So that's the real end-game: renewable power so cheap that it's no longer worth digging various crap out of the ground and transporting it to market, and thus most of the fossil-fuels companies go the way of the buggy-whip manufacturers.
Yea, I get that... and while in theory you're not wrong, there are two really big problems with that plan.
1. This won't happen in the 21st century. It might happen in the 22nd century. There is too much entrenchment in the world to have it all change as fast as you'd like. The problem with this is that the experts that tell us that AGW is happening, ALSO tell us that waiting 85 years to solve this isn't an option. So by the time we have your solution, it will no longer matter.
2. People like the fact that we have reliable power. My power hasn't gone out in years, it is 24/7/365 reliable, rain, wind, storms, nothing knocks it out. You're suggesting that we move to a system where power is no longer so reliable. You can't go to a wind/solar power grid and have everyone have 24/7/365 power anytime you want it as much as you want, it just would never work.
I know, I know, "pumped storage", "batteries", etc. etc. You know, some math is a nice thing. The amount of pumped storage you'd require to make up for wind/solar shortages over large areas of the country during heavy storms, and other weather events is beyond the pale, the locations for it don't exist, the fresh water doesn't exist. Batteries? You would need more than you can probably imagine to remotely make it work, and the issue becomes charge/cycle/discharge times to provide power to everyone.
Then the typical response goes, "we'll have a smart grid and your appliances will only run at night or at 10am or whenever the grid says to". Yea, thanks but no. People like being able to live their lives as they see fit, my wife does the laundry during the day, she cooks at 5pm for the kids, etc. You are NEVER going to tell her, "oh sorry, the smart grid said you can't use that right now".
That will NEVER fly. We have dependable power now, any replacement must also be 100% dependable. Wind and solar are not. They are fine, but not dependable.
Then someone says "yea, but the sun is always shining somewhere and the wind is always blowing somewhere". Yes, it is, but that doesn't mean you can move a trillion watts of power over 2,000 miles and across 15 countries dependably. Not due to technical reasons, I suspect we could solve the technical issues. But political, economic, and social reasons.
I find that many people like to ignore the political realities of changing our power system. But you can't, because there is a real world out there beyond the keyboard, and most of it doesn't care as much as you do.
If you want to lower your risk just put in a smaller system though-- go for 4 or 5kW now and leave space to add later.
Sure, but a 5KW system is $15K out of pocket to install, vs $25K for 10KW. A lot of the cost is not panels, once you're out here putting in everything, there are many sunk costs.
. Then you have substantially lower net metering risk (the system isn't likely to ever produce more energy than you consume within a month, which will be the last type of plan to be dropped).
We have smart meters, so they can track energy in both directions. If I'm producing extra during the day and using extra at night, I'll be paying 9.5 cents for the power at night and "earning" 3.5 cents for the extra during the day.
The math completely doesn't work at all when that happens. The only way it works is if I get credit for 9.5 cents for every watt I put on the grid, no matter what.
I have zero faith that has any long term future, and frankly it shouldn't, it makes no logical sense for the power company for so many reasons.
The panels are down to less than a dollar a watt, I've seen them for 75 cents online. So $7,500 of the $25,000 install cost is panels, the rest is labor, inverters/wires/etc., and permits and racks and such.
I suppose if the panels were indeed made completely free, this would all make sense, but until we get the total cost of install down, it simply doesn't.
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You get the feel-good of being "green," and lower your long term bills.
And now we come to the primary problem of this whole plan. Yea, feel-good is nice, but most people want to spend their money on practical solutions. A few years ago I replaced my 12 year old 13 SEER HVAC system with a brand new 16 SEER 2 stage, 2 speed system. It did three things for me:
1. The house gets cooler/warmer faster, the system is far more able to control the temp in the house compared to the old system. It also more even since it can run at a reduced 60% setting for longer, keeping the air moving and not going from BLAST ON to OFF.
2. My power bill went down perhaps $100 on average each month. The summer dropped the most, but overall it was a nice savings and clearly noticeable.
3. I need HVAC, and my old system seized up at the compressor. So I had no working AC for downstairs. Sure, for a few thousand I could have replaced that and kept the old system going, but spending thousands on a 12 year old crappy system is stupid.
So replacing my HVAC solved multiple problems, primary of which was my AC needing to work.
Solar? Besides "feel-good" and maybe a long term return on investment, what *problem* does it solve? Save the planet? For $25,000, you'll need a better answer than that.:)
A 6% tax free return on investment would seem to be hard to beat with any reliability, and the risk profile for this type of investment seems much lower than anything with similar returns. What else are you going to do with your $25,000?
While I would normally tend to agree, there are a few issues with that.
First, the 6% return on investment requires that the system have ZERO maintenance cost over a 16 year period to pay itself back. Now I get that solar is low maintenance, I get that. But it isn't likely ZERO maintenance over 16 years. At the least you'll need to replace the inverter once most likely.
Second, the 6% return on investment depends on net-metering remaining for 16 years. I don't see that as very likely. Maybe for half of it. But keep in mind, the $1,500 saved is just an estimate, it could be more or less. If the angle of my roof is off from the 30 degree number, then it will be less unless they can adjust it during installation. Further, if net-metering goes away, then so does half of the savings.
So it isn't really 6%. It could be 7-8% if I get more than average amounts of sun, net-metering stays for 16 years, and nothing breaks for almost two decades. OR... It could be almost ZERO percent if I get a bit less than average sun, one or two things break over two decades, and net-metering goes away.
Adding renewables (actually: reducing emissions) won't fix the damage that has already been incurred, but it will definitely reduce the amount of additional damage in the future.
You're completely correct. However, you don't address the issue of "will these changes make a noticeable difference?"
Example. You have a swimming pool, 100,000 people are peeing in it. Result? The pool is no longer safe to swim in without being cleaned. Now lets say you remove 2,000 of the people peeing in the pool. Better result, right? Not really, the pool is still not safe to swim in. Now lets say you remove 99,000 of the people peeing in it. Much better? Yes, now it probably is safe to swim in (even if you emotionally don't want to because *eww*).
Solar currently makes less than 1% of the power in the US. Raising it to 2% won't really change the outcome. Raising it to 20% won't either, considering the US isn't the only CO2 emitter in the world.
Raising the worldwide total of solar to 20% (which would be a monster task) would be nice, but even that might not make enough difference to really change anything. It would also cost a TON of money.
The question is, "is that the best way to spend that money?" Or would that money be better spent planning for the changes that are coming?
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Different example:
You're on the Titanic, you just hit the ice burg, you're trying to do everything you can to save the ship.
The chief designer comes to you and says, "the ship is going to sink". You don't want to hear it, so you keep fighting it, saying "well, if we form a bucket brigade, it'll slow it down by buying us more time".
Yea, but rescue is 5 hours away and the ship has 3 hours of life left. If you form a bucket brigade, you'll buy another 20 min of time, but it won't make enough difference to count.
Instead, what if you spend your 3 hours ripping up the decks, building makeshift life-rafts? You have a 2 hour gap that you have to "adapt to" to allow people to stay out of the water before RMS Carpathia arrives. You can fight the loss of the ship (or in this case, the coastal cities), or accept that they are now lost and start moving people now.
No idea why people like me have to take you at your neck and put your nose into this "shit" when all this is plain and obvious.
That is what I keep thinking about you.
Yes. As night power is base load.
Yea, so they will provide all that power at night for FREE, and run the grid for FREE, just because... REASONS?
At night absolutely nothing is changing regardless how many people install roof top solar. Same amount of power needed, same amount of plants involved, same amount of power produced, fuel consumed etc. In other words: exact same costs for utilities regardless how much solar power you install.
IF MY UTILITY BILL IS ZERO, THEY GET NO MONEY. HOW DO THEY RUN THE POWER GRID 24/7 AND PROVIDE POWER AT NIGHT FOR ZERO DOLLARS?
Just in case you missed it the first time, since I've said this already.
