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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.
You misspelled government regulations and overreach.
To be fair, the middle class was already priced out of buying homes in CA thanks to capitalism and property investors.
Care to explain what community based zoning boards, requiring solar panels on new homes, size regulations, density requirements, and arbitrary building restrictions have to do with capitalism?
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?
Yeah, adding 10k to the cost of a 550k home ( https://www.zillow.com/ca/home... ) is going to be the tipping point to price the middle class out of homes in California. You're a frick'n genius.
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That's because they look better on actual houses, rather than in trailer parks. You need to get out more.
in 2020 I'd go to the coal miners (who are likely to swing the election) and offer them jobs in gov't run factories building solar panels. That's the kind of infrastructure spending and green jobs that would make a real difference.
It's all well and good to see what California's doing, but getting onto renewables should be a national effort. Not just to Shave the Whales, but because I'm tired of my country being OPEC's whipping boy. And I'd like to breath cleaner air. My family is prone to lung cancer from smoking, and while I don't smoke I get a lung full of carcinogens every time I go outside.
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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). So even if you finance the whole additional amount, you end up in the positive by about $33 per year, not to mention the health benefits of less pollution.
(In addition, poor people tend to face more negative health affects from pollution because they tend to live in more polluted areas, so they will likely experience more of the benefits as well.)
That's a bunch of bullshit. It'll cost less to install them while the home is being built versus installing them afterwards, and a company building an entire tract of new homes will buy the panels and other specific materials for less because they'll be buying them in quantity. The addition to the price of a new home will be negligible and new homeowners won't even notice since they're on loans paid over several decades anyway. Meanwhile there will be immediate monthly cost savings to the new homeowner in reduced electric bills. The solar installations might even be more efficient and higher capacity overall since how the house is built and situated on the lot might now be optimized when they lay out the tract, so even more value added for the homeowner.
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.........
Uh, we do not get as much fog as everyone thinks. Maybe 7-10 days where there is fog for more than 8 hours during the day. And it's just in the northern section of the city, by the bridge. We have microclimates here, it's a thing. I would guess daytime fog is closer to 3 days. Regardless San Francisco is only about 800,000 people in a 7x7 mile section of the state, in a state that represents about 65% of the west coast and 40 million people.
Most of the bay sees 280-300 days a year of sun.
Also most of Oregon is desert, and very sunny.
Also, most of the central valley of california is flat and dry, and blisteringly hot.
Please reference a map. Thank you.
p.s. Germany has way worse weather conditions, like snow, and being way further north, and they have more installed solar than we do and produce more solar power than anyone else in Europe.
Given how cheap solar is, there are few places in the world where installing solar is not a net positive. Even in as you say "foggy" san francisco. Get out more dude.
moox. for a new generation.
$10k seems low for a 5-6kw system unless they're still being subsidized.
I assume they still are. . .
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.
It doesn't need to be traditional ugly rectangle solar panels. Take a look at solar roof tiles, some of those designs actually look quite nice.
That's nonsense.
1) The cost of solar panels includes all the costs associated with making them, including energy. If it took more energy to make them than they would ever produce, then they would never pay for themselves. Even without incentives, that's no longer the case, so obviously this is wrong.
2) Solar panels stand up to extreme weather just fine, excluding things that destroy your home. They will still be producing plenty of power after twenty years. The question isn't when they will stop working, but when it will make sense to replace them with newer panels.
3) In the short-term these regulations will increase house prices, but they will also lower utility prices, so the total cost of ownership may go down. I believe some banks take into account expected utility costs in determining mortgage qualifications, so this may not impact the ability of people to buy homes.
4) Companies have always been motivated to use the cheapest tech, and existing solar installations have been extremely reliable. Regulations like this won't change that.
4 [sic]) Lithium Ion batteries are easy to recycle. Also, like solar panels, they don't typically just fail; they degrade in capacity over time. Battery systems being installed today will likely stay in use for a decade or longer.
The tech does meet real criteria: efficiency, longevity, and safety -- you just don't want it on your rooftop.
For a single individual it would be too low. For a major home developer buying in bulk and likely doing the installation themselves it's probably about right even without subsidies.
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I'm from southern New York, which is about as far north as northern California. We also get lots of snow. Like actual snow, not just at ski resorts.
The largest PV installation in the US is the Long Island Solar Farm, which is slightly farther north than Redding, CA.
Our solar panels work just fine.
=Smidge=
I'm being serious. I had solar panels installed on half my roof a few years ago. They completely cover the shingles and when it rains, barely any rain/water ends up on the shingles. It just sheets away on the panel itself. Same for snow.
