[GratiaTerra]

I took advantage of the IRA solar power and $7500 EV credit, now I have an off grid home all electric appliances and excess power for hot tubs and EV's. The Ford Lightning acts as a generator. This was the greatest most life changing and impactful legistlation ever: I've had $0 (ZERO!) in gasoline, LP, and electric utility bills since installation last year.

[asciimov]

It's too bad that the only people benefiting from all green power subsidies are the people that least need them.

We should be investing solar in lower income communities, as those people could really use cheaper utilities, and any saving they get would immediately go back into their communities.

[epistasis]

That's an odd way of looking at it.

Those who are most able to pay for it are those who are paying for the highest initial costs, lowering the costs for everyone else by improvements in the technology, and making it easier for others to adopt later. Early adopters take lots of risk on things not working out well, and learning what things can go wrong and how to fix them (at additional expense, too.)

This is much better than those who are least able to pay being made to shoulder the cost and risks of being early adopters.

[plandis]

It’s literally a government handout for people wealthy enough to buy more expensive cars and solar.

That money should have been spent to fund R&D/capital expenditures to make cheaper electric vehicles and solar cells for everyone, TBH.

[epistasis]

That money is spent to fund the capital expenditures and the on-the-production-line R&D that drives down costs.

That money that subsidizes purchases of more expensive products also incentivizes all those factories, the things that make them cheaper in the future.

> That money should have been spent to fund R&D/capital expenditures to make cheaper electric vehicles and solar cells for everyone, TBH

If you can convert this vague statement into a policy with real impacts, there would be tons of people that would love to hear it. Otherwise, it's just wishing the world were different, without a path to completion.

Should we all have free energy? Of course! But how do we do it. I'm all ears and hope that you have come up with a defensible policy. (Though ideally you should have shared it 4 years ago, because it's going to be a long time before we have another shot at setting policy, and everybody was begging for ideas like yours back then.)

[ben_w]

> That money should have been spent to fund R&D/capital expenditures to make cheaper electric vehicles and solar cells for everyone, TBH.

It kinda was, it's just that it was spend in China and the US government got the money back by putting tariffs on the imports.

The tariffs are paid by the importer, whose customers also gets a government subsidy paid for by the tariffs that the electorate is told are paid by the exporter, so they get to feel like they're getting a good deal and the voters get to feel patriotic, and why isn't my MSCI China investment doing better…

[knappe]

Which would be great and all, but they already exist. But rather than take advantage of the cheaper existing solar panels and electric cars we'd rather impose massive tariffs on them because of the country making them.

[yowzadave]

Isn't TFA about how the technology is not resulting in lowered costs for end users? What are you suggesting would change the dynamic described in the article?

[epistasis]

There's two very very different things under discussion here,

1) TFA, with manufacturers using their limited production capacity to target the highest margin customers, the ones that overpay the most.

2) green energy subsidies, in the comment I'm replying to.

In the first case, the price insensitive customers are the ones paying for a build out of capacity, and taking on greater risk while doing it.

But in the comment that I'm replying to, the poster was commenting on "benefits" which is presumably the lower cost of electricity, and those with the least also have the greatest need for lower costs. Presumably this is about residential solar/storage, or at least I interpreted it to be. Lower costs in solar are not having much of an impact at the moment due to the high cost of the regulatory structure that we use in the US; Australia has a far far far lower solar installation cost, <5x per Watt. If there's disparity in the availability of our overpriced residential solar, it's due to those with less generally being renters rather than owners. So their landlord makes the decision about residential solar versus grid electricity.

And for green energy subsidies on utility solar/storage, the question gets even more complicated because falling electricity generation costs are not something that the utility wants to pass on, since most in the US are regulated monopolies and have no incentive to ever lower prices.

In any case, the existence of the subsidy is not the core problem, it's the mismatch between decision makers and beneficiaries.

[vel0city]

Paying wealthy people to leave the power grid isn't making it cheaper for those left behind. It is making it more expensive for those who couldn't afford to leave the grid. Now more of the share of the cost to maintain all the infrastructure is pushed on to those who couldn't afford to leave it.

