6 ms·

70% of Americans Support Solar Mandate on New Homes

25 points by salzig 5y ago

mogadsheu 5y ago
Does the survey mention who’s going to pay for it? Seems to be a running issue for this kind of pre-legislation sentiment research
- nostrademons 5y ago
  Ultimately the resident, as the cost is going to get passed along in new home prices, which will then get passed along for existing home prices and rent.
  - ZeroGravitas 5y ago
    Where that "cost" over time is highly likely to be negative, aka free money, and it's only the coordination problems that prevents people from doing it. (See also lease of EVs, if you were paying monthly anyway then the lower running costs of EV can be factored in for a fairer comparison that reflects better on EVs than the up front cost.)
    - CanceledAccount 5y ago
      If there was really “free money” in installing solar panels everyone would be doing it already.
      - Teever 5y ago
        there's 'free money' in exercising and eating healthy but most people don't do it enough. People don't always make the most economically rational decisions.
        caeril 5y ago
        It's economically rational in a world filled with the moral hazard provided by universal healthcare and insurance. Why eat right or exercise when 99.8% of my $500k quadruple bypass surgery will be paid by other people?
      - nostrademons 5y ago
        It's a time-value-of-money problem. Over the long run, solar saves money. The payback period of our panels was about 9 years, but our utility raised their rates, so I think it's more like 7 now. Problem is, most people don't have 7 years worth of utility bills available to spend now, and if they did, they'd rather spend it on other things.
      - ZeroGravitas 5y ago
        https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_action_problem https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_action_problem
        missedthecue 5y ago
        How does that apply here? In fact, the opposite would seem to be the case; the fewer people that install solar panels, the more expensive electricity is to buy off the grid, meaning the faster the payoff time for a home solar system.
        ZeroGravitas 5y ago
        If you build a new house with solar integrated, the person who buys the house (and society generally) benefits over time, but they need to pay up front for the costs. If you add it, then people will buy the other "cheaper" house that will cost them more in the long term and you'll go out of business. This is called a "Race to the bottom". Pretty much every nation has a whole bunch of regulations about what you can build and sell, and what kind of houses is a popular specific example everyone is familiar with, not because they're all secret authoritarians, but because in the past, people did a whole bunch of stupid, short-sighted things to hit a lower price point and the businesses that didn't do stupid, short sighted things couldn't compete with them and were forced into doing stuff they knew was stupid or dangerous and people ended up living in dangerous, hard to heat homes. This is the core problem of climate change. We'd all be better off dealing with it, but if someone else goes for the short term profit they ruin it for everyone.
      - jeherr 5y ago
        You could say the same about investing, and yet a ton of people still don't do that.
  - Proven 5y ago
    > which will then get passed along for existing home prices and rent. In other words, it'd be a new tax. Despite that most commenters see it as a great investment. Bravo HN! It's such a great investment it has to be mandated to ensure nobody misses such a great opportunity! Invest in solar and get rich, serf.... or else!
- mytailorisrich 5y ago
  It's the usual issue of the wording of questions in surveys. "Would you agree to be made to pay $20k for solar panels on your new home?" may not have got the same replies although, arguably, it's more realistic.
  - Nasrudith 5y ago
    I don't think anybody was expecting them to be free so much as bundled into the mortgage as a standard item, sparing them from any separate financing, uppricing, or possible zoning issues.
    - mytailorisrich 5y ago
      Sure, that would probably be part of the price of the house and thus, for most people, financed through a mortgage. But that's indeed a matter of financing the cost. The point remains that this cost would be paid by the person buying the house and therefore it seems to me that the most realistic and honest wording of such survey should include making that clear in order to get meaningful answers.
raxxorrax 5y ago
I also think that young people should pay even higher prices on homes. If it is a sensible investment, people will intall them. I am surprised such a mandate is popular in the US.
- salzig 5y ago
  I'm pretty sure the market will crash, independent of this rule. So, let's try what happens to the energy market if we mandate this.
- ChrisRR 5y ago
  Like it or not, climate change is happening, and you can't just avoid doing something about it because it's inconvenient
  - raxxorrax 5y ago
    We cannot afford to do something, we need to focus on the most effective measures because political capital for that topic is not endless. You should also try not to increase other significant problems.
    - salzig 5y ago
      you mean something like prevention of overpriced/highly-speculated housing prices?
    - ChrisRR 5y ago
      Millions of houses suddenly going underwater in the space of a few decades is going to cause a hell of a lot more issues in the housing market than adding solar panels.
      - dublin 5y ago
