Posted on 07/24/2014 5:35:33 PM PDT by Kaslin
You can’t help but hand it to them – rooftop solar companies have quite cleverly found their way onto the government’s gravy train.
For years Washington has subsidized rooftop solar installations for customers in the form of the Solar Investment Tax Credit, which allows homeowners who install rooftop solar panels to receive a tax credit of up to 30 percent of the cost.
The subsidy has been one of the many ongoing ways in which the feds insert themselves into the energy marketplace. And while it has hampered efforts to achieve real energy independence in the U.S., and has therefore caused real harm to our economy, it nevertheless has met a legitimate need for homeowners desperate for some relief from high energy costs.
But rooftop solar companies – most of which, like SolarCity, Corp., are political connected and favored – have created a scheme to claim the tax credit for themselves. These companies discovered that if they lease the rooftop solar systems to homeowners, the companies themselves can claim the federal tax credit as well as all state and local incentives.
Evidence is now pouring in that this scheme enriches these companies and their Wall Street investors at the expense of homeowners and taxpayers. Worse still, customers who are persuaded to sign onto these leasing programs are finding they reduce the value of their homes.
To the homeowner, the initial deal looks like a good one. SolarCity waives upfront fees and secures outside financing for customers to lease their units. Standard leases last twenty years. Because the customers don’t own the solar units, they are not entitled to the federal tax credit - SolarCity is. A tax credit is essentially a creative way for the government to give someone money – in this case, Wall Street-backed companies – without the dyspeptic display of actually handing over a wad of cash. The arrangement gives SolarCity 20 years of tax credits per customer.
And, in typical Washington crony capitalist fashion, SolarCity was founded and is run by a friend and major donor to President Barack Obama, Elon Musk.
But some may not see the harm. The customer is still getting a deal, right? Not necessarily. Most of the promised annual cost saving from rooftop solar systems are associated with owning, not leasing the system. What’s more, as Bloomberg has reported, “[f]or people who own rooftop power systems, solar adds value to the home … Leased systems are another story because they’re considered personal property rather than part of a house. For many potential buyers, a solar lease is a liability rather than an asset.”
Saving $50 per month on your electricity bill would be nice, but not if doing so devalues your house by $10,000 - $15,000. A homeowner would have to realize 200 months or more of those kinds of savings to make out on the deal. But SolarCity starts collecting on day one.
It’s become an all too familiar story: politically favored companies work the system to enrich themselves and their wealthy investors at the expense of taxpayers and consumers. If Washington has any genuine interest in protecting consumers, they’d blow the roof off this scheme.
I had one talk me into letting them into my house. The solar electricity system was $65,000 and a water heater was $14,000.
The numbers they used to cost justify the thing were so far out of the ball park it was amazing.
Of course they counted on huge govt subsidies to entice me.
Solar power works best when the sun is shining. In warm climates, keeping a home cool in summer is a major challenge.
You have at least a couple of options:
1. Install roof-top PV solar collectors, at a cost of tens of thousands of dollars, and use the electricity they generate to power your air conditioner.
2. Paint your roof white, at a cost of a few hundred dollars or less, and reflect most of the sunlight away, before it has a chance to heat your home.
There was a demo on. They said solar would never reach a reasonable price for consumers. Subsidies are forever!!
a Win Win, right?
until the ice storms hit..
and the climate turns gray..
They tried to tell me my electric bills for the next 10 years would exceed $58,000. I wanted to ask if he thought I was Al Gore.
BIG GOVERNMENT IS CRONY SOCIALISM
What about when a state gives a company tens or hundreds of millions in tax breaks and incentives to move to their state?
Isn’t that also cronyism?
The hell if I’m going to let ANYONE pound nails (or drive bolts) into my excellent, non-leaking, roof.
How do solar panels fare in a SHTF scenario? From global monetary collapse to EMP? That would be the only reason I would get one.
Just wait until they try to trade in their precious little electric cars...
Under the leaves is a good 15° drop in temp!
Just wait till you start paying the carbon tax pass through from your Utility. $58,000 over 10 years may not be too far off.
Gotta love the pic. It is from Germany. Look aat the license plate on the car in the garage.
Special arrangements/corporate welfare/crony-fascism-socialism schemes-incentives-breaks, etc., etc….carried out by the FEDS, the states, the cities, the criminals in our midst. Kwame Kilpatrick imprisoned ex-mayor of Detroit was good at it. Bastiat (1801-1850) wrote about it... “The present-day delusion is an attempt to enrich everyone at the expense of everyone else; to make plunder universal under the pretense of organizing it.”
How to Identify Legal Plunder
But how is this legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime.
Then abolish this law without delay, for it is not only an evil itself, but also it is a fertile source for further evils because it invites reprisals. If such a law — which may be an isolated case — is not abolished immediately, it will spread, multiply, and develop into a system.
The person who profits from this law will complain bitterly, defending his acquired rights. He will claim that the state is obligated to protect and encourage his particular industry; that this procedure enriches the state because the protected industry is thus able to spend more and to pay higher wages to the poor workingmen.
Do not listen to this sophistry by vested interests. The acceptance of these arguments will build legal plunder into a whole system. In fact, this has already occurred. The present-day delusion is an attempt to enrich everyone at the expense of everyone else; to make plunder universal under the pretense of organizing it.
Legal Plunder Has Many Names
Now, legal plunder can be committed in an infinite number of ways. Thus we have an infinite number of plans for organizing it: tariffs, protection, benefits, subsidies, encouragements, progressive taxation, public schools, guaranteed jobs, guaranteed profits, minimum wages, a right to relief, a right to the tools of labor, free credit, and so on, and so on. All these plans as a whole — with their common aim of legal plunder — constitute socialism.
Above all, if you wish to be strong, begin by rooting out every particle of socialism that may have crept into your legislation. This will be no light task.
/Bastiat
And the wooly mammoth found out what happens when another species invades your borders; too!
http://media.townhall.com/townhall/reu/ha/2013/240/2013-08-28T111252Z_1_CBRE97R0V5U00_RTROPTP_3_GERMANY-ELECTION-ENERGY.JPG
How do you re-roof a house with all those solar panels up there?
And what happens to them in a hurricane?
Then you need just a couple panels plus batteries in the basement or crawl space. If you use solar for anything more than Fridge/freezer and incidentals you are wasting lots of money. for example, solar electric heating will not work at all. Solar A/C is at least feasible but still too pricey. The only reason solar works at all is massive subsidies by rate payers (net metering) not mentioned in the article.
Same answer to both your questions. I lugged a bunch of 4x4’s to the roof and mounted my panels to those (they cross the peak). They just rest on the roof so they can be moved for reroofing. Also no holes in the roof. And they have not budged even in 60-70 mph gusts.
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