[c22]

Those who are most able to pay for it likely have larger energy footprints too, so it's possible prioritizing this demographic gives you more bang for your buck in emissions reductions.

[jebarker]

We need both. There's plenty of wealthy people that can afford to go solar and could arguably have a bigger environmental impact if they did since they often also have large homes, big cars etc. If they don't feel strongly about doing it for altruistic reasons then subsidies are a useful tool to get them to take the plunge. Without subsidies there's really no economic argument for them to do it since the break even times are long and they probably aren't too worried about utility costs.

[wannacboatmovie]

Taking one single family home solar does not provide a measurable environmental impact in aggregate.

OP doesn't have to pay the electric bill anymore, but the average residential solar install exceeds $30k before credits. Someone has to pay off that loan...

Not to mention the Chinese factory that manufactured the solar panels is probably dumping toxic waste chemicals into the local drinking water unabated. We're all too busy patting ourselves on the back for saving the world to consider the impact of the whole lifecycle.

[jebarker]

> Taking one single family home solar does not provide a measurable environmental impact in aggregate.

In order for large numbers of homes to go solar, individual homes need to go solar. Are you saying we just shouldn't bother with solar and EVs because not everyone is going to do it? May aswell just stop donating to charity too right?

> Someone has to pay off that loan...

I think the OP is probably paying for the loan themselves. The subsidies are just a small part of the total cost.

> probably dumping toxic waste chemicals...

Again, I think everyone would agree that it'd be better if the solar panel production process was totally clean, but the fact it isn't yet doesn't stop solar being a net win.

[underlipton]

>In order for large numbers of homes to go solar, individual homes need to go solar.

Assuming that SFH remain the standard. Even with ADUs, that changes. (Idea: subsidize only based on the presence of multifamily on a lot?)

>I think the OP is probably paying for the loan themselves.

Hm. Knock-on effect. That homeowner now has to command the income to pay for the loan. That changes his job choice, consumption habits. Maybe his boss feels that he has to pay him more to keep him happy (and not another worker). If he has to sell, price has to be higher in order to break even/get a return. Solar is probably a good thing for municipal expenses, re: less strain on the power grid, but you also get a better turn in that regard converting multi-family or non-residential buildings.

[DrillShopper]

> In order for large numbers of homes to go solar, individual homes need to go solar

Or we could put that solar on the grid so everyone could benefit from it

[r00fus]

CA is doing both but PG&E (and SDGE and SCE, etc) are screwing everyone over as they wasted decades without maintaining their lines properly and now charge through the roof on power distribution which they have a monopoly on.

[vel0city]

> In order for large numbers of homes to go solar, individual homes need to go solar.

The percentage of energy going to my house which was generated by solar continues to go up every year. And yet I haven't installed a single solar panel. Strange huh?

[_aavaa_]

The average solar install only costs 30k in large part to tens of thousands of people pay that cost to bring it out.

That being said, the costs panels themselves make up ~12% of that cost: https://www.nrel.gov/solar/market-research-analysis/solar-in...

Also worth pointing out, in 13 years the cost of panels dropped by almost 90%.

[tuatoru]

> There's plenty of wealthy people that can afford to go solar ... subsidies are a useful tool to get them to take the plunge.

So you are in favour of taking taxes from the poor to give to the rich. Good to know.

Wealthy people's impact disproportionately comes from plane travel. That is highly polluting but nothing is being done about that.

[jebarker]

Wealthy people pay much more in taxes than poor people. One use of taxes I am in favor of is "nudges" to achieve desirable outcomes for all. This is an example of that.

Bringing up plane travel is "whataboutism".

[washadjeffmad]

True, but not universally. In cities, lower income people living in older buildings are a significantly larger source of tax revenue than corporate parks or the wealthy communities they subsidize. I spend less in sales tax shopping at Costco than someone who eats every meal from a corner store and overpays for singles of everything.

I don't even know what a soda or single roll of toilet tissue costs, but I'd probably be horrified by it because I can afford not to spend money.

