In a Milestone, the US Exceeds 5 Million Solar Installations (electrek.co) 159
According to the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), the U.S. has officially surpassed 5 million solar installations. "The 5 million milestone comes just eight years after the U.S. achieved its first million in 2016 -- a stark contrast to the four decades it took to reach that initial milestone since the first grid-connected solar project in 1973," reports Electrek. From the report: Since the beginning of 2020, more than half of all U.S. solar installations have come online, and over 25% have been activated since the Inflation Reduction Act became law 20 months ago. Solar arrays have been installed on homes and businesses and as utility-scale solar farms. The U.S. solar market was valued at $51 billion in 2023. Even with changes in state policies, market trends indicate robust growth in solar installations across the U.S. According to SEIA forecasts, the number of solar installations is expected to double to 10 million by 2030 and triple to 15 million by 2034.
The residential sector represents 97% of all U.S. solar installations. This sector has consistently set new records for annual installations over the past several years, achieving new highs for five straight years and in 10 out of the last 12 years. The significant growth in residential solar can be attributed to its proven value as an investment for homeowners who wish to manage their energy costs more effectively. California is the frontrunner with 2 million solar installations, though recent state policies have significantly damaged its rooftop solar market. Meanwhile, other states are experiencing rapid growth. For example, Illinois, which had only 2,500 solar installations in 2017, now boasts over 87,000. Similarly, Florida has seen its solar installations surge from 22,000 in 2017 to 235,000 today. By 2030, 22 states or territories are anticipated to surpass 100,000 solar installations. The U.S. has enough solar installed to cover every residential rooftop in the Four Corners states of Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico.
The residential sector represents 97% of all U.S. solar installations. This sector has consistently set new records for annual installations over the past several years, achieving new highs for five straight years and in 10 out of the last 12 years. The significant growth in residential solar can be attributed to its proven value as an investment for homeowners who wish to manage their energy costs more effectively. California is the frontrunner with 2 million solar installations, though recent state policies have significantly damaged its rooftop solar market. Meanwhile, other states are experiencing rapid growth. For example, Illinois, which had only 2,500 solar installations in 2017, now boasts over 87,000. Similarly, Florida has seen its solar installations surge from 22,000 in 2017 to 235,000 today. By 2030, 22 states or territories are anticipated to surpass 100,000 solar installations. The U.S. has enough solar installed to cover every residential rooftop in the Four Corners states of Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico.
And the generated power is? (Score:4, Informative)
The marketing page linked to in the write-up talks a lot about the number of installations, while leaving their combined output away. One needs to consult government's (gasp!) web-site [eia.gov] to find out, that the spectacular success we're celebrating is 3.9% of the total electricity consumption of the country...
Re:And the generated power is? (Score:4, Insightful)
... the spectacular success we're celebrating is 3.9% of the total electricity consumption of the country...
That's a fair point. But keep in mind that this kind of growth tends to fall on an exponential curve, so it's still good news. And as the market grows, so does the incentive for innovation that will increase yields, efficiencies, and - hopefully - useful lifetimes.
I see the two-steps-ahead strategic business opportunity here as maintaining, refurbishing, de-commissioning, and recycling solar infrastructure. There are going to be a lot of clapped-out panels, batteries, and inverters that need to have all the useful parts and materials re-used or recycled, while the remainder is disposed of safely.
Also, look for past-its-prime equipment to be sold off to poorer countries and/or down-market segments. I think there will be a worthwhile market for equipment with degraded efficiencies and shorter remaining useful life, because it will have a drastically lower price. This kind of equipment will be especially attractive in areas where there's lots of sunlight and/or lots of space available.
Re: And the generated power is? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: Government subsidies (Score:3)
Re:Government subsidies (Score:5, Insightful)
I can't work out if you are truly so naive and ill-informed that you actually think the incentives for solar, other renewables and EVs are genuinely the only market distortion in energy worth commenting on. The US has fought multiple wars to preserve fossil fuel supplies, my dude. The subsidies for oil and gas since they were first exploited are in the literal trillions. And yet here you are, acting as though solar panel incentives are the very first time the government has dared to intervene in the US energy market.