Interesting. I live in New York and we're at 14 cents per KWH. We also have state incentives in addition to federal. That all makes the financials better for my situation. My payback period does assume net metering and that is something I am concerned about, but at this point I think net metering will hold for at least 7 years here. We could argue external costs, the benefits / drawbacks of the incentives, but the pure financials have to make sense for widespread adoption. I agree that a 17 year payback doesn't make much sense and you would be better off investing in making your house more efficient.
Thank you for the considered and measured response. Too many people here respond with vitriol.:)
Allow me to say, if I was in your shoes, I may well install solar as well. At 14 cents per KWh and added state incentives (which we don't have in Texas), I can see how that would tip the balance in favor of solar.
As for net-metering for 7 years, that may well be reasonable. I personally wouldn't want to count on a lot longer than that, but 7 years is not THAT long either. If my payback period was 7 years, I would probably take the gamble.
I agree that a 17 year payback doesn't make much sense and you would be better off investing in making your house more efficient.
Yep, that is why none of the houses around here have solar.:) As for my house, you're correct. My power company came out and did an energy audit for me for free (and gave me a 12 pack of CFL bulbs for free). My number one cause of heat/cold loss? My windows. I really, really need new windows. I have dual pane windows, but they are cheap builder grade units and some of the seals are not holding. They used a thermal camera to show the problem spots, but overall I could probably cut $50-100 a month from my energy bill by replacing windows.
The only problem is that I have so much glass, putting in the good stuff will be over $10,000. It is a better rate of return than solar, given that it is a guaranteed rate that doesn't depend on government laws, sunlight, or anything else to save me power. But it still isn't exciting.
The primary problem is that I pay so little for power, I have no incentive to save it. The only upgrade that DID make sense was HVAC. I replaced a 12 year old crappy 13 SEER HVAC with a new 16 SEER two stage, two speed unit. It cut a bunch off my bill overnight. And I had to do it anyway, since the downstairs AC finally crapped out and it would have been thousands to fix. And I need HVAC, so might as well save each month. The house stays cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter, since it is a much more efficient unit.
Other areas to save, don't save enough to bother with. I did replace every bulb in my house with LED, that does make a difference and the payback period is 1-2 years, complete no brainer. Anyone who still uses incandescent bulbs in their house is bad at math. CFLs make a hum, but the LEDs are completely silent and provide smooth stable light. They now cost less than $5 each, so at 9 watts for a 60 watt replacement, that makes a billion tons of sense. I even replaced the bathroom and closet lights, just because.
That's dirt cheap, among the cheapest in the country.
Yes, and it is one reason why I'm not installing solar on my roof, and no one else around here is either.
In fact, it's below the average for Texas, which is 11.5 cents. And, are you sure that's the total rate? Most utilities do a tiering system where usage above certain thresholds costs more.
Yes, completely sure. I just looked up my bill for last month for my house.
Putting aside my gas bill, which will be there regardless of solar, I paid $144.01 in electric energy charge, $1.50 in city sales tax, and $5.99 in municipal franchise fee.
Total was $151.50.
I used 1,597 KWh of power, so I actually paid just under 9.5 cents per KWh, including all monthly fees and taxes. There is no tiered rate, the price is the same no matter how much I use. It actually drops a bit, considering that there is a $10 flat customer charge included in my $144.01 up there, so doubling the power would not double the bill, but it would be close.
My office, I actually pay 7.2 cents per KWh, I looked that up a few months ago, that is what it worked out to, total bill divided by usage.
Side note: I'm in a co-op, I actually get a check back for a few hundred dollars each year. Any profits made over the reserves required are paid back to the members. The capital credits are retired on a regular basis as well, so I often get a second check for some small amount each year as well.
My payback period, assuming rates are unchanged, would be about 12 years. Without the government subsidies, it jumps to 15, but the system I looked at is warrantied for 25 years (equipment and labor). That unsubsidized payback is marginal, but not bad, assuming good financing and a lowish discount rate. I think it may make even more sense to install just enough solar to ensure that I never buy any power at the 14.5 cent tier, and knock out a chunk of the 11.6 cent tier.
You are assuming that you'll always keep net-metering, but that can't happen. It will for awhile, but sooner or later, if too many people put solar up, it will have to go away. Do the math WITHOUT net metering, I'm willing to bet your payback period extends out beyond 25 years.
People living on both coasts are paying closer to 20 cents per kWh, and in areas with peak/off-peak pricing it can go as high as 35 cents per kWh on-peak -- which is when the solar panels are generating the most. In those areas solar is a no-brainer even without any subsidies. Given decent financing terms, those peoples' monthly solar loan/lease payment will be lower than their monthly electric bill from day one, and after the system is paid off their power is free.
Sure, I agree, if I lived there, solar would indeed make sense. But then I would ask the question WHY is power so expensive there? It shouldn't be. In fact, the idea that it costs MORE to buy MORE power is stupid. Generally when you buy more, it costs LESS.
Walk into a car dealer and buy one car, pay X price. Buy 20 cars from the fleet department, pay less than X price. The reason power is higher there is due to taxes, regulations, and government meddling in the markets.
It costs 2.2 cents per KWh to buy the fuel for a coal fired power plant, it costs another penny or so to run the place. Which is why wholesale power for coal in Texas is about 3.5 cents per KWh. There is a delivery charge added to that, another 3.5 cents, then taxes and fees and profit.
If you're paying 20 cents a KWh, then you're just paying government to make your power expensive. Even wind power doesn't cost that much. Here wind power is about 6.5 cents wholesale.
At that point things are going to get really interesting, because the fixed costs of operating and maintaining the grid will start to become a much more significant portion of the utility companies' costs, and all of those grid-connected solar-powe
I agree with what you are saying for most of the country, but if I lived in California, I would consider a solar system with a battery.
If I lived in CA with their tax incentives and power prices, I might do that too.
But since I don't, and don't, I don't.:)
Let me be clear... I am NOT against solar in principle. I think the IDEA of solar on the roof and a load shifting battery in the garage makes a lot of sense. Right up until the price tag comes up.
My primary objection to solar is the price of it, nothing more or less. If you offered me a 50% tax credit and guaranteed net-metering for 10 years, I'd put solar on my roof tomorrow without reservation.
Teslas and Leafs are already proving that EVs are perfectly viable right now
No, they aren't. They are proving that a very, very small subset of car buyers are willing to make a statement with their car choices.
There is no evidence that car buyers in general will embrace them. The number of EVs sold is a rounding error. It will go up a bit, but there is no assurance it will become anything close to half of the cars sold.
Cars like the GM Volt (50-mile range plug-in hybrid) are also very viable, not using any gas for commuting but still allowing road trips.
It is viable in theory, they have to get the cost down before it really is in reality. The Volt is a small compact car that costs double what a gas powered version costs. It makes no sense unless it is a "statement purchase".
Battery costs are coming down so pretty soon EVs will make even more sense for commuters.
They are, but not to the extent required. They have to drop by an order of magnitude to do that. I'll be thrilled if it happens, but we'll have to wait for it.
However, cheap gas hampers adoption
And now you found the REAL problem. Lets say that 10% of all cars sold were EVs. That is more than 10 times the current number, but lets just pretend. That would mean a reduction in demand for gas by perhaps a similar 10%. When supply stays the same but demand drops, the price drops. Sure, supply will have to shrink a bit as well, but as the price of gas drops, the remaining 90% of buyers keep buying cheaper gas cars to run on cheap gas.
And this is just the US market. Oil and Gas are easily to ship world-wide, if the US and EU don't burn it, Brazil and India will. The Earth doesn't care where it is burned, so unless you can stop it burning world-wide, you're just exporting the problem.
if gas taxes were jacked up a lot to account for the true costs of gasoline cars to society, EVs would become a lot more popular.
Yes, but that is a political non-starter. I actually DO think gas taxes should go up, to pay for our roads and bridges that are a mess. They can't even get a 10 cent increase in gas taxes passed, they sure as heck aren't going to get a carbon tax passed.
Besides, if you raise gas prices to $5/gallon you'll put us right back into a recession, and no politician wants that.
With a lot more EVs on the road, power generation switching to renewable sources will have a big effect on oil demand.
