The Problem With Rooftop Solar That Nobody Is Talking About

Plug ins are much better than average carbon emission of the fleet. That is in the 25 to 28 MPG equivalent range. In the worse states, plug ins are around 38mpgeq. New cars bought under the cash for clunkers law, which benefited hybrids, only needed a combined of 22mpg to qualify.

The law was written in 2008 or 2009. The first cars to qualify became available in 2010. The first 52mpg combined hybrid just arrived in 2016. Why would our esteemed law making body even think a 52mpg car was possible? If they did include hybrid credits, the target MPG would be low enough to include the eAssist Malibu.

Besides, the law isn't just about emissions, and the congress critters didn't want to be seen giving another hand out Japanese car companies after the hybrid tax deduction, the hybrid tax credit, and the cash for clunkers laws.

But it is technology specific, and it was chosen to be that way for a reason. The traction battery is the biggest cost in a plug in. It isn't a cheap accessory on hybrids either. The EPA didn't even have a method for testing and reporting plug in efficiency when the law was written, so basing the incentive off some efficiency rating wasn't really possible.

If you don't want it tachnology specific, then it should be open to straight ICE cars. The Mirage has a combined rating of 40mpg, how much of a credit should this $13k car get. What about the proposed Elio, a 'car' with a combined mpg over 60 and costing under $10K?

H2FCEVs have gotten their $8000 incentive reinstated.

Hybrids are already established. The past incentives helped when the technology was an unknown to the public, but they didn't help drop their costs, or expand the selection of models. Yes the incentives will help sell more, but those sales will go away when the incentive does. It is cheap gas, and the public's short memory hurting them now. Not incentives for plug ins.

And I have pointed this out many times before, the law that includes the plug in incentive includes programs to help clean up the grid. No hybrid incentive made an attempt in cleaning up fuel production, which will get more carbon intensive as time goes on.

How is it a diversion to point out that you did exactly what these lease companies are doing? You sold the RECs to pay off the loans for your panels. The solar lease company is selling them for the same reason, and to pass those proceeds on to the home owner with lower electric rates.

Stressing that the Prius c gets 53mpg to a buyer that drives mostly highway miles is also deceptive marketing. Unless these solar leasing companies can actually charged with fraud, their actions are no different than any other industry trying to sell something. The quoted solar buyer in the OP decided to go ahead and sign with the leasing company despite their misleading marketing.

And how is it a bad thing? Don't we want more renewable energy sources to be built in the areas with dirty grids? RECs, if there is a market for them in the state, make the installation of home PV more feasible. Without them, PV may not get installed at all.

Colorado might be more about air quality within their metro areas like Denver than total carbon emissions. A plug in can move most to all of the in city emissions to the plant outside and away from the city. The hybrid is still emitting all its pollutants within the city.

If they make enough RECs to cover their night time use, they are legally carbon free.

 

Logically too.
Rather than hyperventilating over every second of power use and where it comes from, look at the big picture.

If, over a year, a car/house/product causes no additional CO2 emissions, it is net zero.
Sure, solar panels don't work at night, but if they are producing as much excess power during the day/summer as is used at night/winter that "system" is net zero.
In other words, saying my car produces no CO2 is valid IF as much renewable energy is created by the user (or paid for by the user) as the car uses over time.

And then you have the more general advantages to the grid/society as a whole.

Saying otherwise misses the whole point.

 

No attempt of diversion, and you made it into a you versus a california plug-in owner that leased solar for less because he allowed the company (solar city) to sell the credits to lower the price.

You claimed, as you do all the time that that user will now need to fill up on the national grid. I'm not sure how they do that, since there are regional ones, broken up, with difficulty transmitting power between them. While you claimed you are doing right selling yours, because it pays for the solar and your regional grid is clean.

Again why do you get to charge on your regional grid, while you claim everyone else needs to import electricity from heavy coal states like indiana or west virginia. It makes no sense as a claim and is hypocritical.

Read the comments on that opinion piece. Its not a news article. They rightfully point out that anyone that asks knows they get a cheaper rate if they sell the recs. Yes if you don't ask, and you don't read, then a telemarketer often doesn't represent things right. I know my mom was scammed by comcast, then I had to spend 30 minutes to get her bill to what it should be. Solar city is a lot more up front than comcast or time warner. They simply don't mention the recs, and as mentioned on the comments, most people don't care as long as their bills are lower.

If you care don't sell your SRECs. If you do, you should know what you are doing.