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Sounds like standard operating procedure for our government since forever. The entire reason our government exist is to help private ownership of capital thrive. That's it's number one goal and has been from day one.
Our rich landowners were mad at England for taxation and they convinced all the peasants that we needed to form our own government. Fast forward to the present era, and we've still got government using taxpayer money to enrich our capital owners.
Any benefits that may trickle down to the taxpayer
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Just what the electric cars once seemed to be to many people...
They're still the future. Why you want to pretend otherwise is baffling. The ICE era is at an end.
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I imagine your average Chinese EV won't meet the US safety standards anyway. We're got pretty high safety standards, which also make our cars very expensive, that China does not have. We don't even need tariffs on Chinese EVs. They won't be eligible for the US market on safety alone.
Re:And the generated power is? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is how subsidies work though in most cases. The government is just creating demand which the market should respond in kind with supply and with that more yearly capacity of products. If we are able to install more that means more are being made and hopefully the price is dropping in kind.
For me this is a worthy investment, whatever we can do to displace fossil fuels is good for America, and not even climate wise, take that out, we just need lot's of energy, not just to replace fossil fuels and not just for future growth but to exceed those goals.
There's a reason they call it a "petrodollar", energy is the currency we are all really trading in and we need lot's of it.
Re:And the generated power is? (Score:4, Informative)
The billions of incentives — $15.6 billion in 2022 alone [reuters.com] — would've bothered me,
In 2022, the revenue of the electric utilities in the U.S. was $530 billion, so that comes to a hair under three percent.
Seems a pretty small incentive.
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That's irrelevant, actually.
No, it's not. You write " $15.6 billion" as if it's a OMG big number. In context, no, it's not a very large number
The US Federal budget is even bigger, so what?
Good point. Considered as a share of the federal budget, it is so trivially small a number that there are a thousand things more important to pay attention to.
Re:And the generated power is? (Score:4, Informative)
> The US Federal budget is even bigger, so what?
> It is multiple thousands of dollars per installation. Not small at all..
So is it a lot of money, or not a lot of money? Make up your mind.
The fossil fuel industry got $757 billion [imf.org] (pdf warning) in subsidies in 2022. The fossil fuel industry, which already makes profit hand over fist, got 4850% more than renewable energy... and what did that get us?
=Smidge=
Re:And the generated power is? (Score:4, Insightful)
But they aren't — it is government-sponsored
Are you talking about LNG, oil, coal, or nuclear? Because all of those also have government cheese heading their way.
So are you upset about the percentage to dollar rate? Because what's killing that ratio is the infrastructure. Literally go look on Google maps and within ten seconds you'll be able to spot one of thousands of pipelines we've laid down over the last umpteen decades. We've had a lot of time to really crank up the effectiveness of the others. We'll do the exact same with solar and wind as well because this nation is really good at that kind of stuff.
Re: And the generated power is? (Score:2)
https://lpdd.org/resources/fed... [lpdd.org]
One might argue that oil is also heavily subsidized by the military investments in middle east.
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Care to venture what the government sponsorship for fossil fuels is? In direct subsidy it's a lot higher. Factor in the avoided negative externalities of poor health, environmental degradation, and climate change, and it's orders of magnitude greater.
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The Free Market isn't magic. Without heavy regulation, so-called free market quickly turn into monopolies, destroying any and all supposed benefits of a free market system. That's reality.
Government intervention is essential to a healthy and functioning free market. Government incentives are an important part of that, allowing new technologies that can't benefit from the same infrastructure and economies of scale as the entrenched technologies they're competing against. It helps level the playing field,
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I'd be perfectly fine with that, had the incentives were coming from the Free Market. But they aren't — it is government-sponsored. We, the taxpayers, are financing this — and it is the major part of a typical installers' pitch.
So you would be in favor of removing government oil and gas subsidies then? I mean it's not as if Big Oil is never makes billions in profit ever. . . . oh wait.
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I for one would definitely support a free market with regulations as opposed to a quasi-free market with subsidies. Right now, we got a quasi-free market with barriers to entry. The worst of both from a consumer standpoint.
At least it's working for the capital owners and that's what's really important.