That is a monster assumption. Even if EV sales DID jump 10 fold over today, it wouldn't put a major number of EVs on the road for 10 years. People keep cars on average for more than 10 years in the US, longer in other nations. Just because YOU buy a new EV tomorrow doesn't mean your old car is crushed and melted. Someone else will drive it for years.
If the entire world-wide car production instantly and magically changed to EV production TOMORROW, without exception, and 100% of all cars built were EVs, it would still take 27 YEARS to replace all the gas cars on the road in the world.
Given that is not remotely realistic, given that gas cars will continue to be made by the millions each year for decades to come, we'll still have a whole pile of gas cars on the road in 2100.
So my question for wind is - why is a tower and some blades and some brakes and what should be a trivially simple control system so expensive compared to a combustion machine?
It isn't, for one of them.
Have you done the math for how much power an average coal plant puts out, how much land it uses, vs. the same amount of power from wind, and how much land it uses and how many you need?
In Texas for example, an average coal plant might put out 1,500 MW of power. Compare that to an average wind farm that may put out 500 MW of power. To make that power requires about 300 wind turbines.
Coal costs about $45 per ton delivered to a power plant, or about 2.25 cents per pound, or about 2.2 cents per KWh for the fuel.
Once you have built the plant, selling the power for 3.5 cents per KWh wholesale can work, if you control your costs. It doesn't make building new coal plants very exciting for investors, which is why new coal isn't being built much, but existing coal, with existing plants, makes a lot of economic sense.
No they don't. They pay less than half what you pay.
English is not your strong suit, is it?
I said "power rates". My words. "power rates" refers to the price per KWh.
Germany pays (yes it does, multiple Internet sources agree on this) an average of 35 cents per KWh, I pay between 7 cents and 9.5 cents per KWh depending on location.
The total amount of power consumed is beside the point. The US is not going to go down to the German average per year, it just won't, that is a completely pointless comparison since it just will not happen. Our houses are bigger, we have large areas of very hot summers, and we simply consume more resources. This will not change in the near term and won't move all that much in the long term.
As long as the US pays an average just over 11 cents per KWh, all the stuff that makes sense in Germany at 35 cents per KWh does NOT make sense here, unless tons of tax incentives are tossed at it.
An average of 5 peak sunlight hours per day puts you the same as California, Nevada, Utah, and Colorado - all of which are installing solar as fast as possible.
CA is installing 40% of the national distributed solar, largely due to large tax incentives within the state.
The next 9 states are another 44%, for a total of 84% of the national solar installs in just 10 states.
Why is it that you can't understand it is all about the tax incentives that make this work, without them it simply doesn't.
It's fair to say that you get super cheap energy from the grid - I know I do. But to say "we only get 5 hours of sunlight" is complete bunk.
I looked up this past month's bill, it was almost exactly 9.5 cents per KWh and that includes all taxes and fees.
Where I live, we average 5.5 hours of sunlight a day annually. Oh sure it is 10 hours some days, but it is nothing other days. Actually it may be less than that, I just went here:
and did a quick calculation, it says based on the angle of my roof, I would get a net effective 4.68 hours of solar radiation per day for a 10KW system. It would save me an estimated 13,100 KWh per year, or about $1,244.50 which is even less than the estimates from the solar power installers.
Spending $25,000 out of pocket after tax credits to save $1,244.50 a year is a really bad investment, considering the risks. It assumes net-metering never goes away, which if it did, would remove much of that savings. It also assumes that for 20 years, ZERO maintenance would be required to the system. Oh sure the panels likely are fine, but the inverter won't last 20 years and there is always something to fix now and then.
Sure you did, why don't you put down the actual numbers
I've only posted them like three different times in this one story.
What I find is that people then try to say it somehow makes sense anyway. Or argue something else, or don't reply at all.
$25,000 net cost ($35,000 before tax credit) to me to install a 10KW system, it will save me about $1,500 a year in power, assuming several things.
1. Net-metering won't change 2. The equipment won't cost anything to maintain
That is a 16.6 year return on investment, and that is WITH the 30% tax rebate. And it only works WITH net-metering, which likely won't be here in 16 years.
If you remove net-metering and add $500 a year of maintenance costs (averaging what you need over 10 years, including a new inverter), and the return on investment is infinity, since the system will never pay for itself.
No, but they are bloody darn close. If I install solar tomorrow and put enough on to produce annually what I consume, then more or less they are zero. The only cost would be a $5.99 connection fee.
You still pay a grid connection fee.
Not much of one, I pay $5.99 a month to have a connection to the grid. That wouldn't actually provide power at odd hours and maintain the grid if that is all they collected each month.
You still pay for 'delivery charge'.
No, with net-metering, if you use 2,000 kWh from the grid and you end up feeding back 2,000 kWh to the grid, there is no "delivery charge". It is canceled out and you pay basically nothing.
And yes, there obviously will be a tipping point where net metering will need to change, but we're nowhere close to that regardless of what the corporate puppets on the Nevada PUC have decided to do.
That is easy to say, when you have no money on the line. It becomes a bit more complex when you're considering putting up $25,000.
As it stands, with net-metering, I would save about $1,500 a year in power after putting up $25,000. If net-metering were to go away and they switch to buying the power at wholesale rates and not providing "delivery charge" credits, then the $1,500 goes to about $750 a year (or less).
It was bloody marginal WITH net-metering, it becomes utterly pointless WITHOUT it.
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It is also worth noting that electricty only provides about 2/3 of the total energy to my home, so even with 100% solar, I still would spend about $85 a month on gas. This month is actually pretty averge, since it isn't hot yet but the cold of winter is gone.
My monthly bill was $237.31 - Of that, $151.50 was for electric charge and $85.81 was for gas. With a 10KW solar system, about $125 of that bill, on average, would be removed. I used 1,597 KWh of total power this month, so my average charge per KWh was 9.5 cents, and that includes all taxes and connection fees.
No it isn't, it still isn't even 1% of our total power. All the easy, low hanging fruit is being done, at some point it will run into issues of scale, cost, and system stability.
Wind, on the other hand, is "for real" and a decent chunk of power, but it still is under 5% and while we might get it to 10%, I have a hard time seeing it much higher than that, due to the need for system stability and 24/7 power.
You have no concept of the scale of the credits, they are insignificant in the comparison to the defense budget, not even 1% of the budget.
I have more idea of it than you think I do. And it has nothing to do with defense, those are two different things. And should solar take off "for real", then those amounts would add a few zeros and become a big issue. But without those tax dollars, solar makes no sense.
Your pricing on nuclear is also WAY off. The plant nearest to completion in the most recent building cycle has cost $9 Billion and isn't finished yet. The only way nuclear can be built is if the government forces the local rate payers to pay for it. And that's a subsidy any way you look at it.
I never said $5 billion would buy a nuclear plant, I said it would help pay for it, much like they are helping pay for solar. Give Nuclear a 30% government tax credit and see them become interesting again.
And as for subsidy, that's fine, nuclear is better than coal and it is the only thing that could actually replace coal. In the sense of ZERO coal being burned. Solar and Wind cannot do that.
No, it isn't. Here in nice sunny Texas, the sun averages 5.5 hours of exposure annually. But it varies wildly between nothing and 12+ hours depending on the day/time of year.
That isn't remotely reliable. You can't run a power grid that way. People want power 24/7/356, not "sometimes".
Wind and solar alone simply cannot provide even half our power, it just doesn't work.
It was economically viable back then if only the subsidies given to other, more harmful power generation technologies had been diverted in its direction.
The problem with your post is that this is simply wrong.
It isn't economically viable TODAY, much less 40 years ago.
Solar is NOT the solution to coal. It wasn't then, it isn't today. The longer you spend thinking it is, the more coal will get burned.
This will continue to be true until it's not. Every year solar gets cheaper, while most other energy sources get more expensive.
Everyone loves to say that, and it makes sense if you don't look too closely at it.
There are several flaws with that viewpoint.
