6 ms·

70% of Americans Support Solar Mandate on New Homes

37 points by r_singh 7y ago

m0zg 7y ago
When I last priced out a solar panel install on my house a few years ago the cost came to something like $20K, and the capacity was quite modest - only the most favorable slope of the roof. There simply was no way for me to recoup the investment, ever, even ignoring maintenance costs (those panels need to be cleaned from time to time). It's probably lower now, though I wonder if the cost differential is significant - much of this cost is labor and margin. I wonder if this was communicated to those responding to the poll. In SV and SF $20K might not seem like much, but not all of CA is that well off.
- toomuchtodo 7y ago
  Your investment is recouped in 8-13 years (depending on state; the more expensive your power, the faster the system cost is recouped), after that the system produces power "for free" [1] [2] and the components (panels, inverter) are warrantied for 25 years. Panel cleaning is spraying the panels with a hose. The best time to get solar is when a house is built, or a roof is replaced, especially if you can combine the install with a financing event that's going to let you finance the system for 20-30 years with low interest rates. Not only is there a 26% federal tax credit for solar, but many states offer generous incentives/rebates as well. Capture them! It's fiscally a no brainer. $20k over 30 years at 4% is $95/month. Mortgage rates will only continue to go down (and are already below 4%) due to macro issues, and residential solar install costs also will drop as the scale ramps. These mandates drive down costs, in the same way EV credits helped Tesla reach scale to offer the Model 3 at an affordable price. Disclaimer: I review system quotes and advise on solar installs for friends, family, and internet strangers, but am not a solar professional (yet; if you're a utility scale developer in need of any role [system design, project management, finance], I'd be interested!). [1] https://www.solarpowerrocks.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/space-infographic-full-new.jpg https://www.solarpowerrocks.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/s... (updated 10/23/2018) [2] https://www.solarpowerrocks.com/ https://www.solarpowerrocks.com/
  - i_am_nomad 7y ago
    All of that depends on your power costs. My town has its own municipal power cooperative that buys very cheap hydrothermal electricity. Solar would never make sense for me, except as some kind of disaster-event alternative.
    - toomuchtodo 7y ago
      I mention that in my comment, and I agree that it doesn't make sense in locations that have sustainable renewable power (hydro in the PNW, geothermal such as that in Iceland) in place. It makes sense anywhere attempting to phase out fossil (coal, gas, shale) or older low carbon tech reaching the end of its useful life (nuclear). For example, ComEd in Illinois is offering incentives on top of state and federal incentives for rooftop solar due to a state renewables mix mandate, and their fleet of commercial nuclear reactors are reaching the end of their service life (and aren't cost competitive with wind and solar in the state, even accounting for the need for battery storage to meet capacity requirements).
  - m0zg 7y ago
    Electricity my state is 11 cents a KWh, and most of it already comes from hydro. Your calculation only holds if the owner plans to live 30 years in the same house, which I do not. You also ignore the maintenance cost. Every spring everything in my area is covered with a layer of yellow pollen. There's also snow sometimes, and general lack of sun for 6 months in any given year. There was actually a humorous episode when a guy from a solar installer came to our office to advertise how much economic sense their solar panels make. He gave all the exciting numbers and everything, and then someone asked him to show some numbers from an actual installation, at that particular time of day. So he brings up a web GUI for a 50KW commercial install, which at the moment was producing something like 2.5KW. Awkward. Ultimately, though, that's not why I didn't go with solar. Our HOA doesn't allow it. I would actually welcome a law which would limit the HOA's say in such matters, or eliminate it entirely.
    - toomuchtodo 7y ago
      I'm not ignoring the maintenance cost, I'm saying it doesn't exist. I'm also saying the math works already in your state at your energy cost. If you want to argue, let's argue over facts. I'm not sure what state you're in, but several states prohibit an HOA by law from preventing you from installing rooftop solar. You should check if your state has such legislation, and if not, champion it. I'll even do it for you if you don't want to spend the time (until I can get federal legislation passed).
- beatgammit 7y ago
  Was that from an installer? That's about what I was quoted, but if I do the legwork (building permits, hire installer and electrician), it's under $10k before incentives for a decent system (~4kwh). I pay ~$50/month and that would offset most of my bill (net metering resets at year end, so I'm likely to pay most of Jan+Feb), so it should pay for itself in 10-15 years, probably closer to 10 since my numbers are very conservative (low estimate for electricity, high estimate for installation & parts, low electricity cost). Panels are under warranty for 20 years, and they immediately add value to my house, so it's a net win as soon as they are installed.
cududa 7y ago
I support the mandate, however an internet poll ad-targeted at people that already support clean energy doesn’t seem realistic
- dontdoitpls 7y ago
  The 70% seems pretty crazy high. Maybe it's one of those "not my problem, it's free to me". As most people aren't thinking of themselves spending tens of thousands of dollars. The economics of a mandate is the scariest thing. I imagine shortages of natural resources and production. It will further divide the 10% and everyone else.
sremani 7y ago
One thing proponents of ideas like these miss is Solar is very geographical - this is clearly a good idea for California, West Texas and American South West - but pretty much bad idea for the rest of the USA. Again, Solar panels do not grow on trees and their manufacturing process is chemically intensive. So, it is in the best interest of every one, that Solar PVs are deployed where they return both economic and environmental value. Again -- here is the link to Global Solar Atlas -- https://globalsolaratlas.info/ https://globalsolaratlas.info/ the areas in the Red is where you want to deploy PVs. Other places not so much.
- ben_w 7y ago
