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Meanwhile, California is requiring solar panels on all new housing starting in 2020. These two things are going to make housing even more expensive. I guess Tru

Meanwhile, California is requiring solar panels on all new housing starting in 2020. These two things are going to make housing even more expensive. I guess Trump doesn’t mind screwing California a little bit more.

AdamM12 8y ago
Maybe. But my primary objection to this is that it will shift the cost burden of the legacy transmission infrastructure onto the poor.
epistasis 8y ago
No, solar on single family homes makes them less expensive. It's a cash flow positive move, and if it wasn't, the body that enacted that would not have been allowed to enact the regulation.
- pmiller2 8y ago
  You may end up in the black in 10 years, or something, but solar will undoubtedly make the purchase price higher. This is not what we need in California at all. Moreover, the rule applies to many apartment buildings and condos as well.
  - heurist 8y ago
    $10-20k is very little a 30 year mortgage. If you're buying an expensive house than that then you can definitely afford the baseline cost of solar panels. If you live in an area with high housing prices and can't afford to buy then you're renting, and the costs of solar installed on multifamily is shared across all tenants. The cost of solar panel production and installation will drop as processes become more efficient, and solar panel production costs are (were?) being halved every year or two so the $10-20k price tag will continue dropping despite tariffs. Private solar energy will also reduce costs of maintaining a grid, reduce odds of widespread power failure, and reduce costs of environmental externalities of other forms of energy production. California is also pushing hard for electric vehicles. Solar powered electric vehicles reduce reliance on oil production and imports. I don't live in CA but it seems to me they're playing the long game by reducing government ownership/operation of energy systems while reducing the costs of energy for all Californians to a low equilibrium state that reflects the cost of solar panels, which will drop over time. I wish Texas were more interested in these kinds of programs rather than bathroom legislation.
    - pmiller2 8y ago
      What if I’d rather have the $20k?
      - heurist 8y ago
        Buy a cheaper house
    - zrobotics 8y ago
      >>Private solar energy will also reduce costs of maintaining a grid, reduce odds of widespread power failure You have claimed this multiple times in this thread, but I'll need a citation to believe this. How, exactly, will residential solar make maintaining the grid cheaper? The houses are still tied in to the local utility, so unless you are trying to claim that what causes maintenance costs is literally the amount of power flowing through the wire and not weather/age then I don't believe this for a second. Edit:typo
      - heurist 8y ago
        The above is my only post in this thread as of writing this comment. If everyone can produce their own energy, then you don't need to extend a grid and can reduce its operations over time. Right now energy is going from renewable sources into the grid, but eventually it will be a mesh network of energy distribution among neighbors/communities. Don't ask me how we get to that point economically because I don't know - I'm just wearing my systems engineering hat :)
        zrobotics 8y ago
        Sorry, confused you w/ someone else. Question though:without a utility company, who is going to pay to maintain that network? We already have an existing mesh network of multiple power generators w/ the associated distribution systems. My father's house is off-grid solar, mostly due to the $18k required to run ~1 mile of overhead line. Currently these costs are distributed over a large # of customers, and a large interconnected grid is required for the plan of using EV batteries as distributed storage.
- frockington 8y ago
  This will absolutely increase the already high cost of homes. Even f its "eventually" cash flow positive, there are much better things one can do with money than "invest" in solar panels
  - epistasis 8y ago