        Despite all the wailing and hand-wringing, there is actually no credible evidence that sea levels are rising. (This ranges from tidal measurements to photographic comparisons of the same site over nearly two centuries!) Alarmist "climate models" based on wishcraft and paranoia can never be allowed to carry more weight than actual reality. (Well, assuming you beleive in actual science.)
mrjangles 5y ago
Yeah see this isn't going to work. Currently, something tiny like 20% of the price of coal and non renewable base power comes from the cost of the actual fuel. The rest is just base costs (the price of the wires, infrastructure and the actual coal plant itself). The government charging by KWh is a market distortion that only works when everyone is paying. As long as people want power all the time, including at night and when it is cloudy or not windy, those fixed costs will need to be paid. Currently, those costs are being paid by the poor who can't afford solar panels. They are subsidizing the base power for the rich who do have solar panels but also have access to base power without actually paying for it. What is going to happen once everyone owns solar panels and there is no one left to subsidize base power? Well prices will keep going up and up until they reach a singularity and the whole system will collapse. Then prices will have to be recalibrated to fit the actual market price. Which means people will no longer pay for base power by the KWh but instead by fixed costs no matter how much they use.... Then everyone will find they have these useless solar panels that offer no real cost advantages. Everyone will stop using them, and we will be back at square one with everyone preferring cheap, non renewable power.... Of course there is a supply of renewable, clean, cheap base power that everyone could use that would totally remove the need for destructive wind turbines or poisonous solar panels... but no one seems interested.
- DoingIsLearning 5y ago
  > What is going to happen once everyone owns solar panels and there is no one left to subsidize base power? Well prices will keep going up and up until they reach a singularity and the whole system will collapse. Then prices will have to be recalibrated to fit the actual market price. Which means people will no longer pay for base power by the KWh but instead by fixed costs no matter how much they use.... I know the discussion is specifically US centric but in many markets you already have a fixed cost/fee/tax on electricity as a base cost and on top of this an electricity usage cost. In these cases the Micro-generation offsets a usage cost not the base cost (but in a lot of places micro-generation is still heavily subsidized on the purchase of solar panels). So as with many other things YMMV.
  - mrjangles 5y ago
adamnemecek 5y ago
> conducted a survey for Vivint Solar I’m sure that the survey was impartial.
LurkingPenguin 5y ago
Since this survey was conducted at the behest of an interested party (a "leading full-service residential solar provider"), it's worth looking at what was asked. Here's the question: > How much do you oppose or support a nationwide solar mandate? 32% expressed "strong" support for the mandate, while 38% expressed that they "somewhat" support a mandate. Notably absent in the question: how much such a mandate would cost and who would pay for it. I'm sure if a group that opposed solar mandates asked "A nationwide solar mandate is estimated to increase the cost of a new home by $xx,xxx. How much do you oppose or support such a mandate?" they'd get different results.
- loonster 5y ago
  Plenty of ways to get a biased survey. Some of them will be hard to notice. - Make it very long so only people interested in the topic will stay on. - Make some questions extremely biased so people not of that persuasion will hang up.
Ekaros 5y ago
I hope that the power produced to grid will be priced on market rate. With no caps to either direction. No bullshit like net metering, just fair spot price with transmission also charged.
- ZeroGravitas 5y ago
  I'm not sure why you call net metering "bullshit", it's quite a neat hack. Usually people hate it because they think it's some kind of scam, but "Value of Solar" research often suggests it's actually on the low side, i.e. the person with solar is providing more benefit to the system than they get paid for. The general direction is smarter meters and varied prices based on time, which is good and probably only further benefits solar. Although this is a biased survey from an interested party, this kind of mandate is a fairly standard and well established idea with lots of benefits. It just makes sense to do thing like add solar, and prep for EV charging when building new homes as it's much easier than refits. Other good ideas are banning gas connections, mandating ground loops for heat pumps and minimum insulation levels.
  - dublin 5y ago
    Net metering is most certainly bullshit, as it selfishly and unfairly shifts the costs of both the grid's distribution infrastructure as well as the cost of meeting peak demands onto all other ratepayers.
    - paul_f 5y ago
      Go read about the duck curve and get back to us. https://www.energy.gov/eere/articles/confronting-duck-curve-how-address-over-generation-solar-energy https://www.energy.gov/eere/articles/confronting-duck-curve-...
Proven 5y ago
So freaking what? The government has no right to mandate such nonsense. (And don't get me started on subsidies they surely expect in return for their "cooperation").
actionoffice 5y ago
Thankfully we are a Republic and not subject to mob rule.
dublin 5y ago
The economics of solar PV only work with subsidies. In addition, both the PV panel themselves as well as expensive balance-of-system components such as inverters and/or batteries have a life expectancy that is considerably shorter than a conventional 30-year mortgage. This is a horrible idea that just skyrockets the cost of new houses.