  Counterpoint: there is a lot of PV in the pale green of Germany and south England. It works well in a lot more places than most people realise.
  - thedance 7y ago
    Germany doesn’t have a housing crisis. The context of the mandate is that USA lacks about fifteen million houses that it desperately needs. Solar power adds tens of thousands to the already-bloated cost of construction.
    - toomuchtodo 7y ago
      Don't build a house if you can't pay for the energy it's going to consume. You still come out ahead (versus utility power alone) if forced to pay for solar on the roof, and finance the system cost as part of your mortgage. Americans aren't entitled to the cheapest new construction housing possible while foisting the consequences of that on the rest of us. No different than cars being more expensive to meet higher CAFE mileage standards. Not living in a polluted hellscape costs money, who would've thought. Meta: Where did this entitlement complex come from that someone's pocketbook is more important than the air we breath?
      - thedance 7y ago
        I don’t know why you’re accusing me of having an entitled attitude. I worked to develop two of the largest solar power stations in California. And I happen to know that utility-scale solar makes a hell of a lot more sense that rooftop. If you’re worried about pollution tax the emissions, like any civilized country would. Mandating rooftop solar is way too indirect and exposes the public to corruption of the construction trades. Of course, that’s why the parties that stand to benefit from the corruption are going around the country pushing these laws.
Dumblydorr 7y ago
I don't support this mandate because it's a one size fits all rule. Do we really want Alaskans and Mainers to be forced to have solar? Why not mandate low carbon energy and then let technologists figure out the cheapest solution for each new home? This would be far more cost effective and limit emissions far better.
- beatgammit 7y ago
  Or better yet, just tax carbon sources. If your energy bill doubles over night, you will be interested in solutions, and maybe solar isn't the ideal solution in your area.
xupybd 7y ago
Wouldn't batteries on new homes make more sense? If we can smooth peak demand we can lower carbon emissions much more than we can by producing power during solar hours.
- toomuchtodo 7y ago
  Batteries do make sense in some situations where you have large amounts of renewables available on the local grid, and parts of Australia and California are paying homeowners incentives for installing local storage. They make less sense immediately in places where you have hydro and nuclear as base load along with renewables; the capacity factor is already accounted for, so you'd want to prioritize anywhere you could displace fossil generation (such as natural gas). Tesla is also pioneering virtual distributed load systems, where they can have a utility send a signal similar to that used to shed AC units during high consumption periods, but the signal is instead used to command vehicles to charge when there is excess energy on the grid. [1] This would make sense today in places like Texas, that have so much wind energy (and not enough transmission capacity to other load centers) some utilities provide you electricity for free at night. Any KwH you can use instead of curtailing is a KwH of energy you're not wasting. [1] https://electrek.co/2015/08/16/the-power-of-controllable-charging-load-is-tesla-working-on-a-bi-directional-charging-station/ https://electrek.co/2015/08/16/the-power-of-controllable-cha...
JoeAltmaier 7y ago
Works for single-family dwellings, and maybe duplexes. But a 4-story apartment building with 2 units on each floor? Same rooftop, 8X the electricity demand. If a city wants more solar, then they could put up a solar farm in some rational place with a good economy of scale, and connect it to the grid.
- thedance 7y ago
  So much this. If you’re building anything in an urban setting that actually has enough roof to power its dwellings, that just means it’s not tall enough. PV mandates miss the point that it is dispersed, detached developments patterns that are inherently energy-intensive. PV doesn’t fix that.
- ben_w 7y ago
  Why not both? For example, one person in a 50 m² apartment, divided by 4 floors, with 20% efficient panels, 25% duty cycle for night/latitude, still implies 625 W/person. That won’t power everything all the time, but it would reduce the required size of the external electricity source — be it PV, nuclear, fossil, whatever — by a decent amount.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - JoeAltmaier 7y ago
    Because, again, it would be more efficient to put all that in the solar farm at scale.
    - ben_w 7y ago
      Swings and roundabouts. There is also benefit in using the PV as the roofing material, and also in pick one of {reduced transmission losses; minimising the land use of those solar farms} — land near a city is almost always at a relative premium.
      - 7y ago
microcolonel 7y ago
99% of Americans, and almost all people in the world, are wholely unqualified to make any meaningful decision that basically makes most forms of affordable housing unlawful. If this sample is, by some miracle, representative; I guess it shows that Americans must live amazing middle-class lives to believe that this policy is viable.
samatman 7y ago
This is an overly-specific regulation. If we want a regulation that all new construction must be powered by zero-emissions sources, say that. I'd even be in favor of it, cautiously. But solar panels aren't a magic cure-all. They should be installed in places that make sense, which isn't guaranteed to be the roof of a new building.
aSplash0fDerp 7y ago
This may be off-topic, but I've had a passing thought over the years of the evolution of opensource to expand to the blueprints, architecture and building-codes of residential homes to simplify the upfront costs and options of new construction for specific needs (starter homes, bachelor pads, tiny homes,etc). In the US for instance, could we take all of the local building-codes and design blueprints that would satisfy all of the legal requirements for quality, sustainable construction, regardless of the state, city or county that you choose to build in? Even going with a smaller scale and offering off the shelf blueprints by state may stimulate more new construction growth and sustainable designs.
sys_64738 7y ago
Solar panels are not the way to go for mandates. It has to be solar shingles when they become price competitive.
purplezooey 7y ago
It would be easier if 70% of Americans also supported actually building new homes.

