California regulators cut incentives for rooftop solar even further
California regulators cut incentives for rooftop solar even further
The CPUC insists it wants people to add batteries to solar systems to help the grid. But it just cut the compensation that households can earn by doing it.
republiQan regulators cut incentives.
Seriously, leaving that part out defeats the purpose of the article. News media is so up their own ass (and by extension, their republiQan overlords’ asses) that they refuse to speak the words that matter.
19These are all Democratic appointees
Electing Democrats is necessary, but not sufficient, to get where we need to go.
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Can’t have those PG&E dividends crashing.
18Can’t have anything cutting into corporate utility profits!
13Well, of course. We can't let people make their own electricity and cut into the privately owned, for-profit utility company profits!
12Gotta suck that corpo cock
9I write this from a place where electricity is provided by a crown corporation (government ran corp - SaskPower) and also have a net-zero rooftop solar system, and small scale solar like this is quite inefficient compared to grid-scale stations. I very much agree that there is some sovereignty in producing one's own power, however, grid-scale generation is much more effective, both in cost and generation efficiency.
SaskPower has really had no recent incentives for rooftop solar and they only pay about half price for power returned to the grid, effectively discouraging widespread development of rooftop solar.
They have instead proposed an interesting alternative where a homeowner could purchase a portion of a larger scale facility and be credited for the electricity that portion generates. Crowd-funded electricity generation, essentially. This is, of course, much more attractive when the provider is essentially a company owned by the public, not a private, profit seeking entity. But, I think it could be a promising alternative to enable homeowners to offset their electricity bills while being a better option for the overall grid.
8Larger scale is cheaper, but rooftop avoids the need for long-distance transmission [in short supply right now in California] and limits the need to convert farmland into solar
18Good point, I didn't consider the space limitations California would have.
6That's true. The system can be far more robust if its decentralized. Even living in a place with cheap electricity I still plan on getting panels in the future.
4
small scale solar like this is quite inefficient compared to grid-scale stations.
grid-scale generation is much more effective, both in cost and generation efficiency.
Can you explain a bit better on the magnitude of these differences and why they exist? Thx
2Solar panels are most efficient when sunlight hits them as close to perpendicular as possible. Large scale arrays tend to be 1 axis sun tracking, which yeilds about twenty percent more power with the same panels compared to optimal angle fixed arrays at cost of some small motors, a computer, and incresed space between the panels. Small scale and or rooftop by contrast tends to be space constrained, and often ends up at bad angles.
It still works obviously, but between the fixed angle and cramped space you see significant losses compared to what the same pannel could output in a large scale array.
Cost wise, the most expensive part of any small scale solar array tends to be the labor to install it. Panels are now cheaper per square m than fence posts, inverters are expensive but not that expensive, but design and construction are not. It is a lot faster and easier to have a team start at one end of a field and put down racks in assembly line fashion than having someone come out and design a system, another team climb roofs to install conduit and brackets, then a bunch of electrical work, before finally getting an electrical inspector to come out and sign off on it.
None of this is to say that small scale is useless or you shouldn’t do it if you can, especially in California where Pacific Gas and Energy have spent the last forty years outright refusing to do any maintenance or infrastructure investments unless the govement picks up the entire tab and lets them raise some of the highest rates in the nation, but there definitely is an argument to be made that if the government is paying for it either way than spending should go to the place that gives an extra twenty to thirty percent output for the same cost.
6A couple things to add to sonori's reply, the system efficiency also goes up when you can use higher capacity inverters. Essentially, one grid-scale facility (say, 100 MW) will have far fewer inverters than 100 MW of rooftop systems, meaning less efficiency loss.
While larger facilities can be optimized for azimuth and sun angle or with tracking, rooftops are often not optimally aligned, leading to a decrease in capacity. Sure, you could add tracking to your residential system, but that's a significant cost that many homeowners won't see the benefit of. There might also be obstacles that shade a residential system, which is often addressed when selecting sites for larger systems.
5
Rates were rising for low-income people who would never have been able to avail themselves of these incentives partially as a result of some of the incentives. Requiring utilities to buy the electricity at the same rate they sell it at, rather than the commercial rate, was never going to be sustainable in the long-run without causing massive cost increases for those who can afford them the least.
8Yes, but this is about an additional cut - for the few hours per year when having additional power from peoples' batteries means that no new generation capacity is needed. Avoiding those costs benefits everybody, and deciding not to compensate folks for it isn't a good move.
9
Republicans are a danger to the human race. Why is this shit allowed to continue?
1Unfortunately, the California Public Utilities Commission consists entirely ofDemocratic appointees
It takes more than just electing Democrats to win, even when that's a necessary precondition for a positive outcome.
18
it should be illegal to generate power on residential or commercial parcels. California is doing the right thing by disincentivizing it. Large, privately owned, power providers can self-regulate which then regulates all production
it's good for everyone except the rich and greedy who can afford their own rooftop array
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