First, solar panels are already cheap, dirt cheap. Less than a dollar a watt, much less in some cases. The panels could be free, it wouldn't lower the cost of solar much more. The real cost of solar is in labor, land, and maintenance (which isn't nothing, despite what you have heard).
Second, as demand for something drops, so does the price. The US and EU might burn a big less coal, oil, and natural gas over time, but all that does is drive the price of those things down. As the price drops, they becomes competitive again. Also, the Earth doesn't care WHERE coal/oil/gas is burned, only that it is. None of this makes a lick of difference unless you stop it world wide. If the US stopped burning coal/oil/gas tomorrow, the price of those things would drop like a brick and suddenly third world nations would have a field day with cheap power. Someone, somewhere will burn it.
Finally, solar can't replace coal/oil/gas, it doesn't work 24/7 and you aren't going to ever build a big enough battery to store weeks worth of total power consumption, or build an international power grid across national lines.
Texas has plenty of sun. Your electricity is currently coal powered, which means it is damaging your health (or some other person's health).
About 5.5 hours a day, on average.
Yes, the coal power is "bad", but it is also cheap. Yes, I could switch to wind power and pay a bit more, but ultimately it wouldn't change anything. It hurts me financially for an undetectable difference overall.
It makes sense to put some solar up where you live. In a few years it will have covered its costs and you will be making a profit.
Except, it doesn't... I've posted the detailed numbers in this story in another reply, but in short, it simply makes no sense. My out of pocket cost to install a 10KW system is about $25,000 and my annual savings in power is about $1,500. But that assumes net-metering will always be here, which it won't. When that changes I don't know, but my annual return on investment is, give or take, about 5% assuming it ALL works out the way the spreadsheet says it will. Which isn't enough to justify taking the risk.
So as it stands, with net-metering, my payback is 16.6 years, unless power rates go up, so lets be kind and say 12 years. Fine, but I'll have to buy an inverter by then and there will be SOME type of maintenance due. It isn't a completely zero cost thing.
It just makes no sense.
Comparing commercial scale solar and wind to your coal power, you forgot to include the environmental and health costs. Maybe you are lucky and don't have to deal with them.
I don't forget them, but my paying more doesn't change them. Imagine a swimming pool, now imagine 100,000 people pee in that pool. Pretty nasty, right? Now imagine 100 people stop peeing in the pool? All clean? No, it isn't. In fact, you have to get almost ALL the people to stop doing it before it isn't enough to matter. 100 people peeing in a 20,000 gallon swimming pool is actually not that big a deal, but 99,900 people vs 100,000 is basically no difference.
Harming myself financially to make basically no difference to the environment would be illogical. Oh sure, if EVERYONE would do it, then yes, it would help. But I don't have the ability to control that and my actions won't inspire people.
Isn't spending on solar the same as spending on defense, security-wise? Isn't our need for oil, and our giving tons of money to countries which hate us, one of the major reasons we need so much defense?
Not really, because solar replaces coal, not oil.
Oil provides 5% of our electricity, Coal provides over 40%.
Most of the oil we use goes to gas for our cars, and solar doesn't power our cars. Yea, yea, EVs and all, but EVs won't be a major thing for decades.
Energy self-sufficiency is national security.
We are there already, if we want to be. We have plenty of coal, oil, and natural gas to meet our needs. But keep in mind that oil is easily moved, which is why it is a world wide commodity. It is why oil pumped in Alaska often doesn't go to the US, because it is cheaper to ship it to Japan than it is to ship it to Texas.
If the US somehow closed our borders tomorrow and refused all trade, we could meet all our energy needs. But that doesn't help unless we REALLY close our borders, because what happens around the world affects our economy. That is just the modern world we live in.
How is solar reliable? It only makes power when the sun is up.
My power works 24/7/365. It has been so long since a power outrage, I honestly don't know when the last one was. It has been years, and even then it probably was for 1 min or so.
I am not sure the power has been out for more than an hour since I've been an adult. That is more than 20 years.
As for the rolling blackouts, in CA that was caused by a seriously messed up power market and politics, not a lack of power. That was a self-created problem and it was fixed, which is why it hasn't returned.
What puzzles me about the economics of solar and wind is how solar and wind can cost so much even though they have minimal running costs. That is, all the cost of solar and wind is fixed cost (plus maintenance); there is no recurring fuel cost.
It is the upfront costs that ruin it. Fuel is actually not that expensive purchased in bulk.
Also, you have to consider the wholesale price of power, not retail.
While my office pays 7 cents per kWh, half of that is for the actual power, the other half is for the delivery of the power. I'm actually paying close to wholesale for power, about 3.5 cents per kWh.
When I'm quoted 10 cents per kWh for wind, it is actually 6.5 cents for the power and 3.5 cents for delivery. My delivery cost is the same 3.5 cents regardless of power source.
Those wind turbines have to be put somewhere, that land has to be leased, the power has to be moved, and someone had to build and support those huge turbines.
Meters, huh? Maybe, who knows... easy for you to say, since neither of us will be here in a thousand years to know either way, now will we?
It might rise another half a foot or so by the end of this century. I suspect we'll all be just fine. And if we're not, we are just as likely to be better off adapting to the change as trying to fight it.
Any change in climate due to mankind is largely committed at this point. A few more solar panels and a few more wind farms won't change that.
I'm inclined to believe that a big chunk of solar's success boils down to tax credits, not inherent economic viability.
This has been my conclusion as well. Without the federal IRS 30% break, the state breaks, and the other programs, solar wouldn't be doing much of anything. Even as it stands, it is still below 1% of our power generation.
Wind makes far more sense, it is at least in the ballpark of reasonable.
But then there's all the complaints about the subsidies to carbon energy, which are at least fair on the surface.
You'd think, but a lot of what counts as a "subsidy to carbon energy" isn't as simple as direct money. For example, the IMF counts the carbon released as a "subsidy" when a proper carbon tax is not in place. To the tune of $400 billion a year in the US alone. Clearly $400 billion a year isn't changing hands, but according to the IMF, US coal producers are getting that much of a "subsidy". In other words, the IMF thinks we should be taxing coal out of existence (which is what $400 billion in taxes would do).
Is it perverse competition incentives, like giving a tax break to some oil related industry in order to attract jobs from some other state's similar industry?
Yea, but keep in mind that when Pennsylvania decides to give Shell a tax break to build a refinery, that is about jobs and business, not oil. Shell could be making hats, the tax break would be the same.
Consider that Tesla got $1.25 billion to build a factory in Nevada. Nice, but I don't consider that to be a "green tax subsidy", rather it is just a jobs and economic one.
And do indirect subsidies like this actually count towards the actual cost of energy?
Some do, some don't. Consider that oil is only 5% of the US total electric production, about equal to wind. Coal and Natural Gas are where we get the bulk of our electric production from and both are mostly domestic, so our massive military and the wars are about gas for our cars, not power for our homes.
Carbon may well end up hurting us all, but it doesn't make power more expensive today.
While my general view on this is that my govt should get out of the habit of subsidizing any particular energy source
I tend to agree there...
I wouldn't have said it 5 years ago, but today I think I'd rather simply have a carbon tax and no subsides for anything. Rather than try and pick winners, pick the losers and let the market sort out the winners.
Start the carbon tax of REALLY small, but with a slow and steady rampup published way in advance over the next 50 years, so that people would understand that while tomorrow it is nearly nothing, in 5 years it is a small something and in 25 years it is a big something and in 50 years it is a crazy big something.
If you double the price of gas tomorrow, you just crush the economy and actually make things worse, it takes time for people to shift. So maybe you need carbon taxes to add a penny this year, 2 pennies next year, 4 the year after that, and so on, until it is maybe $2 a gallon in 30 years. If everyone knows that today, there is at least a chance that action will be taken before 30 years arrives.
Slashdot Mirror
So that's the real end-game: renewable power so cheap that it's no longer worth digging various crap out of the ground and transporting it to market, and thus most of the fossil-fuels companies go the way of the buggy-whip manufacturers.
Yea, I get that... and while in theory you're not wrong, there are two really big problems with that plan.