37 points by r_singh 7y ago

m0zg 7y ago

When I last priced out a solar panel install on my house a few years ago the cost came to something like $20K, and the capacity was quite modest - only the most favorable slope of the roof. There simply was no way for me to recoup the investment, ever, even ignoring maintenance costs (those panels need to be cleaned from time to time). It's probably lower now, though I wonder if the cost differential is significant - much of this cost is labor and margin. I wonder if this was communicated to those responding to the poll. In SV and SF $20K might not seem like much, but not all of CA is that well off.

toomuchtodo 7y ago
Your investment is recouped in 8-13 years (depending on state; the more expensive your power, the faster the system cost is recouped), after that the system produces power "for free" [1] [2] and the components (panels, inverter) are warrantied for 25 years. Panel cleaning is spraying the panels with a hose. The best time to get solar is when a house is built, or a roof is replaced, especially if you can combine the install with a financing event that's going to let you finance the system for 20-30 years with low interest rates. Not only is there a 26% federal tax credit for solar, but many states offer generous incentives/rebates as well. Capture them! It's fiscally a no brainer. $20k over 30 years at 4% is $95/month. Mortgage rates will only continue to go down (and are already below 4%) due to macro issues, and residential solar install costs also will drop as the scale ramps. These mandates drive down costs, in the same way EV credits helped Tesla reach scale to offer the Model 3 at an affordable price. Disclaimer: I review system quotes and advise on solar installs for friends, family, and internet strangers, but am not a solar professional (yet; if you're a utility scale developer in need of any role [system design, project management, finance], I'd be interested!). [1] https://www.solarpowerrocks.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/space-infographic-full-new.jpg https://www.solarpowerrocks.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/s... (updated 10/23/2018) [2] https://www.solarpowerrocks.com/ https://www.solarpowerrocks.com/
- i_am_nomad 7y ago
  All of that depends on your power costs. My town has its own municipal power cooperative that buys very cheap hydrothermal electricity. Solar would never make sense for me, except as some kind of disaster-event alternative.
  - toomuchtodo 7y ago
    I mention that in my comment, and I agree that it doesn't make sense in locations that have sustainable renewable power (hydro in the PNW, geothermal such as that in Iceland) in place. It makes sense anywhere attempting to phase out fossil (coal, gas, shale) or older low carbon tech reaching the end of its useful life (nuclear). For example, ComEd in Illinois is offering incentives on top of state and federal incentives for rooftop solar due to a state renewables mix mandate, and their fleet of commercial nuclear reactors are reaching the end of their service life (and aren't cost competitive with wind and solar in the state, even accounting for the need for battery storage to meet capacity requirements).
- m0zg 7y ago
  Electricity my state is 11 cents a KWh, and most of it already comes from hydro. Your calculation only holds if the owner plans to live 30 years in the same house, which I do not. You also ignore the maintenance cost. Every spring everything in my area is covered with a layer of yellow pollen. There's also snow sometimes, and general lack of sun for 6 months in any given year. There was actually a humorous episode when a guy from a solar installer came to our office to advertise how much economic sense their solar panels make. He gave all the exciting numbers and everything, and then someone asked him to show some numbers from an actual installation, at that particular time of day. So he brings up a web GUI for a 50KW commercial install, which at the moment was producing something like 2.5KW. Awkward. Ultimately, though, that's not why I didn't go with solar. Our HOA doesn't allow it. I would actually welcome a law which would limit the HOA's say in such matters, or eliminate it entirely.