OK now I am really not understanding you. The guy was complaining about it in california, where solar city makes most of its srec income. The other state in the article I posted talking about the same thing was massachucetts. The thing is if you have the money, and the time, and the credit rating, and are willing to take the risk, you can install them for less money yourself, get a loan and sell the recs. If you can't get the loan, or are worried about moving, solar city lets you do what individuals like USBseawolf2000 is claiming is good, and lower your monthly payments.

Solar city also cuts the price of solar because of their size, making these state mandates that require utilities build solar or buy srecs. That means these utilitites don't profit as much, but they also can't over charge the non-solar customers as much.

Well if that were true can you point to an article saying that. It sounds completely made up. The opinion piece was about if you use solar city in California you will lower your utility rates if you let them sell your recs, but you won't build more solar than the state mandate.

Claiming selling a plug-in in a non carb state is just fearmongering, as if plug-ins would not just be placed randomly across the country, but people would build more coal plants to fuel them. Instead Plug-ins are sold mainly in states that produce less ghg than the average, with the average plug-in producing about the ghg as a
EV Emissions Tool | Union of Concerned Scientists Plug-in Hybrid
56 mpge
versus a volt which gulp in colorado will produce a crazy high amount of carbon dioxide the same as a 38 mpge car. Of course UCS points out the average car in the country is only 29 mpg.
EV Emissions Tool | Union of Concerned Scientists

Imagine if that customer in denver buys wind and keeps the recs, which is easy there. They would produce much less ghg than your prius in New Jersey. Why would it be bad to let them choose. We let the average customer choose to buy tacomas and venzas and even land cruisers that produce a lot more ghg.

The carb states are the biggest problem of selling of SRECs. There isn't much of that with non carb states. Solar rooftop is under 1% of electric production in 49 states. The price is simply highest in carb states.

Solar recs are sold in my state, but very little solar is being built. Lots of wind is built that is greatly reducing coal, and has built more wind and solar in Texas in absolute terms and percentage of use than built in California. California is much higher than New York or NJ in percentage or absolute terms.

You will note here are incentives.
Solar Energy | Top 10 Solar Friendly States - Solar Energy

If your only goal is low ghg in 2016 maybe, but if you want lower ghg in 2025, that is rediculous. Why make it a fight. The clean power plan and choice probably will make those plug-ins in colarodo much lower in ghg, plus not many people are going to want a malibu. So you are saying lets have them buy a whatever 29 mpg car, because you simply want to spread FUD.

Of course, and green choice in texas means the utility lowers the ghg to 0 for that customer, it is different in different places.

 

Trying to go zero carbon for energy while skipping over the use of grid tied renewables is like trying to get the public into BEVs and H2FCEVs without hybrids and PHEVs. Achievement of the end goal will be slow or halted, because momentum wasn't able to be built to support it. Taking the stairs is easier than climbing a ladder.

 

Net zero is a little bit more complicated than that. If your renewable excess energy, reduces the same amount of or more fossil fuel burn in terms of carbon dioxide equivelant emissions, as the fossil burn when you are using more than you produce then you are net 0. Timing doesn't matter other than efficiency on the local grid of fossil burn.

If you then sell your renewable energy credits to the utility or someone else, you are no longer net zero, your emissions are that of the entity you sold the credits to use. That is what solar city does in many case of the credits it installs for you to lower the price, and what usbseawolf2000 are planning to do. You probably are lowing the cost to the utility because you are using your land, but you are not net zero, or even reducing versus just using the utilities power. You gain in lower electricity bills. If you hadn't installed solar the utility would have had to built it somewhere else, and that would probably mean higher bills for you.

Solar city is working in the california system. They require the utilities to build or buy a lot of solar. Solar city uses this with state and federal incentives to build on your house for cheaper than the utility would, so your bill is lower, but the same amount of solar is built. If people build more than the state requires the value of the srecs drop toward nothing, and we are great. I don't think doing solar city in california and selling your recs is alteristic, but it does lower the price and helps the state meet its goals. Other states like texas do more of a choice program for wind, and there buying wind actually builds more wind than the state requires, but the clean power plan may change this, and texas with a new record of 45% of power during a windy hour in december is at a point where that may no longer help. Austin requires 3% of power to be Solar, not just renewable which makes teh utility pay custeomers more to build solar on their roofs, two quite different programs.

 

Keyword above is CA mandate is what makes Solar City work there. The EPA Clean Power Plan does not force utilities to get into consumer roof-top solar (as it is more expensive), nor off-shore wind. There is pressure for utility scale solar and on-shore wind in the Clean Power Plan.

The other issue it touches on are the state self-imposed renewable mandates thru the RPS standards. I have trouble seeing where the state RPS standards make sense to me, now that we have the Clean Power Plan. But if my state was committing x% renewables, I'd like that to mean in-state renewables, not thru intangible purchases of credits.