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You don't like incentives from the government? So, you want to demand that all tax breaks and such from the US government for OIL COMPANIES end?
Re:And the generated power is? (Score:4, Insightful)
the spectacular success we're celebrating is 3.9% of the total electricity
So... Most of us understand the Sun only shines during the day... With than in mind...
California peaked out at ~71% solar powered mid-day today. They literally curtail everything, even large Hydro, excepting only nukes for technical reasons, to accommodate their solar output. Spot prices routinely go negative. Today at one point CALISO was offering 35 cents to take a kWh. Not just free, actually paid 35 cents to use/consume/store.
Here in hydrocarbon heaven, with more proven reserves than Saudi Arabia.... Texas hit 14.8% solar grid load. And this was a bad day with lots of thunderstorms & cloud cover. A good day will see 35%+... And wind can hit 70%+ this time of year...
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How much of that came from large utilities vs. residential roof-top installations?
Because the utilities aren't many — hardly a few scores nation-wide — yet, we're invited to celebrate "5 million installations"...
Re:And the generated power is? (Score:4, Insightful)
How much of that came from large utilities vs. residential roof-top installations?
Because the utilities aren't many â" hardly a few scores nation-wide â" yet, we're invited to celebrate "5 million installations"...
And that's actually kind of my point... How many rooftop solar installs in Berkeley, California are getting paid to run Chevron's refinery next door in Richmond?
Where's the transparency on how the large commercial contracts are being written? My parents paid $20k to have solar, so they could run their A/C during the day in their 80's and be comfortable in their old age. Or did they pay that so Chevron could have free electricity to run their refinery when the sun is up?
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Your parents paid $20K for solar because it (hopefully) worked out for them financially and/or logistically in whatever considerations they made.
Not much reason to get upset if a choice you make that benefits you also happens to benefit someone you don't like. Especially in this case, since electricity is fungible and that Chevron plant is gonna use that power regardless of where it comes from, and the "free" electricity benefits the entire grid and not just your parents and that plant.
=Smidge=
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Electrical power, like money, is pretty fungible. It enters the grid in lots of places, and gets consumed in many more places. By and large, the grid is still an instantaneous balance between supply and demand: all the electricity need for a given moment must be balanced by ge
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I understand how the grid works. Been dabbling with solar panels since the 80's... And I used to work on large environmental projects in California.
And I'm sure Chevron isn't getting theirs for free.
There's the problem... There's a lack of transparency. You can claim they aren't, but I've not seen any proof. Accountability is not one of California's strengths. My worry is they're transferring wealth from the poor & middle class to large corporations while skimming off the top and juicing the greens to keep the ball rolling. California actually has
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> You can claim they aren't, but I've not seen any proof.
You also haven't seen any proof that they do. In fact it sounds like you have no reason to even suspect that's happening outside of general paranoia. What is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence, etc...
If you export to the grid as a residential customer, you SHOULD be getting compensation of some kind, usually in the form of net metering, so it's not "free." You're getting paid in credit towards future electricity usage.
But a
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What is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence, etc...
Ok... How about:
https://www.cpuc.ca.gov/indust... [ca.gov]
One interpretation of this is the proles have noticed all the middle class & rich homeowners without electric bills thanks to their taxpayer subsidized solar panels... Can't have the unwashed masses questioning their electric bills running 3x the national average. This is not paranoia. They are actively trying to figure out how to charge rates based on the income of the homeowner or renter.
That they're trying to adjust the system now, after all those p
Re:And the generated power is? (Score:4, Informative)
No worries, we've got an upcoming "connection fee" that's getting implemented next year. It helps anyone that uses a ton of grid energy and punishes anyone that is either solar or low energy use. I did the math and the break even point is about 350 KwHs. Anyone using less will see a bill increase and anyone using more will see a decrease.
I'm not very happy about it since I live in a small apartment alone and never use my AC or heater, so my usage averages around 150 KwH a month. The folks with a house, heated pool and pair of EVs will see a nice decrease.
