The Rooftop Solar Scam and How to Get Rid of It

American Thinker.com ^ | October 17, 2020 | Norman Rogers

[Kaslin]

According to the conventional wisdom, if you install solar panels on your roof you can zero out your electric bill and save pot loads of money. This is actually true if you live in certain states, particularly California. The catch is that everyone that does not have solar panels on their roof is paying for your benefits. For the homeowner that’s a not a problem. It’s a feature.

Solar only works during the day and best in the middle of the day. But residential electricity consumption tends to peak in the evening. A scheme called net metering fixes this problem by allowing the homeowner to “bank” excess midday electricity and then withdraw it from the bank later in the day. The bank is imaginary, an accounting fiction, because it is not easy to store electricity. The bank can even be used to store summer electricity for consumption in the winter, when solar works poorly. The excess solar electricity is fed back to the grid where it is immediately consumed by other customers. There is no bank except in the accounting books.

Residential solar is a disaster for the electric utility. Once the customer installs solar, the utility loses almost all its revenue but keeps nearly all its expenses. The expenses are maintaining a connection to the customer’s house including the distribution system that carries electricity from the generating plants to the customer. The generating plants still have to be ready to provide regular quantities of electricity to each solar homeowner as soon as the sun sets and whenever it is cloudy.

[Pontiac]

It’s possible, but if you ground mount them and cut all the trees down around them, you should be okay.....

That would certainly simplify the design and installation.

If would also make it easy to cover the panels with plywood if a hurricane was forecast.

The rest of your argument makes sense for a prepper.

My only remaining gripe (thinking as a prepper) is that the panels are still only good for 20-25 years. And batteries would have to be replaced on an earlier schedule.

[napscoordinator]

Yes. Probably not installed correctly, but once the house leaks the blame is useless.

[ChinaGotTheGoodsOnClinton]

This TED talk Green dude talks about the pros and cons of Green Energy. It has over 2 million views. I recommend it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-yALPEpV4w

[Svartalfiar]

This is a very misleading article. The excess solar energy is not being “banked”, rather it is saving whatever other fuel would have been used to generate what is being fed to the grid by solar.

Except that what the power company charges you includes employee labor, infrastructure, repairs/maintenance, and many other costs. The tiny bit they save on fuel (zero if it's nuclear or hydro sources, essentially zero per home for NG/others), does not reimburse them for the amount of money they pay you for your "banked" power. They would be losing money.

If a significant portion of the populace did this, you can bet that power would become essentially free, but you'd have some very expensive surcharges or higher-cost flat rate tiers. (eg 1-5000kWH of power is a flat $200 a month: $100 in fees and $.02/kWH.)

[srmanuel]

True about the life span of the panels and batteries, but I would counter by saying technology should be dramatically better in 20-25 years...

I could be wrong but I think the highest number of watts in the top of the line panel is 400, if in 20-25 years it’s 800 watts at the same price or lower, then it would make sense to upgrade, same goes for a battery system.....

[eastexsteve]

Why is it not easy to store electricity? What about some deep cycle batteries and some controls to restore and release it later? Doesn’t seem that hard.

Do you have any idea how much wattage it would take to run even a small air conditioner for 8 hours?

[palmer]

Here in Virginia we pay the rooftop solar generators 12 cents for the their politically correct but unreliable electron holes instead of 3-4 cents for reliable wholesale power.

In California it's even worse for everyone else. The other ratepayers pay full retail for rooftop solar power, and up to 3 cents extra for the net excess electricity each year.

[\/\/ayne]

Yes, I understand that but he just has a blanket statement that it’s hard to store electricity.

[palmer]

Why is it not easy to store electricity? What about some deep cycle batteries and some controls to restore and release it later? Doesn’t seem that hard.

It's very easy and very expensive. I've spent far more on AGM batteries than on panels.