The government gets my money on occasion, but they have a chunk of the nation on a subscription plan.

[solarpunk]

>We should be investing solar in lower income communities, as those people could really use cheaper utilities, and any saving they get would immediately go back into their communities.

Good news, these are called "community solar gardens" and they exist all around the USA, here's a large one based in Minneapolis: https://www.cooperativeenergyfutures.com/

[hedora]

Community net monitoring isn’t allowed in California.

Instead, PG&E let the grid fall apart, so now they’re charging crippling amounts of money to people that can’t afford solar.

On the one hand, with the help of subsidies, our house is off-grid capable, and our power bill is $0-50.

On the other hand, there’s a red-tagged neighborhood near by (they built homes despite not having power grid access), and they usually end up having a generator fire take out a few houses every couple of years.

Anyway, I really wish California had a second political party (not the GOP).

[renewiltord]

How is it crippling? My 1900 sq. ft. loft in SF cost like $100/mo most months. That’s 5 hours of minimum wage work here. Even the $200 it hit at peak is 10 hours of minimum wage work. That was with 4 people living in it.

[r00fus]

PG&E is a factor in net emigration out of CA. Agreed single-party-controlled states are full of inefficiency (aka corruption).

[entropicdrifter]

On the other hand, living in a purple state doesn't necessarily help with corruption either. I live in PA and we had billions "go missing" from our Department of Transportation over the course of over a little over a decade. Things have improved in the last like 6 years or so, but we had to get to the point where our bridges were crumbling and just having permanent detours setup around them first before people really got on a crusade about properly fixing our roads.

Josh Shapiro's done a bang-up job actually properly allocating the funds we managed to get from the big infrastructure bill, but that's been a major change from how things have been for the last 30 years I've lived here.

[selimthegrim]

Net metering?

[irq-1]

> CEF has financed and developed 6.9MW (~$16M) of low-income-accessible community solar arrays that ... offsets the utility bills of over 700 Minnesota households for the next 25 years

$16M for 700 homes = $22,857.14/home

That's not an investment, it's just charity by other means.

[solarpunk]

That number is in the ballpark of what it costs to install solar on a rooftop here in Minnesota.

The other part is these solar gardens don't stop paying for your electric bill if you move, so it's especially equitable for renters.

[ben_w]

6.9MW / 700 homes is 9.85 kW/home.

Two of these would do more than that (10.5 kW), for (at current exchange rates) $5934, or just over a quarter that price:

https://www.kaufland.de/product/512021383/?search_value=sola...

And even at that price, it's overlapping in price range with the non-solar equivalents.

The funny thing is, I grew up (in the UK) with news stories about how the latest computers were so expensive in the UK that it was cheaper to fly to NYC, buy one, and fly back with it, than to buy local — and now the US is having the same problem in reverse with PV (you might well be able to fit some of the much smaller flexible PV systems I've seen around here in Berlin into oversized luggage).

(Sure, I get that big projects aren't exactly the same as small ones… but usually that makes big things cheaper, not more expensive, even for home PV vs. park PV).

[vel0city]

That's just the panels. So, I buy a bunch of panels, they get dropped off by a truck, and then...? I'm going to use slave labor to assemble it all and wire it all up?

The price for installed solar in the US isn't high because of the panels. Its high because of the labor costs.

[solarpunk]

can one even get that german made solar kit in the usa?

[choilive]

We do. Through community solar programs low/medium income households can get anywhere from 10%-50% off their electricity supply costs.

[itsoktocry]

Oh, the low income people only have to pay 50-90% of the costs eh?

[choilive]

Yes..? What are you trying to get at?

[ben_w]

*Waves from Germany* We have self-install balcony PV systems starting at a few hundred euros: https://www.obi.de/p/8073827/absaar-flexibles-balkonkraftwer...

I've been to the US a few times, seen AC hanging out of the windows all over the place.

If you can do that, and Germany can do this, why can't you also do this?

Now sure, it won't cover 100% of demand, but it will help many of the poorest.

[underlipton]

HOA and lease restrictions. Also depends on what exposures you have. One place I lived was exclusively western, the other eastern.

