By Elizabeth Harrington
California will mandate solar panels on new homes out of concern for climate change, a policy that will raise prices in the most expensive home market in the country and does little to decrease the state’s carbon footprint.
The five-member board of the California Energy Commission unanimously issued an edict Wednesday requiring all new homes to either be installed with solar panels or share solar power in a group system. The rules go into effect on Jan. 1, 2020.
The New York Times called California a “trendsetter” for the move but expressed surprise that such a costly rule would be approved outside the legislative process by the commission with “little debate.”
“It will add thousands of dollars to the cost of home when a shortage of affordable housing is one of California’s most pressing issues,” the Times reported. “That made the relative ease of its approval—in a unanimous vote by the five-member California Energy Commission before a standing-room crowd, with little debate—all the more remarkable.”
“The requirement is expected to add $8,000 to $12,000 to the cost of a home,” the Times added.
The costs come to consumers already in a market where the median price of a single-family home is $565,000, one of the highest in the nation, the Wall Street Journal reported.
MIT Technology Review reported requiring every new home to have solar panels is a “feel-good change” that is both expensive and does little to reduce carbon emissions.
“A solar panel on every house might sound good, but it isn’t smart climate policy,” said James Temple, writing for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology magazine.
The “big problem” is cost, Temple said, citing Severin Borenstein, an economics professor at the University of California, Berkeley.
Rooftop solar panels are a “much more expensive way of increasing renewables on the grid,” costing between 12.9 and 16.7 cents per kilowatt-hour, more than twice the cost of utility-scale solar systems, according to the report.
“By demonstrating a very expensive way to reduce greenhouse gases, I think this could very likely be used in other states and countries as an argument against moving towards renewable energy,” Borenstein said.
The California Energy Commission claims the added costs to homes will be more than made up for in energy savings. If they save on electricity bills, however, it will be because customers who do not have solar panels are subsidizing them.
The savings are “effectively subsidized by other ratepayers without solar panels, net metering, and solar tax credits,” according to Borenstein.
Furthermore, MIT reported emissions reduced by the government mandate would not make much of a difference for the state’s carbon footprint.
“California estimates that the new rule will cut emissions by 1.4 million metric tons over three years, which is a small fraction of the 440 million tons the state generated in 2015,” the report said.
Emissions would be reduced by 0.32 percent.
Full story at the Free Beacon
I want the state of California to pay for the solar panels. Instead of wasting money on a high speed rail system between Bakersfield and Fresno which no one will ride, they should waste money on solar panels. I want a solar energy system that will allow me to live completely off the grid and I want the state to pay for it including an all electric car. I will do my part by allowing them to put the solar panels on my property but I must own everything they install on my property.
The reality is that the climate change we have been experiencing is caused by the sun and the oceans over which mankind has no control. There is no real evidence that CO2 has any effect on climate and plenty of scientific rational to support the idea that the climate sensitivity of CO2 is zero. What the state of California wants to do will have no effect on climate.
The vast majority of the so called greenhouse gases in the atmosphere over California is H2O and not CO2.
The majority of the H2O in the atmosphere of California comes from the ocean. What the state wants to do will have no effect on the radiant greenhouse effect over California..
My worry would be that if this is not considered a “takings” by the courts, what else can they mandate? How about batteries for grid backup? How about wind turbines to supplement the grid? How about Powerwalls, needed or not? None of these are “takings” per se since they don’t require you to surrender anything to the state.
The reason why they like this solution is because it doesn’t cost them a dime.
They force other people to spend money on things the politician feels is important.
You get all the virtue signaling with none of the cost.
MarkW
THEY get all the virtue signaling with none of the cost.
Note to the author, you made a math mistake. You are comparing 3 years of CO2 savings 1.4 million tons, to 1 year several years ago 440 million tons.
Assuming CO2 emissions don’t go up between 2015 and 2023 (3 years after the mandate goes into effect, the actual savings would only be 1/3rd of the 0.32% that you calculate.
Since this is senseless, it just means we have not successfully followed the money.
Why does this remind me of Mao’s Great Leap Forward with iron smelting in every village.
Stupid in so many ways.
Who will own the panels?
Who will own the energy the panels produce?
Who will pay for the energy they produce?
Who will have to pay for the energy produced that nobody wants?
Who will want the energy they produce?