  - toomuchtodo 7y ago
    I'm not ignoring the maintenance cost, I'm saying it doesn't exist. I'm also saying the math works already in your state at your energy cost. If you want to argue, let's argue over facts. I'm not sure what state you're in, but several states prohibit an HOA by law from preventing you from installing rooftop solar. You should check if your state has such legislation, and if not, champion it. I'll even do it for you if you don't want to spend the time (until I can get federal legislation passed).
beatgammit 7y ago
Was that from an installer? That's about what I was quoted, but if I do the legwork (building permits, hire installer and electrician), it's under $10k before incentives for a decent system (~4kwh). I pay ~$50/month and that would offset most of my bill (net metering resets at year end, so I'm likely to pay most of Jan+Feb), so it should pay for itself in 10-15 years, probably closer to 10 since my numbers are very conservative (low estimate for electricity, high estimate for installation & parts, low electricity cost). Panels are under warranty for 20 years, and they immediately add value to my house, so it's a net win as soon as they are installed.

cududa 7y ago

I support the mandate, however an internet poll ad-targeted at people that already support clean energy doesn’t seem realistic

dontdoitpls 7y ago
The 70% seems pretty crazy high. Maybe it's one of those "not my problem, it's free to me". As most people aren't thinking of themselves spending tens of thousands of dollars. The economics of a mandate is the scariest thing. I imagine shortages of natural resources and production. It will further divide the 10% and everyone else.

sremani 7y ago

One thing proponents of ideas like these miss is Solar is very geographical - this is clearly a good idea for California, West Texas and American South West - but pretty much bad idea for the rest of the USA. Again, Solar panels do not grow on trees and their manufacturing process is chemically intensive. So, it is in the best interest of every one, that Solar PVs are deployed where they return both economic and environmental value. Again -- here is the link to Global Solar Atlas -- https://globalsolaratlas.info/ https://globalsolaratlas.info/ the areas in the Red is where you want to deploy PVs. Other places not so much.

ben_w 7y ago
Counterpoint: there is a lot of PV in the pale green of Germany and south England. It works well in a lot more places than most people realise.
- thedance 7y ago
  Germany doesn’t have a housing crisis. The context of the mandate is that USA lacks about fifteen million houses that it desperately needs. Solar power adds tens of thousands to the already-bloated cost of construction.
  - toomuchtodo 7y ago
    Don't build a house if you can't pay for the energy it's going to consume. You still come out ahead (versus utility power alone) if forced to pay for solar on the roof, and finance the system cost as part of your mortgage. Americans aren't entitled to the cheapest new construction housing possible while foisting the consequences of that on the rest of us. No different than cars being more expensive to meet higher CAFE mileage standards. Not living in a polluted hellscape costs money, who would've thought. Meta: Where did this entitlement complex come from that someone's pocketbook is more important than the air we breath?
    - thedance 7y ago
      I don’t know why you’re accusing me of having an entitled attitude. I worked to develop two of the largest solar power stations in California. And I happen to know that utility-scale solar makes a hell of a lot more sense that rooftop. If you’re worried about pollution tax the emissions, like any civilized country would. Mandating rooftop solar is way too indirect and exposes the public to corruption of the construction trades. Of course, that’s why the parties that stand to benefit from the corruption are going around the country pushing these laws.