I bet, in 30 years time when the shingles on the other side have to be replaced, the ones under the panels will be pristine. There's still a 2" gap between the shingle and panel so airflow can evaporate any moisture but the elements aren't beating down on them.
The cost of replacing shingles should probably be factored into the overall cost of the panels - which are coming down in price year over year.
So in other words it costs money. If I invested 10K one time and never made another contribution, over a 30 year period I'd have about 43K. That's assuming a modest 5% annual return. Last time I checked 43K > 19K.
Net savings is about $30 a month, maintenance in the first 10 years is usually less than $1000, storm damage isn't really a thing, people have been mounting these things on ocean going sailboats for almost 20 years with no issues. Generally the mount wears out before the solar panel does. All these things were solved almost 25 years ago, it mostly sounds like either you are spreading FUD, or you don't understand solar, or possibly both.
moox. for a new generation.
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.
The cost is about $10k on a house that costs $550k. That $10k is not going to be the tipping point.
The costs for complying with the earthquake protection parts of the building code are much, much higher.
This kind of thing interests me in how and when a government needs to push their people to make a change for their own good? Take the example of mandating energy efficient appliances that cost more now but save people in the long term.
The laissez-faire in me says that people should be allowed to do what they find most economically rational and desired, within the rules of the market and forecasts of costs that they believe.
On the other hand, most / many people will not do something unless required to, and then later they get mad when energy costs (for example) suck 50% of their paycheck. cf. Paris riots right now.
So what is a government to do? Act in its (society's) long-term interest and piss some people off who think it's not in their short-term interest? Or act in government's short-term interest to help people now, but face long-term costs that they didn't act deeply enough to address?
I think in democratic govts, it ends up being the 2nd choice. That is one shortcoming of that way of governing I suppose...
The US is the only sovereign nation which allows non citizens to own land.
Except of course for Argentina, Australia, Belize, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic. All right, I got to C. You can read the rest at https://internationalliving.co...
Every end has half a stick.
How much does a full roof of solar panels cost?
That isn't relevant, since the regulations do not require a full roof of solar panels.
To comply with this change, TFA says it would cost about $10k, on homes that cost on average $550k.
Also, if you're concerned about cost, complying with the state's earthquake protection parts of the building code cost several times more.
Maintenance?
Solar panels don't require much. The occasional washing which generally happens via this thing called "rain".
Repair after storms?
Nothing in the building code requires the solar panels continue to function after the final inspection. So, if you can't afford to fix the panels after a storm, don't. Also, CA doesn't tend to get too many hurricanes or that much hail.
We have some people around us that have a large range of solar panels on the roof, like yours they cover most of the shingles... however I've always wondered if that many support struts being attached to the roof did not create a lot of opportunity for leaks over time.
That's why I've been kind of waiting for true solar shingles, which would act like real shingles and be more durable also. They seem to be coming along really slowly though in terms of wider adoption, and it seems like they would probably be less efficient.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Oh, we don't use that anymore. We use a layered roof with a water-repellent top, radiant barrier, impact gel sandwiched into the middle sheathing layer and flashed down the sides, finished with rafters and insulation before enclosing the ceiling. They last forever.
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Am too typical stereotypical Californian. Name is Rex Doobieson and live just south of San Francisco in Los Angeles. In mornings surf in Pacific Ocean before going to day job as rookie cop with mismatched partner. In evenings eat tacos like all good Californians. Too am against solar panels on house. For one, panels too easily damaged by vodka. For another, too easily broken by bears. Repair costs would be many hundreds of dollars (thousands of rubles.) Why use solar when can use good clean energy like oil products from Gazprom?
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
"Set to take effect in 2020, the new standard includes an exemption for houses that are often shaded from the sun."
I'll be forming a company to plant full sized shade trees in new developments so they can be exempted. /s
Now require California to make and use it's own water...
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
Zoning laws, density/size restrictions and the anemic permitting process definite affects housing prices. When you have more people moving into an area, that increases demand. All of those local policies restrict supply.
What do you get when there's more demand than supply? Higher prices.
What is wrong living in California? You don't need to live in the Cities. They are a lot of wonderful rural areas available.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
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
If solar is so wonderful then why does the government have to force people to have it on their homes? Why do taxpayers have to subsiduze the installations?
Name one california regulation or government over reach? Name one? Waiting?
Requiring solar panels on new homes.
It it wasn't for the Oil Iobbies putting doubt in Green Energy, Solar Energy would seem to be a Conservative dream.
Take your homes off these Highly regulated and expensive infrastructure, allow you be independent and generate your own power for your own land, with less government control on the power you make. In case of war the American Power infrastructure would be resilient. As there would be less of an infrastructure to attack, and every self sufficient citizen could carry one and endure.
