California - New homes required to have solar panels | GTAMotorcycle.com

California - New homes required to have solar panels

bigpoppa

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https://apnews.com/afa0978eff8443af9e5d7c77a3c285bf

From the people who brought you silicon valley, tech innovations, legal lane splitting, and legal recreational use of marijuana,
from 2020 any new homes/low rise apartments will be required to have solar panels to power homes

As always, cali leading the way
 
As it should be....every new house built should have 4-10 solar panels or so....not enough to cover your demand but to cover a small amount of it. Costs would come down quickly for solar panels and people would see them as normal. All we would need is a cheap storage solution for the power.
 
Solar was causing a problem in Hawaii as there were too many people not using the grid and therefore grid operating costs were not being covered. Not sure how it panned out.
 
I think this shows the type of green leadership we need in Ontario. If I were premier, I'd offer a very simple $1,000/kw tax credit to any homeowner who puts in a solar array on their roof. I'd also mandate they every new home with an adequate roof area be equipped with at least a 5KW array.

Create some clean energy. Create some jobs. Maybe even stimulate some tech development and solar manufacturing. Keep the cost reasonable for the homeowner. and the province.
 
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Solar was causing a problem in Hawaii as there were too many people not using the grid and therefore grid operating costs were not being covered. Not sure how it panned out.
There are cases where the government has taxed the person selling power back into the grid. I don't see that as incentives. Maybe that's to pay for their grid.

The only time solar benefits in Canada is summer. In winter it is useless.
 
There are cases where the government has taxed the person selling power back into the grid. I don't see that as incentives. Maybe that's to pay for their grid.

The only time solar benefits in Canada is summer. In winter it is useless.
Keep the snow off the panels and it isn't.
 
use stored energy to run heaters/cables to keep the panels clear?

There is at least one mounting system that uses ducted air behind the panels. In the summer, the hot air behind the panels is drawn off to cool them (improving efficiency & lifetime and minimizing heat loading on the house). If the panels are covered with snow, the blower reverses to heat and clear the panels.
 
The only time solar benefits in Canada is summer. In winter it is useless.
I think you have to look at the picture over the course of a year. In the summer we get up to 15 hours of sunlight/day, in the winter as little at 8hrs, It all averages out to about 4400 hours of sunlight a year -- basically the same everywhere. The power generated on long summer days goes into the grid where it's banked. In the winter when solar becomes less efficient, we draw the banked energy back -- it all works out to an average.
 
I will have to do the math again, my data is a couple of years old.... back then solar panels on my house was a 15 to 20 year ROI, and that was at Ontario's high rates!

Overall this type of thing will drive down costs (expand scale), I think it is a good idea and the extra costs will be sunk into the mortgage at purchase...

But back to Ontario, part of our high prices is an oversupply of power (we are paying private generation companies to not produce and/or paying--or supper deep discounts--other jurisdictions to take the oversupply), this will just make that worse.
 
Are you going to climb up on your roof in the winter?

In quebec, there's a widespread use of tempo garages due to the much bigger amounts of snow that accumulate on a regular basis. Now you have to keep those tempo garages clear of snow...nobody is climbing on roofs to do it. You have extendable brushes that allow you to do it.

Now unless we're talking north of the greenbelt, our snow accumulations in Ontario are pitiful and i can probably count on one hand the number of weeks that my roof was full of snow this winter. So without even taking into consideration the other options mentioned above... it's a non-issue!
 
As someone who works in the industry, I approve of this direction.

One the other hand, it's going to make my work **** ton harder.

Over many many years, the infrastructure and supporting systems and regulations have been built using a pattern of demand and planning for it. With large influx of distributed generation, things may need to be redeveloped and that's not an easy task.

Interesting how Cali will deal with it.
 
As someone who works in the industry, I approve of this direction.

One the other hand, it's going to make my work **** ton harder.

Over many many years, the infrastructure and supporting systems and regulations have been built using a pattern of demand and planning for it. With large influx of distributed generation, things may need to be redeveloped and that's not an easy task.

Interesting how Cali will deal with it.
In California most new residential building is done in sprawl vs infill. Since sprawl is new infrasturcture, the change is easy to plan. The grid issues are more from retrofits that are altering an existing plan.

The nice thing about having a grid is it can be easily rejigged, you're starting to electricity distributors do this now.
 
I think you have to look at the picture over the course of a year. In the summer we get up to 15 hours of sunlight/day, in the winter as little at 8hrs, It all averages out to about 4400 hours of sunlight a year -- basically the same everywhere. The power generated on long summer days goes into the grid where it's banked. In the winter when solar becomes less efficient, we draw the banked energy back -- it all works out to an average.

That is the problem...how do we "bank" it. There's no storage built into the grid. We need to have cheap reliable storage.
 
I will have to do the math again, my data is a couple of years old.... back then solar panels on my house was a 15 to 20 year ROI, and that was at Ontario's high rates!
You won't break even unless you get a Microfit contract. Last time I did the math I needed a full 10kw install and 22 years to break even. That was based on:

Revenue: $3168 based on 10kw array that generated 11,000kwh/year x $0.28 (Microfit rates)
Cost: $2100 based on install cost of $30K financing at 3.5% for 20 years for ugly panels (or $4800/year for a $70K shingle install).

Net $1068/year for ugly, and a loss of $1700 for shingled.

I figure it's viable if you install a 10kw ugly panel array, get a Microfit contract, and have it reach potential (a shingle install is not cost viable). My main considerations:

-Will I'll live here for long enough to enjoy the payoff? -- If I move the array stays and I pay it off the day the house is sold and the new owner benefits.
-Will it add or reduce the resale value of my home?
-How can I fix ugly?

Overall this type of thing will drive down costs (expand scale), I think it is a good idea and the extra costs will be sunk into the mortgage at purchase...
My hope is that it will drive both cost and innovation. My main obstacle is the sheer ugliness of an array bolted to a roof. When I see a rooftop array slapped on a house, I think -- "why not store your winter tires up there too?". Did I mention I think solar is ugly?
But back to Ontario, part of our high prices is an oversupply of power (we are paying private generation companies to not produce and/or paying--or supper deep discounts--other jurisdictions to take the oversupply), this will just make that worse.
Thank the Liberals for that. Over contracted generation has a supply glut that is regularly dumped at a cost to Ontarion users/taxpayers, generators are paid up to 40x market rates for power, AND 300,000 lost manufacturing jobs, many in power hungry factories, took a nice bite out of demand.

They are still at it, Microfit still pays about 15x the wholesale rate for electricity in Ontario.
 
That is the problem...how do we "bank" it. There's no storage built into the grid. We need to have cheap reliable storage.
Your're not banking energy, you're banking cash. When you generate energy, you sell it to the grid and get money (called 'bank'). When you need energy, you buy it using your 'banked' money.
 

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