Solar users will be hurt if they have a system that covers all their needs, which I imagine is the typical home solar user. I know my condo had a pinch more solar then I needed per day and I literally got paid $350 after that first year of solar ownership. SDGE was probably furious over that. Paying me to be on the grid. With a $24 connection fee, that's pretty much gone or drastically reduced. It's worse for people on the net netmetering 3.0 rules as well. They get paid a lot less per KwH then netmetering 2.0.
Thanks California! Way to encourage green energy. Thing is, they only like green energy if it makes their utility buddies rich. Fuck the taxpayer!
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> Ok... How about:
Sorry not seeing the "Therefore Chevron is getting free electricity" connection here. I mean it's literally only applicable to residential so I dunno what the relevance even is here.
I don't even know how you reach your "interpretation" - this only addresses energy affordability and doesn't factor in solar panels? In other words, if you have solar panels, it does not change your affordability ratio.
This is just a way to characterize housing affordability across the state, because they ne
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With our new netmetering rules as of April 2023, the breakeven point for solar is now nearly 15 years. It's atrocious but all the consumer solar was costing the utilities way to much money so we had to do something. That something was watering down the credit to a really low level. They are making it worse next year by adding a fixed cost, grid connection fee for everyone. This really hurts solar users the most but also hurts anyone that uses low levels of electricity. I'm not very happy about it since my b
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I guess basic economics suffices for me. Under what circumstances would the local utility let an enormous customer like Chevron get its electricity for free?
Re: And the generated power is? (Score:2)
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I think sequestration is a mistake... if you can't use the power elsewhere.
In a situation where you just can't to the point you're paying people to consume so your base load nuke plants can operate, THAT is power that should be used for sequestration projects instead.
Re:And the generated power is? (Score:5, Interesting)
I think sequestration is a mistake... if you can't use the power elsewhere.
In a situation where you just can't to the point you're paying people to consume so your base load nuke plants can operate, THAT is power that should be used for sequestration projects instead.
CALISO is way past that... They don't have anywhere to dump the power mid-day. They push as much of it as they can out of state, and store what they can in batteries, etc... The result... At night, 20%+ of California's electricity is imported hydro from out of state. See for yourself...
https://www.gridstatus.io/live... [gridstatus.io]
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Surely it is in their commercial interest to scale up storage pretty dramatically from where it is today?
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> The utilities make a margin from selling power and claiming their grid is crashing under loads that have not significantly increased over the past 20 years.
Okay, so there's a bit to unpack here.
What are "The utilities" in this sentence? In virtually all of the US, you have power producers and grid operators. They are separate entities.
Power producers are the ones who make money selling power.
The grid operators build and maintain the distribution network between power producers and consumers. They charg
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Deploying reason against a paranoid rant against 'the man'. It'll be interesting to see how that goes.
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But the utilities need to operate 24/7, albeit with lower loads overnight, and the costs of spinning reserves etc are real. The more storage they have, the lower their opex. And if they want to sell as much power as possible, then encouraging a shift to electrify everything (esp. transport, heating/cooling, cooking) is a great way to stoke demand -- there is much more scope for growth there than playing silly buggers with grid overloads.
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As a California energy user, the best time to use energy is the middle of the night. It's classified as super-off peak. It only cost me $0.47 KwH at that point. On peak cost me $.056 and that's between 4pm-9pm, you know, the part of the day when people get home from work and generally want to cool the house down and cook dinner.
There is ZERO incentive to use energy at peak solar and zero of the benefits of negative energy markets find their way to the consumer here in California. I imagine if you had your o
Re: And the generated power is? (Score:2)
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No worries, the utility commissioners are way ahead of you. They are busy making new netmetering rules that pay really poorly for sending KwHs to them and also implementing grid connection fees. They've essentially taken out any real incentive to get solar without a battery. Worse, even if you have a battery, it's illegal in most places to disconnect from the grid. At least in California. I'm not saying it's 100% state wide, but in MANY cities, it's illegal. In the cities it is legal, there is a very long l
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That's great, but why so little? (Score:5, Informative)
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For one, over 70% of Americans live in "snowy regions, which receive more than five inches (or 13 cm) average snowfall annually" [dot.gov]. In Australia, I believe, only the Tasmanians live in similar conditions.
