snowy or rainy/overcast day. Enough of those, and you're looking at a month where the panels only saved you $20-30.
The people out here who brag that their solar panels make their monthly power bills 0 are usually living on farmland where they put rows and rows of panels up on metal frames or poles, taking up a big chunk of land. Not only did that probably cost them FAR more money than they'll ever recoup -- but it means they
So, here's what's interesting. The new autocratic dictates...er...breakthrough regulations don't require you have the panels on your house. TFA mentions you can pool together and install the panels somewhere else if you'd like.
What I don't know is how far away those panels can be. Can I put them 100 feet away? 100 meters? 100 miles? Because what I'd like to do is buy a 5 kW share of a solar farm in the middle of the Mojave desert. I expect that will be, by far, the cheapest way to install and maintain "my" panels, and keep them upgraded as solar technology improves.
Of course, this begs the questions of why couldn't I buy a share of a wind farm instead but I guess the fine people on the building codes committee thought about that and realized there is no doubt that solar panels are and always will be the most economical and effective approach. Wow, I wish I was as smart as they are! I can't even tell what the price of eggs will be next week let alone the relative price of solar vs. wind 20 years from now.
I thought I'd read, at least in the past...that in CA they had laws/regulations against even watering your yard, due to rain shortages out there. If this is still true, have they provided exceptions for using your water hose to go up and wash your solar panels?
If not, I can just see the "to collect and serve" police guys out there catching people washing their mandated solar panels.
Not trying to be funny, I'm serious.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Solar energy is a conservative dream. Problem is, it's not a capitalist dream because a) most countries missed the boat on panel manufacturing to China and b) constant consumption is more profitable than efficiency and self-sufficiency.