Isn’t GP effectively saying $/W? I assume that’s how most people evaluate price… “I want to install a system that will pay itself back in the smallest amount of time while staying below my max budget.”
I guess be careful how you use prosumer in this kind of thread, since it often might refer to a producer-consumer (ie someone who can get paid $$ to export energy back into the grid, as opposed to just saving $$ from avoided grid import).
I assume you meant professional consumer.
> See for example triple pane vs single pane windows.
Bad example but I understand your point. Bad example because it takes significantly more expertise to model the savings from triple paned window with low-e coating and vacuum sealing vs double paned vs single paned (ie it requires a proper building energy model in eg EnergyPlus). Also bad because the triple paned window might be immediately disqualified by the budget constraint above. In any case, I think you are just saying people are likely to pick the thing which has the least friction, whether that friction comes from cost, installation challenges, etc etc.
And yes, sometimes upfront cost is the most significant thing which affects people’s willingness to adopt a certain home energy retrofit but payback period does play a big role in people’s decision making, as well as their ability to get funding for it (government rebates), or they may simply be going with an installer who pays them to install it and they certainly care about payback period!
> Bad example because it takes significantly more expertise to model the savings from triple paned window with low-e coating and vacuum sealing vs double paned vs single paned (ie it requires a proper building energy model in eg EnergyPlus). Also bad because the triple paned window might be immediately disqualified by the budget constraint above.
I'm confused by this as that is exactly the point made. :)
I was watching a NASA iTech talk if memory serves about vacuum windows. He opened with an overview of the market and adoption trends and was quite flustered. Small market, little in the way of R&D and many challenges in manufacturing them in the US.
One of the things that flustered him is being told by sales reps that those types of windows are "pointless and not worth it" and so on. Digging deeper the reason he was steered away from them is simply because they were up not as lucrative to sell in that moment at time for that provider. I can try and dig that up if you want as I recall this anecdote vividly and my thinking diverged from yours in that moment.
Turns out most people have no idea what any of it means you see? So indeed friction, perverse incentives, financing, lack of consumer education and so on. Some terribly sad amount of people still opt for single pane instead of double which shouldn't make any kind of sense.
Remember also that people often move houses. Anyway the upfront cost ended up dominating rather than the payback period. Folks aren't that rational or liquid.
Out of curiosity try modeling it out and pitching it as a choice if you know anybody looking;
Chinese panels <20% efficiency, cost X, payback period Y vs Unobtanium panels 25% efficient, Cost X+, Y++.
But don't try to steer them or mention the payback period unless asked. It isn't as straightforward as we would hope.
> I'm confused by this as that is exactly the point made. :)
Sorry, I was trying to indicate that it is significantly simpler for a random uninterested or mildly-interested consumer to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of solar than it is windows. Most people have a good sense of how much their energy bill costs, and there are plenty of cheap and free tools which let you accurately estimate how much energy you will save from a PV system, but even basic mental math is enough. As opposed to windows, which are significantly more complicated because they involve thermodynamic modeling of your home.
You should read recent work by Zachary Berzolla, who is now working in Maryland’s department of energy on their commercial buildings decarbonization program. His MIT PhD dissertation is specifically about willigness-to-pay for home energy retrofits (but especially heat pumps). Not sure if it has been posted to DSpace yet but I believe some various conference/journal papers are online already.
Unfortunately, I think a lot of people don’t really know how much their power costs. They just pay the bill they are sent, maybe even on autopay and they don’t even look at the statements when they come in.
So, they don’t know how much their power costs, and they don’t have a clue how much solar would cost to buy, install, run, etc… and how that compares to the payback period over time, etc….
These are the people that I think we need to reach.
> They just pay the bill they are sent, maybe even on autopay and they don’t even look at the statements when they come in.
On the other hand there are a significant number of people who are energy-burdened, and they often have the most inefficient homes (leaky or non-existent sealing, little insulation, old appliances, etc). These homes often have the least ability to take advantage of government rebates since they may only be tax rebates while the retrofit still requires up the upfront cost to be paid. At the same time, high-income homes, though often much more efficient, also often use the most energy (since floor area tends to grow with home owner income, and space conditioning/electric requirements tend to grow with floor area). It’s easy to design incentive programs which have a big carbon impact but a bad equity impact in that they just end up giving money to people who would already be upgrading their homes without the rebates.
The person who knows just how much money they are spending on their bill every month will likely value the savings much more (ie the utility value of the savings are much higher), but they may also have far less awareness of the kinds of programs available to them for retrofitting their home or installing PV.
It’s a complicated problem, figuring out who to reach and how to drive adoption while balancing decarbonization and equity!
