I was watching the repeats of the Weston project in This Old House. They installed 18 PV panels and I think they were of the 200-220 Watt variety. The installed system price was $27K, but the end cost to the consumer was $17K because the state of Massachusetts has a nice rebate program.
Where I live this would never happen. The politicians are in cahoots with the energy barons (and the state construction barons, and everything else) and would never do anything that could remotely help the end user.
How about your state?
Replies
That's the way I like it. I don't like the government subsidizing cost innefective products. The price of solar will remain high until subsidies are eliminated.
Up here in the frozen north there a federal and provincial rebates but I don't know all the details.
Heck there talking about building a nuclear reactor. now that is a subsidized welfare industry if there was one. Look at the Chalk River reactor in Ontario, it makes medical isotopes and supplies alot of the world, it is on its second shutdown in a couple years. So hope you don't need any cancer testing in the near future.
Most decisions are still the one big glossy project, instead of lots of smaller ones. To bad the goverments that start the projects, aren't around by the time they are finished
And then what ... the cost goes even higher when subsidies are eliminated??
We subsidize oil ... how rediculous in this day and age. Why not solar? I'm not a huge fan of e.g. PV, but it's a stretch better than oil and I think it deserves more than it's fair share of subsidies.
There would be more competition If the subsidies were eliminated, leading to lower prices.
They just want to take our money and give it away, under the guise of being "green"!!!
"Why not solar?"
Why should I or any other tax payer have to pay for your solar system? If the power company wants to subsidize it I'd say "fine" but of course they don't actually care anything about solar except for the publicity. Your solar doesn't lower my electric bill, in fact it probably raises it since the power company still has to make line power available to you even though you're not using it.
If solar is such a great idea and will save so much money why not pay for it yourself? But nobody does that, just like the owners of the Weston house didn't install solar hot water because there were no subsidies available.
You shouldn't necessarily pay for my solar system through e.g. tax credits. No more than I should pay for your gasoline through 'hidden' subsidies associated with the oil industry that may include e.g. direct dollar benefits to oil industry and/or huge expenditures of money in defense spending that has been with a primary interest of protecting/securing oil interests in the middle east ... under the guise of 'democracy', freedom, etc. That is part of the reason Americans enjoy cheap gas prices (unheard of throughout Europe).
There is a time and place for just about everything. At one point oil benefits (i.e. subsidies) were considered important. Now it has become obvious that our oil addictiion needs to be altered with ... alternatives. Why shouldn't other fledgling industries enjoy some tax benefits to get them kick started?
Personally, I think PV power should be last on our list of solutions to our energy problems ... behind first: conservation (e.g. insulation, load reduction) and second: efficient technology (e.g. light bulbs and HVAC efficiencies). Conservation, efficiency, and then alternative generation/sources. You can't really promote conservation if you send a message that PV is 'the' answer to the energy crisis. Conservation offers the best bang for the buck by far, yet it seems like we often jump on the bandwagon of PV being the answer to our woes.
But even behind PV, I think that conventional energy generation sources (e.g. oil and power plants) should be placed even further down the priority list.
Much like oil subsidies promoted 'good' (?) things in that industry, I think other subsidies (even PV) will promote good things to happen in the energy alternatives industry.
PV helps the utility minimize peak loads at precisely the time the peak loads occur ... mid/late afternoon on hot summer sunny days. You can pretty much bet the farm that the two are coincidental.
Maybe we should subsidize more better load management through e.g. better architectural design. It astounds me that individuals (which I understand), but in particular the design industry is still designing buildings like they did back in the 1950s in spite of our energy concerns, a large part of the design industry still seems to have their heads stuck in the sand and not applying some basic principles of architecture 101 to their work. No offense to the movers and shakers that are actually trying and doing progressive work in this area.
For now ... off my soapbox. Sorry for the diatribe. I'm obviously somewhat passionate about this/these topics.
"PV helps the utility minimize peak loads at precisely the time the peak loads occur ... mid/late afternoon on hot summer sunny days. You can pretty much bet the farm that the two are coincidental."Absolutely FALSE.Peak loads are from about 3-4 pm to 8-9 pm.Solar is already on the downhill slide at 3 and gone by 8..
William the Geezer, the sequel to Billy the Kid - Shoe
Uh, I disagree. Plus if you design the system right, you can skew the gain to match the mid afternoon peak. I didn't say max output would necessarily be at 3pm, but that there is still lots of sun at 3:00-5:00 and opportunity to enhance the grid.
If the sun is gone at 8 (not sure where you live, dude to have the sun dissappear at 8), then how is there a peak load from 8-9pm?? Solar load is a major part of the load. Afternoon sun is often the biggest problem load and that is coincident w/ peak temps, too. While your system output is not 100% necessarily around the peak, it is still good and helping trim the peak.
What happens between 4pm and 8pm? does the load dissappear?
Please don't take my words too far out of context. Very general statements. Lots of variables that may affect what I said. I made no absolute statements, so they can't be absolutely false. Easy does it big fella.