[eastexsteve]

Solar does pretty good for remote locations when necessary

We have a class "C" RV with two panels. As long as we don't use the microwave or air conditioner, we can run indefinitely as long as we run the hot water heater and fridge on propane, and we have enough sunshine. But then, we will eventually need propane. Oh yeah, and the propane runs the heater and the stovetop, too.

[Pontiac]

For me, at my age replacing the system in 20-25 years is not something I would consider.

I will probably go with a NG powered whole house generator with propane backup.

I have NG at the house and propane is easily available

The systems can be set to start themselves up periodically to run a self-check, so ensuring that they do not deteriorate from being idle.

The cost of the units has come down over that past few years and is I think considerably more affordable than a solar panel system. Also the foot print of a unit is much smaller.

[aquila48]

Those are all valid points.

My gripe with this particular article is that the point he makes about “banking” excess power is a lie.

One can come up with criticism of rooftop solar without having to resort to making up stuff.

In my mind the best way to do rooftop solar is to do it with new house constructions. It reduces cost and as part of the house you get to include it in your 30 year mortgage. In California where the price of a house is near a million, adding a $20k rooftop solar is round off error and you save $200 a month.

Also, I don’t think the utilitie should pay you anything for the excess power you generate since they are acting as your “infinite” backup “battery”, a very valuable resource. If anything you should be paying them a fee for providing that resource.

[Chgogal]

What is your back ground in energy supply? In particular baseload, peaking and interruptible supplies? Which entity is taking on the responsibility of supplier of last resort? Is it the utility or the customer? What is the cost to the utility to have standby supply ready to serve said customer whose supply may not be there as promised?

[aquila48]

“Here in Virginia we pay the rooftop solar generators 12 cents for the their politically correct but unreliable electron holes instead of 3-4 cents for reliable wholesale power.”

That is true if the utility has to continue to have enough power plants and infrastructure necessary to supply all of the electricity for every residence. If it is able to reduce the number of plants it needs then the solar excess may have some benefits since it would also save the utilities the cost of the generating plant.

But the latter has proven to not be the case here in CA, where we’ve been subjected to power outages whenever we get a bit of heat wave because utilities had shut down gas generators.

[Svartalfiar]

Why is it not easy to store electricity? What about some deep cycle batteries and some controls to restore and release it later? Doesn’t seem that hard.

It's a matter of cost, weight, space, and practicality. Sure, you can hook up a couple batteries and a charging system, but how much do you really need? A single car battery can power a fridge for about 8-12 hours, BUT that depends on several factors. Car batteries aren't good at long slow discharges. They're designed for a big burst to start the engine, then get recharged. Constant discharge under 80% will kill your electrode plates quick. Marine batteries are better for this stuff, but still not great, only supposed to discharge to 50% or so. Real deep-cycle batteries are what you'd want, but that means $$$.

- Auto battery: $50-150
- Marine batt: $100-$250
- Deep cycle: $200+ (real industrial ones can hit a grand or more)

You'd need a good inverter that can handle a clean power output (pure sine wave), and has a max wattage that can handle kicking on the compressor. Couple hundred dollars for this guy. You need a control system to handle charging up during the day, and power out at night. And when to switch to external power if the system zeroes out. No idea on this, but I would guess a couple thousand. Maybe Upper/tens of thousands if you have 240V for AC or any other fancy stuff (5wire maybe).

Assuming you have a couple fridges, lights, fans, you'd probably want two batteries worth per large appliance for an overnight charge, and an even more powerful inverter, both for maintenance current, and if multiple appliances kick on at the same time. I have no idea on cost, maybe a grand for it? And 6-8 batteries now puts you at $1000+ as well.

Where is all of this going? The garage likely? Now you're losing at least a water heater worth of space out there. Plus, how much is all the wiring to run and install the system? Hopefully you have space close to your breaker box for it all (and the box isn't in your master closet or outside on a random wall). You probably want a cooling system with all these batteries and power discharges. Some kind of emergency auto-fire suppression mayhaps?