 

Yes, clean power plan does not increase roof top solar. Local and state policies are what do that.

The policies in many states support solar cities business model
SolarCity Locations by State - Solar by State | SolarCity
Note none of these are the claimed "dirty states" where the claim is that this is ruining america. IN most if not all of those states there are state or local portfolio standards and net metering to help reduce the cost of solar leasing.

Clean power plan allows cross state purchases. California renewable standards encourage building in neighboring states and mexico. ERCOT (texas) is a mostly closed regional grid and all regulations require renewables within the grid, but for example austin require's a certain percentage of solar which would not be built with just the clean power plan. ERCOT thinks the clean power plan will build more wind and natural gas and retire coal faster than it would without it, but a lot of solar 14 GW will probably be built with or without clean power plan. ERCOT dropped coal from 39% in 2010 to 29% in 2015 from internal regulations contained completely in texas. Higher priced natural gas could reverse this though if federal regulations did not exist.

 

The Volt is a cubic foot shy of midsize. The Model S is a large car. The Leaf, Fusion Energi, and C-Max Energi are all midsize. The Focus EV is a compact. The i3 and iMiEV are sub-compacts. The Model X is a standard SUV. It appears that the nationally available plug ins cover a representative range of car sizes, outside of pick ups, that are sold in the US.

What does range have to do with it? If the BEV range isn't enough to meet most of the person's needs, they won't consider buying it in the first place, and the Energi's have a combined gas mpg of 38.

And when it was a 45mpg car or less, it got several incentives. Some of which weren't tied to fuel economy or emission levels, just that it was an alternate fuel car or hybrid.

If reducing carbon emissions should be the primary goal, and 38mpgeq is the worst grid for plug ins, why shouldn't we also give a credit to the sale of ICE cars with a combined mpg of 38 or greater?

And if these companies are using misleading tactics, they should be punished for it if properly prosecuted, but misleading advertising isn't new or limited to the renewable energy field. For those in which keeping the RECs for themselves is important, they will likely find out about them before signing. For the rest, they will get lower rates while still adding more solar to the grid.

Worse case, someone can't claim their home is green powered, but green power was made, and it went to somebody.

 

We all know the story of hybrid subsidies in the US. DOE thought they were ineffective. They attempted to learn from the MITI ones that were effective in creating plug-in incentives. I'm sure you have your own idea on why the hybrid subsidies in the US didn't work, but with 384,000 hybrids sold last year, any hybrid incentive with the possibility of really working will be very expensive (@$1500/vehicle for 4 years we will give away $2.3B just on those that would be sold anyway, if it doubles then its $4.6B, and then ... its unlikely the numbers stay without more incentives. The technology was fully developed in 2007 when toyota/lexus incentives ended)
Hybrid Car Tax Credits: Incentives Fade into Memory

I have no idea why range would be part of incentives, but CARB gives 1 bonus credit to tesla for longer range, and removes 3 credits from phevs other than the i3 for having gas tanks with capacities larger in miles than their batteries. A tesla really is replacing a large sports sedan that gets around 25 mpg (lexus LSh gets 20mpg)If range is an issue phevs should be favored.

volume volume volume. Its not about ghg reduction alone, its about technology cost reductions too. Selling plug-ins in higher ghg states encourages cost reduction more than restricting them to low ghg states, and it fuels ghg concerned drivers to add renewables.

Solar city has been accused of using misleading tactics, but really the selling of srecs is pretty well spelled out. We have a billionaire hedge fund guy betting against it, and many utilities giving misleading statements, because solar city hurts their bottom lines. In california I would trust solar city over PG&E or SCE. Yes they all should be regulated to fully disclose. SCE really commited some fraud in the "maintenance" of san onofre, and the CPUC let them charge most of the costs to customers. Do you trust them more without competition from solar city?

 

That should really be the main point. Each of the individual entities know what side of the bread there butter is on.
.

 

Yep. The dirty secret mother jones uncovered is that gasp. solar city is in business to make money, and not lose a lot of money when they build solar on a roof. The other dirty secret, is gasp, state of California solar incentives are targeted to help the rich and the big utilities - pg&e and sce. I say rich because to take full advantage you need to own a home, have good credit or cash to buy the panels outright or at a low interest rate, expect to keep a job and stay in that house long enough to pay off the panels.

Solar city and other leasing companies are taking the risk of customers moving, and providing a lower cost than the large utilities. For that they are selling the srecs that they own, and using it to lower costs to their customers. Its not magic. Solar without the incentives cost a lot more than wind or natural gas, but with the incentives it is cheaper than the utilties charge. If someone has the money they are better off installing it themselves (with a good contractor) and selling the credits if they can, or keeping them, I mean if they want more solar built than the state is demanding.