If you want less government, green energy is a good solution, because you yourself can make your own power.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
This is one reason why property taxes should be replaced with a fee that covers only the property's actual burden on the city. For example, a property with a longer street frontage costs the city more in street and sidewalk amortization and maintenance, tree trimming, emergency response, etc. A property with more impermeable surface (roof, driveway) costs the city more in sewer amortization and maintenance. And so on.
The way property taxes are normally assessed transfers wealth from poor neighborhoods to affluent ones, and then we wonder why few people are able to pull themselves out of poverty!
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
Like water, which is 11% via home use "requiring" tiny toilets and limit discs. These are literally an old psychological tool to ready you for bigger intrusions.
This is a textbook example of innumeracy.
The rest of the nation thanks you for kicking yourselves pointlessly in the nuts so you can water a desert so we can have winter vegetables and avocados.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
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.
Isn't California trying to mandate gender quotas on corporations? Didn't California mandate pro-life agencies had to post info on how women can obtain abortions?
ya, storm damage isn't a thing at all...: https://cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/da...
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.........
Rather than require a set size of solar, they need to instead require new homes to install enough UNSUBSIDIZED AE (likely solar) so that the energy => the energy used by HVAC. By doing this, it enables developers to figure out how best to build things. In addition, utilities that will fight solar, will not fight this. After all, they will technically have to buy the extra energy. This approach makes a winner of all.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
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.
No. They have pricing structures on their water bills to make it very expensive to use a lot of water. Use a little, pay X. Use 50% more, pay 2.5X. Use 100% more, pay 10X.
You'll find that all of the 'extreme' stories about CA are primarily about convincing non-CAians that they're better off not being in CA, not about reality.
I am surprised at how many people instantly like to disparage solar power based upon temperature or amount of direct sunlight. If solar can pay for itself for even 3 months out of the year then it shouldn't matter much. Also, for alternate or traditional forms of electricity, having storage capability greatly increases the benefit.
The solar in California makes great sense because the peak electrical usage corresponds to hot days where the sun is out in full. Back in 2000-ish when we had rolling blackouts because of lack of capacity, the problems were the afternoons and not in the middle of the night.
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.
It's not quite as large a difference as you suggest. Assuming a 5% rate of return on the market, if you invested the $10k you would indeed have about $43.2k at the end of 30 years. However, if you spent the $10k on solar panels up front and invested the $52.78 you're expected to save in energy costs each month at that same 5% rate then you would have $43k at the end of 30 years, plus some 30-year-old solar panels which may or may not be worth something. Disregarding any residual value in the used panels, that means buying solar panels only costs you about $200 after 30 years compared to investing the same money in the market, which is practically zero given all the approximations and unknowns involved.
Of course, the expected market rate of return makes a huge difference. At 4.75% APY the panels come out $950 ahead; at 5.25% the investment wins by $1400. The 5% rate used as a baseline is very nearly the breakeven point (~4.96%). Similarly, a 5% variance in the energy savings (~$50-55 vs. the estimated $52.78) would shift the balance by around $2100.
"The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat
This assumes you have $10k cash to invest, rather than adding $10k to a long term loan (mortgage).
Obviously if you do have $10k then you can still invest it and still add $10k to your mortgage and still make a profit on both.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Isn't California trying to mandate gender quotas on corporations?
Nope. California is considering requiring a percentage of board members to be female. Less than 50%.
Didn't California mandate pro-life agencies had to post info on how women can obtain abortions?
Nope. California required "Crisis Pregnancy Centers" to disclose they do not provide abortions and abortions are available elsewhere. Apparently, having to tell the truth violated the religion of the people operating these centers.
How much does a full roof of solar panels cost? Maintenance? Repair after storms?
I can add some personal experience.
Cost: Very little in comparison to the power it offset. Admittedly there were good incentives at the time which caused the system to pay for itself in well under 2 years but now with those incentives gone I see systems cost less than what I paid for for my 10kW setup.
Maintenance: $0. I mean when it doesn't rain for a long time the power output goes down but a good storm sorts that out. Once I washed them. Waste of time, next time I'll just wait for another good storm. My inverter has only been running for 7 years so I expect it it about half way through it's life but effectively this system has paid for itself over many times.
Repair after storms: Not sure what you mean. I mean the last big storm we had damaged roof tiles, wrote off two cars, and I had to replace 3 windows thanks to first size hail which was about at round as a tetrahedron and just as sharp on the edges. My neighbour was hospitalised because she was out at the time both her cars were written off too, but the panels? Zero damage. I mean they are made of tempered glass mounted against a rigid metal structure. I highly doubt I could break them if I attacked them with a hammer. During the 2013 storms we had the area of my roof with solar panels was the only area which didn't need repairs.
right now I hear nothing buy young people complaining about the cost of housing
Now imagine if they had solar panels to reduce their utility costs. I drew on my mortgage to buy solar panels. Best investment I ever made.
