Not a particularly good article, he paints with a broad brush and doesn’t account for the variety of solar systems on the market. Solar systems often include battery systems to store excess power for use during cloudy or at night. Most houses are connected to utilities, including electric power when built, so the infrastructure cost is included in construction costs.
Further, the financial relationship between utilities and homeowners varies by company and individual state legal requirements.
Solar isn’t for everyone, should not be subsidied with tax dollars, but can be a wise feature for a lot of homes.
I am all for alternative energy sources IF they pay for themselves and they are not subsidized by others. To date, I am not aware of any that survive without heavy subsidizing by government and utilities (i.e. - customers).
Everyone would support “green and free energy”. Who wouldn’t? We do not have that now. The green energy market is a failure and it is full of corruption given the amount of public money that has been injected into the market.
Will we have it at some point in the future? I think so. Technology is improving dramatically and our ability to store electricity is improving as well. However, we are not there now (not even close) and forcing reliance on alternative energy production has distorted the market, raised prices for all of us, and it has made the corruptocrats and issue advocacy groups wealthy.
The market is distorted and corrupt. Current technologies have been oversold to politicians and utilities by issue advocacy groups with a wink and a nod (and bags of cash).
In other words.... the “green energy” market is like most of our markets. It is dominated by a few and the rest of us pay more for it.
Laughable. When a rooftop solar supplier installs a battery, the battery costs money and reduces their net metering revenue. When they don't, the battery is free and their net metering revenue is not reduced
Who pays for that "free" battery? The rest of us. Instead of buying relaible power for 4 cents we are forced to buy unreliable rooftop solar for 12 cents and supply reliable power to the solar leeches.
I’m a Solar energy consultant and the article is so far off. I don’t think the writer understands much except he is complaining that Solar is hurting the electric companies. The excess power store on power lines is counted towards the amount the electric companies buy at any given month. So all that extra electricity coming back in the grid at no extra cost to the power companies are sold to other homes who do not have solar. So the electric companies still make money from using all the free electricity coming in. The improvements in Solar technology has also made Solar every inexpensive.