Why It’s So Hard to Get Solar in Florida | Hacker News Reader

Why It’s So Hard to Get Solar in Florida

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62 pointsjseliger27 comments

Until very recently, installing a solar system came with a great big helping of extra taxes!

Thankfully that was just fixed by a landslide.

http://miami.cbslocal.com/2016/08/30/amendment-4-would-make-...

But all is still not well. Our state government seems determined to protect us from "big solar". If only that were truly a problem! If you live in Florida, make sure to go vote even if you can't stomach either of our partisan candidates for president, if nothing more than to support solar power in Florida.

Its pretty embarrassing for the "sunshine State" to get its ass kicked in solar power by New Jersey.

Are you advocating that people vote yes or no? Because the article doesn't really say which would be better for solar.

See the comment by dtnewman below. Sorry to be vague, I had that in mind. Amendment 4 was an important yes to kill the extraneous taxes on solar systems. The upcoming vote on 1 is a muddled mess that should be voted against until something reasonable can be introduced.

The proposal (as it will be written on the Florida ballot) starts off:

> This amendment establishes a right under Florida's constitution for consumers to own or lease solar equipment installed on their property to generate electricity for their own use.

I wish that the article would have talked a bit more about how misleading this sentence is. It makes it sound like Floridians are gaining the ability the own or lease solar panels, when in fact we (I'm a new Floridian) already have that right! It is just a statutory right, not a constitutional one. But reading this, a voter who doesn't know better might think that this is some new right that Floridians didn't previously have.

It seems like this bill has a pretty broad list of opponents. How often do you see opponents such as the Republican Liberty Caucus of Florida, the Libertarian Party of Florida, Sierra Club and the Green Party of Florida all on the same side of an issue?

So with conservatives, liberals and libertarians against this amendment, it seems like the only real supporters are the power utilities who had to fight before the state supreme court to get the misleading wording accepted. But given the misleading wording, I'm wording that this just might get passed.

More about this here: https://ballotpedia.org/Florida_Solar_Energy_Subsidies_and_P...

The big problem with it is this:

"to ensure that consumers who do not choose to install solar are not required to subsidize the costs of backup power and electric grid access to those who do."

This is essentially an open door that can later be slammed shut in the faces of solar installations that are leased at a discount to the homeowner on the fact that excess power can be sold back to the grid (net metering). It could also be taken so far as to allow power companies to charge extra fees to individual solar users for not using "enough" power to pay their "share" of the distribution system costs (utility poles etc).

I wish there was a way to vote against this and let them know exactly why.

Its a nearly perfect example of a classic political ploy: Enshrine a common sense right that everyone already defacto has (and would be crazy to vote against) in law, but slip in some weasel words that nullify that right in practice.

> a classic political ploy

Letting corporate special interest groups write almost all of the legislation is the key problem here.

whoops: typo above. I'm not "wording" that this might get passed... I'm worried :)

I've seen similar stories in the past, the problem appears to be that in many areas the bill was 100% linked to actual usage and didn't reflect the costs of the connection and infrastructure.

In New Zealand the domestic electricity bill is broken up into a fixed daily charge plus a variable charge. According to this site only around 30% of the bill goes towards generation so it is a bit more closely matching the actual costs of the provider.

https://www.ea.govt.nz/consumers/my-electricity-bill/

In my view Florida would be better served by deregulating their electricity markets (as 16 other states/territories have done) and allow 3rd party suppliers to compete for business. Then consumers who want solar (or other forms of green power) can buy it directly without having to put panels on their roof that will obsolete in a few years.

I think if they added a provision for a fixed fee that needs state congressional approval to change would at least clear things up. In the end, at least here in AZ, roughly half the electric bill is separated to "delivery" fees, which are supposed to cover infrastructure and maintenance. If those were a fixed fee, then it'd be easier to calculate the advantage or not of solar.

Another risk in Florida, is the solar panels are effectively wind sails in a hurricane, and raise the risk of property damage, which is another thing that may be offsetting costs in terms of raised property insurance.

I'm actually more in favor of wind farming than solar currently. The costs to create the panels have other environmental impact beyond the displacement of other resources for fuel used in electricity creation.

I had solar pool panels that did fine through hurricane Mathew in west palm beach. They are pvc and plastic I think. I was worried about them flying but they must have been engineered right as far as roof connections (plus the winds remained mostly tropical strength with a few hurricane gusts.)

Yeah you get very little hurricane damage if you built outside of the area the hurricane hits. But what if you don't?

Retail solar power is not viable currently. Cheapest reputable panel on aliexpress is about $1.2K for 1KW. Lead-acid on Amazon is about $500 per 1KWH (not counting shipping). Assuming backup of 30KWH it would require about $16.2K without inverters, cables, installation or shipping. And with these it can be 20-30K+.

So it is not surprising that retail solar is not viable without subsidies. Which are in essence wealth transfer from the poor to richer early adopters. On top of that it is a headache for grid operators who have to account for unpredictable inputs from retail solar power users.

Instead of the overly expensive retail solar power it would be better if subsidies went to the far cheaper solar powered ACs, solar panel water heaters, urban and outdoor lightning.

Why is solar powered AC cheaper than solar powered mains circuit?

It can be purchased piecemeal, can only run during the sunlight, and requires little storage and space. As opposed to purchasing and installing solar panels and storage.

Storage is not required for retail solar, just grid-tie. All the non-carbon systems require subsidy.

The solar subsidy has been hugely effective at reducing prices.

reducing prices, or shifting prices to the rest of the population, regardless of energy use?

Reducing the price of solar for future installations.

Yes, the overall cost of energy would be less with an all-fossil system, but that's no longer acceptable.

Grid-tie is not a magical energy storage. It's actually a headache for grid operators.

Panel prices have dropped due to competition between Chinese and German manufacturers and large scale solar power plant projects, such as the 600MW power plant in India. So subsidies to retail sector have miniscule effect on prices. Also, if the goal of subsidies was to reduce prices then it'd be better to spend them on projects to reduce panel/storage prices and investments in solar power plants.

Subsidies for early adopters are a way to finance early productionization so that the industry can grow to become more efficient in the future at which point everyone else enjoys cheaper energy. Early adopters paying full price is a subsidy gift to late adopters who don't take on the risk.

It reminds me of the CFL debacle of the past 10 years: expensive, inconvenient, dangerous technology that never realizes it's promised long term value. LED lights are a far better solution that only took a few extra years to make practical. Everybody getting solar panel now is going to be embarrassed when the core tech (the research we should subsidize!) advances to make existing installations obsolete.

This article does a terrible job highlighting what you can do about this.

Vote no on prop 1 in November.

Why should non Solar users subsidise the grid for those who can install solar panels in sufficient quantities to matter? This probably means people who owns houses gets a subsidy from those who live in apartments, who are typically poorer.

Just split the bill into a variable and non-variable part, like most other countries do it?

Here in Belgium they did make that mistake. They issued green power certificates so people installing solar panels could receive some money.

After a while it became pricey and they needed to halt the program. Still they were obligated to pay those certificates to those who registered under that program. The consequence is that they needed to raise other energy taxes and a lot of families who are struggling are being hit extra hard.

The sickening part of the whole story is that we have big wealthy industrial families who have build complete solar farms under that program and pure for the certificates. Some are receiving 10 millions euro a year (for 20 years) and paid for a part by the poor.

What about the bigger, wealthier industrial families who have built coal mines and got subsidies for them too?

http://www.reuters.com/article/usa-koch-coal-idUSL2N14W1JJ20...

They could have chosen to tax solar power or property to cover the loss, but they chose to tax the average person. That was choice, not an accident.

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