"f the sun is gone at 8 (not sure where you live, dude to have the sun dissappear at 8), then how is there a peak load from 8-9pm??"Thermolag.Look at any hourly temp reports. Unless their is a front that comes through the peak AIR temp will be at 3-4 and not drop off until well after dark.Here is ours from yesterday.3:54 PM 91.9 °F
7:54 PM 90.0 °F
8:54 PM 88.0 °F
9:54 PM 84.9 °F http://tinyurl.com/mtv4ooBut that is the AIR temp.Surfaces heat up and then have to move through the insulation to get into the house.That take time.The Florida Solar Institute has done a bunch of research on heat gains through roofs.One of their reports, I believe that the results where in a JLC article, have some graphs that plot internal house temps over time for different roof and insulation systems.One shows how the insulation can makes the PEAK cooling load worse by delaying the peak loads on the interior..
William the Geezer, the sequel to Billy the Kid - Shoe
While your point(s) are well taken, I still disagree. A solar gain load (depending on glass orientation of course) can be significantly higher through the same element (the windows) than the conductive load (this can easily be 4-6 times the conductive load).
Your own values show the decrease in temperature up to 8 pm, not an increase. The thermal lag depends very heavily on the thermal mass of the building. Light frame buildings react very quickly because their thermal mass is so much lower. I also wasn't necessarily limiting my discussion to residential, but I didn't make that clear, either.
Any time a cooling load is delayed partially until later at night is a good thing ... since now the A/C efficiency goes way up in the cooler later day temps (which also reduces the load on the utility ... both at mid afternoon and in the evening).
Assuming you have load issues mid/late afternoon, a PV system is very beneficial at reducing your peak load/time costs and assisting the utility w/ their peak load time. Assuming you have the option of providing some optimum orientation, you would/should design your PV to have max output during your peak loading (or at least skew it in that manner a little).
Again, I'm not advocating PV for anything really. But if they subsidize other products, then PV is a reasonble thing to subsidize as well.
Not taking sides here. But my house has huge thermal lag. 5 1/5" of brick facing south by southwest. And my bed is right bihind the wall. AAAHHRRR!
"There are three kinds of men: The one that learns by reading, the few who learn by observation and the rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves."Will Rogers
It's not that we enjoy "cheap" gas, it's that European countries have expensive gas due to super high taxes. If we had to pay $5.00 a gallon or more in taxes our gas wouldn't be cheap.
PV might lower peak loads if millions of people had it, but they don't and won't because even with subsidies PV is a toy for the wealthy.
Coal is subsidized 44 cents a megawatt, natural gas 25 cents, wind $23.37 and oil about 27 cents.
You're also mixing 2 different things, gasoline and electrical energy which have little connection. Only 1.6% of electrical power in the US generated by oil so saving 100% of it would make little difference in our oil usage.
I didn't know that subsidies for wind were like 80+ times the subsidies of other sources of power.
I'm not really mixing 2 different things. They are both energy sources that we consumers use for whatever purposes. I wasn't really holding my comments to electrical power generation sources.
We probably do pay a lot more in gasoline 'tax' or other non direct related subsidies. That was part of my point. There are gas taxes, then there are the various other Federal expenditures that ensure gas prices stay low. We pay for it directly or indirectly in our tax monies. I'd surmise that a big part of our defense budget is related to oil. Then there are the Federal benefits to oil companies directly for who knows what. While our direct Federal/public tax on gas may be low ... the rest of the Federal dollars stay hidden. Personally I'd rather have the higher direct tax; I like to know what my money is being spent on.
How about your state?
Yeah, if I installed $45k of PV, I'd get my $2-3k from the feds; I'd also get $2k from my utility, too.
Now, the utility is a good one, they are perfectly happy to not jack with the meter at all, no shenanigans at all. They don't care if it runs backwards for the tiny amounts it might. Not like I'd be pumping KW in the system at peak times, where the payout is different.
Which brings up an interestiong thought, I'm going to pass along to the Line Design guys--in an outage, how do we keep a PV system from backfeeding?
Do you have a PV system?
Do you have a PV system?
Nope.
Don't have $45 to spend on home improvement, let alone $45K.
Have a tree-sheltered, yard, too, which would be bad for coverage for a whole-house array.
But, I do have a very nice electrical utility, one that sends me info every month on stuff they support. Shoot, you bring in receipts for CFLs, and they'll credit your next bill for the amount you spent.Occupational hazard of my occupation not being around (sorry Bubba)
Most PV systems don't have batteries and they use the power line to sync the inverters. So if the power drops then the inverters stop producing.Those systems with batteries can run with the power line down. But it requires special protective relay that will cut off the external connection if power tries to flow out. Also they need extra circuitry to sync with the power line when it comes back on.That cost added to the cost of the batteries is why most online systems are suplimental only."Not like I'd be pumping KW in the system at peak times, where the payout is different."That is the "truth" most people are ignoring when selling and buying these systems. A POCO's are ignoring it also. But can't if PV ever becomes significant percentage of supply.At the time of peak usage PV power is already dropping off and some goes to zero..
