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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

#151

Post by rconti »

SEJeff wrote: post #78
rconti wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 i…

Yeah, actually, my parents have a SolarCity installation. I'm stubborn and want to pay upfront and own my system.. when I can afford it. I definitely veered off the whole SolarCity topic in my comment though.

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

#152

Post by ghaff »

encoderer wrote: post #143
baldfat wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> over around 30 years before it's really worth it That is ANCIENT Solar Technology. If you care to read this it actually is Energy payback estimates for rooftop PV systems are 4, 3, 2, and 1 years: 4 years for systems using current multicrystalline-silicon PV modules, 3 years for current thin-film modules, 2 years for anticipated multicrystalline modules, and 1 year for anticipated thin-film modules http://www.nrel.…

Wait. I have solar and love it. But if your electric bills over a 4 year period do not amount to the install cost of the solar, the technology used is meaningless? And because install costs do not decrease with more efficient tech, and things like the inverters are just as expensive, I certainly cannot pay off my system in 1 year. More like 10 years.

10-ish years are the kind of payback I saw when I looked into it. My electricity bill is about $100/month--so ~$1K/year is about the most I could save if I bought solar panels.

Companies like SolarCity can make the math more complicated. And in all fairness they can probably take advantage of various breaks and subsidies I may not have access to as a consumer. However, it's like a car purchase. I'm skeptical that some lease agreement suddenly makes a purchase sensible that wouldn't be with a straightforward cash on the barrel buy.

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

#153

Post by [deleted] »

msandford wrote: post #84
jacquesm wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

[deleted]

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

#154

Post by xavi »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #110
vinceguidry wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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? The power companies (normally) have enough power to supply everyone; they buy that power at wholesale prices and sell it to the customer at retail prices. So why, if they can always buy power at wholesale prices, should they deliberately pay retail prices instead? Doing so…

Instead of subsidizing green power, I think it would make more sense that producers of non-green power would pay for the real cost of their power, including the environmental cost, through a carbon tax for example (also suggested by others, https://twitter.com/paultoo/status/672568359033040896). Because, it's not that we have to do a favor to green producers, but we should make non-green producers pay for the possibly irreversible damage to our planet, and so to us. Ideally we shouldn't allow it, but if we do, let's punish it.

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

#155

Post by ethbro »

Armisael16 wrote: post #108
ethbro wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see where the argument against retail (possibly minus a small amount) comes from. Effectively, they're deleting load from close to the end user from the utility's books. If that load hadn't been deleted, the utility would have charged retail pricing in order to generate it. The small negative adjustment from retail would come from the fact that the utility is still servicing the solar user as a retail user. S…

The utility also has to be prepared to provide you with the power that you aren't using (if there's a solar eclipse or something). The marginal cost of power generation is very low, so you save them almost nothing by not using the power.

The marginal cost of average power is very low. At least for solar in the south (air conditioning), the marginal cost of peak daytime power is much less so.

Remember that capacity is sized for peak utilization: the gap between average load and peak is load is extremely expensive, as it's by definition low-utilization compared to base load generation.

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

#156

Post by ZeroGravitas »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #110
vinceguidry wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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? The power companies (normally) have enough power to supply everyone; they buy that power at wholesale prices and sell it to the customer at retail prices. So why, if they can always buy power at wholesale prices, should they deliberately pay retail prices instead? Doing so…

The people with rooftop solar are providing a subsidy to everyone else, because even at net rates, they're not being fully compensated for the value they provide to the grid.

I realise that might sound "crazy" because lots of well paid PR people are telling you the opposite, but it's true.

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

#157

Post by svachalek »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #150
themartorana wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because if you, as a consumer who can't pay wholesale, take a watt and then put back a watt, are still out some rent money.

> Because if you, as a consumer who can't pay wholesale, take a watt and then put back a watt, are still out some rent money. And in that same case, the power company is out some infrastructure and maintenance costs. But either way, you state that as though power grids have some fundamental property that necessitates the same rates for purchase and sale, a property that most other exchanges do not have.

> And in that same case, the power company is out some infrastructure and maintenance costs.

As I understand my bill, PG&E still bills you for that as a separate item.

> But either way, you state that as though power grids have some fundamental property that necessitates the same rates for purchase and sale, a property that most other exchanges do not have.

That property would be "legal monopoly".

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

#158

Post by Someone »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #110
vinceguidry wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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? The power companies (normally) have enough power to supply everyone; they buy that power at wholesale prices and sell it to the customer at retail prices. So why, if they can always buy power at wholesale prices, should they deliberately pay retail prices instead? Doing so…

"So why, if they can always buy at wholesale prices, should they deliberately pay retail prices instead?"

It is worse. Wholesale prices vary during the day. If you force them to buy at average price at times when wholesale prices are low and sell at average price when they are high. That will cost them money, potentially lots of it (nowadays, wholesale prices can go negative when there is a lot of supply from wind or solar farms)

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

#159

Post by JoshTriplett »

svachalek wrote: post #157
JoshTriplett wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because if you, as a consumer who can't pay wholesale, take a watt and then put back a watt, are still out some rent money. And in that same case, the power company is out some infrastructure and maintenance costs. But either way, you state that as though power grids have some fundamental property that necessitates the same rates for purchase and sale, a property that most other exchanges do not have.

> And in that same case, the power company is out some infrastructure and maintenance costs. As I understand my bill, PG&E still bills you for that as a separate item. > But either way, you state that as though power grids have some fundamental property that necessitates the same rates for purchase and sale, a property that most other exchanges do not have. That property would be "legal monopoly".

That property makes them subject to regulation; it doesn't inherently mean they should pay the same price to buy power as to sell.

Even markets with a legal monopoly have a bid-ask spread.

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

#160

Post by Retric »

encoderer wrote: post #143
baldfat wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> over around 30 years before it's really worth it That is ANCIENT Solar Technology. If you care to read this it actually is Energy payback estimates for rooftop PV systems are 4, 3, 2, and 1 years: 4 years for systems using current multicrystalline-silicon PV modules, 3 years for current thin-film modules, 2 years for anticipated multicrystalline modules, and 1 year for anticipated thin-film modules http://www.nrel.…

Wait. I have solar and love it. But if your electric bills over a 4 year period do not amount to the install cost of the solar, the technology used is meaningless? And because install costs do not decrease with more efficient tech, and things like the inverters are just as expensive, I certainly cannot pay off my system in 1 year. More like 10 years.

Energy costs are a small fraction of installation costs. EX: You had someone walking around on the roof, which cost a lot more than the 200w or so they where burning doing so.
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