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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

#81

Post by vinceguidry »

CWuestefeld wrote: post #66
ndonnellan wrote: post #9

This article seems to have a more thorough explanation: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/is-this-sunny-state-trying-... snip ----------------------- A little-understood billing mechanism called net metering is at the heart of the Nevada controversy. Net metering means that residential and commercial solar customers are billed for their “net” energy consumption. They are allowed to send back to the grid the electricit…

Wow, that's a long reach to get to the OP's "de facto ban on rooftop solar". If we take the OP at face value, then, it seems to be declaring that solar energy is completely impractical, and can't survive without life support. I realize that other forms of energy generation are all subsidized in various ways, so it's clearly not as serious as my above interpretation, but still, it doesn't speak well of solar.

It's not that simple. Solar is only really practical if it fits into the grid system, otherwise there's no real point. The energy it gives you goes up and down, and not in sync with your own household needs.

So you need something to do with excess capacity. All by itself, units of power aren't all that expensive. But a solar installation is very expensive. You need to amortize the cost of the installation, the people putting it in, the company developing the technology, over around 30 years before it's really worth it.

Even then, normal consumers won't bother unless it's actually making their net energy expenditures lower. So you also need a finance company to come in and finance everything so the consumer isn't coming out of pocket for the installation.

All of this is viable, only so long as the power companies are paying retail rates for excess electricity. There's enough money so everyone gets paid. What this is all about is the power companies are suddenly deciding they want to pay wholesale for excess power. Why should they pay wholesale? They're not buying in wholesale quantities from each consumer.

This sucks enough profit potential from the industry that it makes more sense for them to go elsewhere to put together a workable business model than to stick around and deal with decimated revenues.

The power companies are using their political muscle to stamp out competition. If they were to play fair, then they'd be forced to compete with solar. They don't want to compete, so they're using lobbyists to warp the political process.

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

#82

Post by roymurdock »

revelation wrote: post #75
roymurdock wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wit…

We're in agreement here. Unfortunately, until we develop a serious pollution permitting scheme where companies can buy and sell pollution "credits" on a market with some max set and enforced by the government, we will be unable to capture these negative externalities in dollar form.

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

#83

Post by sandworm101 »

Zigurd wrote: post #74
jacquesm wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

They are. Small backup gens (ie without autostart/disconnects etc) can be bought for a few hundred bucks. If you don't use them that often, say a few hours a year while your offgrid system is under repair, the cost of operation is extremely small.

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

#84

Post by msandford »

jacquesm wrote: post #32
Symmetry wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the idea isn't that you can go off grid but rather that you can now make use of the excess power that you would have been selling back to the grid during the night and so effectively capture the same residential rates through reduced use.

Sure. But that's effectively the exact same thing as net-metering, only with a lot more fixed costs. And batteries wear out as well. The grid is a lot better for this, unfortunately that requires cooperation of the grid operators and owners. There is an alternative to this, the equivalent of a credit union but for power where a number of people band together to do their own little grid, but the complexities and dange…

I've thought for a long time that a neighborhood 48V DC exchange might be viable. You'll have to pull thick copper of course, but $1/foot for wires is pretty cheap compared to battery prices.

Here in the US the NEC says that anything under 50V isn't really regulated because they don't want to get involved in people's path lighting, phone, ethernet, doorbells, thermostats, garage door opener signaling, etc.

The other thing that will help enable going completely off grid are things like inverter AC units (which draw a continuously small amount of power instead of 5 minutes at 3kw and 10-30 minutes at 0kw) and ice "batteries" to store power instead of lead acid or lithium. Ice batteries never really go bad either, at least not the way chemical batteries do.

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

#85

Post by jacquesm »

sandworm101 wrote: post #83
Zigurd wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

They are. Small backup gens (ie without autostart/disconnects etc) can be bought for a few hundred bucks. If you don't use them that often, say a few hours a year while your offgrid system is under repair, the cost of operation is extremely small.

If you go with a gas generator make sure you stabilize the gas or it won't work by the time that you need it.

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

#86

Post by Shivetya »

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…

While I can see some allure in having your own solar array I still think it smacks more of good marketing than good application of the technology. From the marketing standpoint you get to sell a lot more goods, from panels to converters. From the application side you end up with a large number of installations that need service and such complicated by that large number of smaller installations.

I still think the idea of local solar power is good idea but should still be done in larger sites. There are certainly more sites that much more optimal than individual homes. Set up a co-op system where you buy shares in the installation and derive benefits from it

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

#87

Post by mikeash »

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.

Isn't it on the order of $10-20/month?

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

#88

Post by sbierwagen »

CWuestefeld wrote: post #66
ndonnellan wrote: post #9

This article seems to have a more thorough explanation: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/is-this-sunny-state-trying-... snip ----------------------- A little-understood billing mechanism called net metering is at the heart of the Nevada controversy. Net metering means that residential and commercial solar customers are billed for their “net” energy consumption. They are allowed to send back to the grid the electricit…

Wow, that's a long reach to get to the OP's "de facto ban on rooftop solar". If we take the OP at face value, then, it seems to be declaring that solar energy is completely impractical, and can't survive without life support. I realize that other forms of energy generation are all subsidized in various ways, so it's clearly not as serious as my above interpretation, but still, it doesn't speak well of solar.

Parsing NVenergy's rate tables, it looks like the cheapest retail rate is $0.044/kWh, while the wholesale rate is $0.004/kWh.

I defy you to find a low-margin business that can actually survive a ten-fold reduction of per-sale revenue.

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

#89

Post by toyg »

CWuestefeld wrote: post #66
ndonnellan wrote: post #9

This article seems to have a more thorough explanation: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/is-this-sunny-state-trying-... snip ----------------------- A little-understood billing mechanism called net metering is at the heart of the Nevada controversy. Net metering means that residential and commercial solar customers are billed for their “net” energy consumption. They are allowed to send back to the grid the electricit…

Wow, that's a long reach to get to the OP's "de facto ban on rooftop solar". If we take the OP at face value, then, it seems to be declaring that solar energy is completely impractical, and can't survive without life support. I realize that other forms of energy generation are all subsidized in various ways, so it's clearly not as serious as my above interpretation, but still, it doesn't speak well of solar.

Not completely impractical as much as not economically advantageous at this point in time.

You have to invest money to install solar panels; the expectation is that you can make that money back either by saving on running costs or by selling back electricity. If your running costs are projected to be the same (not worse, the same) and selling back is not profitable, then the fixed installation costs make the investment overall unprofitable, and the industry dies.

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

#90

Post by dpark »

vinceguidry wrote: post #81
CWuestefeld wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, that's a long reach to get to the OP's "de facto ban on rooftop solar". If we take the OP at face value, then, it seems to be declaring that solar energy is completely impractical, and can't survive without life support. I realize that other forms of energy generation are all subsidized in various ways, so it's clearly not as serious as my above interpretation, but still, it doesn't speak well of solar.

It's not that simple. Solar is only really practical if it fits into the grid system, otherwise there's no real point. The energy it gives you goes up and down, and not in sync with your own household needs. So you need something to do with excess capacity. All by itself, units of power aren't all that expensive. But a solar installation is very expensive. You need to amortize the cost of the installation, the people…

>Why should they pay wholesale? They're not buying in wholesale quantities from each consumer.

Why should they pay retail? As a consumer thinking about solar, I like that, but it makes no economical sense. What business can afford to buy and sell for the same price? You don't sell a car to the dealership for the price they will sell it for. That would be absurd.

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