Dumblydorr 7y ago

I don't support this mandate because it's a one size fits all rule. Do we really want Alaskans and Mainers to be forced to have solar? Why not mandate low carbon energy and then let technologists figure out the cheapest solution for each new home? This would be far more cost effective and limit emissions far better.

beatgammit 7y ago
Or better yet, just tax carbon sources. If your energy bill doubles over night, you will be interested in solutions, and maybe solar isn't the ideal solution in your area.

xupybd 7y ago

Wouldn't batteries on new homes make more sense? If we can smooth peak demand we can lower carbon emissions much more than we can by producing power during solar hours.

toomuchtodo 7y ago
Batteries do make sense in some situations where you have large amounts of renewables available on the local grid, and parts of Australia and California are paying homeowners incentives for installing local storage. They make less sense immediately in places where you have hydro and nuclear as base load along with renewables; the capacity factor is already accounted for, so you'd want to prioritize anywhere you could displace fossil generation (such as natural gas). Tesla is also pioneering virtual distributed load systems, where they can have a utility send a signal similar to that used to shed AC units during high consumption periods, but the signal is instead used to command vehicles to charge when there is excess energy on the grid. [1] This would make sense today in places like Texas, that have so much wind energy (and not enough transmission capacity to other load centers) some utilities provide you electricity for free at night. Any KwH you can use instead of curtailing is a KwH of energy you're not wasting. [1] https://electrek.co/2015/08/16/the-power-of-controllable-charging-load-is-tesla-working-on-a-bi-directional-charging-station/ https://electrek.co/2015/08/16/the-power-of-controllable-cha...

JoeAltmaier 7y ago

Works for single-family dwellings, and maybe duplexes. But a 4-story apartment building with 2 units on each floor? Same rooftop, 8X the electricity demand. If a city wants more solar, then they could put up a solar farm in some rational place with a good economy of scale, and connect it to the grid.

thedance 7y ago
So much this. If you’re building anything in an urban setting that actually has enough roof to power its dwellings, that just means it’s not tall enough. PV mandates miss the point that it is dispersed, detached developments patterns that are inherently energy-intensive. PV doesn’t fix that.
ben_w 7y ago
Why not both? For example, one person in a 50 m² apartment, divided by 4 floors, with 20% efficient panels, 25% duty cycle for night/latitude, still implies 625 W/person. That won’t power everything all the time, but it would reduce the required size of the external electricity source — be it PV, nuclear, fossil, whatever — by a decent amount.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- JoeAltmaier 7y ago
  Because, again, it would be more efficient to put all that in the solar farm at scale.
  - ben_w 7y ago
    Swings and roundabouts. There is also benefit in using the PV as the roofing material, and also in pick one of {reduced transmission losses; minimising the land use of those solar farms} — land near a city is almost always at a relative premium.
    - 7y ago

microcolonel 7y ago

99% of Americans, and almost all people in the world, are wholely unqualified to make any meaningful decision that basically makes most forms of affordable housing unlawful. If this sample is, by some miracle, representative; I guess it shows that Americans must live amazing middle-class lives to believe that this policy is viable.

samatman 7y ago

This is an overly-specific regulation. If we want a regulation that all new construction must be powered by zero-emissions sources, say that. I'd even be in favor of it, cautiously. But solar panels aren't a magic cure-all. They should be installed in places that make sense, which isn't guaranteed to be the roof of a new building.

aSplash0fDerp 7y ago

This may be off-topic, but I've had a passing thought over the years of the evolution of opensource to expand to the blueprints, architecture and building-codes of residential homes to simplify the upfront costs and options of new construction for specific needs (starter homes, bachelor pads, tiny homes,etc). In the US for instance, could we take all of the local building-codes and design blueprints that would satisfy all of the legal requirements for quality, sustainable construction, regardless of the state, city or county that you choose to build in? Even going with a smaller scale and offering off the shelf blueprints by state may stimulate more new construction growth and sustainable designs.

sys_64738 7y ago

Solar panels are not the way to go for mandates. It has to be solar shingles when they become price competitive.

purplezooey 7y ago

It would be easier if 70% of Americans also supported actually building new homes.