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I think the article does a disservice to its thesis by focusing on California. Half the country lives in places where subzero temperatures are an issue. Not to

I think the article does a disservice to its thesis by focusing on California. Half the country lives in places where subzero temperatures are an issue. Not to mention, the rest of the country doesn't have the sunlight hours to make solar as viable, let alone the disposable wealth to upgrade their homes. Electric cars are still a long way from viability in most places, though it may not seem that way in California.

epistasis 4y ago
Nearly every state in the us has very viable solar. The blockers are not economic, but regulatory from the utility and utility commission side. There are small solar arrays all over farms in Minnesota, for example. Solar is super cheap, and only getting cheaper. Cheap enough that one can start to size your array for the seasonal minimum. And as storage gets super cheap this decade, solar plus storage are a "baseload" combo.
- throwaway4aday 4y ago
  I'll believe this when I see successful startup utilities cropping up all over for the low capital investment of buying a field and filling it with solar panels. Hell, I'd settle for seeing the existing utility companies doing this en masse.
  - epistasis 4y ago
    The barrier to this isn't economics, it's the regulatory process for utilities, which are often regulated to be monopolies. And for that matter, this sort of building of solar projects by small players has been going on for years, very successfully, under a PPA model. In places where it's allowed for startups to build new generation resources and get compensated on the market, such as Texas' ERCOT, solar is a dominant force. The challenge is not the tech, the challenge is that too many people are doing it, draining the supply chain: https://www.solarpowerworldonline.com/2022/07/satellite-data-shows-big-solar-installation-delays-in-texas/ https://www.solarpowerworldonline.com/2022/07/satellite-data...
- vehemenz 4y ago
  These are good points, but I would add that there are not qualified installers of solar in most areas. I'm not sure if you'd chalk that up to regulation or economics, but it's probably a little bit of both.
  - epistasis 4y ago
    Yes, standard growing pains for an industry that is doubling in production roughly every four years. The rate at which the industry is scaling is absolutely amazing. But even as in the original post about electricians, skilled workforce labor remains one of the bottlenecks.
malfist 4y ago
> country doesn't have the sunlight hours to make solar as viable California somehow gets more sunlight than the rest of the US? If I recall for physics, the amount of light depends on the latitude, not what state you're in.
- treeman79 4y ago
  There’s a big difference between people trying to survive 40° weather and 0° weather when the grid has problems.
- Turing_Machine 4y ago
  You're ignoring clouds. It rains a whole lot more in Seattle than it does in Los Angeles. Edit: controlling (more or less) for latitude, it rains a whole lot more in New Orleans than it does in Los Angeles. Los Angeles averages 34.1 rainy days per year. New Orleans averages 115.1.
- tzs 4y ago
  Weather affects usable sunlight and weather patterns vary quite a bit as you across the US at a given latitude. See this map [1]. [1] https://unboundsolar.com/solar-information/sun-hours-us-map https://unboundsolar.com/solar-information/sun-hours-us-map
- throwaway4aday 4y ago
  Solar elevation, length of day, weather including clouds and snow. Those vary quite a bit.
- vehemenz 4y ago
  The midwest is significantly cloudier than the southwest, for example. Perhaps "effective sunlight hours" is a better phrasing.

epistasis 4y ago

Nearly every state in the us has very viable solar. The blockers are not economic, but regulatory from the utility and utility commission side. There are small solar arrays all over farms in Minnesota, for example. Solar is super cheap, and only getting cheaper. Cheap enough that one can start to size your array for the seasonal minimum. And as storage gets super cheap this decade, solar plus storage are a "baseload" combo.

throwaway4aday 4y ago
I'll believe this when I see successful startup utilities cropping up all over for the low capital investment of buying a field and filling it with solar panels. Hell, I'd settle for seeing the existing utility companies doing this en masse.
- epistasis 4y ago
  The barrier to this isn't economics, it's the regulatory process for utilities, which are often regulated to be monopolies. And for that matter, this sort of building of solar projects by small players has been going on for years, very successfully, under a PPA model. In places where it's allowed for startups to build new generation resources and get compensated on the market, such as Texas' ERCOT, solar is a dominant force. The challenge is not the tech, the challenge is that too many people are doing it, draining the supply chain: https://www.solarpowerworldonline.com/2022/07/satellite-data-shows-big-solar-installation-delays-in-texas/ https://www.solarpowerworldonline.com/2022/07/satellite-data...
vehemenz 4y ago
These are good points, but I would add that there are not qualified installers of solar in most areas. I'm not sure if you'd chalk that up to regulation or economics, but it's probably a little bit of both.
- epistasis 4y ago
  Yes, standard growing pains for an industry that is doubling in production roughly every four years. The rate at which the industry is scaling is absolutely amazing. But even as in the original post about electricians, skilled workforce labor remains one of the bottlenecks.

malfist 4y ago

> country doesn't have the sunlight hours to make solar as viable California somehow gets more sunlight than the rest of the US? If I recall for physics, the amount of light depends on the latitude, not what state you're in.

treeman79 4y ago
There’s a big difference between people trying to survive 40° weather and 0° weather when the grid has problems.
Turing_Machine 4y ago
You're ignoring clouds. It rains a whole lot more in Seattle than it does in Los Angeles. Edit: controlling (more or less) for latitude, it rains a whole lot more in New Orleans than it does in Los Angeles. Los Angeles averages 34.1 rainy days per year. New Orleans averages 115.1.
tzs 4y ago
Weather affects usable sunlight and weather patterns vary quite a bit as you across the US at a given latitude. See this map [1]. [1] https://unboundsolar.com/solar-information/sun-hours-us-map https://unboundsolar.com/solar-information/sun-hours-us-map
throwaway4aday 4y ago
Solar elevation, length of day, weather including clouds and snow. Those vary quite a bit.
vehemenz 4y ago
The midwest is significantly cloudier than the southwest, for example. Perhaps "effective sunlight hours" is a better phrasing.