[ben_w]

Rhetorically: Do HOA/lease rules that forbid PV not also prohibit AC dangling out the window?

If they allow one and prohibit the other, can they not be changed to allow something else that also dangles from the window?

[underlipton]

There'll often be a broad restriction of adornment of any kind outside of a strict list, and/or at the discretion of the HOA/property manager. Many don't allow window AC units. There's a general air of paranoia about anything that could potentially bring down perceived property values, or that might otherwise project a sense that the neighborhood is anything other than a Flanderization of affluence. (There's also a element of social control.) Think historical preservation codes, but for a pile of sticks built in the 80s or 90s.

[ben_w]

Ah, I see.

For the whole "land of the free" and "free market" thing, the US seems very not that?

[washadjeffmad]

Look at what it's solving for. Low income households are not the largest consumers of energy. They may own less efficient appliances, but there are other programs for that, like free home sealing and heat pump installation.

One group has insufficiencies that need to be solved, the other, excesses. Lessening dependence on the grid for the ones for whom cost is not a barrier lowers costs for everyone.

Now, having some sort of solar community energy bank would eventually be novel, akin to the replaceable battery charge stations for electric scooters in the Pacific Islands. Take your high density 12VDC canisters up, slot them into the locking wells, and get a text when they're full. Dock them onto your appliance circuit when you're home, and enjoy grid-free power for your home or vehicle.

[skybrian]

This seems like an argument for utility-scale solar and batteries, which can be used by everyone. The do-it-yourself approach makes more sense for people who own their own home and can invest in improving it. That’s going to skew towards wealthier people who live in suburban and rural areas.

[j-bos]

Agreed with the caveat, I'm from a lower income area where solar has been on the up. Panels would get stolen often enough to warrant thoughful consideration.

[iamleppert]

Probably found out about the tax credit while wine tasting, diving a Tesla and trading crypto while on the way to buy a new house with RSU's right after was given a bonus for new internal tool development.

[grecy]

In canada the lower your income the higher the grant for solar and things like insulation and window upgrades, heat pumps, etc.

[laidoffamazon]

The domestic manufacturing component is helpful to many of the people in the "Battery belt" and in auto manufacturing!

[outside1234]

Most of the IRA has actually been spent in red states and rural areas

[hedora]

The thing is, we paid $50,000 to drive a brand new, mid trim line kia 99kwh ev9 off the lot. It supposedly will also support V2H with an upcoming update.

They’re moving production of that model to Georgia, for what it’s worth.

Anyway, the lightning looks great. It’s definitely a tempting replacement for our ICE truck.

[xattt]

I’m conflicted about buying Kia again. I’ve got a recent model Sorento and the dealer where I have to take it is dogshit. I say I have to, because the next dealer is a $50 bridge toll and 2-hour drive away.

I’ve been charged for things that should be under warranty. They refused to do a permanent fix for a recall after they did a temporary fix. Dealing with corporate is an exercise in being gaslit and living in a Kafkaesque nightmare.

Kia and possibly Hyundai are in purgatory right now: they’re innovating and making cars that no one else is. Their dealer network, however, can have some sleazy used car sales personalities and make for a terrible experience that can ruin your week.

Pick your poison.

[GseLlc]

It’s an amazing truck and you’ll never go back to ICE!

[r00fus]

There was a recent article about Kia reconsidering the EV9 factory line in GA since the incoming Trump admin is likely to squash the IRA/BBB stuff Biden set up - specifically the $7500 tax credit for EVs.

As an EV6 owner I strongly considered the EV9 - which apparently fixes some of the annoyances of the EV6 and other eGMP vehicles.

[solardev]

Does your state pay you retail for your production? And have you gotten your first annual true up bill yet?

That setup is a dream for a lot of people, but it's not always easy to make happen depending on state regulations (and how powerful the utilities there are)...

[GratiaTerra]

I disconnected from the grid entirely so there is no bill.

Since the local power company here is only paying 10 cents per kw for solar power (which they resell at greater profit), I decided to run a small crypo miner and I still have excess power on a 22kw system.

