Connecticut looking to end net metering.

[ButchDeal]

Anything the government gives to you, they took from somebody else. (I'm bitter and doing my taxes today)

Except the tax rebate it is not taking from someone else. It is quite litterally NOT taking from the recipient or anyone else. It is a credit on what the recipient would have paid....

[reader2580]

The whole reason we have net metering was to push residential homeowners to adopt solar to reduce fossil fuel use. I bet the residential solar market would be 20% of the size it is without net metering. States that dropped net metering saw new residential solar installations drop by large percentages. Many of the large players simply stopped doing business in states without net metering.

If bet metering is fair or not is a separate discussion. There are all kinds of things that power companies are forced to do by states that power companies don't like. The power companies in Minnesota were required to buy power from biomass plants at a cost that was higher than other sources of power. The state dropped that requirement this year and now the plants are all closing. The cities that hosted these plants are up in arms because they are all small rural cities and the plants were large employers and sources of tax dollars. The state also has a very high requirement for utilities to provide electricity from wind and solar.

[SunEagle]

Except the tax rebate it is not taking from someone else. It is quite litterally NOT taking from the recipient or anyone else. It is a credit on what the recipient would have paid....

The problem is that all Fed taxes goes into a big bucket. If some of that goes back to the people that gave it then there is less to spend to cover services for the rest of the country. That may cause a shortfall so some services are no longer covered.

It is a matter of perspective but to me that means someone else is taking funds to line their pockets and I lose out on some government services like NOAA which funds were recently cut and may affect my well being if their is less than the right coverage during a hurricane.

The question some people have is "Should the people that make more income pay less taxes then the rest of the country through rebates and deductions?"

[ButchDeal]

The problem is that all Fed taxes goes into a big bucket. If some of that goes back to the people that gave it then there is less to spend to cover services for the rest of the country. That may cause a shortfall so some services are no longer covered.

It is a matter of perspective but to me that means someone else is taking funds to line their pockets and I lose out on some government services like NOAA which funds were recently cut and may affect my well being if their is less than the right coverage during a hurricane.

The question some people have is "Should the people that make more income pay less taxes then the rest of the country through rebates and deductions?"

Yes I see that that is ( damn this forum and stupid software)

[DanS26]

The whole reason we have net metering was to push residential homeowners to adopt solar to reduce fossil fuel use. I bet the residential solar market would be 20% of the size it is without net metering. States that dropped net metering saw new residential solar installations drop by large percentages. Many of the large players simply stopped doing business in states without net metering.

If bet metering is fair or not is a separate discussion. There are all kinds of things that power companies are forced to do by states that power companies don't like. The power companies in Minnesota were required to buy power from biomass plants at a cost that was higher than other sources of power. The state dropped that requirement this year and now the plants are all closing. The cities that hosted these plants are up in arms because they are all small rural cities and the plants were large employers and sources of tax dollars. The state also has a very high requirement for utilities to provide electricity from wind and solar.

I have another example of what you speak of......ethanol production.

The government mandates a certain percentage of ethanol be blended with gasoline. This supports the price of corn and supports a prosperous industry in rural America. Nearly 50% of corn production is now sent into ethanol production and farmers are now dependent on this gravy train.

Here's the irony. Every day I drive by the local farm supply store with the CountryMark gas station outside. A large well lit sign at least 10' high by 20' long states "No ethanol in our gas!" That station is always filled with customers.

I get a chuckle every day seeing farmers taking the subsidy dollars but rejecting the product.

[bcroe]

I have another example of what you speak of......ethanol production.

The government mandates a certain percentage of ethanol be blended with gasoline. This supports the price of corn and supports a prosperous industry in rural America. Nearly 50% of corn production is now sent into ethanol production and farmers are now dependent on this gravy train.

Its worse than that. Farmers here have practically stopped growing other crops, going
to all corn. The soil won't take that forever.

On the other hand, seems like farmers have gotten a lot of bad deals in the market. I
don't like the kind of debt they must carry to stay in business. Bruce Roe

[DanS26]

Farmers won't burn ethonol in their vehicles.....they know better.
Teachers home school their kids.....they know better.
Doctors don't die in a hospital or nursing home....they know better.
Accountants don't buy mutual funds.....they know better.
Solar pros don't buy Sunpower.......they know better.
The list goes on.......I think I see a pattern here.

[Sunking]

I fail to understand how someone has over 20,000 posts on a solar forum if they think solar is a scam.

The whole reason we have net metering was to push residential homeowners to adopt solar to reduce fossil fuel use.

Never reduced a drop in fossil fuel consumption and a failed policy. That is what a SCAM is. All those billions of tax dollars and nothing to show for it. Lot of people got rich, but the goberment (tax payers) gets nothing for the investment, just a bill.

[reader2580]

Never reduced a drop in fossil fuel consumption and a failed policy. That is what a SCAM is. All those billions of tax dollars and nothing to show for it. Lot of people got rich, but the goberment (tax payers) gets nothing for the investment, just a bill.

Huh, so all the sun power I use internally at my house isn't reducing fossil fuel consumption? Heck, my solar array was only producing about 400 watts today due to a snow storm, yet it was still producing more power than my house was using while I was outside clearing the driveway.

[jflorey2]

I'm all for leveling the playing field and getting rid of tariffs and subsidies, but lets be fair about it. The utilities then ought to pay the full cost of their burning coal and atoms.

They'd scream bloody murder.