1. This won't happen in the 21st century. It might happen in the 22nd century. There is too much entrenchment in the world to have it all change as fast as you'd like. The problem with this is that the experts that tell us that AGW is happening, ALSO tell us that waiting 85 years to solve this isn't an option. So by the time we have your solution, it will no longer matter.
2. People like the fact that we have reliable power. My power hasn't gone out in years, it is 24/7/365 reliable, rain, wind, storms, nothing knocks it out. You're suggesting that we move to a system where power is no longer so reliable. You can't go to a wind/solar power grid and have everyone have 24/7/365 power anytime you want it as much as you want, it just would never work.
I know, I know, "pumped storage", "batteries", etc. etc. You know, some math is a nice thing. The amount of pumped storage you'd require to make up for wind/solar shortages over large areas of the country during heavy storms, and other weather events is beyond the pale, the locations for it don't exist, the fresh water doesn't exist. Batteries? You would need more than you can probably imagine to remotely make it work, and the issue becomes charge/cycle/discharge times to provide power to everyone.
Then the typical response goes, "we'll have a smart grid and your appliances will only run at night or at 10am or whenever the grid says to". Yea, thanks but no. People like being able to live their lives as they see fit, my wife does the laundry during the day, she cooks at 5pm for the kids, etc. You are NEVER going to tell her, "oh sorry, the smart grid said you can't use that right now".
That will NEVER fly. We have dependable power now, any replacement must also be 100% dependable. Wind and solar are not. They are fine, but not dependable.
Then someone says "yea, but the sun is always shining somewhere and the wind is always blowing somewhere". Yes, it is, but that doesn't mean you can move a trillion watts of power over 2,000 miles and across 15 countries dependably. Not due to technical reasons, I suspect we could solve the technical issues. But political, economic, and social reasons.
I find that many people like to ignore the political realities of changing our power system. But you can't, because there is a real world out there beyond the keyboard, and most of it doesn't care as much as you do.
If you want to lower your risk just put in a smaller system though-- go for 4 or 5kW now and leave space to add later.
Sure, but a 5KW system is $15K out of pocket to install, vs $25K for 10KW. A lot of the cost is not panels, once you're out here putting in everything, there are many sunk costs.
. Then you have substantially lower net metering risk (the system isn't likely to ever produce more energy than you consume within a month, which will be the last type of plan to be dropped).
We have smart meters, so they can track energy in both directions. If I'm producing extra during the day and using extra at night, I'll be paying 9.5 cents for the power at night and "earning" 3.5 cents for the extra during the day.
The math completely doesn't work at all when that happens. The only way it works is if I get credit for 9.5 cents for every watt I put on the grid, no matter what.
I have zero faith that has any long term future, and frankly it shouldn't, it makes no logical sense for the power company for so many reasons.
The panels are down to less than a dollar a watt, I've seen them for 75 cents online. So $7,500 of the $25,000 install cost is panels, the rest is labor, inverters/wires/etc., and permits and racks and such.
I suppose if the panels were indeed made completely free, this would all make sense, but until we get the total cost of install down, it simply doesn't.
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You get the feel-good of being "green," and lower your long term bills.
And now we come to the primary problem of this whole plan. Yea, feel-good is nice, but most people want to spend their money on practical solutions. A few years ago I replaced my 12 year old 13 SEER HVAC system with a brand new 16 SEER 2 stage, 2 speed system. It did three things for me:
1. The house gets cooler/warmer faster, the system is far more able to control the temp in the house compared to the old system. It also more even since it can run at a reduced 60% setting for longer, keeping the air moving and not going from BLAST ON to OFF.
2. My power bill went down perhaps $100 on average each month. The summer dropped the most, but overall it was a nice savings and clearly noticeable.
3. I need HVAC, and my old system seized up at the compressor. So I had no working AC for downstairs. Sure, for a few thousand I could have replaced that and kept the old system going, but spending thousands on a 12 year old crappy system is stupid.
So replacing my HVAC solved multiple problems, primary of which was my AC needing to work.
Solar? Besides "feel-good" and maybe a long term return on investment, what *problem* does it solve? Save the planet? For $25,000, you'll need a better answer than that. :)
A 6% tax free return on investment would seem to be hard to beat with any reliability, and the risk profile for this type of investment seems much lower than anything with similar returns. What else are you going to do with your $25,000?
While I would normally tend to agree, there are a few issues with that.
First, the 6% return on investment requires that the system have ZERO maintenance cost over a 16 year period to pay itself back. Now I get that solar is low maintenance, I get that. But it isn't likely ZERO maintenance over 16 years. At the least you'll need to replace the inverter once most likely.
Second, the 6% return on investment depends on net-metering remaining for 16 years. I don't see that as very likely. Maybe for half of it. But keep in mind, the $1,500 saved is just an estimate, it could be more or less. If the angle of my roof is off from the 30 degree number, then it will be less unless they can adjust it during installation. Further, if net-metering goes away, then so does half of the savings.
So it isn't really 6%. It could be 7-8% if I get more than average amounts of sun, net-metering stays for 16 years, and nothing breaks for almost two decades. OR... It could be almost ZERO percent if I get a bit less than average sun, one or two things break over two decades, and net-metering goes away.
Adding renewables (actually: reducing emissions) won't fix the damage that has already been incurred, but it will definitely reduce the amount of additional damage in the future.
You're completely correct. However, you don't address the issue of "will these changes make a noticeable difference?"
Example. You have a swimming pool, 100,000 people are peeing in it. Result? The pool is no longer safe to swim in without being cleaned. Now lets say you remove 2,000 of the people peeing in the pool. Better result, right? Not really, the pool is still not safe to swim in. Now lets say you remove 99,000 of the people peeing in it. Much better? Yes, now it probably is safe to swim in (even if you emotionally don't want to because *eww*).
Solar currently makes less than 1% of the power in the US. Raising it to 2% won't really change the outcome. Raising it to 20% won't either, considering the US isn't the only CO2 emitter in the world.
Raising the worldwide total of solar to 20% (which would be a monster task) would be nice, but even that might not make enough difference to really change anything. It would also cost a TON of money.
The question is, "is that the best way to spend that money?" Or would that money be better spent planning for the changes that are coming?
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Different example:
You're on the Titanic, you just hit the ice burg, you're trying to do everything you can to save the ship.
The chief designer comes to you and says, "the ship is going to sink". You don't want to hear it, so you keep fighting it, saying "well, if we form a bucket brigade, it'll slow it down by buying us more time".
Yea, but rescue is 5 hours away and the ship has 3 hours of life left. If you form a bucket brigade, you'll buy another 20 min of time, but it won't make enough difference to count.
Instead, what if you spend your 3 hours ripping up the decks, building makeshift life-rafts? You have a 2 hour gap that you have to "adapt to" to allow people to stay out of the water before RMS Carpathia arrives. You can fight the loss of the ship (or in this case, the coastal cities), or accept that they are now lost and start moving people now.
No idea why people like me have to take you at your neck and put your nose into this "shit" when all this is plain and obvious.
That is what I keep thinking about you.
Yes. As night power is base load.
Yea, so they will provide all that power at night for FREE, and run the grid for FREE, just because... REASONS?
At night absolutely nothing is changing regardless how many people install roof top solar. Same amount of power needed, same amount of plants involved, same amount of power produced, fuel consumed etc.
In other words: exact same costs for utilities regardless how much solar power you install.
IF MY UTILITY BILL IS ZERO, THEY GET NO MONEY. HOW DO THEY RUN THE POWER GRID 24/7 AND PROVIDE POWER AT NIGHT FOR ZERO DOLLARS?
Just in case you missed it the first time, since I've said this already.
Interesting. I live in New York and we're at 14 cents per KWH. We also have state incentives in addition to federal. That all makes the financials better for my situation. My payback period does assume net metering and that is something I am concerned about, but at this point I think net metering will hold for at least 7 years here. We could argue external costs, the benefits / drawbacks of the incentives, but the pure financials have to make sense for widespread adoption. I agree that a 17 year payback doesn't make much sense and you would be better off investing in making your house more efficient.