That explains a large part of the discrepancy. The rest may be explained by Americans' greater reluctance to accept, whatever the government is pushing [pewresearch.org] — and, perhaps, greater concerns over dependence on China [theatlantic.com], .where much of the st [ucsusa.org]
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So what? Snow doesn't destroy solar panels. It just means that the payback time will be a little longer, before it's all free energy.
Another option is to mount the panels vertically so that snow doesn't settle on them. Works well in winter when the sun is low in the sky. The panels are so cheap now they still have decent payback times in that orientation.
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You realize panels lose efficiency every year, correct? Roughly 1%-1.5% a year in fact. So in 15 years, you'll have lost 15%-22.5% efficiency.
Most solar installations rely on favorable sell-back rates and utilities are working hard to curtail that sell-back rate due to the fact that there is now an abundance of solar.
When rates go negative, the utility still has to take your energy, and they hate that. Essentially, if you are going solar you better get a battery with it.
I love the idea of consumer solar. I
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The payback period is always going to be pretty long. It's a capex installation, after all, like putting in new windows or a new roof. It can be made shorter with an EV, induction cooker and heatpump, but it'll still be fairly long.
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New windows was by far the best thing I did on my previously owned condo. I immediately saw a 30% reduction on the electric bill. It was immediately quieter in my home and they looked nice. Hard to put a value on the second two options but 30% less energy usage adds up pretty fast to break even and window energy saving efficiency doesn't drop like solar panels do.
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(I live in Western WA state) for solar panels but I suspect no one has any.
I also live in western W.A., and about 40% of homes now have rooftop solar. It really helps with the peak air-conditioning load in summer.
https://www.synergy.net.au/Abo... [synergy.net.au]
I guess Americans must have dirt-cheap electricity from fracking? Here I pay about us$0.20 per kWhr. ( 1kWh = 3412 BTU for non-metric speakers)
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It's 120 a month right now. What's Con-ed/Met-ed...whoever going to charge tomorrow? Next week, Next Month, Next year?
Dollars to donuts that 120 is going to go up. A loan for Panels is a constant. Hedge it against the price inflation.
I'm paying 140 a month on my loan at the moment, with net metering and SRec paybacks, that drops it's down to around 120. It's a wash at the moment more or less, but I know Met Ed will raise prices as much as it's allowed. So in the next couple years I'll be in good sha
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Do you have a grid connection fee? Are you grandfathered into current sell-back rates? Your post is 100% on the money but if there is a mandatory connection fee, that can always go up and if they are allowed to alter your sell-back rates, that's also not in your favor. Likely you are grandfathered on sell back rates but new installations may not get the same incentive.
Also, your panels lose something like 1%-1.5% efficiency each year in operation. So in 15 years, you'll have lost 15%-22.5% of your panel eff
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You are an idiot.
Your dumb ass is calling someone an idiot? This ought to be good...
90% of Americans never see snow.
LOL! Where do you come up with this bullshit? As usual, you don't know what you're talking about. [visualcapitalist.com]
Don't you ever get tired of being wrong?
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(Per capita)
https://reneweconomy.com.au/au... [reneweconomy.com.au]
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Well the vast majority of America is not barren useless desert?
Solar efficiency increases with sun angle, and Australia lies between 10-40 degrees latitude, the U.S.is between 25 and 50.
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We need more energy storage for our renewable energy. The fact that peak solar results in a negative spot market is not helpful. Taxpayers aren't paid to use up extra solar. That means we've already got enough solar but not enough storage. So we need more energy storage so we can use it when the sun doesn't shine.
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Alternatively, we need more opportunistic uses of electricity. Well, we need both, that and storage, there is a lot more we can do on both fronts.
Even just things like smart thermostats which automatically drop a degree when energy is free would really help.
Meaningless metric, why not use GW? (Score:5, Informative)
Give it to American news to use meaningless metrics like "installations". A palm sized panel on the top of a mailbox is also an "installation", gee, 5M installations, what a great achievement!
