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SolarCity Will Eliminate Over 550 Job Due to State’s Anti-Rooftop Solar Decision

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Re: SolarCity Will Eliminate Over 550 Job Due to State’s Anti-Rooftop Solar Decision

#71

Post by twoodfin »

pjc50 wrote: post #36
Animats wrote: post #13

If solar can't make it in Nevada without subsidies, the industry has a big problem. Nevada's population is mostly around Las Vegas, which is at 36° latitude and has 294 sunny days a year. It doesn't get much better than that. Utilities are still buying back power, just at wholesale rates. You can still use the power yourself and buy less at retail rates. Or you can get some of Tesla's batteries and store it for night…

It doesn't seem to be about subsidies per se, it appears to be about net metering, and whether new customers are allowed to use it?

Eh, through a couple of levels of bureaucratic indirection and regulation, net metering is effectively a subsidy. Power companies would essentially never "get their money's worth" paying retail rates for the surplus power generated by residential panels during the day. If they were unregulated, consumers would thus never get such a deal.

Re: SolarCity Will Eliminate Over 550 Job Due to State’s Anti-Rooftop Solar Decision

#72

Post by JshWright »

pjc50 wrote: post #36
Animats wrote: post #13

If solar can't make it in Nevada without subsidies, the industry has a big problem. Nevada's population is mostly around Las Vegas, which is at 36° latitude and has 294 sunny days a year. It doesn't get much better than that. Utilities are still buying back power, just at wholesale rates. You can still use the power yourself and buy less at retail rates. Or you can get some of Tesla's batteries and store it for night…

It doesn't seem to be about subsidies per se, it appears to be about net metering, and whether new customers are allowed to use it?

How is net metering anything other than a subsidy the power company is forced to pay?

Re: SolarCity Will Eliminate Over 550 Job Due to State’s Anti-Rooftop Solar Decision

#73

Post by sandworm101 »

Animats wrote: post #13

If solar can't make it in Nevada without subsidies, the industry has a big problem. Nevada's population is mostly around Las Vegas, which is at 36° latitude and has 294 sunny days a year. It doesn't get much better than that. Utilities are still buying back power, just at wholesale rates. You can still use the power yourself and buy less at retail rates. Or you can get some of Tesla's batteries and store it for night…

Lots of sun, but nevada isn't the ideal place for net metering. The population is centralized and surrounded by flat desert. So bringing power to them from big stations is easy.

The ideal market for net metering is where the population is spread out and surrounded by mountains. That makes transmission tricky/expensive. Generation of power locally via small rigs bypasses those transmission difficulties, allowing the small provider to perhaps demand something higher than wholesale rates.

Re: SolarCity Will Eliminate Over 550 Job Due to State’s Anti-Rooftop Solar Decision

#74

Post by Zigurd »

jacquesm wrote: post #60
tobz wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What cost? It sounds like the parent is possibly suggesting the opposite of a backup power solution: transfer switch where you're in solar mode 99% of the time, and if things break or you need to do work, you switch over to grid power. I've never lived anywhere where I used zero kWh for the month, so I'm not sure... but I have to imagine the cost would be pretty slow... save for getting such a system setup (transfer…

They'll charge a fixed fee just for the hookup, and it can be quite a large percentage if your consumption is minimal.

Fees won't be sustainable if they are higher than what it costs to lease or buy a generator

Re: SolarCity Will Eliminate Over 550 Job Due to State’s Anti-Rooftop Solar Decision

#75

Post by revelation »

roymurdock wrote: post #50
tomp wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What kind of subsidies?

This is a great report from 2012 (using 2010 numbers) that outlines gov subsidies, loans, and contracts by industry: http://www.pewtrusts.org/~/media/legacy/uploadedfiles/pcs_as... Energy is the 5th most subsidized sector, counting both grants and tax expenditures (exemptions), with $34.5b in total federal subsidies. Compared to the $743.5b we subsidized healthcare, this is pretty small stuff. Energy makes up the 2nd…

I'm afraid this is missing the point. The subsidies we are talking about when it comes to energy are not "cash in hand" loans to energy companies.

It's the tacit approval of and ignorance towards externalities energy companies cause, mostly pollution in any number of forms, from those carcinogenic to those crushing the climate (CO2) and finally things like nuclear waste (and possibly decontamination) that will be with us for many thousand years to come. These massive costs are not being accounted for, and they sum up to subsidies vastly exceeding the puny $50b cited here.

