California has stunned green advocates, by excluding rooftop solar from their renewable energy mandate.
According to the LA Times;
California’s aggressive push to increase renewable energy production comes with a catch for people with solar panels on the roof: You don’t count.
If a home or business has a rooftop solar system, most of the wattage isn’t included in the ambitious requirement to generate half of the state’s electricity from renewable sources such as solar and wind by 2030, part of legislation signed in October by Gov. Jerry Brown.
That means rooftop solar owners are missing out on a potentially lucrative subsidy that is paid to utilities and developers of big power projects.
It also means that utility ratepayers could end up overpaying for clean electricity to meet the state’s benchmark because lawmakers, by excluding rooftop solar, left out the source of more than a third of the state’s solar power.
Owners of rooftop solar systems and their advocates aren’t happy about the policy.
Read more: http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-solar-subsidy-20151130-story.html
LA Times speculates that this shift in policy was due to pressure from utilities and unions – rooftop solar installers are not extensively unionised, compared to workers in large solar utility plants.
Whatever the reason for this unexpected development, one thing is clear; even über green California cannot be trusted to provide a stable renewables subsidy regime. If you invest in renewables, you’re taking a big risk.
Nothing new about this: the one never-changing reality is that big politics, big business and big unions always want to control everyone. Forever.
One rule for small business and individuals. Another for big business.
Same old, same old.
What’s the difference between ‘green corporations’ and ‘big bad old corporations’?
Absolutely nothing……
2 Dec: Politico: Carla Marinucci: California Playbook, presented by Chevron: BROWN blasts Republican climate ‘disgrace’
CALIFORNIA IS TALKING ABOUT…six days in Paris for Gov. Jerry Brown — a major commitment of time, energy and scheduling, with a lot at stake. At the UN Global Climate Change conference, he leads a crowded delegation of legislative leaders, high profile business and tech titans, in a schedule packed with headline-generating events.
— Bottom line for the big Paris stage: It’s about who will emerge the winners (and losers) in the race to clean energy, and what will be the real deliverables while other major pressing issues also loom on the state horizon.
http://www.politico.com/tipsheets/california-playbook/2015/12/politico-california-playbook-presented-by-chevron-brown-blasts-republican-climate-disgrace-panettas-sigh-of-relief-perea-moving-on-211547
2 Dec: Politico: Carla Marinucci: Jerry Brown lambastes Republicans for climate vote ‘disgrace’
Regarding criticism from increasingly vocal Hollywood luminaries like actor Mark Ruffalo, who have sharply criticized his failure to stand against fracking, the governor suggested that they are largely ignoring the realities of Californians’ own continued reliance on cars and foreign oil.
“I don’t think it’s responsible to let third-world countries do the oil production so that Californians can drive around, even in their hybrids,’’ he said. “We have to shoulder our part of the responsibility. And reducing our climate footprint is not ‘snap your fingers, take one issue,'” he said. “To just instantly kill an industry, with all the backlash that entails, with the trivial impact on climate change, does not seem to me the wise way to go.’’
On Bill Gates’ new investment coalition and its heavy representation from Silicon Valley billionaires who seek to develop new green technologies, Brown called it “a testament to California’s leading role in technology and innovation. .. It will create jobs and opportunity. It’s a good step forward, and I’ll do whatever I can to support it.”…
http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/california/2015/12/8584437/jerry-brown-lambastes-republicans-climate-vote-disgrace
from the Politico link “California Playbook”..the Governor’s Paris delegation:
ALONG FOR THE RIDE: Led by Gov. Brown and NextGen Climate founder Tom Steyer, the delegation will include Jim Mahoney, Global Corporate Communications & Public Policy Executive, Bank of America; K.R. Sridhar, Founder and CEO, Bloom Energy; Thad Hill, President and CEO, Calpine; Thad Miller, Executive Vice President, Chief Legal Officer and Secretary, Calpine; Pasquale Romano, President and CEO,ChargePoint; Nancy Pfund, Founder and Managing Partner, DBL Investors; Sister Susan Vickers, RSM, VP Corporate Responsibility, Dignity Health; Bernard J. Tyson, Chairman and CEO of Kaiser Permanente, Kaiser Permanente; Raymond J. Baxter, PhD, Senior Vice President, Community Benefit, Research and Health Policy, Kaiser Permanente; David Crane, CEO, NRG Energy; Anthony Earley, Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President, PG&E Corporation; Cathy Zoi, CEO, SunEdison Frontier Power; Rob Davenport, Chairman, Sungevity and Lyndon Rive, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, SolarCity
Hope their plane crashes.
The whole thing is starting to resemble Mao Tse Tung’s Great Leap Forward of the 1950’s.
Roger
http://www.thedemiseofchristchurch.com
Guardian predicts ocean pH dropping by -109 % LOL
They nicely demonstate that while pretending to present a scientific argument, they are totally and utterly illiterate in basic science.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/dec/04/paris-climate-talks-what-difference-will-temperature-rises-really-make
missing out on a potentially lucrative subsidy
Well isn’t that interesting. Some thieves are being cut from the gang.
