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California Votes to Require Rooftop Solar Power on New Homes

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Re: California Votes to Require Rooftop Solar Power on New Homes

#101

Post by B1FF_PSUVM »

tlb wrote: post #53
alkonaut wrote: post #23

Requiring specific technical solutions is rarely a good idea. For example mandating that all new cars have catalytic converters is a common but not very good requirement. The requirement should be formulated as a goal/limit, not a solution. Having one solution required means you can’t innovate to find a cheaper or better solution to the same problem. The answer in this context would be to require a total net power dr…

How would you formulate a building code for total net power draw, given how much it depends on occupant behavior?

> depends on occupant behavior

That's easy, occupant must follow recommended behavior.

And be glad that Genetic Control is not issuing a four foot restriction on Humanoid height.

( https://www.google.com/search?q=Get+%27Em+Out+by+Friday )

Re: California Votes to Require Rooftop Solar Power on New Homes

#102

Post by [deleted] »

alkonaut wrote: post #23

Requiring specific technical solutions is rarely a good idea. For example mandating that all new cars have catalytic converters is a common but not very good requirement. The requirement should be formulated as a goal/limit, not a solution. Having one solution required means you can’t innovate to find a cheaper or better solution to the same problem. The answer in this context would be to require a total net power dr…

[deleted]

Re: California Votes to Require Rooftop Solar Power on New Homes

#103

Post by dragonwriter »

jpao79 wrote: post #88
koube wrote: post #3

Saw this in my rss this morning: https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2018/05/ro... > I just became aware in the last few days of the proposal in the new building energy efficiency standards rule making to mandate rooftop solar on all new residential buildings. I want to urge you not to adopt the standard. I, along with the vast majority of energy economist, believe that residential rooftop solar is a mu…

I'm not clear on why SB827 high density housing near transit and solar panels for single family homes are mutually exclusive. A solar rooftop on a 4 story high density building is like a rounding error compared to all the other costs. California should be moving forward on both initiatives, no? The great thing about the requirement is not that it is the absolutely most carbon friendly solution but that it creates a v…

> I'm not clear on why SB827 high density housing near transit and solar panels for single family homes are mutually exclusive.

They don't even seem to be in much tension, much less opposed.

Re: California Votes to Require Rooftop Solar Power on New Homes

#104

Post by blisterpeanuts »

Faaak wrote: post #84
nv-vn wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And changing over only the new houses in one single state is going to fix that? Most of the world's pollution is coming out of developing countries anyways. This move is at best virtue signaling and at worst a step towards destroying California's economy.

That's completely false. For example, the per-capita CO₂ emissions in 2013 were of 20 tons/cap for the US, whereas it was 8.5 for China (world mean is 6.3): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_greenhous...

China produces twice the CO2 emissions as the U.S. China produced 29% of global CO2 emissions in 2015, and the U.S. produced 14%. (wikipedia)

Per capita numbers are rather misleading here. For example, Qatar has by far the highest CO2 emissions per person.

Re: California Votes to Require Rooftop Solar Power on New Homes

#105

Post by tlb »

ppeetteerr wrote: post #50
DeepYogurt wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that a a more general law would be better, but for the foreseeable future I don't see this law having detrimental side effects. Also this law can be addressed in the future when solar is a less compelling technology.

Laws rarely get removed. The detrimental side effect is lower incentive to build new homes and rising cost of existing homes.

If some other practical carbon-free home power generation tech emerges (fusion?) the code will probably be amended to say "... or a 5 kw basement fusion reactor". That's how the building code has mostly evolved, by adding specific alternatives rather than trying to be entirely general.

Being specific has disadvantages, but the big advantage is that most decisions can be made by contractors reading the code instead of requiring an (expensive) engineering calculation. Engineering can be 1/3 of the cost of a remodel as it is. Increasing the engineering cost gives a big advantage to tract home builders who can amortize the engineering across a subdivision, which results in suburban malaise.

For instance, current energy codes require a certain R-value of insulation in walls, so that any contractor can go to Home Depot and buy the insulation marked with that R value and expect it to pass inspection. If the code said "Homes may only lose X BTU/year through all surfaces" it'd require a lot of engineer time per house to work it all out.

It's great that solar has evolved from being so expensive that it could only be installed in the most carefully optimized system, to something where you can just slap a few panels on a roof and expect reasonable results.

Re: California Votes to Require Rooftop Solar Power on New Homes

#106

Post by gascan »

koube wrote: post #3

Saw this in my rss this morning: https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2018/05/ro... > I just became aware in the last few days of the proposal in the new building energy efficiency standards rule making to mandate rooftop solar on all new residential buildings. I want to urge you not to adopt the standard. I, along with the vast majority of energy economist, believe that residential rooftop solar is a mu…

It may not be the cheapest solution. But it does accomplish some good things. It reduces attic temperatures (and thus cooling demand), and the ecologists I know observe that wind & solar farms contribute to habitat loss, while rooftop solar does not.

Re: California Votes to Require Rooftop Solar Power on New Homes

#107

Post by ams6110 »

alkonaut wrote: post #23

Requiring specific technical solutions is rarely a good idea. For example mandating that all new cars have catalytic converters is a common but not very good requirement. The requirement should be formulated as a goal/limit, not a solution. Having one solution required means you can’t innovate to find a cheaper or better solution to the same problem. The answer in this context would be to require a total net power dr…

> require a total net power draw for the home

Not good either. Just let people pay for what they use. Each person can decide how to optimize for his or her needs.

Re: California Votes to Require Rooftop Solar Power on New Homes

#108

Post by ppeetteerr »

nv-vn wrote: post #63
ppeetteerr wrote: post #47

So you can't mandate that neighbourhoods build taller buildings to curb the astronomical rise in real estate prices but making new buildings (and by association old buildings) more expensive is easy. California, what are you doing? Fix your housing problem!

SF actually limits building height in most areas I believe. Every time we put another one of these laws on the books, it's another obstacle blocking the way for affordable housing that probably won't ever get reversed

San Fran should look like Hong Kong with the demand that it currently has.

Re: California Votes to Require Rooftop Solar Power on New Homes

#110

Post by pkaye »

sithadmin wrote: post #85
happyopossum wrote: post #8

Not only is residential solar just about the most expensive (and thus innefficient) form of solar power available, but this is coming at a time when new construction of affordable housing is most needed. The only reason this is considered a 'cost effective' measure, is because the entire cost is forced on the shoulders of homebuyers. Saddling all new residential construction with this burden serves 2 priary purposes…

Not to mention: there's now an incentive for builders to reduce the quality of construction (and potentially skimp on other energy-efficiency measures in the building) to offset the cost of the solar installation.

I don't think they can reduce the quality of construction any further.
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