25 points by salzig 5y ago

Does the survey mention who’s going to pay for it? Seems to be a running issue for this kind of pre-legislation sentiment research

nostrademons 5y ago
Ultimately the resident, as the cost is going to get passed along in new home prices, which will then get passed along for existing home prices and rent.
- ZeroGravitas 5y ago
  Where that "cost" over time is highly likely to be negative, aka free money, and it's only the coordination problems that prevents people from doing it. (See also lease of EVs, if you were paying monthly anyway then the lower running costs of EV can be factored in for a fairer comparison that reflects better on EVs than the up front cost.)
  - CanceledAccount 5y ago
    If there was really “free money” in installing solar panels everyone would be doing it already.
    - Teever 5y ago
      there's 'free money' in exercising and eating healthy but most people don't do it enough. People don't always make the most economically rational decisions.
      - caeril 5y ago
        It's economically rational in a world filled with the moral hazard provided by universal healthcare and insurance. Why eat right or exercise when 99.8% of my $500k quadruple bypass surgery will be paid by other people?
    - nostrademons 5y ago
      It's a time-value-of-money problem. Over the long run, solar saves money. The payback period of our panels was about 9 years, but our utility raised their rates, so I think it's more like 7 now. Problem is, most people don't have 7 years worth of utility bills available to spend now, and if they did, they'd rather spend it on other things.
    - ZeroGravitas 5y ago
      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_action_problem https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_action_problem
      - missedthecue 5y ago
        How does that apply here? In fact, the opposite would seem to be the case; the fewer people that install solar panels, the more expensive electricity is to buy off the grid, meaning the faster the payoff time for a home solar system.
        ZeroGravitas 5y ago
        If you build a new house with solar integrated, the person who buys the house (and society generally) benefits over time, but they need to pay up front for the costs. If you add it, then people will buy the other "cheaper" house that will cost them more in the long term and you'll go out of business. This is called a "Race to the bottom". Pretty much every nation has a whole bunch of regulations about what you can build and sell, and what kind of houses is a popular specific example everyone is familiar with, not because they're all secret authoritarians, but because in the past, people did a whole bunch of stupid, short-sighted things to hit a lower price point and the businesses that didn't do stupid, short sighted things couldn't compete with them and were forced into doing stuff they knew was stupid or dangerous and people ended up living in dangerous, hard to heat homes. This is the core problem of climate change. We'd all be better off dealing with it, but if someone else goes for the short term profit they ruin it for everyone.
    - jeherr 5y ago
      You could say the same about investing, and yet a ton of people still don't do that.
- Proven 5y ago
  > which will then get passed along for existing home prices and rent. In other words, it'd be a new tax. Despite that most commenters see it as a great investment. Bravo HN! It's such a great investment it has to be mandated to ensure nobody misses such a great opportunity! Invest in solar and get rich, serf.... or else!
mytailorisrich 5y ago
It's the usual issue of the wording of questions in surveys. "Would you agree to be made to pay $20k for solar panels on your new home?" may not have got the same replies although, arguably, it's more realistic.
- Nasrudith 5y ago
  I don't think anybody was expecting them to be free so much as bundled into the mortgage as a standard item, sparing them from any separate financing, uppricing, or possible zoning issues.
  - mytailorisrich 5y ago
    Sure, that would probably be part of the price of the house and thus, for most people, financed through a mortgage. But that's indeed a matter of financing the cost. The point remains that this cost would be paid by the person buying the house and therefore it seems to me that the most realistic and honest wording of such survey should include making that clear in order to get meaningful answers.

raxxorrax 5y ago

I also think that young people should pay even higher prices on homes. If it is a sensible investment, people will intall them. I am surprised such a mandate is popular in the US.

salzig 5y ago
I'm pretty sure the market will crash, independent of this rule. So, let's try what happens to the energy market if we mandate this.
ChrisRR 5y ago
Like it or not, climate change is happening, and you can't just avoid doing something about it because it's inconvenient
- raxxorrax 5y ago
  We cannot afford to do something, we need to focus on the most effective measures because political capital for that topic is not endless. You should also try not to increase other significant problems.
  - salzig 5y ago
    you mean something like prevention of overpriced/highly-speculated housing prices?
  - ChrisRR 5y ago
    Millions of houses suddenly going underwater in the space of a few decades is going to cause a hell of a lot more issues in the housing market than adding solar panels.
    - dublin 5y ago
      Despite all the wailing and hand-wringing, there is actually no credible evidence that sea levels are rising. (This ranges from tidal measurements to photographic comparisons of the same site over nearly two centuries!) Alarmist "climate models" based on wishcraft and paranoia can never be allowed to carry more weight than actual reality. (Well, assuming you beleive in actual science.)

