Floridian (and Southern) Governmental Regulations Are Unfriendly To Solar Power 306
An anonymous reader writes with a link to a story in the LA Times: "Few places in the country are so warm and bright as Mary Wilkerson's property on the beach near St. Petersburg, Fla., a city once noted in the Guinness Book of World Records for a 768-day stretch of sunny days. But while Florida advertises itself as the Sunshine State, power company executives and regulators have worked successfully to keep most Floridians from using that sunshine to generate their own power. Wilkerson discovered the paradox when she set out to harness sunlight into electricity for the vintage cottages she rents out at Indian Rocks Beach. She would have had an easier time installing solar panels, she found, if she had put the homes on a flatbed and transported them to chilly Massachusetts. While the precise rules vary from state to state, one explanation is the same: opposition from utilities grown nervous by the rapid encroachment of solar firms on their business."
Translated into English (Score:3, Insightful)
Not all states offer subsidies as generous as the solar industry thinks they deserve.
This isn't news, it's politics by other means.
Good Old Boy State (Score:4, Insightful)
In no place is crony capitalism so entrenched as in the former states of the Old Confederacy, and Florida is one of the worst. (And, note, I say that as a native of the South.)
Re:Translated into English (Score:4, Insightful)
- prohibit financing constructions for solar that are otherwise common for everything else (specifically leasing)
This could come back to bite utilities in the ass. Equipment leasing and lease back arrangements are major tax shelters in the utility business. All one would need to do is to take the anti solar lease laws into court and show how they discriminate against one business in favor of another. And then ask the court to apply the leasing prohibitions against all businesses equally.
Yeah, whatever. (Score:5, Insightful)
Not all states offer subsidies as generous as the solar industry thinks they deserve.
Its about long term thinking.
The fossil fuel industry has so many tax and environmental subsidies and costs that go ignored by most people. Duke power dumps a shit load of coal ash into a river and WE the taxpayer pays for it in more ways than money. And there''s the economic consequences - that cost Duke nothing.
Fossil fuels are old, polluting - MUCH more than the manufacture of solar cells and other green energy, and cause health problems that are paid down the line in increased healthcare costs and deaths.
When fossil fuels are drilled or mined is has environmental and health costs. When it transported and burned it has environmental and health costs.
When a solar cell is made, that's the end - all the environmental and health costs are over with. And nuclear? Pfft. The used fuel is nothing compared to the shit: mercury and other crop being spewed by fossil fuels.
Why we can't progress beyond 19th century energy sources?
Republican "Free market" capitalism at work.. (Score:5, Insightful)
...as long as their corporate/special interests "freedoms" take priority from the public's interests, everything will be peachy.
Also see: Tesla vs. State auto dealership associations.
Re:Translated into English (Score:4, Insightful)
> -- can very reasonably be interpreted as I did above.
Not without an obvious logical fallacy or moving goalposts. To whit:
"Along with tax breaks and other government incentives, the lease agreements have made solar installations increasingly affordable."
Which states, "affordability increases with tax breaks and other government incentives". It does not imply that the systems are not affordable without such. And as the link I provide below notes, PV is perfectly affordable in many situations without any subsidy at all.
More to the point, it says nothing whatsoever about what the "solar industry thinks they deserve". That's entirely made up by you.
Re:Translated into English (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Government in the U.S. is extremely corrupt. (Score:5, Insightful)
Corporations have "captured" the government. They have discovered that by "investing" a relatively small amount of money in politicians, they can gain a high return in getting laws and regulations passed with protect their monopolies, enabling them to charge high rent.
This takes place in most (?all) governments but the dollar amount of this return on investment in the US is probably the highest or any country in the world.
Re:Government in the U.S. is extremely corrupt. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Government in the U.S. is extremely corrupt. (Score:5, Insightful)
If government didn't have the power to regulate this or that, corporations wouldn't be buying it off.
Or as P. J. O'Rourke put it When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators.
Re: Translated into English (Score:5, Insightful)
At the same time, they sure do like the granted right-of-way that allows their grid to exist.
Re:Translated into English (Score:4, Insightful)
People who do it are not making the decision primarily on a financial basis. They're installing it to send a message.
