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This reads like an excuse for Florida’s late and slow performance. If it was true, Florida wouldn’t be installing more utility solar than any other state right

This reads like an excuse for Florida’s late and slow performance. If it was true, Florida wouldn’t be installing more utility solar than any other state right now - and yet they are, with no apparent reduction in hurricane risk. Florida’s slow adoption of solar is an example of what happens when entrenched utilities throw every tool they have at preventing early solar buildouts. The neat thing about solar PV is the economics have become so absurdly good that those political blockades are falling apart in the face of basic capitalism.

ceejayoz 3y ago
Nah, it's not an excuse; at some point, the ever-plummeting cost of new solar capacity presumably crosses the expected frequency of "we have to replace 20% of the field after that last hurricane came through" point. Utility-scale wind'll probably stay away a lot longer. (I don't doubt the utilities fought it tooth and nail, but they've done that everywhere.)
- hermitcrab 3y ago
  We asked a local about why you didn't see any solar on houses and she told us that you would get penalized by the utility company, so it wasn't worth it. I've no idea if that is true or not, as I don't live in Florida. Anyone from Florida care to comment?
  - matthewdgreen 3y ago
    Systems over 10KW require a $1m Personal Liability insurance policy if you want to participate in Florida’s (relatively not very generous) Net Metering program. These requirements are “controversial” and don’t exist in other states with much larger and successful net metering programs, which is code for “they were invented by power company lobbyists to discourage solar installs.” And that’s why a state with almost unlimited free solar has almost no panels on its roofs. (To clarify: the insurance is to cover your liability in case your solar system electrocutes someone or starts a fire, a set of concerns that basically don’t exist in other states. It is explicitly not insurance to protect you from your system being destroyed by storms, the concern that the GGP poster outlines. You have to have frankly broken critical thinking to look at the $bns spent on roofing and houses and think that the small-percentage additional hurricane replacement cost facing rooftop solar is somehow the reason people aren’t installing solar. It’s explicitly policy designed to make solar installs expensive and inconvenient for homeowners, end of story.)
    - hermitcrab 3y ago
      I guess big energy doesn't want any competition and can buy enough politicians to ensure that's how it stays. If so, that stinks. Also I understand that in other parts of the world they also get cyclones/hurricanes but that doesn't stop them installing solar. They are just design things accordingly (IIRC you either want no gap or a big gap under the panel).

ceejayoz 3y ago

Nah, it's not an excuse; at some point, the ever-plummeting cost of new solar capacity presumably crosses the expected frequency of "we have to replace 20% of the field after that last hurricane came through" point. Utility-scale wind'll probably stay away a lot longer. (I don't doubt the utilities fought it tooth and nail, but they've done that everywhere.)

hermitcrab 3y ago
We asked a local about why you didn't see any solar on houses and she told us that you would get penalized by the utility company, so it wasn't worth it. I've no idea if that is true or not, as I don't live in Florida. Anyone from Florida care to comment?
- matthewdgreen 3y ago
  Systems over 10KW require a $1m Personal Liability insurance policy if you want to participate in Florida’s (relatively not very generous) Net Metering program. These requirements are “controversial” and don’t exist in other states with much larger and successful net metering programs, which is code for “they were invented by power company lobbyists to discourage solar installs.” And that’s why a state with almost unlimited free solar has almost no panels on its roofs. (To clarify: the insurance is to cover your liability in case your solar system electrocutes someone or starts a fire, a set of concerns that basically don’t exist in other states. It is explicitly not insurance to protect you from your system being destroyed by storms, the concern that the GGP poster outlines. You have to have frankly broken critical thinking to look at the $bns spent on roofing and houses and think that the small-percentage additional hurricane replacement cost facing rooftop solar is somehow the reason people aren’t installing solar. It’s explicitly policy designed to make solar installs expensive and inconvenient for homeowners, end of story.)
  - hermitcrab 3y ago
    I guess big energy doesn't want any competition and can buy enough politicians to ensure that's how it stays. If so, that stinks. Also I understand that in other parts of the world they also get cyclones/hurricanes but that doesn't stop them installing solar. They are just design things accordingly (IIRC you either want no gap or a big gap under the panel).