William the Geezer, the sequel to Billy the Kid - Shoe
But it requires special protective relay that will cut off the external connection if power tries to flow out. Also they need extra circuitry to sync with the power line when it comes back on.
That maybe the line item I've seen for "special utility equipment" when I've bid this out for other folks looking for answers.
I know who to ask at the utility to answer if the new, read-from-the-street meters will be more solid-state ans less mechanical then the present ones. Which is more a curiosity than anything else, now that you've illuminated the line protection equipment needed.Occupational hazard of my occupation not being around (sorry Bubba)
That protective equipment might be built into the inverters designed for that kind of usage. I don't know.CAP has done some PV installations and might have mentioned in one of his articles. But I think that the discussed this in a thread here.I am directing this to him so maybe he will see it..
William the Geezer, the sequel to Billy the Kid - Shoe
>>>>>>Where I live this would never happen. The politicians are in cahoots with the energy barons (and the state construction barons, and everything else) and would never do anything that could remotely help the end user.<<<<<
You obviously spent a great deal of time researching what Georgia offers for rebates.
http://www.solarpowerrocks.com/georgia/
http://www.dsireusa.org/incentives/incentive.cfm?Incentive_Code=GA36F&re=1ee=1
Tom, I conducted audits in 2000 and 2007. I noticed the leglislation was dated ... middle 2008. The largest benefit is $10,500 but only for systems used in heating. Hmm, let's forget about the nine months of Summer down here.
Also, they only put up $2.5 Million. So, if folks took advantage of that $10,500 offering, only 238 people will get benefitted. Hmm, compare that to the +10,000 single family home permits done just in my county in just the last decade, and the half million additional folks that have moved here in the same timeframe.
Yeah, big state of GA movement there. You running for governor or something?
You said it would never happen. It is happening. I got a 3k rebate for installing a GSHP 12 years ago. GA has had programs for some time now.
Tom, $3K is token at best, just like the $2.5 Million for the entire state. But please do elaborate on what you got to get the $3K.
Ground source heat pump, whole house. One 5 ton two zone, one 2.5 ton single zone. I spent 22k on the system. Comparable conventional was quoted at 15-18k.
Links above state the rebates are available for other than just hot water systems.
First link:
1. The lesser of 35 percent or $2,500 for solar energy equipment for water heating.2. The lesser of 35 percent of $10,500 for solar energy equipment for heating applications.3. The lesser of 35 percent or $2,000 for certified geothermal heat pump systems.
Second link:
Solar hot water: $2,500PV, active space heating, wind energy: $10,500Energy Star-certified geothermal heat pump: $2,000
I must be misinterpreting the information. I interpreted the biggest benefit ($10,500) as being for heating equipment, which in Georgia isn't the major factor. Of course, if I were in GA Power's back pocket as a legislator, I could easily minimize the 'token' (ahem, $2.5 Million for the entire state) gesture.
Second link:Solar hot water: $2,500
PV, active space heating, wind energy: $10,500
Energy Star-certified geothermal heat pump: $2,000Well the second link says that the 10,500 is available for PV, and wind energy. I asssume either of thos could be used for cooling applications. Solar does tend to lend itself to heating a little more readily though. My point is you want to claim that GA is doing nothing when in fact there have been a variety of programs in place for many years. I received a benefit of one over ten years ago. Are they doing enough, maybe not, but the programs are there. It does reduce the effect of your initial post bitching about it though.
Ok, if I interpret it that way then it is indeed a nice thing to have. Hopefully, though, the token $2.5 Million stated in last year's budget wasn't a one time thing, nor impacted for this or next year. I'm guessing it will be.
Its a SAD, SAD thing when my county's school budget is 720 time larger than my state's response in this department. Truly sad.
And then there is the HOA aspect. Considering how the state of Georgia, and especially my county, is so darn pro-HOA planned community, the obstacles therein need to be accounted for on the state and federal levels.
I would love to see something similar to the FCC's OTARD ruling. As it stands, the last audit put the costs to me at ~US$20K, and a $10K incentive would do the trick nicely.
I took a class this morning about the tax incentives available in my area for "green" building.While I would appreciate the business benefits, I'm glad my state (commonwealth) does not throw thousands of dollars at a PV solar system someone wants to install. In this day and age, it's all too easy to spend someone else's money in a haphazard manner.
Jon Blakemore RappahannockINC.com Fredericksburg, VA
Well, what states are offering equal incentives on building with SIPs, or high-performance spray-on foam insulation thus requiring a lot less heating and cooling effort?
Check that, I doubt my state does.
My point was that I have some issues with tax incentives such as this, but I suppose that is a topic for the tavern.Check the DSIRE website, you will be able to see what your state and localities offer.
http://www.dsireusa.org/index.cfm?EE=1&RE=1
Jon Blakemore RappahannockINC.com Fredericksburg, VA
The fed has a lot of incentives for getting people to upgrade their energy systems and move towards energy conservation. For instance, there is a tax credit of up to 30% for installing geothermal heat pump and there is no maximum. Could be a real bargain if you have the capital to invest right now.