PS negative pH would correspond to industrial grade concentrated hydrochloric or sulphuric acid !
If you invest in renewables, you’re taking a big risk.
No! No risk at all. You WILL lose your money, guaranteed!
Not in California if you are politically connected utility you won’t.
Two question. Does this ruling apply to Google? How does this effect Cal’s cap and trade?
All this means is that the tax payer subsidies will go directly to big business. Big business understands how to make the proper donations to the proper politicians in the proper amounts. And when the solar panels are mothballed it is easier to quietly shut down a few Potemkin Village style facilities than it is to remove thousands of residential sized installations.
Many good comments about the subsidies required to sustain roof top solar. One further observation. Supporting rooftop solar works as a “do gooderism” when the costs are bearable, penetration levels low and no real results need be shown. Especially if the costs are widely dispersed or put on third parties with fairly deep pockets. When you broaden penetration, have to achieve targets, show results and you begin to measure and make decisions among competing alternatives – in most cases roof top solar should be one of the first alternatives to fall by the wayside.
California has stunned green advocates, by excluding rooftop solar from their renewable energy mandate.
I am surprised myself that California can do anything that makes sense. However, I guess they finally saw that they were making the electric grid less stable without really doing any reduction in CO2. Either that, or their cronies told them that they had sucked all the profits out of that sector and were moving on to another sector that they wanted the state to help them with. Time will tell which I guess.
A search of the California incentives shows none of the underlying subsidies for residential rooftop solar has actually changed. If you can identify a subsidy that has actually changed (not some $50 per MWh alleged difference in the article), an actual policy change as in documented on a State of California website – please do.
What this actually does is require more UTILITY SCALE SOLAR PV in CA to meet the mandate.
Federal State Local and Utility subsidies for Rooftop Solar PV and Thermal in CA are unchanged.
Nova Scotia, I am an Aussie.
Now I don’t know much about your people or you.
But, I am excited because I am about to search.
It’s not research because I have never searched about you before.
I am convinced that the natural intelligence of your population is of an extremely high level.
No drongoes you mob.
“LA Times speculates that this shift in policy was due to pressure from utilities and unions”
Dang, am I going to have to say something nice about unions now???
A note about PV solar panels. Any PV solar panel in line of sight of a nuclear EMP explosion will instantly and irreparably be destroyed by the EMP. Period. Trashed. Only good for providing shade from the hot sun.
Therefore it is foolish and imprudent for any plan for providing power to incorporate more than a few percent of power from PV solar.
@buckwheaton
every single unshielded non EMI/EMF hardened piece of electronics with integrated circuit, connected to TP, coax, or any other connection that will allow current to be induced in the wiring or circuit will suffer the same fate in the same situation.
Big Government realised that subsidising any form of independence is basically shooting themselves in the foot.
You’re on to something there, but in California, which is run like a communist state, even Rush Limbaugh is brought to air by government public service announcements, urging us lowly subjects (note, I don’t say citizen, because we have no say in what they do to us) to install the rooftop solar.
Tax subsidy and write offs are the main selling feature that they themselves push.
With that going away the state energy board will have to cobble together a whole bunch of new radio spots.
1) By excluding roof top installations they are effectively mandating more over all solar generation.
2) By excluding roof top installations they are reserving the subsidies for their friends and campaign contributors.
Is old nut a stockholder in veritas research consulting?
“rooftop solar owners are missing out on a potentially lucrative subsidy”
’nuff said…
Duh. Generating energy where it is needed without incurring transmission losses makes sense, ergo, Cali-fornication-ia politicians aren’t in favor of promoting it. It also undermines their stock in utility-scale solar plants of course.
crony capitalism….Article V Convention of the States demand it from your local govt.
As always, the vested interests outweigh something that actually can be good.
The cost of panels etc. continues to drop. In a FUNNY way, having your own power source is a GREAT way to bail out of the state run electric system. As mentioned, pandering to Unions, and to the local electric companies outweigh the idea of having your OWN electric source!
And worse, if you have your own electricity, then you not paying taxes and providing a source of revenue to the state run system.
In other words, if the socialist’s watermelons (green on the outside, and red on the inside) find out that some energy source really is great, they move to destroy it to protect the state and self-interest of groups. It really never about being green, but always about control and taking your freedoms away.
While PV panels are not for everyone, with such affordable panels these days, this ever increasing viable technology is now viewed as a threat to the state!
Regards,
Albert D. Kallal
Edmonton, Alberta Canada
Naked links should be banned.
Further confirmation that the left uses energy, environmental, and social policy issues only as a steppingstone to exerting control over ordinary citizens. They have no interest or concern about the issues or their effects on the people, only the power they can gain by whipping up their base into a frenzy over the issue de jour.