I don't know of anywhere where its not legal to be solar powered but there were several thousand in costs associated with engineer plans and permits.

[jerkstate]

> Since the local power company here is only paying 10 cents per kw for solar power (which they resell at greater profit)

I think this is a common reason for disappointment in solar incentives. At least half of your power bill pays for transmission, and the half that pays for generation needs to be constructed such that the overall supply must meet the demand at all times, rather than simply supplying a number of kWh per day regardless of instantaneous demand. You can’t consider the “price” per kWh that you pay commercially to be the value of supplying a kWh to the grid, it’s much more likely that the utility is making a (subsidized) loss paying you 10c per solar kWh.

[epistasis]

I'm not fully sold on this reasoning.

Electricity on the local distribution node has a value equal to the cost of generation plus the distribution. That's the value of it, what we pay. So by supplying the kWh locally to neighbors, the grid costs have been avoided. But the value is still the same.

Now, the T&D infrastructure has already been built, and the utility wants to get paid no matter what, but if they were a private company and not a monopoly, they wouldn't have a right to get compensated for their investment no matter what, because every company buys capital at risk. And that's for the good of the economy.

There needs to be some sort of forcing function to incentivize this cheaper form of power delivery, that avoids a lot of transmission and distribution costs. And that forcing function is the price that we pay those who generate the electricity.

The utility of course loses on every kWh they don't generate, because they want to sell more electricity. However, since they have a monopoly, we need other regulation to ensure that innovation that results in lower overall costs actually results in lower prices for consumers.

So far, the utilities have snowed the public and the PUCs such that they get away with murder on this transition. We need a grid, but we do not need the utility. And if the utility can not come up with a business model that works as a regulated monopoly when we have local generation, then we need to change the regulatory model, most likely eliminating the monopoly.

There's a lot to learn from Texas here for the rest of the country.

[jerkstate]

Your excess solar power is not worth the retail power cost because it is not as reliable or plentiful as utility power. If you think your neighbor would pay you the same rate for your unreliable excess power as they pay the utility, you should start a power company!

The infrastructure has not “already been built” - it is constantly under expansion and maintenance, and the bonds used to fund construction also need to be repaid.

I think your mind frame is that the reason the grid is not smart enough to pay you what you think your excess unreliable power is worth (which you stated to be the entire retail cost of power, including transmission and distribution) is because of incompetence and corruption of the utility monopolies. I think that is a pretty uncharitable take. It’s a hard problem and people generally want reliable and cheap. You can’t make microgrids reliable and plentiful without a ton of diverse generation (which already exists on the macro-grid) OR a ton of storage, both of which are very expensive. It is a problem worth solving but it needs to be considered with a realistic view on what people are actually paying for when they pay their power bill.

[epistasis]

My frame of mind is that residential solar has the potential to dramatically reduce transmission and grid costs, but there is no way to force the utilities to shift to that model, because they will make less money. And regulators are asleep at the wheel and beholden to the utilities they regulate.

Grids are sized for peak, and without solar that peak is midday in most places, meaning that distributed behind-the-meter solar makes the grid cheaper.

Utilities, when they argue that solar is worth less, are not arguing on the merits of the issue but only selectively advancing arguments that benefit them. They will never present the totality of the issue.

It is up to others to push back against utilities' narrow views with a more complete view of the picture and what's possible.

[secabeen]

Eliminating the delivery of kWs doesn't change the grid costs one whit. Grid costs are driven mostly by the number of customers, the max demand that the grid has to support at one time, maintenance, and the distance the lines have to travel to reach you. Just like a water main or sewage pipe, reductions in demand only change the cost of distribution when they are large enough and prolonged enough to allow for smaller equipment and fewer lines.

Having a residential power connection from the grid allows you to demand up to 200Amps of power, at any time of day or night, 365 days a year, with zero notice. The power company has to build the lines to support that potential demand, whether you use it or not. Over all of California, distributed solar probably has reduced the expenditures we would have need to have made on new transmission and generation facilities compared to a world without distributed solar, but that doesn't affect the baseline cost of a ubiquitous grid that serves from Crescent City to the border with Arizona at Yuma, and all points between.

