I work in the power industry. My company put up a huge grid where people can purchase “shares” of the grid to offset their power bill. At the end of the day, though, it costs more than if they didn’t do it.
It’s for people that want to augment their power with solar, but instead of installing solar on their own property, they just own a piece of the big solar farm.
My take: The only thing solar is good for and will EVER pay for itself is when the SHTF and you still have power while your neighbors are out of luck. And that is not enough reason to get it.
Isn't that the plan — make conventional energy so expensive that it forces people into Solar and Wind? It makes solar more compelling because conventional energy sources are unavailable or horrendously expensive.
Restricting supply would do this.
1. no to coal.
2. no to nat gas.
3. no to nuclear.
4. no to hydroelectric.
Kind of paints us into a corner.
We floated a bond issue in our California town to help the schools. A good chunk of the money went to building hideously ugly structures over every school parking lot to install solar panels. At night, the area under the panels is very dark, so teachers and neighbors were complaining about the possibilty of crime and assault occurring there. So the schools put up BRIGHT lights that run all night long and now shine into the neighbors windows.
So the once-beautiful school buildings and school grounds are now ugly as sin and the bright lights (that nobody signed up for) ruin the nighttime in the surrounding area.
To top it off, the school district spent a fortune installing EV chargers in lots of car parking stalls under the solar panel canopies. No teacher can afford an EV, so they all go unused 99% of the time.
California liberals...is there ANYTHING they can’t foul up? What a mess.
And don’t get me started on the economics of solar, the control problems on the T&D system, or the costs associated with having a 100% backup power gas turbine generator on standby.
Solar also hears the air.
Solar also heats the air.
In CT they will not allow you to get “off the grid” with independent solar power.
That was a deal killer for me.
Even if have Solar power, you still need commercial power for the inverters to work per code. If power grid is down, the only way for solar to operate is complete isolation from the grid, no source for AC synch, so a synthesized signal required for the inverter to generate AC,...or you change your interior distribution system to all DC, like living in an RV. Present designs usually do not include an ATS, but a double throw switch is required to isolate from Comm power during as outage, so linemen don’t get zapped by a separate PV power generator out there on the system.
PV systems make HV Linemen very nervous.