A quick search showed that US added 32.4GW solar capacity in 2023. Is gigawatts too difficult for Americans to understand?
https://www.seia.org/news/sola... [seia.org]
But of course, if the GW numbers were reported, then anyone can do another quick search and found that 32.4 GW is a pittance compared to what the rest of the world did: "Global annual renewable capacity additions increased by almost 50% to nearly 510 gigawatts (GW) in 2023"
I.e. US installation only accounted for a pitiful 6.4% of the world's installation.
https://www.iea.org/reports/re... [iea.org]
Well, at least it is greater than zero, that counted for something, I suppose.
Re:Meaningless metric, why not use GW? (Score:5, Insightful)
A quick search showed that US added 32.4GW solar capacity in 2023. Is gigawatts too difficult for Americans to understand?
I'd like to know how that translates into energy produced. Capacity factor is a thing, and very important in evaluating how a given power generator contributes to the total electrical grid.
What was noted in the fine article was that rooftop solar won't save you from an outage of utility power, you will need a battery for that. I'd say the battery is far more important than the solar panels because, at least around here, outages tend to happen at night. So long as the battery keeps the refrigerator and furnace running until the power comes back, which often happens before dawn, the solar panels added nothing to being prepared for an electrical outage. I guess in places like California, where they like to cut power at nearly random times of day, having rooftop solar with the batteries might be helpful. But that gets back to "installations" versus some more useful metric like watts or watt-hours. I discovered in a power outage that I can keep my my home relatively comfortable with my 2000 watt generator, not that I'd like to live that way indefinitely but with that much power I'm at least safe for a while. Part of my energy demands are filled by natural gas, such as heating of my home and water, so perhaps not a fair metric by some accounts.
Knowing watts or watt-hours of solar power being produced might not be a sufficient metric of success either. If people moving to install solar panels on their roof turn to cooking and/or heating by fossil fuels because of an insufficient supply of electricity then that could be considered going backwards in lowering CO2 emissions, lowering air pollution, gaining independence from imported energy, or any of a number of goals that renewable energy is supposed to bring us.
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MacMann, nobody is going to install a nuclear reactor on their roof.
Which is why nobody really cares about capacity factor for rooftop solar. As long as it pays for itself reasonably quickly, it's a great use of otherwise unused space.
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The main difference between MacMann and you seems to be that MacMann is focused on the end goal of reducing CO2 emissions
If that troll were focused on CO2 emissions then he'd be pushing wind and solar, given that good faith lifecycle CO2 emissions studies show nuclear as worse than either, and only cradle to grave measurements matter given that the AGW problem will last longer than literally any kind of power plant we know how to build.
Instead, his goal is to promote nuclear, full stop. No clue why, I hope he's a paid shill because unpaid shills are only pathetic.
I think we should be focusing on putting solar panels over car
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MacMann is focused on convincing everyone that nuclear isn't just good, it's the only way to maintain civilization as we know it. As soon as any even tangentially related climate post goes up, he's there with his copy/paste BS about how renewables don't work and nuclear is the only thing that can save us.
We have explained to him many times that nuclear is unaffordable, most countries don't want it or aren't allowed to have it, and it takes too long to build anyway. He and his other accounts have been preach
Re:Meaningless metric, why not use GW? (Score:4, Interesting)
anyone can do another quick search and found that 32.4 GW is a pittance compared to what the rest of the world did: "Global annual renewable capacity additions increased by almost 50% to nearly 510 gigawatts (GW) in 2023"
I.e. US installation only accounted for a pitiful 6.4% of the world's installation.
You seem to have glossed over the fact that 510 GW represents all renewables, whereas 32.4 GW is just for solar, so you either...
1) Failed to include the US' other renewable additions (i.e. 32.4 GW is too low) while trying to compare total renewable additions in 2023, or else...
2) Failed to exclude the world's other renewable additions (i.e. 510 GW is too high; the IEA report suggests 374.9 GW is the solar number for 2023) when attempting to compare total solar additions in 2023
Either way, your math is wrong and incorrectly disfavors the US.
I also get the sense that you aren't keeping things in perspective by considering the context in which those percentages exist. Going back to the actual numbers, for instance, the EU added 56 GW of solar in 2023 [solarpowereurope.org]. I'd call that a respectable addition, yet it only accounts for 14.9% of new solar capacity in 2023 (56/374.9). Combine that with the US' 8.6% (32.4/374.9) and you still only get 23.6%. Why not more? Because both the EU and US are dwarfed by China, which "commissioned as much solar PV as the entire world did in 2022" according to the IEA report you linked.
