Yeah you can purchase solar/wind from your utility provider usually at a huge premium, that combined with usually less efficient power infrastructure, single rate meters, and apartments which tend to be less energy efficient than private houses means that you either need to be quite well off or very dedicated to pay it.
Yes renewables should be installed where feasible, but actually feasible not feasible because it's cool, good PR, or under the current tax credits efficient. Small installations are costly, you spend quite a bit of energy in installing individual setups, and maintaining them in terms of efficiency you are better off centralizing your efforts if you really care about the environmental foot print.
> Yeah you can purchase solar/wind from your utility provider usually at a huge premium, that combined with usually less efficient power infrastructure, single rate meters, and apartments which tend to be less energy efficient than private houses means that you either need to be quite well off or very dedicated to pay it.
It's only about 2-4 cents more per kwh to get 100% renewables. I don't find that to be a "huge premium", nor do you need to be "well to do" to afford that. If we properly priced the cost of coal and other dirty fuels into their per kwh costs, renewables would win by default.
> Yes renewables should be installed where feasible, but actually feasible not feasible because it's cool, good PR, or under the current tax credits efficient. Small installations are costly, you spend quite a bit of energy in installing individual setups, and maintaining them in terms of efficiency you are better off centralizing your efforts if you really care about the environmental foot print.
We'll agree to disagree! I'm not worried, as tax credits will be around for another 14-15 months, at which point solar and wind will be even cheaper than they are now.
Not everyone lives in the states, if I use a "green only" supplier where I live in the UK I pay 25-30% more and that's without counting the night rate loss.
For me that almost doubles the electrical bill, that's a huge premium I can pay but i rather not spend another 800 GBP on a "green supplier".
Not to mention that it's not like I would get my energy from a renewable source, I get it from the grid, yes the green energy company will get some of that money but It's not that straight forward.
Especially considering that those "green providers" are allowed to buy electricity from other suppliers while technically remaining 100% green, most of them are running at a "power deficit" and cannot cover the energy that they should be putting into the system with their current production.
I think they were referring to the fact if you pay for your own solar system you can generate electricity for $0.06/kWh over the life of your panels. Where your electric company wants to be the ones to buy the panels for themselves and charge you $0.17-$0.32/kWh - a huge profit for them.
That's why you see utilities in California pushing for 50% renewable energy source requirements while at the same time fighting to end net metering for consumers. They are fighting to protect their own profits in the face of cheap solar panel availability.
That's over the life time of the panels, which for most installation is quoted at 25 years.
The 0.06$ figure only works if you actually keep them for the 25 years, most people do not live in a single home for 25 years these days.
The figured also does not include potential maintenance that needs to be conducted on the system, as well as part replacements for most installations I've seen only the panels were insured for 25 years and again only against an internal catastrophic failure, which usually only kicks in after 50% drop in efficiency.
Other parts like the inverter, wiring, mounting frame, regulator bank, power storage might very well fail within those 25 years, and most importantly 25 years is more than the life time of most composite roof tiles these days, depending on the environment you live and your roofing in you might need to do roof maintenance every 5-10 years and usually replace the roof every 20-30 years.
And this is without taking into effect environmental affects on the system like salts in the air if you live on the coast line, hail and frost damage, and the potential very likely obsolescence of the panels them selves.
I'm a huge supporter of solar, but I'm not a supporter of residential solar, not at this time for sure, if the panels become very cheap to make to the point of becoming carbon neutral and breaking even say within a year (heck i would even take 2-3) sure, but even then it's still most likely be much more efficient and so environmentally sound to have them in a central location where hybrid PV and Thermal solar panels can maximize the amount of energy gained per surface area while providing a system which is easier to maintain and upgrade.
Actually 25 years is a pretty good match between roof and panel lifetimes.
It doesn't matter who lives in the house, or for how long, for payback costs. Solar panels are no different from the rest of the roof in that department. When you sell the house, its value is estimated from the age of the fixtures, and that all comes out in the price.
But I'm with you on the central-solar issue. Its got to be vastly more efficient to create a planned installation, than to slap solar on every roof in the neighborhood.
Yes renewables should be installed where feasible, but actually feasible not feasible because it's cool, good PR, or under the current tax credits efficient. Small installations are costly, you spend quite a bit of energy in installing individual setups, and maintaining them in terms of efficiency you are better off centralizing your efforts if you really care about the environmental foot print.