Re: SolarCity Will Eliminate Over 550 Job Due to State’s Anti-Rooftop Solar Decision

#76

Post by mcv »

ISL wrote: post #64

A less-sensational article: http://www.technologyreview.com/news/545146/battles-over-net... The change isn't a ban on rooftop solar. It's a change in the metering for selling power back to the grid.

I guess the solution is to store it locally and buy less from the grid, then.

Re: SolarCity Will Eliminate Over 550 Job Due to State’s Anti-Rooftop Solar Decision

#77

Post by skrause »

_ea1k wrote: post #67
Animats wrote: post #13

If solar can't make it in Nevada without subsidies, the industry has a big problem. Nevada's population is mostly around Las Vegas, which is at 36° latitude and has 294 sunny days a year. It doesn't get much better than that. Utilities are still buying back power, just at wholesale rates. You can still use the power yourself and buy less at retail rates. Or you can get some of Tesla's batteries and store it for night…

It is not really about subsidies in this case. It is about a change to Net metering and the addition of a new fixed monthly fee just for solar users. Fixed fees can significantly affect the cost of solar and some reports have this fee as high as $40/month[1]. The fact that they have also made this retroactive to existing solar customers adds a lot of uncertainty to the market as well. That can't help from a sales per…

> It is about a change to Net metering and the addition of a new fixed monthly fee just for solar users.

I've predicted rising fixed fees for solar customers before [1] and I think it's just the beginning. When a significant amount of households have a solar installation they're not really providing a service to the grid anymore. Everyone sends a lot of power into the grid when nobody else needs it during the day, and then wants power from the grid at night.

So what you're basically doing is using the grid as a giant battery. The grid doesn't really need your energy most of the time, but has high fixed costs to maintain the infrastructure. I think it's just fair that you pay them for this service. If you don't want it, you need to get off the grid and install your own batteries.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10473509

Re: SolarCity Will Eliminate Over 550 Job Due to State’s Anti-Rooftop Solar Decision

#78

Post by SEJeff »

rconti wrote: post #53
Animats wrote: post #13

If solar can't make it in Nevada without subsidies, the industry has a big problem. Nevada's population is mostly around Las Vegas, which is at 36° latitude and has 294 sunny days a year. It doesn't get much better than that. Utilities are still buying back power, just at wholesale rates. You can still use the power yourself and buy less at retail rates. Or you can get some of Tesla's batteries and store it for night…

It's worth noting that Nevada is not exactly a high income state, so solar panels can be relatively difficult to afford. I believe their grid electricity is also quite cheap.

You know that the way Solar City works is that they put the money down themselves for the solar panels and rent/lease (more or less) them to the users. Using Solar City, the large up front costs of solar panels are paid for over a long period of time. That is why they are so successful.

http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/04/18/what-i-lear...

http://marketrealist.com/2015/08/solarcitys-business-model-r...

It is actually unfortunate such an innovative company is seeing the negative effects of policy changes.

Re: SolarCity Will Eliminate Over 550 Job Due to State’s Anti-Rooftop Solar Decision

#79

Post by SmallBets »

notlisted wrote: post #68

Somewhat off-topic. I'm all for solar, but there are some nasty practices out there with the "free" installs (lease). To maximize energy-harvesting potential, many "free" solar installers don't seem to care at all about ruining the look of nice houses, for example stuff like this [1], reducing the value of the home and increasing the time to sell. There are many horror stories about unexpected liens on homes [2] prev…

Exactly. This stumbling block is as much about the solar lease/ppa model as net metering, because math about cost of botg grid and solar are assumed 100% unchanged for 20 years.

Rooftop owners that buy their systems outright are still im good shape, with a different payback period. Leases have been pushed bc theyre more lucrative for installers and homeowners have avoided the upfront cost of buying. Leases were a gateway financial model to expand rooftop solar but I think we'll see a shift to system ownership, which will reduce the impact of net metering. And it will be further reduced as storage tech ramps up.

Re: SolarCity Will Eliminate Over 550 Job Due to State’s Anti-Rooftop Solar Decision

#80

Post by ebbv »

tomp wrote: post #39
ebbv wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a really disingenuous response. The NV Energy (all power utilities in the US) receive massive subsidies. So the playing field isn't level.

What kind of subsidies?

Are you kidding? Every kind imaginable, from subsidies for coal mining and oil to subsidies on natural gas, subsidies on upgrading for higher efficiency, etc.

Not to mention the implicit subsidy of the rest of us picking up the tab for the damage they are doing to the environment.

If you're really curious there's tons of information out there.

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