The fact that China is doing so well is great, but it doesn't diminish the respectable gains being made elsewhere, including in the US. Your use of numbers fails to provide the necessary context to recognize and appreciate that.
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I don't think it's quite as meaningless as you suggest. It's not an indication of capacity added, it's an indication of where the US stands on the adoption curve. Sure, there will be some large farms and some weird tiny installs in there, but the bulk of that 5m is going to be residential and small business deployments. By comparison, there's about 2.5m EVs on US roads, but that includes PHEVs. So solar is further along the adoption curve, which I hadn't really expected.
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So roughly 3.9% of the world's population installed roughly 6.4% of the world's new PV in 2023? Yeah, what jerks.
Just in time for the Sun to get mad at us (Score:3)
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If a coronal mass ejection takes out solar installations, the loss of those will be meaningless compared to the rest of the damage, think a Crispy Creme doughnut left in the fryer on high overnight.
Recent changes in California are hurting rollout.. (Score:4, Informative)
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Yep, Fascism is alive and well in California. Mass murder machine PG&E is calling the shots here, not The People. Time for yet another version of California Uber Alles, whee.
TCO (Score:5, Informative)
>"its proven value as an investment for homeowners who wish to manage their energy costs more effectively"
That wasn't my conclusion when I analyzed it a few years ago. At least not the proposals I saw, which had the panels finally paying for themselves many, many years later, at a point they would be worn out and/or likely damaged or ruined by needing reroofing. At most, I would have likely expected a break-even at a time they would then need to be replaced. At worst, I could have lost my shirt. Are people also calculating the opportunity cost of that tied-up money that could have been compounding interest all those years? The cost of removing them when time to re-roof? The service costs when something breaks? (I did). Looked to me like the only ones coming out ahead would be the solar sellers/installers while their customers could bask in their self-virtue gamble.
Yes, could have been where I am located, or the electricity pricing here, or the exact panels proposed, or my calculations or assumptions. Who knows, I did the best I could. But it sure seemed like a mediocre course of action to take. I expected at the time that the economics of it would get significantly better. Maybe they have, but I don't think this quickly, it hasn't been that long.
If I had the money to possibly burn, and was in my last/"forever home", it would be far more attractive.... but only when coupled with energy storage (far more $), and mostly as just a hedge against disaster; creating my own energy-independence (along with a well and septic field). Alas, that dream has been fading.
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There is nowhere on Earth where solar panels would not pay for themselves before they would be worn out.
Typically they come with a 25 year warranty, but are likely to last well, well beyond that.
For somewhere in northern Europe you are looking at maybe 5 years for payback, after which it's all free energy, money off your bill. The further south you get, the sooner you start to profit. That makes them a great investment because the return is both large and guaranteed (literally, by the warranty on the panels
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For somewhere in northern Europe you are looking at maybe 5 years for payback, after which it's all free energy, money off your bill. The further south you get, the sooner you start to profit. That makes them a great investment because the return is both large and guaranteed (literally, by the warranty on the panels).
I guess that is true if you include significant subsidies to cover the upfront cost. However, in Northern Europe, the amount of subsidies often depends on income. Therefore, most wealthy individuals receive little to no government assistance for installing rooftop panels nowadays, which makes the payback time around 20 years. This assumes that you can still sell excess electricity to the grid and be compensated for it, even if there is no demand. However, this situation is changing, as utilities are realizi
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This is a good tool for calculating your payback time: https://re.jrc.ec.europa.eu/pv... [europa.eu]
To pick a random example, say you had a modest 5kW system, typical cost installed around £6,000. Let's use Birmingham as an example, since that's right in the middle of England. The majority of the population lives south of there, but it's reasonable.
According to that site, average expected generation over a year would be 4721.22kWh. Average electricity price in the UK is £0.24-0.25, so you would
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Idiot very much?
You could read up the laws ... then you would know how it works.