mrjangles 5y ago

Yeah see this isn't going to work. Currently, something tiny like 20% of the price of coal and non renewable base power comes from the cost of the actual fuel. The rest is just base costs (the price of the wires, infrastructure and the actual coal plant itself). The government charging by KWh is a market distortion that only works when everyone is paying. As long as people want power all the time, including at night and when it is cloudy or not windy, those fixed costs will need to be paid. Currently, those costs are being paid by the poor who can't afford solar panels. They are subsidizing the base power for the rich who do have solar panels but also have access to base power without actually paying for it. What is going to happen once everyone owns solar panels and there is no one left to subsidize base power? Well prices will keep going up and up until they reach a singularity and the whole system will collapse. Then prices will have to be recalibrated to fit the actual market price. Which means people will no longer pay for base power by the KWh but instead by fixed costs no matter how much they use.... Then everyone will find they have these useless solar panels that offer no real cost advantages. Everyone will stop using them, and we will be back at square one with everyone preferring cheap, non renewable power.... Of course there is a supply of renewable, clean, cheap base power that everyone could use that would totally remove the need for destructive wind turbines or poisonous solar panels... but no one seems interested.

DoingIsLearning 5y ago
> What is going to happen once everyone owns solar panels and there is no one left to subsidize base power? Well prices will keep going up and up until they reach a singularity and the whole system will collapse. Then prices will have to be recalibrated to fit the actual market price. Which means people will no longer pay for base power by the KWh but instead by fixed costs no matter how much they use.... I know the discussion is specifically US centric but in many markets you already have a fixed cost/fee/tax on electricity as a base cost and on top of this an electricity usage cost. In these cases the Micro-generation offsets a usage cost not the base cost (but in a lot of places micro-generation is still heavily subsidized on the purchase of solar panels). So as with many other things YMMV.
- mrjangles 5y ago

adamnemecek 5y ago

> conducted a survey for Vivint Solar I’m sure that the survey was impartial.

LurkingPenguin 5y ago

Since this survey was conducted at the behest of an interested party (a "leading full-service residential solar provider"), it's worth looking at what was asked. Here's the question: > How much do you oppose or support a nationwide solar mandate? 32% expressed "strong" support for the mandate, while 38% expressed that they "somewhat" support a mandate. Notably absent in the question: how much such a mandate would cost and who would pay for it. I'm sure if a group that opposed solar mandates asked "A nationwide solar mandate is estimated to increase the cost of a new home by $xx,xxx. How much do you oppose or support such a mandate?" they'd get different results.

loonster 5y ago
Plenty of ways to get a biased survey. Some of them will be hard to notice. - Make it very long so only people interested in the topic will stay on. - Make some questions extremely biased so people not of that persuasion will hang up.

Ekaros 5y ago

I hope that the power produced to grid will be priced on market rate. With no caps to either direction. No bullshit like net metering, just fair spot price with transmission also charged.

ZeroGravitas 5y ago
I'm not sure why you call net metering "bullshit", it's quite a neat hack. Usually people hate it because they think it's some kind of scam, but "Value of Solar" research often suggests it's actually on the low side, i.e. the person with solar is providing more benefit to the system than they get paid for. The general direction is smarter meters and varied prices based on time, which is good and probably only further benefits solar. Although this is a biased survey from an interested party, this kind of mandate is a fairly standard and well established idea with lots of benefits. It just makes sense to do thing like add solar, and prep for EV charging when building new homes as it's much easier than refits. Other good ideas are banning gas connections, mandating ground loops for heat pumps and minimum insulation levels.
- dublin 5y ago
  Net metering is most certainly bullshit, as it selfishly and unfairly shifts the costs of both the grid's distribution infrastructure as well as the cost of meeting peak demands onto all other ratepayers.
  - paul_f 5y ago
    Go read about the duck curve and get back to us. https://www.energy.gov/eere/articles/confronting-duck-curve-how-address-over-generation-solar-energy https://www.energy.gov/eere/articles/confronting-duck-curve-...

Proven 5y ago

So freaking what? The government has no right to mandate such nonsense. (And don't get me started on subsidies they surely expect in return for their "cooperation").

actionoffice 5y ago

Thankfully we are a Republic and not subject to mob rule.

dublin 5y ago

The economics of solar PV only work with subsidies. In addition, both the PV panel themselves as well as expensive balance-of-system components such as inverters and/or batteries have a life expectancy that is considerably shorter than a conventional 30-year mortgage. This is a horrible idea that just skyrockets the cost of new houses.