I have a simpler proposal. End net metering. End any and all subsidies for other forms of energy. Level the playing field completely. Want to drill for oil? Buy the land first, like anyone else who wants the use of it. Want to mine for coal? Buy the land - and if you destroy any watersheds on anyone _else's_ land, well, we'll see you in court. Want to sell it afterwards? Well, you might not want to damage it irreparably, then. Want to have a coal fired power plant? Fine - meet BACT standards for the best fossil fuel plant out there, and hold every such plant to the same standard. No special exceptions for dirty power plants. Or maybe you really, really want to pollute so you can buy your CEO a new jet. OK - pay for every bit of damage your pollution causes. Want to open a nuclear power plant? No problem. Pay for your own insurance.

I can just hear all the right wingers now. "End net metering and tax breaks for renewables! Yay! Take that, Al Gore! And then . . . but wait . . . . we NEED coal power, and it's not fair that we have to pay for damages . . . and those cheap leases are where all our profit comes from!" Too bad, so sad. Goose and gander and all that.

[Sunking]

Huh, so all the sun power I use internally at my house isn't reducing fossil fuel consumption?

Nope not one drop. The power plant was still on line burning fuel, you just made it more inefficient and wasted power never used.

[Sunking]

They'd scream bloody murder.

What do you call subsidies that give you are 1000% ROI every year? Well if it were a biz would be one hell of investment and likely illegal sort of like racketeering. What you cal fossil fuel an dnuke subsidies are the best investments the government makes.


What do you call subsidies that have no ROI and lost a trillion dollars? In biz would be a SCAM. You cannot drop solar panels on Russia, China, and the Middle East.

[J.P.M.]

I'm all for leveling the playing field and getting rid of tariffs and subsidies, but lets be fair about it. The utilities then ought to pay the full cost of their burning coal and atoms. The Harvard Medical School did a study on the deleterious health effects of burning coal and estimated the yearly cost in the USA at $300 billion to $500 billion. And I don't think we have to go into the costs of nuclear waste etc not to mention possible climate change. Society has turned a huge blind eye to these problems in the interest of "cheap" electric rates for the poor ratepayer and then the utilities complain about how its "not fair" that clean, renewable solar gets a net-metering incentive. Let the utilities charge rate payers $1000 per person per year to cover the costs of their cheap fuel and I'd be glad to pay the full cost of grid access for my solar. I can't believe this solar forum has so many solar naysayers.....

I respect your opinion and share some of it, but the ideas of environmental costs, and particularly the need for some to resort to what I'd suggest most or at least many others see as fuzzy, if not vague and unintelligible math, and therefore not to be trusted, is a sticking point for me and has been for the 40+ years I've been watching it. Same, BTW, for fossil fuel and nuke subsidies.

The way I see it, and if for no other reason than speaking to your audience in ways they can identify with, if environmentalists and those with skin in the solar/R.E. game, and a group I see as a bunch of shortsighted and self centered treehuggers can't find ways to convince most people of the rightness of their cause without resorting to arguments that most folks have no practical reality with, they ought to either find better spokespeople/better marketing/convincing, or go home and shut up.

Example: How many folks do you really think give any consideration to what some academic study that's very likely more esoteric, intellectual, and most importantly, probably irrelevant to most folks when they open their electric bills and get sticker shock has to say about energy ?

I agree that society has turned a blind eye, but that has always been the case. If the goal is to use less power and so, in some implied but usually unspecified way, help the planet, then the best way to get results is to hit people in the wallet. More how I see it: What are mostly esoteric appeals to people's better natures quickly lose out when it comes to bills and self interest. Charging users a clearly identifiable sum for what I believe is real, but mostly nonquantifiable environmental damage won't fly.

I've been on Jflorey2's page for some years now;, That is, get rid of any and all subsidies and stop making policy via the tax code. Make the playing field truly level, let free market capitalism pick winners/losers, let competition decide and let the whiners, special interests, lobbyists and leeches of all sides go to hell.

[BackwoodsEE]

As for 18 deg. tilts, most good designs take latitude into account and good designers know that tilt = latitude and a 180 deg. array azimuth is a good place to begin. However, the reality being one of a lot of roofs at 18 - 20 deg. tilts with azimuths all over the place, the costs, design requirements and aesthetics of increasing tilt angles are some of many reasons why the number of residential PV applications/capita in an area tends to be somewhat inversely proportional with latitude.

I'm at around 48 degrees N latitude, and my array is tilted 45 degrees. But that still can't do anything about the non-negligible attenuation from the atmosphere at low solar elevation angles. You only get 60-70% (more at higher altitude) of 90-degree zenith insolation when the sun is at 18 degrees above the horizon, even if your panels are still perpendicular to the sun.

[BackwoodsEE]

Nope not one drop. The power plant was still on line burning fuel, you just made it more inefficient and wasted power never used.

It's hyperbole to say "not one drop." Yes, there is baseline fuel consumption keeping everything spinning, but when a generator gets loaded down less, it requires less torque to maintain its rotation. That means less natgas firing a turbine, or reactor neutrons making steam, or water through a hydro turbine.

The problem you allude to with the wasted power is the need to maintain massive amounts of fossil-fueled spinning reserve that can be throttled up in a fraction of a second to meet sudden demand like, say, thousands of microwaves starting on during halftime or a cloud passing over hundreds of rooftop arrays. Unfortunately, solar and wind do nothing to help that problem, given how intermittent they are. But they can reduce overall fuel consumption somewhat.