Who will now have the job of deciding if a house should have panels. This requires a study of each house built. Did they include those costs in their estimate?
Will they mandate the houses have to “face” south to maximize solar impact?
How many panels should each house have. The maximum number possible or enough to supply energy to the house? If a mogul builds a mansion, will he have to cover the roof of his huge house with panels?
Will you not be allowed to have a tree to shade your house? Shade trees really save cooling costs.
If your system needs to be repaired, who will pay. If you don’t repair it, do you get fined?
Will insurance companies be required to pay to fix broken or damaged system?
When you redo your roof in 20 years, who will have to pay to take the panels down, store them, and then re-install them? (This is “piling on.” In 20 years the state will be bankrupt and nobody is going to care about roof solar panels.)
What if you don’t install the panels. What is the penalty?
California is leading the nation. No question about it.
Geez. Why not make everybody install their own NG generator and pump electricity back into the grid 24/7 if they have natural gas coming to their neighborhood? Because it would be insane. But I guess solar is different.
None of this makes sense exactly because it’s not supposed to make sense — by design.
“Progressives” want to destroy the current order — including reason, law, infrastructure, relationships … — and they know the fast-track to that end is the nonsensical exercise of arbitrary power.
A simple back of the envelope future value calculation using the $10K initial value the $50 a month in increased mortgage payments, at least $50 a month for additional Taxes (annual payment divided by 12) and another $50 a month in increased insurance (annual payment divided by 12) shows that you have LOST about $75,000. Now add in what you think it will cost to clean and repair this albatross for 30 years,
Demand that everyone on the CA Energy Commision install solar panels on their homes, even if they are not new construction, then also require all Dem. legislators due the same……..without state funded bailouts.
More solar generation may force the base load generators to end earlier or, as explained in this video, more solar power being generated but not used. One wonders if the excess power (from any source) is dumped through dummy loads in the form of heat (how ironic, if true).
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYLzss58CLs&w=1280&h=720%5D
The excess power could be used to power electric diggers to dig holes, and when deep enough, refill them. Rinse and repeat.
It would seem the California Energy Commission thinks it’s the California EPA.
(I wonder if they will be required to have that label, “This solar panel contains chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer, or birth defects or other reproductive harm”? 😎
Did the California Energy Commission accept any input from firefighters?
If I’m not mistaken, among the first steps to putting out a house fire is cut the power to the house.
Unless the fire is at night, these will still provide enough power to the homes wiring to shock or even electrocute a firefighter. And, maybe, cause fires in other parts of the house as water causes shorts.
They sometimes need to break through the roof while trying to put out a fire. What happens when they have to break through a solar panel?
There is plenty of scientific rational to support the idea that the climate sensitivity of CO2 is zero. So any change in CO2 emissions will have no effect on climate. However roof top solar panels will cause the roof to absorb more radiant energy which causes warming. If global warming is of concern then instead of installing solar panels of roofs they should be painting the roof tops white.
Here is an idea for Kalifornica- Outlaw all fossil fuels. Require electric vehicles, no internal combustion engines allowed. Only solar/wind/hydro power plants. Any sane person that currently lives in Kalifornica (are there any?) will immediately move to another state. The nut-jobs that are left will have their green paradise that will very shortly resemble the stone age (without fire of course, as fire is a source of carbon emission…) and nature will take care of the rest. Think of all the positives- No more crappy propaganda movies/tv coming out of CA. No more whining celebrities trying to preach and enforce their world view on everybody else. The bottom would fall out of the incredibly expensive housing market, and ANYBODY would be able to afford to live there. (Not that anybody would/should want to live there at that point or this for that matter…) Sounds like something Gov Moonbeam would sign off on without hesitation if he were truly devoted to the cause of saving the planet, as well as all those eco-celebs. Elon Musk would make a fortune, and become the patron saint of the state. Although it may be difficult to charge all those explosive Tesla batteries with nothing but renewable power, it won’t really matter much once everybody that is left living there would starve or die from dysentery because there isn’t enough electricity to operate water treatment plants or agriculture operations. If I were asked to vote on it, I would vote a wholehearted YES for that plan. But then again, I live in the forest in the north woods of MN, insulated from all the insanity of idiots like the ones that come up with these schemes, so I would never be asked to vote on such a measure….