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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

#311

Post by Dylan16807 »

common_sense123 wrote: post #276
Dylan16807 wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can't get a mortgage for your solar installation, all the basic econ in the world won't help you pay the upfront cost. Bundling it into construction fixes that gap.

If it were cheaper to pay back the principal and interest on your solar installation than continue paying your present electricity costs, then it would be profitable to take out the loan and you'd do it. Lenders would be willing to make this loan... they'd make money here versus utility companies. "Bundling it into construction" as in whoever builds the house pays the upfront cost of the solar installation? This woul…

> Lenders would be willing to make this loan

I think that is an unfounded assumption. It's hard to get an extra loan on top of a mortgage, even if you have a very good use for it. That's why passing the cost on through is not a neutral effect, but a helpful one.

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

#312

Post by smsm42 »

rconti wrote: post #293
smsm42 wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> also there's this company called Tesla that has innovated and provided an alternative You can't really call Tesla an alternative to regular cars with a price point of $80K (plus options, plus taxes). I know there are people in Silicon Valley who have so much money that $80k is like pocket change to them, but even in SV that's a minority. In the meantime, I've bought a car for $2k several years ago and it still runs…

$50k, plus taxes. You bought a car for $2k, but it was a used car. The fair comparison might be a Nissan Versa S, the cheapest new car in America at $12,780. Or maybe your car has more features than that, I don't know. That still puts the Model 3 at a multiple of the cost of that car, but hardly to an insane extent. Hell, in California you can, today, with rebates (yes, you have to pay some money up front) buy a new…

> We're not there yet

That was kinda my point :)

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

#313

Post by jfrankamp »

conanbatt wrote: post #291
adrianratnapala wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mistakes cause and effect. NIMBYs don't want to increase construction costs, though they want to maximise the value of existing property.

The requirements to build it on new homes makes old homes more valuable because they have one less requirement. It makes already built homes relatively more valuable to new ones. Its a drop in the bucket of NIMBYism tho.

This doesn't make sense. When you add an asset to one thing it doesn't mean that things without that asset go up in value. Are buyers like "oh you have a house with no solar pannels?! I want to pay more for that!"?

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

#314

Post by bhickey »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #294
debacle wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Solar is not pollution free.

And with emission tax this would be correctly reflected in price of solar as well.

Exactly. The energy required to manufacture, transport, install and maintain it would all be taxed.

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

#315

Post by esaym »

fjsolwmv wrote: post #254
esaym wrote: post #7

Good night. Once upon a time in 1983, my grandparents bought a mobile home and put it out on rural property. They paid $300 for the water company to install a water meter and about $1500 for a septic tank install. Now I'm trying to do the same thing (and on the same property). The water meter is $5,000 (cash only in full), and the septic tank is $15,000. If I was also required to have solar, I'd really be screwed...…

If septic installs are so profitable, perhaps you should get into the business. Why do you need a new water meter?

Most places will want one water meter per house and that was the case with me as I was adding a new house to existing property. But since they wanted $5k up front, I ended up tying into the meter that was already there for a relative's house, which is against their rules but oh well.

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

#316

Post by esaym »

justherefortart wrote: post #301
esaym wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A well is for fresh water while septic is for... well not so fresh water. I have considered doing the whole job myself (I mean how hard can digging with a backhoe be?!) and violating all the regulations that make is so expensive, but whether you dump your RV's holding tank into a protected water zone or install an illegal septic system, you are still dealing with the environmental health department and they won't be…

No shit. Digging a well, in addition to septic. 15k is fucking stupid for a septic tank but it's California. 5k for a well would be ridiculous as well. So digging a well, would save over 5k for water, plus the monthly charges. I guess I should have specified. I thought saying "Dig a well" was relatively self explanatory in the fact it would likely save money not only in the short run but over the long run as well.

I just realized what you meant by "dig a well", I forgot what I had written in my own comment... Since this is family property that already had a house on it (I'm putting mine behind that one), I just tied into the existing meter. Thought I had saved my self $5k and was going to build a nice porch with that, but now I guess I get to spend it on septic...

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

#317

Post by philipkglass »

nickodell wrote: post #310
philipkglass wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It didn't make sense all along. 10 years ago this would have been crazy because PV hardware was so much more expensive then. A lot of people do fail to do the math. Many people are not quantitatively analytical, even in situations where such analysis is in their material self-interest. A few years ago I encountered an engineer who was really angry about lightbulb minimum efficiency standards. "I already switched to L…

>It didn't make sense all along. Let me rephrase. What I mean is, "or it would make sense to do it, but homeowners will be too stupid to do the math." My hypothetical is about people who 1) would not install panels but 2) installing panels would be in their individual interest. I agree that PV technology has improved in price/efficiency. >Many people are not quantitatively analytical, even in situations where such an…

Good points. I'm ambivalent about this requirement myself. From a technical perspective, I wonder what they're going to do in new subdivisions where every house is overproducing at certain times of the day/year. From a financial perspective I wonder how net metering rates are going to be pushed down when a lot more houses are participating. And I also agree that large-scale solar farms are going to be more cost-effective.

