PV Solar in the Valley of the Sun

[BackwoodsEE]

I recently flew into and out of the Phoenix metro area, and was surprised at how few rooftop PV arrays I saw from the air. Less than 1% of houses seem to have solar panels on their roofs, probably a lot less. There were a few big flat commercial rooftops with PV panels on them, but a pretty low proportion of them as well.

What's hindering the adoption of grid-tie solar in a place with year-round sun, few shading trees, and fairly high electric rates? Are there incentives in place for western-facing panels to extend the PV generation curve further into the late afternoons, when the power consumption for air conditioning is around its peak?

[Sunking]

What's hindering the adoption of grid-tie solar in a place with year-round sun, few shading trees, and fairly high electric rates?

Money, rates are not that high in AZ. POCO is still a better deal and incentives (free money and entitlements) are disappearing. Keep in mind the Phoenix metro area has a large snowbird population with many suburbs nothing but snowbirds like Sun City and the other 4 to 5 cities full of snowbirds with the money are not even there during summer months.

[J.P.M.]

San Dego is close to ground zero for residential solar, but there's only about 5 % or so penetration into the single family residential market. I notice the same dearth of rooftop panels from about 15 - 20 miles out until touchdown as you note for Phoenix.

Don't believe everything you read/watch in the media or what you might gather from the green media or surmise from this forum. Reality is most folks don't have PV on their property.

I live in an HOA full of retired $0.10 millionaires who are all, for the most, part dumb as doorknobs with respect to most everything, particularly alternate energy, with all the solar peddlers knowing them as easy marks in an all electric community of aging, energy sieve and oversized housing stock. Even with all those factors, the solar penetration is stuck at ~ 20 % and has not moved much since NEM got effectively gutted.

[solarix]

Arizona's leaders have not yet really got on board with solar. They may talk solar PR, but do not support it in policy that well. On the other hand they are not killing us off either and do a good job of walking a tight rope between clean renewable solar and dirty old coal and nuclear. Popular opinion here of course is that we should be the solar capital of the country, but in reality, the average electric rate is only about 13 cents/kWh and grid-tied solar is not exactly parity with utility yet. States like California, New York, New jersey and Hawaii with their high electric rates are much more economic places to install solar. Solar is about 7% of Arizona generation currently and is ahead of the RES schedule which mandates 15% by 2025, so the utilities don't feel any need to incentivize more adoption right now. They managed to end Net Metering last year in exchange for a generous 12.9 cents/kWh rate for excess residential solar generation. I think part of that deal was APS agreed to shut down the old Navaho Generating Station up on the Big Ditch that was due for a multibillion dollar clean air upgrade. The Navaho tribe is complaining about the loss of a ~100 well paying jobs that this will cost. So much for the old commercial ad where the Chief is shedding a tear for the environment.... Don't worry, the tide is turning. We Arizona solar installers are well established businesses and day in and day out crank out solar covered roofs. Virtually every neighborhood in the state has at least one "anchor house" that is demonstrating solar on a local level and as the utilities pay off the sunk costs in their old plants, and if and when energy storage solutions come out of Hawaii, the Valley of the Sun will finally put the best solar resource in the country to full use.

[BackwoodsEE]

Virtually every neighborhood in the state has at least one "anchor house" that is demonstrating solar on a local level

Good point. The panels can't help but attract the interest of neighbors, and if it's paying off, those neighbors will want to participate. I did see enough of the PV arrays spread around to back up what you're saying.

[A]s the utilities pay off the sunk costs in their old plants, and if and when energy storage solutions come out of Hawaii, the Valley of the Sun will finally put the best solar resource in the country to full use.

If PV solar ever got widespread enough in Phoenix to need energy storage, I wonder if the dams on Lake Roosevelt and Lake Pleasant might eventually become used for pumped storage, in the way that California is proposing using Hoover Dam. There might need to be reservoirs added below each dam, since those little desert rivers probably couldn't provide enough water to pump into the lakes during times of excess solar production. But it seems like the most feasible way to add serious grid-scale energy storage and keep those air conditioners humming during the hot summer nights.

Are you seeing any incentives from APS or SRP for people with western-facing roofs to install solar to extend the PV generation curve later in the day?

[solarix]

APS has changed the rate plans to make the time-of-use be later in the afternoon. On-peak is now 3 to 8pm instead of the old 11am to 7pm.
The phoenix area reservoirs are too shallow for pumped storage.

[azdave]

New residential PV solar in Arizona is hardly worth it IMHO. If I didn't already have a grandfathered system I would certainly not install one these days.

[J.P.M.]

New residential PV solar in Arizona is hardly worth it IMHO. If I didn't already have a grandfathered system I would certainly not install one these days.

Like everything else, you gotta run the numbers after you set some goals and figure out how you're billed for what you currently use. Then, and in some loose order of most bang for the buck, examine which mix of options is best, starting by lowering usage via lifestyle changes, conservation measures, examining/changing POCO rate plans, and then, because it's the most expensive of the options per $$ saved (with the likely exception of new windows), whether adding PV makes any sense at all, especially when compared to other things you could do with the money spent on solar that could produce a (perhaps) greater return.