    It's cash flow positive from day 1. Your mortgage increases by $20/month, and utilities decrease by $40/month, or whatever. This is why there are companies willing to lease your roof space to install residential solar.
    - frockington 8y ago
      So even without interest, that's a 7200 cost that will take 180 months to get back (15 years). And this is also assuming there is zero maintenance and you will never need to replace the panels. I'd rather not be forced into this "investment"
    - zdragnar 8y ago
      Where did you get those numbers? I was under the impression that each $10k on a 30 year loan was roughly $70 / month, depending on your interest rates and property taxes. If $40 / month is what you can expect from electricity savings, it's an absolutely awful investment.
      - epistasis 8y ago
        I just made them up, off the cuff, which is what I meant to imply by "whatever." The average estimated numbers are $80 of savings for $40 of finance cost: http://www.energy.ca.gov/releases/2018_releases/2018-05-09_building_standards_adopted_nr.html?platform=hootsuite http://www.energy.ca.gov/releases/2018_releases/2018-05-09_b... If you consider it an "awful investment" then you simply not make the investment, let a solar company make the investment and do it through a lease instead, with zero upfront cost: http://www.residentialsolar101.org/solar-lease http://www.residentialsolar101.org/solar-lease In any case it's absolutely clear that this move decreases the cost of a new house after 2020.
- driverdan 8y ago
  By mandating solar you reduce the value of the power generated with each new home. The ROI will continue to decline until it's near zero.
  - epistasis 8y ago
    That's only if there's fixed demand. The population is growing, each home needs new supply that wasn't necessarily there before. The big thing is time-shifting the generated energy; in the spring there's already curtailment of utility-scale installs of solar. With appropriate time-of-use rates on new installs, keeping older sites grandfathered in, combined with dramatically falling costs of home storage, the market will solve this nicely.
- TexasEcon23 8y ago
  >> No, solar on single family homes makes them less expensive. Then why in the world would they have to regulate it? >> the body that enacted that would not have been allowed to enact the regulation That 100% wrong legally. No one ever has been able to avoid regulation by claiming that the regulation imposes a net cost. That's the entire point of a regulation, to shift behavior in the absence of direct economic incentives. In reality, this regulation is a tradeoff between higher net costs for new home builders and the need to reduce carbon emissions.
  - epistasis 8y ago
    You don't understand, the body that enacts these regulations enacts them on the basis of cost savings. It's the California Electricity Commission: http://www.energy.ca.gov/efficiency/savings.html http://www.energy.ca.gov/efficiency/savings.html There is no net new cost, overall, this is all win, and if it were not, the standards would not be allowed to be set. In particular, on average, the CEC found $80 of savings on $40 of finance cost: http://www.energy.ca.gov/releases/2018_releases/2018-05-09_building_standards_adopted_nr.html?platform=hootsuite http://www.energy.ca.gov/releases/2018_releases/2018-05-09_b... Now, you seem to be implicitly assuming that if this cost savings were true, it would already be done by builders and consumers. However, human behavior is sticky. Even though this is a good idea now, it takes people a long time to realize that. Witness all the people in this thread that seem to doubt it's not a cost saving measure. Even taking a small peak at the cost of solar should reveal how much of a cost saving measure solar is in California. Even residential, which has high labor costs, and where 30% of the cost of an install goes to customer acquisition costs. For new large builds, that customer acquisition cost goes away, so it becomes an even better deal. And you've already got people on roofs, building them, so it becomes yet an even better idea.
driverdan 8y ago
California screwed itself over with such a stupid mandate.
- pmiller2 8y ago
  I agree, but Trump just compounded the matter with this stupid game he’s playing. I am not conflating the issues here: both CA and the Trump administration have pushed me farther away from being a California homeowner.