Is this a dirty secret? Of course not its well known. As convoluted as the california system is it is building solar faster than anywhere else in the US. Nevada which has great solar potential recently changed its regulations, and solar city is leaving that state.
SolarCity says it will stop selling solar in Nevada. Here's why - Fortune

Where does mother jones think more solar will be installed? In states without solar city (the largest installer in the US) or where big utilities control the regulations to make it unprofitable for them? Follow the money and the installations.

 

With the failure of California utilities to keep their grid growing in proportion to the amount of developers putting up more tilt up businesses and commercial builders doing more residences, Solar is necessary. Even so, we'll continue to have articles written on the "atrocities" of business people making money. What is a hand ringer to do.

 

Precisely, but if your reason to support hybrids for incentives is GHG, there is no logical reason to not also support them for high MPG ICE vehicles. Except for the cost, and that the incentive won't speed up the development and cost reduction of these high MPG ICEs any more than what higher CAFE targets or higher fuel prices will. Which also applies to hybrids.

The other thread on the topic links an article about the Vermont DA issuing a general warning to solar lease companies and co-ops about being misleading on RECs. Another company seemed to be the main culprit, but more transparency is good for the consumers of all.

 

Congress gives tax credits (eg; ethanol etc) for the purpose of stimulating job creation. All the other reasons we argue about (national security, GHG reduction, etc) are political justifications that Americans like to talk about to divert attention from the real justification (favoring a special interest of one sort or another).

 

Sure, but lets not change history. The hybrid incentives were put there to cut oil usage not ghg. Like I said lots of people have written on why they didn't work, and were mostly a waste of money. The biggest was they were late, so there was not time to engineer new hybrids, so they went to companies already producing or in R&D (toyota, honda, ford), but didn't increase R&D. Second was the number was low 60,000 probably to help gm and chyrsler have time to get them, but this meant Toyota who had big market share, simply charged more and pocked the money, as they ran out in 2007 with or without incentives.

Much has been written about cafe standards with low gas prices being expensive to the economy versus high gas prices. The US is now in a low gas price environment, which means cafe likely will lower fleet economy less than expensive as people move into larger vehicles (cute utes and trucks) that have lower cafe standards. This could be fixed with an oil tax (forbes often has opinion pieces with this), or removing the size component to cafe. Again this has nothing to do with solar incentives in california.

Now the plug-in incentive was designed with some of the failures of the hybrid incentives in mind, but of course it was crafted to favor two big corporations (toyota and gm) and had limitations. Still its much better, and has pushed down the cost of technology already. It is inefficient as designed. A cap of 200,000 vehicles per manufacturer seems fine, but a cap of 750,000 vehicles total would be better instead of no total cap, and that would put a max price of the program to $5.5B over probably the period 2011-2019 or about $611M/year not too expensive compared to other investments to reduce oil use, and much lower than tax credits for oil companies. They should have probably taken the money and given it to the car companies as tax credits instead of making consumers file, which is more in line with what miti did sucessfully with hybrids.

Now back on topic solar 30% federal incentives, plus state incentives often acheivable by selling recs to utilities.

Transparency is good, no fault in that. What I object to is the pretend upset at these things. The states and regions set up this srec system intending that they be sold to help individuals pay for the solar that utilities are not building. Its the way the system is intended to work, and baked into the srec system. When people pretend they are upset that people are actually using the system as intended, well I think Wth.

Mother Jones should have included some information on this instead of putting out a hit piece. This is what the people in sacramento intended when they set up the srec system. PG&E and SCE would love to have individuals put up less solar so that they could build more and charge more for it, but with the competing srecs they can't.

Yes one reason in california is jobs.
In U.S., there are twice as many solar workers as coal miners - Fortune

Also remember these are construction jobs. You do it once and then they don't need you for 30 years. Still with so little solar job growth can continue. Let's not be silly though, the same people trumpeting these solar jobs were poo pooing the jobs that were similar on keystone pipeline.

 

bail out of solar? No there has not been a bail out for solar or for wind.

bail out for ethanol? No, but corporate welfare there. Presidents go to iowa first, and you can see the politics, although if cruz wins the iowa primary after standing up to the ethanol lobby there, it will lose a lot of power.

Bail out of GM? Yep that had a lot to do with jobs, and nothing to do with plug-ins or renewable energy. The volt probably did raise market value of gm versus not having it so the bailout cost less, but UAW and auto lobbies wanted it, not green concerns.