It's nearly lights out for PG&E's solar power buybacks (Some want more subsidies for "common good")

Santa Cruz Sentinel ^ | May 30, 2006 | Aria Pearson

[Realism]

The utility contends the cap is necessary because it can't afford to keep offering a one-to-one swap on energy

This doesn't make sense to me. It's not a 1 to 1 swap, they have a service charge, transport charge, charge for this, that and every other thing.

[Ditto]

By the way, ever think of all that cadminum and lead they're putting in those lead-acid batteries they're storing in the garage?

The PV panels themselves have some 'nasties' as well and if the 'pay-back' is 8-13 years, (I wonder is they use a present-value calculation in figuring that) I would suspect that they would have degraded quite a bit over that time.

Unless it's a spot remote from the grid, I just don't see photo electric making much sense. Solar water heating would be a much better bang for the buck I would think.

[Robert A Cook PE]

I think (which is an engineer's code word for "I don't remember exactly") that they degrade some 15-20 percent from first use peak power.

Problem is, people "start" with a comparison for the clear, high desert dry skies i nsouth AZ and CA, then try to assume that works for the cloudy, humid, further north latitudes and low angles of the skies typical of the real world.

Resuylt: You need 3-4 times as much area to get close to the value of the south AZ blue-sky zones.

Then factor the wear and degradation.

It's like wind power: most of the country can't get enough power from wind on most days to run the cable from the 60-80 foot windmill down to the ground to the house to the storage batteries and ac-converter.

The cable and insulators and posts and house connections costs more than the electricity is worth.

[editor-surveyor]

This alleged "public good" seems to cover all do-gooder schemes.

[weaponeer]

That is actually a very good point that they cannot buy your power at retail. So change the way you measure the total energy flow and credit the outgoing at wholesale and keep the incoming retail retail the same. Just redesign the flow meter, it can't be that hard.

Yes, that's the answer, but the utilities can't do that. It's against the law. The net metering (utilities buying at retail) is law. The legislature set it up that way due to lobbying by the alternate energy lobby. They expect other ratepayers and stockholders to subsidize the power line infrastructure and having reserve capacity available at no cost to the solar owners.

[ASOC]

The Japanese are really into this, save building any more coal fired plants & saves on imported energy.

As far as retail vs wholesale - the difference is substantial, payback would take many years - and in Kali, who lives in a house that long anyway?

[OldArmy94]

Yeah, but what happens when the Sun snuffs out in 5 billion years? I think we need to look at alternative sources of energy!!

[Amerigomag]

Follow the money! $3B is hard to hide without leaving a small trail.

It's not going to any rate payer for at least 8 years, solar or conventional.
It's not going to the utilities.
Whether stick framing or installing solar, the pay is the same. No goldmine there.

So where is the tax payer's money going? Since this transfer of wealth scheme is regulatory, I'd start looking within an arms length of public officials in Sacramento. In fact, since the regulators are in the executive, that's probably the best place to start snooping.

Cash is the mother's milk of politics and $3B is sweet cream, so a good bet is to start with campaign fund raising or friends/partners of the candidate.

[DBrow]

If I ran a solar power company I'd lobby for a Solar Depletion Allowance.