Thank you for the considered and measured response. Too many people here respond with vitriol. :)
Allow me to say, if I was in your shoes, I may well install solar as well. At 14 cents per KWh and added state incentives (which we don't have in Texas), I can see how that would tip the balance in favor of solar.
As for net-metering for 7 years, that may well be reasonable. I personally wouldn't want to count on a lot longer than that, but 7 years is not THAT long either. If my payback period was 7 years, I would probably take the gamble.
I agree that a 17 year payback doesn't make much sense and you would be better off investing in making your house more efficient.
Yep, that is why none of the houses around here have solar. :) As for my house, you're correct. My power company came out and did an energy audit for me for free (and gave me a 12 pack of CFL bulbs for free). My number one cause of heat/cold loss? My windows. I really, really need new windows. I have dual pane windows, but they are cheap builder grade units and some of the seals are not holding. They used a thermal camera to show the problem spots, but overall I could probably cut $50-100 a month from my energy bill by replacing windows.
The only problem is that I have so much glass, putting in the good stuff will be over $10,000. It is a better rate of return than solar, given that it is a guaranteed rate that doesn't depend on government laws, sunlight, or anything else to save me power. But it still isn't exciting.
The primary problem is that I pay so little for power, I have no incentive to save it. The only upgrade that DID make sense was HVAC. I replaced a 12 year old crappy 13 SEER HVAC with a new 16 SEER two stage, two speed unit. It cut a bunch off my bill overnight. And I had to do it anyway, since the downstairs AC finally crapped out and it would have been thousands to fix. And I need HVAC, so might as well save each month. The house stays cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter, since it is a much more efficient unit.
Other areas to save, don't save enough to bother with. I did replace every bulb in my house with LED, that does make a difference and the payback period is 1-2 years, complete no brainer. Anyone who still uses incandescent bulbs in their house is bad at math. CFLs make a hum, but the LEDs are completely silent and provide smooth stable light. They now cost less than $5 each, so at 9 watts for a 60 watt replacement, that makes a billion tons of sense. I even replaced the bathroom and closet lights, just because.
That's dirt cheap, among the cheapest in the country.
Yes, and it is one reason why I'm not installing solar on my roof, and no one else around here is either.
In fact, it's below the average for Texas, which is 11.5 cents. And, are you sure that's the total rate? Most utilities do a tiering system where usage above certain thresholds costs more.
Yes, completely sure. I just looked up my bill for last month for my house.
Putting aside my gas bill, which will be there regardless of solar, I paid $144.01 in electric energy charge, $1.50 in city sales tax, and $5.99 in municipal franchise fee.
Total was $151.50.
I used 1,597 KWh of power, so I actually paid just under 9.5 cents per KWh, including all monthly fees and taxes. There is no tiered rate, the price is the same no matter how much I use. It actually drops a bit, considering that there is a $10 flat customer charge included in my $144.01 up there, so doubling the power would not double the bill, but it would be close.
My office, I actually pay 7.2 cents per KWh, I looked that up a few months ago, that is what it worked out to, total bill divided by usage.
Side note: I'm in a co-op, I actually get a check back for a few hundred dollars each year. Any profits made over the reserves required are paid back to the members. The capital credits are retired on a regular basis as well, so I often get a second check for some small amount each year as well.
My payback period, assuming rates are unchanged, would be about 12 years. Without the government subsidies, it jumps to 15, but the system I looked at is warrantied for 25 years (equipment and labor). That unsubsidized payback is marginal, but not bad, assuming good financing and a lowish discount rate. I think it may make even more sense to install just enough solar to ensure that I never buy any power at the 14.5 cent tier, and knock out a chunk of the 11.6 cent tier.
You are assuming that you'll always keep net-metering, but that can't happen. It will for awhile, but sooner or later, if too many people put solar up, it will have to go away. Do the math WITHOUT net metering, I'm willing to bet your payback period extends out beyond 25 years.
People living on both coasts are paying closer to 20 cents per kWh, and in areas with peak/off-peak pricing it can go as high as 35 cents per kWh on-peak -- which is when the solar panels are generating the most. In those areas solar is a no-brainer even without any subsidies. Given decent financing terms, those peoples' monthly solar loan/lease payment will be lower than their monthly electric bill from day one, and after the system is paid off their power is free.
Sure, I agree, if I lived there, solar would indeed make sense. But then I would ask the question WHY is power so expensive there? It shouldn't be. In fact, the idea that it costs MORE to buy MORE power is stupid. Generally when you buy more, it costs LESS.
Walk into a car dealer and buy one car, pay X price. Buy 20 cars from the fleet department, pay less than X price. The reason power is higher there is due to taxes, regulations, and government meddling in the markets.
It costs 2.2 cents per KWh to buy the fuel for a coal fired power plant, it costs another penny or so to run the place. Which is why wholesale power for coal in Texas is about 3.5 cents per KWh. There is a delivery charge added to that, another 3.5 cents, then taxes and fees and profit.
If you're paying 20 cents a KWh, then you're just paying government to make your power expensive. Even wind power doesn't cost that much. Here wind power is about 6.5 cents wholesale.
At that point things are going to get really interesting, because the fixed costs of operating and maintaining the grid will start to become a much more significant portion of the utility companies' costs, and all of those grid-connected solar-powe
I agree with what you are saying for most of the country, but if I lived in California, I would consider a solar system with a battery.
If I lived in CA with their tax incentives and power prices, I might do that too.
But since I don't, and don't, I don't. :)
Let me be clear... I am NOT against solar in principle. I think the IDEA of solar on the roof and a load shifting battery in the garage makes a lot of sense. Right up until the price tag comes up.
My primary objection to solar is the price of it, nothing more or less. If you offered me a 50% tax credit and guaranteed net-metering for 10 years, I'd put solar on my roof tomorrow without reservation.
I LIKE solar. I DON'T LIKE the PRICE of solar. :)
Teslas and Leafs are already proving that EVs are perfectly viable right now
No, they aren't. They are proving that a very, very small subset of car buyers are willing to make a statement with their car choices.
There is no evidence that car buyers in general will embrace them. The number of EVs sold is a rounding error. It will go up a bit, but there is no assurance it will become anything close to half of the cars sold.
Cars like the GM Volt (50-mile range plug-in hybrid) are also very viable, not using any gas for commuting but still allowing road trips.
It is viable in theory, they have to get the cost down before it really is in reality. The Volt is a small compact car that costs double what a gas powered version costs. It makes no sense unless it is a "statement purchase".
Battery costs are coming down so pretty soon EVs will make even more sense for commuters.
They are, but not to the extent required. They have to drop by an order of magnitude to do that. I'll be thrilled if it happens, but we'll have to wait for it.
However, cheap gas hampers adoption
And now you found the REAL problem. Lets say that 10% of all cars sold were EVs. That is more than 10 times the current number, but lets just pretend. That would mean a reduction in demand for gas by perhaps a similar 10%. When supply stays the same but demand drops, the price drops. Sure, supply will have to shrink a bit as well, but as the price of gas drops, the remaining 90% of buyers keep buying cheaper gas cars to run on cheap gas.
And this is just the US market. Oil and Gas are easily to ship world-wide, if the US and EU don't burn it, Brazil and India will. The Earth doesn't care where it is burned, so unless you can stop it burning world-wide, you're just exporting the problem.
if gas taxes were jacked up a lot to account for the true costs of gasoline cars to society, EVs would become a lot more popular.
Yes, but that is a political non-starter. I actually DO think gas taxes should go up, to pay for our roads and bridges that are a mess. They can't even get a 10 cent increase in gas taxes passed, they sure as heck aren't going to get a carbon tax passed.
Besides, if you raise gas prices to $5/gallon you'll put us right back into a recession, and no politician wants that.
With a lot more EVs on the road, power generation switching to renewable sources will have a big effect on oil demand.
That is a monster assumption. Even if EV sales DID jump 10 fold over today, it wouldn't put a major number of EVs on the road for 10 years. People keep cars on average for more than 10 years in the US, longer in other nations. Just because YOU buy a new EV tomorrow doesn't mean your old car is crushed and melted. Someone else will drive it for years.
