Listen up comrade! You WILL buy solar panels whether you like it or not.
As if housing in California isn’t already overpriced and out-of-reach enough, now there’s this hare-brained scheme. From the LA Times:
California heads toward requiring solar panels on all new houses
California is set to become the first state to require solar panels on all newly built single-family houses. The mandate is expected to save buyers money in the long run but also raise their upfront costs at a time many are already struggling to afford a mortgage.
The state’s Energy Commission is scheduled to vote Wednesday on the rules, which are expected to pass and take effect in 2020. The regulations, which would also apply to new multifamily buildings of three stories or fewer, don’t need the approval of the Legislature.
The new building standards — which also include updated insulation mandates — are a piece of California’s ambitious plan to slash greenhouse gas emissions in coming decades. That will require sweeping policy changes to promote renewable energy, electric vehicles and even denser neighborhoods where people have to drive less for daily trips.
“This is going to be a significant increase in the solar market in California,” Kelly Knutsen of the trade group California Solar & Storage Assn. said of the new requirement. “We are also sending a national message that … we are a leader in the clean energy economy.”
…
If the new rules added $9,500 to the sales price of an otherwise $530,000 home, a buyer putting 20% down would need to cough up an additional $1,900 for the down payment, according to a mortgage calculator from online brokerage Redfin.
Monthly mortgage payments would rise by $50 if the buyer took out a 30-year mortgage at 4.39% interest.
Full story here
h/t to Willis for the LA Times article
In a ‘real world’ situation, solar panels are not cleaned and they will be found with a dirty surface from soot, organics and dust after just a few months. Rain does not wash this off and it can only be cleaned by pressure-washing or scrubbing with soap and water. One year old panels can see their output diminished by 25% due to this opaque layer.
Add in the lower efficiency (or the cost to pay to have it cleaned regularly) and the cost of your systems lifetime performance is a lot more than what you were told you could expect. Of course, not every roof is perfectly positioned to take advantage of the sun, so costs rise/benefits decrease more than expected.
So I have some questions on this.
1. What’s to stop the homeowner from removing the new PV panels and hardware as soon as the sale closes?
2. What’s to stop him/her from selling the PV hardware on eBay to recoup his/her money?
3. The PV installation, since the homeowner owns it, is just an appliance, like the AC compressor or water heater. Can rhe state force him/her to pay for maintenance to keep it functional? (If my AC or water heater breaks, no one is going to force me to fix it).
4. If a construction code compliance requires it, then if I sell, can the new owner buy it without fixing it? Assume the new buyer is a cash buyer.
5. Can the state force me to use my home to supply power to grid, even if I don’t want to?
I think this solar PV mandate is likely an unconstitutional taking.
Thank God, the Founders and Framers that we have a Bill of Rights which should, if the rule of Law and not of Man still exists in the USA, which means that this insane, Communist pronunciamento will be struck down as against all that is legal, right and holy.
Felix,
Yes indeed. Thank you pointing out the Bill of Rights to the US constitution.
The states are also restricted by the Bill of Rights.
The 5th Amendment – the Taking Clause (the final sentence reads);
“Nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation.”
In other words:
If I am forced to provide maintenance to my rooftop solar so that it supplies excess power to the public grid, the state must compensate me.
This is an appropriation for which the legislature must make funds available. Liekly that would be cost prohibitive to state budget.
This mandate will almost certainly die in courts.
Joel, my brother,
I might actually put solar panels on my roof were the CA legislature to recognize its constitutional obligation to pay me therefore.
I still wouldn’t like subsidizing Chinese Communists, but as it would benefit me and my family, I’d play along.
So, I understand that in CA, if you haf to make your own septic system, ther’re are very $$ requirements. This has been in place for more than 30 years. Why hasn’t this run afoul of the “Takings” amendment?
Really,
Seriously, that’s your best argument? It is to laugh.
City, county and state septic requirements to keep from polluting ground water in your warped alternative universe are the same as mandates for solar cells on your roof? Clearly, Leftist F@scists are not of this world.
Really skeptical,
You point out the Septic System must meet code and that cost money to private owner.
Okay, but by definition the Septic System is not connected to the sewer system, a public utility.
A septic system must be installed and maintained where no sewer connection is available for ground water safety and public health to protect from fecal contaminated run-off.
In *every* US jurisdiction, for a building permit, if sanitary sewer is readily available, the construction must connect to it. You cannot install a septic system if sanitary sewer is available.
This fails in the the analogy to the electricity grid and the solar PV install mandate, since the electricity grid connection is available to homeowner. Further, the solar PV installation sells excess power back to the grid. The homeowner is being forced to do this.
The commission might be on more solid ground if it issued a ruling mandating solar PV on new construction where electricity was required but no grid connection was economically feasible. Thus to limit the use of off-grid diesel/fossil fuel generators, the commission could possibly be on firm legal ground to mandate a PV install to reduce generator emissions.
In the septic system case, the sanitary sewer system is NOT available to homeowner.
There inevitably will be legal challenges to this mandate.