Hmm, $43,219 vs. $41,786 after 30 years. I suppose you're right.
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
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.
These circumstances applied only to panels from specific manufacturers for a fairly limited period of time. Most solar panels are not "dumped", not even from China.
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)?
You may be unaware of it, but all banks consider the monthly expenses of every prospective loan recipient. Power very much factors in to their loan-making decisions, varying only by the demands of the local power company for money.
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").
Which applies to quite a few people's houses. You may not be one of them, but millions upon millions are, including all of California. Even I am subject to time-of-day billing here in the Midwest.
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.
That is indeed a stupidly high price, and it's largely an artifact of yesteryear's panel prices. When a solar panel cost $5/watt, installers could demand premium prices and know their demands would be lost in the noise. Now that panels are right around $1/watt (post Trump tariffs), installers charging double or triple what the equipment costs is really noticeable. It will change. It will obviously change. There were a whole helluva lot of people clambering around on my roof when I replaced my shingles after the last hail storm made a hash out of them, and it didn't cost me any $20,000. It cost half that, including the price of shingles. So $28,000 to install less than $8,000 of panels is ludicrous, and can't last.
Not only did that probably cost them FAR more money than they'll ever recoup
They didn't. Ground-mounted solar panels are far cheaper to install, even in this over-inflated installer market, and as stated above, installation price is the expensive part right now. Installing on the ground is incredibly easier than a roof-mount install. There's zero money or effort required to evaluate the load-bearing capabilities of the roof, since there's no roof. The insurance costs are dramatically lower since no one is climbing around on a roof. Even the time required is much lower since there are no logistics of dragging heavy, awkward panels up onto a roof to worry about.
It would be a really BAD idea to mandate solar panels in our state, and even worse for Missouri, where I was born and raised. They get less sun than we do.
Fact checking you, I see that NREL shows that Missouri is at least one category better than Maryland in almost every month of the year for solar insolation.
All of your opinions seem to be informed by your personal experience, which is obsolete or inapplicable. A decade ago, you were suffering early adopter tax, and definitely paying more for the non-financial benefits than any financial benefit you could hope to gain. Today and in the coming years, things are different and will become still more different. It will be (and already is) considerably easier to buy solar panels for the financial benefits, as well as the quality of life benefits.
You should definitely buy the geothermal heat pump system though.
to build factories. The government runs the bloody factories. Like the Post Office. Otherwise it just turns into corruption.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Nope. California required "Crisis Pregnancy Centers" to disclose they do not provide abortions and abortions are available elsewhere. Apparently, having to tell the truth violated the religion of the people operating these centers.
The applicable provisions in that law were struck down by the Supreme Court for violating the free speech of non-medical clinics and putting an undue burden on medical clinics.
The Daddy casts sleep on the Baby. The Baby resists!
Where would that NOT suck?
You are very wrong relative to rooftop solar.
What specifically is wrong? Do you think residential neighborhoods can compete with a commercial solar farm in any dimension? Cost, capability, efficiency, reliability? If so please explain.
The benefits of local generation are huge.
Local generation is nice and in some areas and situations coupled with local storage off-grid it's totally awesome.
My assertion is simply benefits of centralized generation are hugeeeer.
but it reduces the homeâ(TM)s dependence on the grid.
When the power goes out grid tied homes go dark the same as the rest of the neighborhood. The grid must be engineered with assumption nothing will be coming from the panels anyway so the word dependence is probably not the best one to describe the situation.
If residential solar is to contribute anything non-trivial to the grid a massive outlay of energy storage will be required. Currently storage can't be decentralized because technology to do so at a tractable price point does not exist.
For wind, scale is huge. For retrofit, scale has a place, but maximum benefit is grid-connected homes that can take advantage of diversity in generation and demand.
The maximum benefit is solar farms operated by professionals. It is not the state trying to force residential homeowners to become solar gardeners.
Perhaps Californians should all be required under state threat of violence to grow their own crops in their yards, catch their own water, operate their own telecom networks, process their own waste and operate mining and manufacturing facilities to produce their own goods as well? The real world doesn't work like this for good reason.
The applicable provisions in that law were struck down by the Supreme Court for violating the free speech of non-medical clinics and putting an undue burden on medical clinics.
Well that's inane for different reasons.
I don't see why people should be able to get free speech while under limited liability protection. Anyone should be able to speak freely as a private citizen.
SJW n. One who posts facts.