But I'm not totally against this change for a couple of reasons. One is that one of my ecologist friends is really alarmed at California's use of heretofore undeveloped desert land for solar farms when rooftop capacity is so underutilized. "Just because it's not full of trees doesn't mean it's a disposable ecosystem." Now personally I think the tradeoffs are worth it to get more solar built faster and cheaper, but it's not a universal perspective. A second related reason is that I've seen large solar farms in other regions prompt community pushback from people who dislike their appearance -- similar to, if less severe than, people objecting to visible wind farms. Those objections don't come up with distributed rooftop systems.

Right now the annual energy production per dollar of upfront cost is much lower from rooftop PV systems than from large-scale utility PV systems. If California installation costs can get down to German or Australian level, the cost effectiveness will be closer to (though still less than) large solar farms. There are reasons to believe that making rooftop systems mandatory will drive American costs down closer to German/Australian costs. For example, according to the presentation you linked, German rooftop PV installers spend $0.07/watt on customer acquisition. American installers spend $0.69/watt. If every new house is required to have PV, I expect acquisition costs to go down significantly; installers can court builders instead of trying to persuade one homeowner at a time. And investment into producing a design and a bid won't ultimately be rejected with "we decided not to add solar after all." (Though it could be rejected with "the other installer made a better offer.") Having every rooftop designed to support solar from the outset also makes installation less complicated, which should lower labor costs over retrofit-installs on 20th century housing stock.

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

#318

Post by jedberg »

djrogers wrote: post #307
jedberg wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could base it off of the size of the house or median usage of surrounding homes per square foot, or something similar.

That wouldn't change anything unless you require those tiny cheap appliances to be retained and used by the home buyer. You can't reduce all energy consumption with insulation and shade trees...

No what I'm saying is that the requirements would not account for appliances. It would say "for this size house you must be able to produce this much energy". It won't specify how you produce the energy, just that you must.

Your appliances would be your choice, and your shade, etc. But it would be based on local medians, so that for most people it would be in line.

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

#319

Post by cahomeown456 »

mercutio2 wrote: post #253
cahomeown456 wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What this does is force new homeowners to make an iffy investment that they probably wouldn't otherwise make given a choice in the free market, but cleverly hides it in the price of new construction. If it was such a slam-dunk great idea, everyone would be installing solar systems right now but they aren't because it isn't clear that it makes any financial sense.

Solar panels, themselves, are incredibly cheap, partly because China is dumping their overproduction on the market, partly because we’ve just gotten really good at making them. Most of the price of installing solar is the labor for getting the roofers and electrician to come out, plus in some jurisdictions an architectural study. All of those costs come down dramatically if you’re already bringing in roofers and elec…

For anyone stumbling across this thread, the above is wrong (possibly intentionally so). The cost of the panels and related hardware are roughly 30-50% of the total installed job cost (for me, roughly $6-8k of the $15k total). The rest is standard labor cost for installation, electrical, etc. None of that is unreasonable. If I was doing 100% of the labor myself (which is impossible because I'm not a licensed electrician), it would still cost me nearly $10k.

mercutio2 is indirectly making the claim that PV installers are inflating the prices. He does this in an attempt to frame the investment as being better than it is, by claiming it's much cheaper than it really is. This is disingenuous.

He then makes the claim that economies of scale will magically make it even cheaper, because the roofers and electricians will already be there to build the home. This is absurd. Just because they are already building the house does not mean the craftsman will do the PV work for free. It will take them X additional hours to do it and that costs money, just about as much as it would cost for a house that has already been built.

Lastly he makes the totally false claim that PV reduces roof maintenance/repair costs. Nothing could be further from the truth! PV actually increases replacement costs, dramatically! For example:

1. https://www.quora.com/How-do-solar-panels-affect-roof-shingl...

2. https://www.buildings.com/article-details/articleid/19851/ti...

This California regulation is a boondoggle that is being done for social/political reasons, pushed by the environmentalist lobby. It is a way of forcing consumers to purchase something they wouldn't otherwise do under the free market. Whenever you hear someone say "market failure", chances are they want the government to force you to buy something they like.

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

#320

Post by common_sense123 »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #311
common_sense123 wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it were cheaper to pay back the principal and interest on your solar installation than continue paying your present electricity costs, then it would be profitable to take out the loan and you'd do it. Lenders would be willing to make this loan... they'd make money here versus utility companies. "Bundling it into construction" as in whoever builds the house pays the upfront cost of the solar installation? This woul…

> Lenders would be willing to make this loan I think that is an unfounded assumption. It's hard to get an extra loan on top of a mortgage, even if you have a very good use for it. That's why passing the cost on through is not a neutral effect, but a helpful one.

Your argument is unfounded. There are plenty of solar power lenders willing to finance such purchases. Saying that passing the cost through a single larger loan makes it significantly easier to swallow is completely illogical and implies people don't like making/saving money.
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