So keep in mind this mandate arises from a 5person commission. It did come from the legislative branch through legislation signed into law..
You cannot argue from the a health, or community welfare standpoint, simply because homes built prior to 2020 do not have to retrofit with Solar PV panels attached to the grid.
All this together, I think makes this Solar PV mandate likely to be struck down in a court challenge..
It did not come from the legislative branch through legislation.
The commission has likely exceeded it authority to impose costs on new construction.
Depends upon which judges in which courts rule. If it comes to the present USSC, there is no doubt what the decision will be. But look at the unconstitutional rulings of lower courts in the cases against Trump’s DACA EO, countering Obama’s clearly illegal DACA ruling.
The Supreme Court did rule 5-4 the ACA (ObamaCare) mandate was constitutional. Justice Roberts had to jump through dubious legal hoops to do so, but it did but invoking Congresses right to impose taxation under the mandate penalty.
But again, keep in mind, this PV mandate did not come from the legislature like O-care did. It came from an un-elected 5 member commission.
This is almost certainly unconstitutional taking.
Roberts switched his position because Obama had dirt on him.
Not likely to happen again in a takings case with Trump as POTUS.
Roberts hid behind the taxation defense. Yet the grossly overpaid proponents of Obama”care” had previously insisted that it wasn’t a tax.
This solar PV installation mandate suffers from the extreme problem (unlike O-Care) that it did not come from the legislature and signed by the Governor. It comes from an un-elected commission with no power to appropriate funds to compensate home owners to maintain their solar systems.
At one point, the ACA ruling was the first case where both the majority and minority positions were written by the same person.
Roberts wrote the majority position, then switched sides and wrote the new majority decision.
Height of hypocrisy. Making solar panels is too polluting and environmentally destructive to be done in CA, but the lunatic fringe powers that be there are only too happy to require that their enslaved, subject peons buy Chinese solar panels made in a totally environmentally destructive manner.
The depths of Progressive hypocrisy and lunacy cannot be plumbed.
All the actual evidence available is that more CO2 is a good thing for the environment and that windmills and solar panels massacre birds and bats, while spreading evil, worse than worthless development across the landscape.
Most people reading this site probably agree, but saying this to a religious “the world is going down by exploding, imloding, flooding, drying out, boiling and freezing, all at the same time!!” believer is like hitting a pillow. We need to keep demanding proper empirical evidence for the AGW narrative. And in that respect I have a problem with, that most people know to ask for evidence, but when the other part tries to change the subject, most people don’t keep on insisting on some proper answer. THAT’s what we need.
Gravity check… on the numbers.
$9,500 – $1,900 = $7,600
-pmt( 0.⁰⁴³⁸/₁₂, 12×30, 7,600 ) = $38.02
Sorry, but that’s the monthly, not fifty bucks.
Its math.
GoatGuy
The $9,500 is almost certainly just the hardware cost. It does not account for labor and installation costs.
In Arizona, a new construction Solar PV install is around $18K – $20K. But that varies dependong on the contractor and the installer. Big jobs (every house) on new subdivision jobs allow the install costs to be lower.
GoatGuy
It’s maths. An abbreviation of mathematics.
🙂
It takes a truly twisted mind to conclude that the government forcing people to buy a product they don’t want is ‘a good idea’.
J Mac
Ve shall convince you it is ze good idea. Ja?
Ze alternative iz unthinkable………..cheap electricity………..Nien, das iz verboten. Ja!
Mien Got in himmel…….ze right hand haf taken on ze life of its own. It iz conducting a salute. Zis iz good in your Kalifornia. Ja?
I feel velcom, zis is my new home, buggerz Venezuela!
As Herr HotScot verspoken, vie haff our vays….. Unt, vair are your papars?
Hoot Mon!!!! It’s deja vu all over again, for Dr. Strangelove! And The Producers!
I hope we have no easily offended German guests ~Gulp~
Feel free to respond with Scot’s caricatures, we are a culture anyone is allowed to marginalise without sanction.
Personally, I’m a bald, fat, middle class, western white bloke, with two kids, a mortgaged home, two cars, a managed pension, and a plan to retire with no debt.
I’m also a climate sceptic.
I am the enemy of all mankind.
If solar made sense there would be no subsidies and no increase in electricity bills. wherever solar has been put in; the electricity bills have doubled or tripled.
Yee Haa, We are saved. The government of California has saved our asses once again from the efficiency of free markets.
California forcing you to buy PV solar panels…. Isn’t it ironic that even though PV solar panels are the best of the official government subsidised “green” solutions, it’s by far not the “greenest”. A simple (and cheaper) solution is solar panel heaters, which have a higher yield from the sunshine, but are best used in colder areas and the cold season. But even better, how about a Solar assisted micro “Organic Rankine Cycle” (ORC) based system for “Combined Heat and Power” (CHP) cogeneration, where you get both heat and electricity from your installation? I think so. So to me it seems that California is forcing people to invest in something that isn’t really helpful.