Kind of like the person who has a boat that leaks that they intend to keep. Do they first spend $$ getting a bigger (and expensive) pump to keep up with the leaks, or examine where the leaks are and remediate them in the most cost effective ways first ? DUH !

PV is one way to lower an electric bill, but it's not a slam dunk. If the goal is to lower a bill using common sense and some plan, and not simply to run in panic from self inflicted high bills by throwing what's the most expensive option at them, PV is usually the last option, and way down the list, and then, often sparingly, if at all, particularly now with NEM winding down and the bloom being off the solar rose.

[Spektre]

Another thing that I see here in Phx/Scottsdale is relatively high prices on installs. From my somewhat limited survey of costs, we're still averaging above $3.25/W installed, which seems pretty high considering the complete system hardware-only cost is <$1/W. With the changes APS has made to pricing, this can really drag out your ROI.

No disrespect to Solarix, who I know runs a business up north - from what I've read, he's actually quite a bit more reasonable than most of the valley dealers though

[emartin00]

One of the big setbacks for AZ was in 2015 when the utilities killed net metering and added hefty fees for those who had solar. That meant it was completely impractical to install solar.
Solar power supporters fought back hard, and eventually got things changed so that net meetering is back, but they lost out on almost 2 years of installs, which drove a lot of companies out.

Solar is coming back in AZ, but as you noticed, they are lagging behind due to the set backs.

[J.P.M.]

Another thing that I see here in Phx/Scottsdale is relatively high prices on installs. From my somewhat limited survey of costs, we're still averaging above $3.25/W installed, which seems pretty high considering the complete system hardware-only cost is <$1/W. With the changes APS has made to pricing, this can really drag out your ROI.

No disrespect to Solarix, who I know runs a business up north - from what I've read, he's actually quite a bit more reasonable than most of the valley dealers though

That $3.25/STC W may be high, but comparing material costs to turnkey prices can be misleading for a lot of reasons, with most of those reasons having ignorance of what's involved in running a business as the core. Until some idea of the true and actual costs of running a business are known, of which most folks are completely and utterly unaware, the comparison is unfair and meaningless.

Besides, no one has a gun to anyone's head to buy anything, and more cost effective ways always exist to lower an electric bill before PV.

[Spektre]

That $3.25/STC W may be high, but comparing material costs to turnkey prices can be misleading for a lot of reasons, with most of those reasons having ignorance of what's involved in running a business as the core. Until some idea of the true and actual costs of running a business are known, of which most folks are completely and utterly unaware, the comparison is unfair and meaningless.

Besides, no one has a gun to anyone's head to buy anything, and more cost effective ways always exist to lower an electric bill before PV.

Fair enough. How about this comparison: The Phoenix market is more expensive than markets with higher cost of living and more generous state incentives.

Oddly enough, the Solar City rep did put a gun to my head... thanks for the snark though - duh

[J.P.M.]

Fair enough. How about this comparison: The Phoenix market is more expensive than markets with higher cost of living and more generous state incentives.

Oddly enough, the Solar City rep did put a gun to my head... thanks for the snark though - duh

No snark about it. That's been my personal experience with SolarCity on about a dozen or so occasions. IMO, I've found them unprofessional, incompetent and my guess is they would oinly be more dishonest if they actually knew what they were doing.

On Phoenix being more expensive than some other markets, OK, fair enough. I ain't there so I'm ignorant of a lot of the reasons why that may be. However, I bet I know something that some others don't or that they'll deny will deny because it's kind of ugly, but may be a piece of the puzzle. I learned it from 10 + years as a sales rep.: You always sell to the market even if you can prosper selling at WAY under market. If I could afford to sell my wares for way less than the competition and make a profit, rather than just a "little" less but still turn a decent profit, that was, and still is equivalent to leaving money on the table. Selling for below what the competition was charging and making a little less "excess profit" is what those in my old industry called "poisoning the well". Nice attitude huh ? Common. Dirty secret: There's a lot of tacit price fixing going on in most every industry/market. I'd bet at least some of that applies to solar markets as well. Maybe even Phoenix. That might be where some of the perceived higher prices come from. All that under the table collusion gets a cushion from all the media that are mostly positive about PV. Then, true or partially true, they also hype electricity prices going up at a rate that's alarming. Then, people get a high electric bill, particularly around this time of year, with about half the increase from last year's bill due to mostly profligate energy use, and users then blame the entire bill increase entirely on rate increases when they can't even take time to understand their bill or even the difference between a kilowatt and a kilowatt-hour.

Look, sort of off topic, but every vendor knows about what every other vendor's prices are, and if they don't, then they aren't doing their job, with one cynical trick among many all vendors use being "price matching" - so never reveal competitor's bids - you'll lock in a price that could well have been lower, maybe not by a lot, but maybe a little, with no reason to reveal anything in the first place. All that's been accomplished in price matching is the removal of any uncertainty in a bidder's mind about where they need to be. It does the buyer no benefit and also unleverages any buyer advantage in the negotiation to be gained from vendor uncertainty about where they really need to be.