7 ms·

I'm a homeowner in southern California. I've looked into it and a solar system would cost me about $15k and it would pay itself off after about 8 years. Howeve

I'm a homeowner in southern California. I've looked into it and a solar system would cost me about $15k and it would pay itself off after about 8 years. However that assumes constant price conditions. If there's a glut of solar installations, prices for daytime generation may fall to where it no longer offsets all evening/night consumption. Once that happens you're forced to either invest in extremely expensive battery storage, or the breakeven date gets radically extended out into the future. Overall, it seems like a pretty "meh" investment. The people doing it are the environmental True Believers(tm). I'd rather put the money into a new bathroom at this point.

tsmarsh 8y ago
The argument for me around solar was more that I expect fossil fuels to become vastly more expensive in the lifetime of the panels. I agree the risk profile is wrong, so I offloaded the risk to SolarCity for this iteration (25 years), but if I'm still in the house when those panels expire I will almost certianly need to re-roof, and I'm hoping solar tiles are a no-brainer by that point. 22 years from now? I expect fossil fuels to be crazy expensive. I expect solar tech and home storage options to be commoditized, and I haven't seen anything to make me thing I'm wrong about any of that.
- Matticus_Rex 8y ago
  The only way fossil fuels are going to skyrocket in price is if regulatory burdens push their prices up artificially. Yes, we use up oil and natural gas every year, but we also get more efficient at finding and tapping deeper reserves, and there are few limits on that in the next 25 years. "Peak" resources just aren't a thing we actually need to worry about in the foreseeable future.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - jpao79 8y ago
    "regulatory burdens push their prices up artificially.." That has been known to happen in California with PG&E and CPUC. Doing a quick Google for PG&E rate increase: https://www.pge.com/en_US/about-pge/company-information/regulation/general-rate-case/grc.page https://www.pge.com/en_US/about-pge/company-information/regu...
dangero 8y ago
That's a good point. If this did actually reduce stress on the energy grid it may minimize solar savings for those who paid for it.
grizzles 8y ago
Though prices can drop and even go negative sometimes it's never a long term thing. There is kind of a price floor in the market, if prices get too low energy intensive businesses will move into the state, eg. aluminum smelters, bitcoin miners, and so on. I posted in the other thread about why I think this policy is a really good idea: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17008950 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17008950 Also it's only for new homes. You can still get that new bathroom.
- cahomeown456 8y ago
  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.
  - mercutio2 8y ago
    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 electricians for the normal process of building a home. Additionally, PV panels themselves have near zero maintenance costs, and dramatically reduce maintenance/replacement costs of the underlying roof. As a result, it is just a gargantuan failure of the market that all new homes aren’t, today, built with PV panels. This seems like a great correction to that market failure.
    - cahomeown456 8y ago
      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-shingles-Does-it-extend-the-life-of-the-shingles-Does-it-make-it-hard-to-replace-the-shingles-Should-they-be-replaced-before-installing-solar https://www.quora.com/How-do-solar-panels-affect-roof-shingl... 2. https://www.buildings.com/article-details/articleid/19851/title/solar-panels-could-ruin-your-roof 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.

tsmarsh 8y ago

The argument for me around solar was more that I expect fossil fuels to become vastly more expensive in the lifetime of the panels. I agree the risk profile is wrong, so I offloaded the risk to SolarCity for this iteration (25 years), but if I'm still in the house when those panels expire I will almost certianly need to re-roof, and I'm hoping solar tiles are a no-brainer by that point. 22 years from now? I expect fossil fuels to be crazy expensive. I expect solar tech and home storage options to be commoditized, and I haven't seen anything to make me thing I'm wrong about any of that.

Matticus_Rex 8y ago
The only way fossil fuels are going to skyrocket in price is if regulatory burdens push their prices up artificially. Yes, we use up oil and natural gas every year, but we also get more efficient at finding and tapping deeper reserves, and there are few limits on that in the next 25 years. "Peak" resources just aren't a thing we actually need to worry about in the foreseeable future.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- jpao79 8y ago
  "regulatory burdens push their prices up artificially.." That has been known to happen in California with PG&E and CPUC. Doing a quick Google for PG&E rate increase: https://www.pge.com/en_US/about-pge/company-information/regulation/general-rate-case/grc.page https://www.pge.com/en_US/about-pge/company-information/regu...

dangero 8y ago

That's a good point. If this did actually reduce stress on the energy grid it may minimize solar savings for those who paid for it.

grizzles 8y ago

Though prices can drop and even go negative sometimes it's never a long term thing. There is kind of a price floor in the market, if prices get too low energy intensive businesses will move into the state, eg. aluminum smelters, bitcoin miners, and so on. I posted in the other thread about why I think this policy is a really good idea: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17008950 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17008950 Also it's only for new homes. You can still get that new bathroom.

cahomeown456 8y ago
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.
- mercutio2 8y ago
  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 electricians for the normal process of building a home. Additionally, PV panels themselves have near zero maintenance costs, and dramatically reduce maintenance/replacement costs of the underlying roof. As a result, it is just a gargantuan failure of the market that all new homes aren’t, today, built with PV panels. This seems like a great correction to that market failure.
  - cahomeown456 8y ago
    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-shingles-Does-it-extend-the-life-of-the-shingles-Does-it-make-it-hard-to-replace-the-shingles-Should-they-be-replaced-before-installing-solar https://www.quora.com/How-do-solar-panels-affect-roof-shingl... 2. https://www.buildings.com/article-details/articleid/19851/title/solar-panels-could-ruin-your-roof 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.