Things are going to be “interesting” this summer is Politically Correct, green California:
California grid operator sees tight power supplies for summer
“The California Independent System “Operator (ISO), the grid operator, said the system’s capacity to serve consumers will be tight in high-load periods in the summer months, especially during the evenings of hot days when solar power dissipates.”
http://kfgo.com/news/articles/2018/may/09/california-power-supplies-will-be-tight-this-summer-grid-operator/
So…. Brown-outs from Gov Brown. How appropriately named.
Wow. They’ve done alot of kooky things, but this one takes the fruit and nut cake.
I don’t live in California anymore, but if I did, I’d have a bunch of questions:
1. Where is the engineering analysis of this .undertaking?
2. What exceptions are allowed? I assume that a developer building in a forest, or a deep canyon or in the shadow of a six story building or a grove of date palms will not be required to install useless hardware. Who adjucates exceptions?
3. Why residential rather than grid scale solar? I find it hard to believe that large scale solar installations designed by real engineers and built by utilities would not be less problemetic, properly backed up,.and more cost effective than ad hoc installations engineered by real estate developers.
4. Where was this concept prototyped? What problems were encountered? Are the homeowners in the test bed happy with their solar installations?
5. The EIA is less than enthused about solar costs. See https://www.eia.gov/renewable/workshop/gencosts/ According to the EIA, after considering technology improvements and probable future natural gas costs, solar (presumably grid scale) will still be more expensive than natural gas in 2035. Was that taken into account?
6. Do the solar panels have to be rooftop? Can they be in a field next to the house where they are easy to wash? Can they be on a nearby hillside? Can they be part of a community solar project?
7. What sort of controls will be put in place to control scams and shoddy workmanship?
From a substantial distance, this sure looks like utopian planning. There are exceptions, but for the most parts, past utopian undertakings have not ended all that well..
So what happens to people who live along the foggy coast in more northern areas like here?
And what about houses on the north faces of mountains that are lucky to get a couple hours of low angle sunlight just after sunrise and just before sunset?
Next up – CA government issues sealed thermostats in your house that will alarm authorities if you try to circumvent them; (mandatory 1 year in your local county gulag). Maximum heat setting = 62F, minimum cooling setting = 82F. And why not limit each person’s electrical usage too? If your house uses over “X” per person you’ll have a choice comrade, cut down on those wasteful amperes or invite some homeless people to live with you. (What could be more fair?)
Proof that this whole thing is a scam is that if the solons actually wanted to reduce fossil fuel emissions the easiest thing to do is ban passenger vehicles with engines over 50 HP per ton and require a governor to restrict speed to 40MPH. I wouldn’t be surprised that many of them are getting arm’s length kickbacks from the solar industry to guarantee future business now that many federal government alternative energy subsidies/incentives are being threatened by Trump.
I know someone living in Denmark, where electricity prices are among the highest in Europe, who has a solar panel on his roof and reckons to cut his electricity bill considerably. But if you visit on a hot day in July all the radiators in the house are hot (the heat generated has nowhere else to go). How is this problem solved in sunny California?
So if you planned to buy shares in a community solar project or wanted to be part of a utility scale solar PV deal like Apple you would be forced to go with the higher cost, lower economies of scale rooftop project?
My response: Help those in need alongside the road in the reverse Grapes of Wrath migration.
And what does a CA house cost now, before this legislation…
https://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/Veleros-Plan-3_Los-Carneros_135-S-Los-Carneros-Rd_Goleta_CA_93117_P414046228720
Goleta is the poor armpit of Santa Barbara, and the image of this newly built home is a total fabrication. Replace the mature trees with identical houses 15 feet to either side. The view out back? An unobstructed look at the freeway, except when a train is going by on the tracks between the development and the freeway.
And this price is before the added cost of solar. I grew up in an all electric home in Goleta. My folks sold it when the cost to heat in winter rose above $300 per month. I pity the folks who will get stuck in this squalor.
I’ll bet there is a money trail behind this, not unlike all of Moonbeam’s rich buddies getting richer on his train to nowhere.
…and they call Facebook policy akin to a dictatorship
‘Akin to a Dictatorship.’ Huge Pension Fund Calls on Mark Zuckerberg to Drop Facebook’s Dual-Class Share System
http://fortune.com/2018/05/10/facebook-calstrs-mark-zuckerberg-dual-class-dictatorship/
The California State Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS,) which counts Facebook (FB, +1.69%) among its top 10 investments, said in a Thursday Financial Times op-ed that Facebook’s governance “is now akin to a dictatorship” if Zuckerberg does not relinquish the extraordinary control he enjoys through the system.
Solar panels are uneconomic and for other reasons are a dead loss and should not be connected to the grid
Uneconomic: Self explanatory
Dead loss: A solar panel may be suitable for powering a dedicated element in ones own water cylinder but as for pushing that energy to the boundary along the street and into a neighbours property, forget it. There is insufficient capacity/grunt/oomph. It is like starting a car engine with a torch battery.
No grid connection: To many harmonics
The majority of people are away from their homes for most of the sunny hours