That depends on where they live. In Hawaii, all fuel has to be brought in on tankers, and electricity is $0.42 per kwhr. Solar makes financial sense there.
Re:Government in the U.S. is extremely corrupt. (Score:5, Insightful)
Voters. The elected official are put there by voters, every time.(Not it some rare, and temporary situations)
Educate the voters. Let them know what's going on.
Re:Solar (Score:5, Insightful)
> 2) The electricity companies are not under any obligation that I know of to take your electricity.
They are in locations where the utility regulators require "net metering". In a fair situation, the homeowner still pays a line charge, to cover line maintenance and provisions for current flowing backwards through transformers, and not overloading the lines in times of high output. Then they pay and earn fair per kWh rates (which may be different and vary by time of day) for power used and generated.
> 4) The cost of taking your crappy, varying pittance of power
Is nothing like the way you describe it. Unless surplus solar is a majority of the power on a distribution line (the line that goes from the substation to houses), it will simply go from your house to some other house on the line. The utility then pushes the difference through their substation to meet the remainder of the demand. They already have to handle varying demand on the distribution line, since demand varies all the time in normal use. Only if solar were more than what is needed to power the solar houses *and* everyone else on the distribution line, would the utility need to make provisions at the substation for running power to other substations.
Re:Translated into English (Score:4, Insightful)
and furthermore this from the article:
Under the typical business model for the solar industry, homeowners sign lease agreements with installation companies. The homeowners pay the cost of the panels over time and sell any excess power the systems generate. ...
States where solar thrives typically pay homeowners attractive rates for the excess power they generate and require utilities to get a considerable share of their power from renewable sources. That gives companies an incentive to promote use of solar.
What this is about is that the local utilities are FORCED to purchase the solar panel's excess generation whether they need it or not. At retail rates the utilities are forced to pay are in excess of what it costs the utility to generate and distribute power.
Usual Wiki link, usual caveat,
scroll down to see a list of states and see which states have retail pricing net metering.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N... [wikipedia.org]
How long would Kroger stay in business if it bought apples orchards sold apples to Kroger for 50 cents and Kroger then sold them in stores for 75 cents, but the state passed a law requiring Kroger to pay 75 cents to any individual who brought apples into the store? It sounds like it would be a wash, except that Kroger's cost
for the apples isn't actually 50 cents. Kroger has to buy land, pay taxes and utilities, transport the apples and so on.
The solar power buy-back prices vary wildly across the US, In some states net-metering is the retail price like in the kroger analogy, and in others it is the wholesale price
I can't think of any other industry besides solar whose business model requires laws to require a business (utilities) to purchase their own product from the customers at retail prices whenever the customer feels like having a surplus.
Re:Government in the U.S. is extremely corrupt. (Score:4, Insightful)
No. Some politicians. not all. There are plenty of states that are citizen friendly regarding solar, and that's because the politician did what there voters, BaL, wanted.
Are you sure the friendliness is towards the voters and not the solar companies? Just curious?
Note: I'm just playing devil's advocate on perceptions. While normally I'm against government subsides, I personally think solar/alternative energy is a great thing for the governments to subsidize; especially when you consider that the "loser" (if there truly is one) is another government sponsored monopoly.
Re: Translated into English (Score:5, Insightful)
At the same time, they sure do like the granted right-of-way that allows their grid to exist.
As does the vast majority of the population. Imagine how much your utilities would cost if the utility companies had to pay rent to each property owner that their wires, pipes, cables, etc., crossed.
Re:Translated into English (Score:4, Insightful)
> The NREL system has no description of its methodology, data sources, or other independently verifiable information
Holy crap, are you kidding? Every single line of code, bit of data, and the entire methodology is all on their web site! There's an entire page devoted to how the thing works, and where the data comes from. As you are apparently to lazy to even read the site, here, here's the data for you:
http://rredc.nrel.gov/solar/pubs/redbook/
> You also picked two non-representative cities
Oh my god! Go ahead, click on every one of them if you think I'm wrong.
Seriously, are you trying to back up the statement that California gets FOUR TIMES more sunlight than Florida?!?
> Try finding a source that actually explains where its numbers come from and what they mean.
OMG
http://bit.ly/XU3ibi