AdamM12 8y ago

Maybe. But my primary objection to this is that it will shift the cost burden of the legacy transmission infrastructure onto the poor.

epistasis 8y ago

No, solar on single family homes makes them less expensive. It's a cash flow positive move, and if it wasn't, the body that enacted that would not have been allowed to enact the regulation.

pmiller2 8y ago
You may end up in the black in 10 years, or something, but solar will undoubtedly make the purchase price higher. This is not what we need in California at all. Moreover, the rule applies to many apartment buildings and condos as well.
- heurist 8y ago
  $10-20k is very little a 30 year mortgage. If you're buying an expensive house than that then you can definitely afford the baseline cost of solar panels. If you live in an area with high housing prices and can't afford to buy then you're renting, and the costs of solar installed on multifamily is shared across all tenants. The cost of solar panel production and installation will drop as processes become more efficient, and solar panel production costs are (were?) being halved every year or two so the $10-20k price tag will continue dropping despite tariffs. Private solar energy will also reduce costs of maintaining a grid, reduce odds of widespread power failure, and reduce costs of environmental externalities of other forms of energy production. California is also pushing hard for electric vehicles. Solar powered electric vehicles reduce reliance on oil production and imports. I don't live in CA but it seems to me they're playing the long game by reducing government ownership/operation of energy systems while reducing the costs of energy for all Californians to a low equilibrium state that reflects the cost of solar panels, which will drop over time. I wish Texas were more interested in these kinds of programs rather than bathroom legislation.
  - pmiller2 8y ago
    What if I’d rather have the $20k?
    - heurist 8y ago
      Buy a cheaper house
  - zrobotics 8y ago
    >>Private solar energy will also reduce costs of maintaining a grid, reduce odds of widespread power failure You have claimed this multiple times in this thread, but I'll need a citation to believe this. How, exactly, will residential solar make maintaining the grid cheaper? The houses are still tied in to the local utility, so unless you are trying to claim that what causes maintenance costs is literally the amount of power flowing through the wire and not weather/age then I don't believe this for a second. Edit:typo
    - heurist 8y ago
      The above is my only post in this thread as of writing this comment. If everyone can produce their own energy, then you don't need to extend a grid and can reduce its operations over time. Right now energy is going from renewable sources into the grid, but eventually it will be a mesh network of energy distribution among neighbors/communities. Don't ask me how we get to that point economically because I don't know - I'm just wearing my systems engineering hat :)
      - zrobotics 8y ago
        Sorry, confused you w/ someone else. Question though:without a utility company, who is going to pay to maintain that network? We already have an existing mesh network of multiple power generators w/ the associated distribution systems. My father's house is off-grid solar, mostly due to the $18k required to run ~1 mile of overhead line. Currently these costs are distributed over a large # of customers, and a large interconnected grid is required for the plan of using EV batteries as distributed storage.
frockington 8y ago
This will absolutely increase the already high cost of homes. Even f its "eventually" cash flow positive, there are much better things one can do with money than "invest" in solar panels
- epistasis 8y ago
  It's cash flow positive from day 1. Your mortgage increases by $20/month, and utilities decrease by $40/month, or whatever. This is why there are companies willing to lease your roof space to install residential solar.
  - frockington 8y ago
    So even without interest, that's a 7200 cost that will take 180 months to get back (15 years). And this is also assuming there is zero maintenance and you will never need to replace the panels. I'd rather not be forced into this "investment"
  - zdragnar 8y ago
    Where did you get those numbers? I was under the impression that each $10k on a 30 year loan was roughly $70 / month, depending on your interest rates and property taxes. If $40 / month is what you can expect from electricity savings, it's an absolutely awful investment.
    - epistasis 8y ago
      I just made them up, off the cuff, which is what I meant to imply by "whatever." The average estimated numbers are $80 of savings for $40 of finance cost: http://www.energy.ca.gov/releases/2018_releases/2018-05-09_building_standards_adopted_nr.html?platform=hootsuite http://www.energy.ca.gov/releases/2018_releases/2018-05-09_b... If you consider it an "awful investment" then you simply not make the investment, let a solar company make the investment and do it through a lease instead, with zero upfront cost: http://www.residentialsolar101.org/solar-lease http://www.residentialsolar101.org/solar-lease In any case it's absolutely clear that this move decreases the cost of a new house after 2020.
driverdan 8y ago
By mandating solar you reduce the value of the power generated with each new home. The ROI will continue to decline until it's near zero.
- epistasis 8y ago
  That's only if there's fixed demand. The population is growing, each home needs new supply that wasn't necessarily there before. The big thing is time-shifting the generated energy; in the spring there's already curtailment of utility-scale installs of solar. With appropriate time-of-use rates on new installs, keeping older sites grandfathered in, combined with dramatically falling costs of home storage, the market will solve this nicely.
TexasEcon23 8y ago
>> No, solar on single family homes makes them less expensive. Then why in the world would they have to regulate it? >> the body that enacted that would not have been allowed to enact the regulation That 100% wrong legally. No one ever has been able to avoid regulation by claiming that the regulation imposes a net cost. That's the entire point of a regulation, to shift behavior in the absence of direct economic incentives. In reality, this regulation is a tradeoff between higher net costs for new home builders and the need to reduce carbon emissions.
- epistasis 8y ago
  You don't understand, the body that enacts these regulations enacts them on the basis of cost savings. It's the California Electricity Commission: http://www.energy.ca.gov/efficiency/savings.html http://www.energy.ca.gov/efficiency/savings.html There is no net new cost, overall, this is all win, and if it were not, the standards would not be allowed to be set. In particular, on average, the CEC found $80 of savings on $40 of finance cost: http://www.energy.ca.gov/releases/2018_releases/2018-05-09_building_standards_adopted_nr.html?platform=hootsuite http://www.energy.ca.gov/releases/2018_releases/2018-05-09_b... Now, you seem to be implicitly assuming that if this cost savings were true, it would already be done by builders and consumers. However, human behavior is sticky. Even though this is a good idea now, it takes people a long time to realize that. Witness all the people in this thread that seem to doubt it's not a cost saving measure. Even taking a small peak at the cost of solar should reveal how much of a cost saving measure solar is in California. Even residential, which has high labor costs, and where 30% of the cost of an install goes to customer acquisition costs. For new large builds, that customer acquisition cost goes away, so it becomes an even better deal. And you've already got people on roofs, building them, so it becomes yet an even better idea.

driverdan 8y ago

California screwed itself over with such a stupid mandate.

pmiller2 8y ago
I agree, but Trump just compounded the matter with this stupid game he’s playing. I am not conflating the issues here: both CA and the Trump administration have pushed me farther away from being a California homeowner.