This assumes that you can still sell excess electricity to the grid and be compensated for it, even if there is no demand. However, this situation is changing, as utilities are realizing it makes no sense to buy electricity from you if they then have to pay people to consume it because of oversupply.
Utilities gave no say in that matter. The law defines who has to pay what in what circumstances.''
in Northern Europe, the amount of
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I live in Svalbard with a north-facing roof, you insensitive clod!
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Interesting that this was modded troll, when it's factually correct. There is literally nowhere on Earth, unless you happen to may live right next to a huge cliff or something, where solar will take more than the warranty period of any half decent panels to pay back.
Does this knowledge really upset people so much?
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My experience was entirely negative, so much so that I have not purchased solar for my house... The three solar companies that came to my door had such inflated prices that it would take 20 years or more (their calculation) to pay it back. But I realize that these are predatory companies and don't list my expe
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Yeah I wouldn't recommend buying anything on the doorstep.
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I guess the take away is to check the numbers yourself. I live in NJ and my panels payed for themselves in under four years. Not an ideal climate, but I was significantly helped by NJ allowing the sale of solar green energy credits. Without the sol
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>"Did you also consider potentially increasing prices for electricity over those years? Inflation etc. It's not easy."
I tried to. But that is difficult to estimate. The solar proposals threw in a large increase, one of many assumptions they used to "prove" the validity of what they were selling. I was skeptical it would be as great as what they believe. But, who knows? Tweak assumptions here or there, and it becomes positive or negative. In my case, seemed to usually be negative.
Inflation- well, th
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So you ultimately decided...to do nothing?
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Well, the reaction to COVID-19 made it pretty much impractical/impossible to do anything. And after, there have been a lot of issues. So I do hope to revisit this. But yeah, nothing done.
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Honestly, it's kind of a sales tactic/gimmick to insist people need to consider the "potentially increasing prices of electricity over time" when trying to figure out the value of investing in solar panels. Obviously, rates will increase over time because they pretty much have to track the rate of inflation. Power is generated using many items that cost the power company an increasing amount with inflation, so they're going to pass it on to consumers.
But there's no way to predict just how much the power cos
Hmmmm.... (Score:4, Funny)
The residential sector represents 97% of all U.S. solar installations.
So, a bit like the backyard pig iron production in Mao's China.
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That was the point, buddy.
In Mao's China, pig iron production capacity was increased by building hundreds of backyard foundries, which, sadly, weren't capable of producing anything useful.
So, on the face of it, capacity for metal production expanded enormously, while in fact production of usable metal products dropped, as infrastructure was cannibalized.
To add insult to injury, the expansion of the backyard foundries impacted negatively on the agriculture, contributing to the Great Leap Forward famines.
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I killed 4M people single-handedly? Wow, I must have been very busy in my sleep. You sure you're okay? Do you need me to get help?
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Meanwhile in Australia - 3.7 million+ (Score:2)
Try harder (Score:4, Interesting)
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MAGA did not work last time.
But kudos that you try!!!
The US of awesomeness.
A third world country with a first world navy.
And a voting system that is not even marginally better than China's ...
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I would too...but for some reason in the US, there are enough voices out there shouting that "ID's for voting are racist"....and they try to block what should be a common sense thing.
All this w/overpriced panels! (Score:2)
It's pretty frustrating to me that on one hand, America has government leadership constantly hawking the need for "cleaner, greener energy" and handing out tax credits for putting in solar. But on the other hand? We have a policy of blocking the import of solar panels from China. We're stuck paying far more per panel, while the rest of the world develops its solar power at much more attractive prices using the Chinese panels.
I had solar installed at my old house, roughly 10 years ago. Went with Canadian-mad
Can't wait to see the next 5 years of progress (Score:2)
Considering that many states have a PUC (public utility commission) that are actively doing their best to discourage consumer solar, it will be interesting to see the stats on consumer solar versus solar farms. I'm going to guess that we see a major drop off on the consumer side while the industry solar farms continue to grow. This drop off has already happened in California with numerous solar companies going out of business because of lack of demand when they changed netmetering rules last April.
Next year
Who doesn't have solar? (Score:2)