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."
Does anyone blame them? (Score:5, Interesting)
" 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."
Frankly, as someone that worked in the PV industry, I don't blame them for being nervous.
Commercial PV is now cheaper than nuclear and highly competitive with both coal and NG turbines. Rooftop systems are nowhere near as competitive, but as they are on the retail side of the meter, they don't have to be. So that's one thing that's scary.
And then there's the fact that PV, especially west and south-west mounted, provides power on-peak, precisely when the companies charge the most for their power. That's where they make almost all of their profit, so this is doubly super-scary.
Re:Translated into English (Score:1, Interesting)
Considering that Solar panels only have a effective life span of 15 years, I'd be more concerned with the morons who put manufactured homes (trailers) in Florida under the pretense that "maybe god won't spank them this year."
Like if anyone really wanted to live in Florida and not sit on a timebomb, they would build their house with a concrete basement, if not entirely out of concrete.
handouts to the affluent (Score:2, Interesting)
Those "attractive rates" mean that the power companies pay retail for the power that you feed back to them, which automatically tells you that they are overpaying, since it doesn't include all of the expenses that power companies have. You know who pays for those "attractive rates"? Not the power companies, that's for sure; they pass the losses on to the rest of their customers. It's non-solar power users who subsidize solar power users.
Doesn't sound so bad: people who waste fossil fuels should pay for their sins, and we should reward people who use pristine power! Isn't that what we want? Until you realize that people who put in solar power systems into their homes are primarily affluent, and the money comes primarily from the poor and lower middle class.
Solar power incentives end up being a massive handout to the affluent, paid for by the less well off.
So you have this confluence of powerful, "environmentally conscious" affluent folks railing against carbon emissions, and lobbying for their expensive lifestyle gimmicks (electric cars, solar power, etc., you name it), combined with lobbying from the solar and electric car industry, and you get these junk laws pushed through. Then people pat themselves on their back about how great they are, while at the same time complaining about growing "inequality", which this policy (among many other "progressive" policies) actually contributes to.
Re:Yeah, whatever. (Score:4, Interesting)
Citation: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03... [nytimes.com] (admittedly behind a paywall but they paid less than $100K in fines. They also promised to clean up the other 24 accidents waiting to happen that they own just in N. Carolina. And this is after they "defanged" the state regulatory board.
Re: Translated into English (Score:5, Interesting)
When Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Va., installed solar panels a few years ago, for example, the local utility, Dominion Virginia Power, threatened legal action. The utility said that only it could sell electricity in its service area.
I wish they had sued. They would have lost as a matter of law, without risk of a jury trial.
I can just see the hearing now.
"Your honor, I'd like to enter into evidence Exhibit A: a solar powered calculator from Dollar General.
"Your honor, I'd like to enter into evidence Exhibit B: a solar powered yard light from Home Depot.
"Your honor, I'd like to enter into evidence Exhibit C: a gasoline generator from Harbor Freight.
"These products are legal in the state of Virginia, are they not? And they all generate electricity? So we're agreed that my client purchased equipment, and not electricity?"
"Yeah, case dismissed, with prejudice. Plaintiff to pay defendant's court costs and attorneys fees."
Re:Then they preach to the world about capitalism (Score:5, Interesting)
That definition turns ugly repeatedly so often that the government has to get involved to stop the excesses (company stores, interlocking trusts, monopoly pricing, collusion, vertical market lock).
The bad thing here is that the government was subverted by business and is no longer acting as a check and balance.
A "free market" works for small businesses but not for large multi-national corporations and not even really for simply "large" corporations. It's sort of like how libertarianism can work under a strong government but fails badly when you have a weak government and very powerful people who use that power to abuse weaker people.
There's also a "moral" component which makes capitalism work and be beneficial and that's eroded a lot since 1980.
Re: Translated into English (Score:5, Interesting)
Except none of your examples involve selling the power. DVP isn't saying you can't generate your own power. They are just saying that you cannot sell it, especially over their grid. They have a mandate to provide power to everyone. If others can generate and sell power, they will pick the low hanging fruit, and sell power only in dense areas, and only to customers with a load profile that matches their generating source. DVP will be left with rural customers, and those with demand during peaks. Getting rid of the monopoly means also getting rid of the mandate, resulting in many people paying higher prices.
Re:Then they preach to the world about capitalism (Score:5, Interesting)
One definition of free enterprise that the US government conveniently chooses to ignore:
Business governed by the laws of supply and demand, not restrained by government interference, regulation or subsidy, also called free market.
This is a definition of a free market that even Adam Smith would not have recognized. It was not regulation per se that he was opposed to, but mercantilism and state granted monopolies. He looked favorably regulations which protected workmen (citation Wealth of Nations I.10.121 [econlib.org]). He was also in favor of regulating banks where their actions endanger society, even at the expense of curtailing natural liberties (citation: Wealth fo Nations II.2.94 [econlib.org]
).
The free market is free of price or supplier choice regulations. It's not necessarily free of regulation per se, such as regulations of weights and measures, of worker or consumer safety, or even of public morality (e.g. drugs and prostitution).
In any case you can't use the actions of states to indict the federal government for hypocrisy, although there is plenty of other material for that.