[Dylan16807]

> So by supplying the kWh locally to neighbors, the grid costs have been avoided.

No they haven't. The grid cost is to build and maintain the wires and equipment. Your solar output isn't reliable enough for them to downsize the grid, so even though selling to a neighbor bypasses the grid it doesn't reduce the cost of having a grid.

What you could do is split out the grid cost, make it be a fixed fee per location instead of per-kWh. That would drop the price of buying a kWh until it's much closer to the price of selling.

But if you do that, someone with a lot of solar panels would end up with even less money in their pocket, since their reduced kWh purchases used to let them skimp on grid fees, and now that no longer happens.

[epistasis]

If you keep reading to the next few sentences I point out that the utility has sunk costs, so I understand you point quite well already.

Transmission savings are the big thing with distributed solar and storage. And transmission is the bottleneck for most projects looking to connect to the grid right now. Not only is it expensive, it's slow to build.

[epistasis]

> I have an off grid home

Seems like the utilities aren't involved at all?

Cheap storage actually makes grid defection a possibility for a ton of people these days. Especially when you start considering the cost of upgrading 100 amp service to 200 amp or similar. Once you've added a bit of battery, might as well go a bit more, and use your vehicle for additional backup when necessary.

People having 70kWh or more of mobile battery in the garage is going to change the calculation for a lot of people. Many people who would never install solar unless it saves them money will also spend a tooooooon of money on a big truck for aesthetic reasons, and then find that it makes solar a cheaper propositon.

[solardev]

Haha sorry! I totally missed that important sentence. Thanks for pointing it out.

[barbazoo]

Plus you reduced your GHG emissions considerably too probably!

[dowager_dan99]

this is a good example of how individuals are fine to do things for the public good when they are consequential or at least compatible with the things in their best interest. We're willing to self sacrifice only so (and not very) far, so need to apply that goodwill very strategically. Another example: I commute by bike everyday, not because it's cheaper, healthy good for the environment (even though these are all true), but because I love it and it's so enjoyable - even it winter. Screw with the roads, or traffic patterns, or waste my property taxes, or neglect the bikes paths and snow removal enough and I'll either stop or move.

[SoftTalker]

It's great now but when it starts to degrade and needs maintenance and replacement that's now entirely your problem, there is no utility with a huge staff of electricians and linesmen ready to deal with that on a sub-zero winter day or in the middle of a rainy night.

[jebarker]

With this kind of setup you can stay connected to the grid. In the event that your solar and storage fail unexpectedly you can still pay for grid electricity.

[vel0city]

The grid you've been refusing to pay to support for years, that grid is going to be your backup?

[jebarker]

You still pay service fees to maintain a grid connection. Not to mention that many people with these setups contribute excess generation back to the grid or allow their batteries to discharged by the grid during demand spikes.

[vel0city]

A lot of those service fees were designed to scale with the amount of electricity used. If you've got a net metered bill chances are you haven't really been paying much for service fees.

I don't know anyone who bothers discharging their home batteries to the grid. The rates they get wouldn't cover the cost of the wear and tear to their batteries.

[jebarker]

I am part of a plan that discharges my batteries to the grid. I don't initiate this happening, it is based on a pull from the grid upto 60 times per year when demand is high. Full disclosure that I received a rebate on my batteries for allowing this.

Also, I just checked my bills and my service fees are a flat amount independent of how much electricity I pull from the grid.

[max2]

May I ask what state are you in?

[bluecalm]

What do you use for energy storage and how much can you store? When we were considering solar panel solution for our small apartment complex that was the major cost and the reason we decided against a few years ago.

[NotSammyHagar]

It's getting cheaper all the time, look at tesla powerwalls and many other companies are using them. But the really cheap thing to do it get an older EV like a leaf, they are much much less per kwh than standalone cars.

[laidoffamazon]

Unfortunately due to recent events this will likely be nearly fully repealed for anybody that might be interested in doing this in the future.