If the entire world-wide car production instantly and magically changed to EV production TOMORROW, without exception, and 100% of all cars built were EVs, it would still take 27 YEARS to replace all the gas cars on the road in the world.
Given that is not remotely realistic, given that gas cars will continue to be made by the millions each year for decades to come, we'll still have a whole pile of gas cars on the road in 2100.
So my question for wind is - why is a tower and some blades and some brakes and what should be a trivially simple control system so expensive compared to a combustion machine?
It isn't, for one of them.
Have you done the math for how much power an average coal plant puts out, how much land it uses, vs. the same amount of power from wind, and how much land it uses and how many you need?
In Texas for example, an average coal plant might put out 1,500 MW of power. Compare that to an average wind farm that may put out 500 MW of power. To make that power requires about 300 wind turbines.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/w...
^ Example of such a turbine.
Now find land for 300 of those, wire them up, install and maintain them, and there you go.
The actual cost of fuel for a coal plant is not really that big of a deal. It isn't free, but it isn't massive either.
https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs...
It takes about 1 pound of coal to make 1 KWh.
http://www.eia.gov/Energyexpla...
Coal costs about $45 per ton delivered to a power plant, or about 2.25 cents per pound, or about 2.2 cents per KWh for the fuel.
Once you have built the plant, selling the power for 3.5 cents per KWh wholesale can work, if you control your costs. It doesn't make building new coal plants very exciting for investors, which is why new coal isn't being built much, but existing coal, with existing plants, makes a lot of economic sense.
No they don't. They pay less than half what you pay.
English is not your strong suit, is it?
I said "power rates". My words. "power rates" refers to the price per KWh.
Germany pays (yes it does, multiple Internet sources agree on this) an average of 35 cents per KWh, I pay between 7 cents and 9.5 cents per KWh depending on location.
The total amount of power consumed is beside the point. The US is not going to go down to the German average per year, it just won't, that is a completely pointless comparison since it just will not happen. Our houses are bigger, we have large areas of very hot summers, and we simply consume more resources. This will not change in the near term and won't move all that much in the long term.
As long as the US pays an average just over 11 cents per KWh, all the stuff that makes sense in Germany at 35 cents per KWh does NOT make sense here, unless tons of tax incentives are tossed at it.
An average of 5 peak sunlight hours per day puts you the same as California, Nevada, Utah, and Colorado - all of which are installing solar as fast as possible.
CA is installing 40% of the national distributed solar, largely due to large tax incentives within the state.
The next 9 states are another 44%, for a total of 84% of the national solar installs in just 10 states.
Why is it that you can't understand it is all about the tax incentives that make this work, without them it simply doesn't.
It's fair to say that you get super cheap energy from the grid - I know I do. But to say "we only get 5 hours of sunlight" is complete bunk.
I looked up this past month's bill, it was almost exactly 9.5 cents per KWh and that includes all taxes and fees.
Where I live, we average 5.5 hours of sunlight a day annually. Oh sure it is 10 hours some days, but it is nothing other days. Actually it may be less than that, I just went here:
http://pvwatts.nrel.gov/pvwatt...
and did a quick calculation, it says based on the angle of my roof, I would get a net effective 4.68 hours of solar radiation per day for a 10KW system. It would save me an estimated 13,100 KWh per year, or about $1,244.50 which is even less than the estimates from the solar power installers.
Spending $25,000 out of pocket after tax credits to save $1,244.50 a year is a really bad investment, considering the risks. It assumes net-metering never goes away, which if it did, would remove much of that savings. It also assumes that for 20 years, ZERO maintenance would be required to the system. Oh sure the panels likely are fine, but the inverter won't last 20 years and there is always something to fix now and then.
Sure you did, why don't you put down the actual numbers
I've only posted them like three different times in this one story.
What I find is that people then try to say it somehow makes sense anyway. Or argue something else, or don't reply at all.
$25,000 net cost ($35,000 before tax credit) to me to install a 10KW system, it will save me about $1,500 a year in power, assuming several things.
1. Net-metering won't change
2. The equipment won't cost anything to maintain
That is a 16.6 year return on investment, and that is WITH the 30% tax rebate. And it only works WITH net-metering, which likely won't be here in 16 years.
If you remove net-metering and add $500 a year of maintenance costs (averaging what you need over 10 years, including a new inverter), and the return on investment is infinity, since the system will never pay for itself.
Why don't you post your 3 year ROI numbers?
The bills aren't zero, though.
No, but they are bloody darn close. If I install solar tomorrow and put enough on to produce annually what I consume, then more or less they are zero. The only cost would be a $5.99 connection fee.
You still pay a grid connection fee.
Not much of one, I pay $5.99 a month to have a connection to the grid. That wouldn't actually provide power at odd hours and maintain the grid if that is all they collected each month.
You still pay for 'delivery charge'.
No, with net-metering, if you use 2,000 kWh from the grid and you end up feeding back 2,000 kWh to the grid, there is no "delivery charge". It is canceled out and you pay basically nothing.
And yes, there obviously will be a tipping point where net metering will need to change, but we're nowhere close to that regardless of what the corporate puppets on the Nevada PUC have decided to do.
That is easy to say, when you have no money on the line. It becomes a bit more complex when you're considering putting up $25,000.
As it stands, with net-metering, I would save about $1,500 a year in power after putting up $25,000. If net-metering were to go away and they switch to buying the power at wholesale rates and not providing "delivery charge" credits, then the $1,500 goes to about $750 a year (or less).
It was bloody marginal WITH net-metering, it becomes utterly pointless WITHOUT it.
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It is also worth noting that electricty only provides about 2/3 of the total energy to my home, so even with 100% solar, I still would spend about $85 a month on gas. This month is actually pretty averge, since it isn't hot yet but the cold of winter is gone.
My monthly bill was $237.31 - Of that, $151.50 was for electric charge and $85.81 was for gas. With a 10KW solar system, about $125 of that bill, on average, would be removed. I used 1,597 KWh of total power this month, so my average charge per KWh was 9.5 cents, and that includes all taxes and connection fees.
It has taken off "for real"
You have a funny way of seeing "for real".
No it isn't, it still isn't even 1% of our total power. All the easy, low hanging fruit is being done, at some point it will run into issues of scale, cost, and system stability.
Wind, on the other hand, is "for real" and a decent chunk of power, but it still is under 5% and while we might get it to 10%, I have a hard time seeing it much higher than that, due to the need for system stability and 24/7 power.
You have no concept of the scale of the credits, they are insignificant in the comparison to the defense budget, not even 1% of the budget.
I have more idea of it than you think I do. And it has nothing to do with defense, those are two different things. And should solar take off "for real", then those amounts would add a few zeros and become a big issue. But without those tax dollars, solar makes no sense.
Your pricing on nuclear is also WAY off. The plant nearest to completion in the most recent building cycle has cost $9 Billion and isn't finished yet. The only way nuclear can be built is if the government forces the local rate payers to pay for it. And that's a subsidy any way you look at it.
I never said $5 billion would buy a nuclear plant, I said it would help pay for it, much like they are helping pay for solar. Give Nuclear a 30% government tax credit and see them become interesting again.
And as for subsidy, that's fine, nuclear is better than coal and it is the only thing that could actually replace coal. In the sense of ZERO coal being burned. Solar and Wind cannot do that.
The sun is reliably up every day roughly 12h.
No, it isn't. Here in nice sunny Texas, the sun averages 5.5 hours of exposure annually. But it varies wildly between nothing and 12+ hours depending on the day/time of year.
That isn't remotely reliable. You can't run a power grid that way. People want power 24/7/356, not "sometimes".
Wind and solar alone simply cannot provide even half our power, it just doesn't work.
It was economically viable back then if only the subsidies given to other, more harmful power generation technologies had been diverted in its direction.
The problem with your post is that this is simply wrong.
It isn't economically viable TODAY, much less 40 years ago.
Solar is NOT the solution to coal. It wasn't then, it isn't today. The longer you spend thinking it is, the more coal will get burned.