Avoid using the microwave on battery power, those things have huge power draws that most people don't expect.
Make sure your AC is turned off, those can pull 3-4x your normal power consumption, and generally need to have 220/240 volt input. And can pull 3-5000 watts when starting up.
Likewise, turn the heat off, unless you have a gas system. Little space heaters pull 10-15 amps, so one of those would drain your system pretty quick.



So, overall, no, it is not that easy to just store the power. Takes quite a decent amount of gear to legitimately wire your home for this, and several thousand, if not tens of thousands, of dollars. Not something for the average Joe. You'd be better off (if emergency power was your goal) buying a 7500W generator for a thousand bucks. Or, just for the fridge get a smaller one for a couple hundred $$. Much more portable system, plus to recharge it takes a minute to dump fuel in, and can be done at night, on a cloudy day, anytime really. Much easier to store electricity in a fuel can than from a solar panel.

[ETCM]

In my area, the utility pays wholesale rate for excess generation, about 2 cents per kWh, then sells it to my neighbor for 10 to 20 times that price. Also, during peak demand, like during a heatwave, I am selling them power at small fraction of the cost of starting up “peaking plants” to meet emergency demand.

No doubt I’m getting the better deal (a free unlimited virtual battery), but it’s not a one way street. And while my neighbor might be subsidizing my power, I’m subsidizing his kids school, lunch, daycare, etc.

[njmaugbill]

Roof top solar power generation is just a simple distributed generation of electricity. Similar to distributed computing like the SETI at home project.
At critical mass, generating plants can be used less.
I have Solar Panels I send more out than i use. In NJ, the amount sent to the grid is recorded as banked. I pay a service fee of $2.78.

[Svartalfiar]

In my mind the best way to do rooftop solar is to do it with new house constructions. It reduces cost and as part of the house you get to include it in your 30 year mortgage. In California where the price of a house is near a million, adding a $20k rooftop solar is round off error and you save $200 a month.

True, but that's a lot of extra cost for the developer, that he may not be able to turn around and add to the cost of the house and make a decent profit off of. MAYBE as an upgrade option, but then you're gonna have very limited takers. And who's responsible when the batteries need to be replaced? That's a cost that could be as high as replacing an AC unit, if it's the good deep cycle batteries that last 10+ years but cost $4-500 each. What about the panels? Those are very expensive to replace also, and generally require fancy hazmat disposal.

But is the cost to install it worth it? Assuming your cost of $20M for the system, that gives us eight years to break even, if it saves you $200 a month in electricity (ignoring interest). If it's rolled into the mortgage, assuming 4% interest means it takes a month over ten years, at $200 a month, to break even. TO BREAK EVEN, and that ignores the opportunity cost of investing that $24M into the stock market, or even a savings account, or something else that could have actually made you money.

Unless the price of panels/install comes way down, solar just isn't really worth it usually. Unless you live out in the boonies where power is crazy expensive, or you specifically want something off-grid, the only worthwhile use for solar is maybe running a solo well pump or pond fountain or my fancy portable phone charger panel thing.


Also, I don’t think the utilitie should pay you anything for the excess power you generate since they are acting as your “infinite” backup “battery”, a very valuable resource. If anything you should be paying them a fee for providing that resource.

I doubt then utilities would not make money off of someone. Their solar buyback is probably limited to the amount of electricity they provide, so you can't overall make money from them. Plus, there's all the surcharges/fees/etc which mean they're still billing you $20-30 every month even if you use zero electricity.

[Francis McClobber]

It appears from all the responses, the value of a home solar system is dependent upon where one lives.

We live in SoCal and have a solar system with a battery and found it very economical. We rarely use more than we produce during the day and dump the excess we store in the battery back into the grid in the evening.

Overall, including the cost of installation, we have lowered our monthly electric bill by $150 a month.

Not bad in my opinion.

[minnesota_bound]

Solar power is to cover for the big state gov’t pensions just like the gas taxes being diverted to pay the pensions.