This will continue to be true until it's not. Every year solar gets cheaper, while most other energy sources get more expensive.
Everyone loves to say that, and it makes sense if you don't look too closely at it.
There are several flaws with that viewpoint.
First, solar panels are already cheap, dirt cheap. Less than a dollar a watt, much less in some cases. The panels could be free, it wouldn't lower the cost of solar much more. The real cost of solar is in labor, land, and maintenance (which isn't nothing, despite what you have heard).
Second, as demand for something drops, so does the price. The US and EU might burn a big less coal, oil, and natural gas over time, but all that does is drive the price of those things down. As the price drops, they becomes competitive again. Also, the Earth doesn't care WHERE coal/oil/gas is burned, only that it is. None of this makes a lick of difference unless you stop it world wide. If the US stopped burning coal/oil/gas tomorrow, the price of those things would drop like a brick and suddenly third world nations would have a field day with cheap power. Someone, somewhere will burn it.
Finally, solar can't replace coal/oil/gas, it doesn't work 24/7 and you aren't going to ever build a big enough battery to store weeks worth of total power consumption, or build an international power grid across national lines.
Texas has plenty of sun. Your electricity is currently coal powered, which means it is damaging your health (or some other person's health).
About 5.5 hours a day, on average.
Yes, the coal power is "bad", but it is also cheap. Yes, I could switch to wind power and pay a bit more, but ultimately it wouldn't change anything. It hurts me financially for an undetectable difference overall.
It makes sense to put some solar up where you live. In a few years it will have covered its costs and you will be making a profit.
Except, it doesn't... I've posted the detailed numbers in this story in another reply, but in short, it simply makes no sense. My out of pocket cost to install a 10KW system is about $25,000 and my annual savings in power is about $1,500. But that assumes net-metering will always be here, which it won't. When that changes I don't know, but my annual return on investment is, give or take, about 5% assuming it ALL works out the way the spreadsheet says it will. Which isn't enough to justify taking the risk.
So as it stands, with net-metering, my payback is 16.6 years, unless power rates go up, so lets be kind and say 12 years. Fine, but I'll have to buy an inverter by then and there will be SOME type of maintenance due. It isn't a completely zero cost thing.
It just makes no sense.
Comparing commercial scale solar and wind to your coal power, you forgot to include the environmental and health costs. Maybe you are lucky and don't have to deal with them.
I don't forget them, but my paying more doesn't change them. Imagine a swimming pool, now imagine 100,000 people pee in that pool. Pretty nasty, right? Now imagine 100 people stop peeing in the pool? All clean? No, it isn't. In fact, you have to get almost ALL the people to stop doing it before it isn't enough to matter. 100 people peeing in a 20,000 gallon swimming pool is actually not that big a deal, but 99,900 people vs 100,000 is basically no difference.
Harming myself financially to make basically no difference to the environment would be illogical. Oh sure, if EVERYONE would do it, then yes, it would help. But I don't have the ability to control that and my actions won't inspire people.
Isn't spending on solar the same as spending on defense, security-wise? Isn't our need for oil, and our giving tons of money to countries which hate us, one of the major reasons we need so much defense?
Not really, because solar replaces coal, not oil.
Oil provides 5% of our electricity, Coal provides over 40%.
Most of the oil we use goes to gas for our cars, and solar doesn't power our cars. Yea, yea, EVs and all, but EVs won't be a major thing for decades.
Energy self-sufficiency is national security.
We are there already, if we want to be. We have plenty of coal, oil, and natural gas to meet our needs. But keep in mind that oil is easily moved, which is why it is a world wide commodity. It is why oil pumped in Alaska often doesn't go to the US, because it is cheaper to ship it to Japan than it is to ship it to Texas.
If the US somehow closed our borders tomorrow and refused all trade, we could meet all our energy needs. But that doesn't help unless we REALLY close our borders, because what happens around the world affects our economy. That is just the modern world we live in.
How is solar reliable? It only makes power when the sun is up.
My power works 24/7/365. It has been so long since a power outrage, I honestly don't know when the last one was. It has been years, and even then it probably was for 1 min or so.
I am not sure the power has been out for more than an hour since I've been an adult. That is more than 20 years.
As for the rolling blackouts, in CA that was caused by a seriously messed up power market and politics, not a lack of power. That was a self-created problem and it was fixed, which is why it hasn't returned.
What puzzles me about the economics of solar and wind is how solar and wind can cost so much even though they have minimal running costs. That is, all the cost of solar and wind is fixed cost (plus maintenance); there is no recurring fuel cost.
It is the upfront costs that ruin it. Fuel is actually not that expensive purchased in bulk.
Also, you have to consider the wholesale price of power, not retail.
While my office pays 7 cents per kWh, half of that is for the actual power, the other half is for the delivery of the power. I'm actually paying close to wholesale for power, about 3.5 cents per kWh.
When I'm quoted 10 cents per kWh for wind, it is actually 6.5 cents for the power and 3.5 cents for delivery. My delivery cost is the same 3.5 cents regardless of power source.
Those wind turbines have to be put somewhere, that land has to be leased, the power has to be moved, and someone had to build and support those huge turbines.
Meters, huh? Maybe, who knows... easy for you to say, since neither of us will be here in a thousand years to know either way, now will we?
It might rise another half a foot or so by the end of this century. I suspect we'll all be just fine. And if we're not, we are just as likely to be better off adapting to the change as trying to fight it.
Any change in climate due to mankind is largely committed at this point. A few more solar panels and a few more wind farms won't change that.
I'm inclined to believe that a big chunk of solar's success boils down to tax credits, not inherent economic viability.
This has been my conclusion as well. Without the federal IRS 30% break, the state breaks, and the other programs, solar wouldn't be doing much of anything. Even as it stands, it is still below 1% of our power generation.
Wind makes far more sense, it is at least in the ballpark of reasonable.
But then there's all the complaints about the subsidies to carbon energy, which are at least fair on the surface.
You'd think, but a lot of what counts as a "subsidy to carbon energy" isn't as simple as direct money. For example, the IMF counts the carbon released as a "subsidy" when a proper carbon tax is not in place. To the tune of $400 billion a year in the US alone. Clearly $400 billion a year isn't changing hands, but according to the IMF, US coal producers are getting that much of a "subsidy". In other words, the IMF thinks we should be taxing coal out of existence (which is what $400 billion in taxes would do).
Is it perverse competition incentives, like giving a tax break to some oil related industry in order to attract jobs from some other state's similar industry?
Yea, but keep in mind that when Pennsylvania decides to give Shell a tax break to build a refinery, that is about jobs and business, not oil. Shell could be making hats, the tax break would be the same.
Consider that Tesla got $1.25 billion to build a factory in Nevada. Nice, but I don't consider that to be a "green tax subsidy", rather it is just a jobs and economic one.
And do indirect subsidies like this actually count towards the actual cost of energy?
Some do, some don't. Consider that oil is only 5% of the US total electric production, about equal to wind. Coal and Natural Gas are where we get the bulk of our electric production from and both are mostly domestic, so our massive military and the wars are about gas for our cars, not power for our homes.
Carbon may well end up hurting us all, but it doesn't make power more expensive today.
While my general view on this is that my govt should get out of the habit of subsidizing any particular energy source
I tend to agree there...
I wouldn't have said it 5 years ago, but today I think I'd rather simply have a carbon tax and no subsides for anything. Rather than try and pick winners, pick the losers and let the market sort out the winners.
Start the carbon tax of REALLY small, but with a slow and steady rampup published way in advance over the next 50 years, so that people would understand that while tomorrow it is nearly nothing, in 5 years it is a small something and in 25 years it is a big something and in 50 years it is a crazy big something.
If you double the price of gas tomorrow, you just crush the economy and actually make things worse, it takes time for people to shift. So maybe you need carbon taxes to add a penny this year, 2 pennies next year, 4 the year after that, and so on, until it is maybe $2 a gallon in 30 years. If everyone knows that today, there is at least a chance that action will be taken before 30 years arrives.
Or at least I could hope. :)