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Comment by janj | Hacker News Reader

That also happened in CA but if you already had solar panels you continue with the same rate for a while. Doesn't seem right to switch it for those already installed.

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Doesn't seem right to limit it at all, new or already installed. In fact they should be quadrupling down on incentives for solar considering climate change.

If what you care about is climate change, single home rooftop solar is a _terrible_ investment. It's dramatically harder and more expensive to install relative to large installations. For the same exact dollar, you get nearly twice the installed capacity with large scale installations vs. home scale.

Why not both? With rooftop, you further accelerate the growth of renewables, and you get the benefit of not being beholden to regulatory capture and corrupt central authorities when they decide to do something stupid with the central power supply, and you also build up resilience in the grid with less single points of failure.

I'm not against rooftop solar. My parents have, what was, at the time of installation, the largest residential install in the state of CA. But rooftop solar is not a good use of resources for fighting climate change, which is what I was responding to.

I don't follow. How does it not help in the fight against climate change? It may be less effecient than central power but it still reduces emissions compared to fossil fuels, and it's not a zero sum game as it does not take away capacity from central power.

It's inferior on a CO2 avoided per $ spent basis compared to utility scale solar installs.

This is not difficult to understand. What's your roadblock here?

There is a disconnect for sure here - I said I agree that it may be inferior efficiency-wise. I also said that, nevertheless, it's still far better than fossil fuels. Both statements are true, and are not contradictory. It moves the needle in a positive direction on climate change which was my original statement. I never said anything about it being the best possible of all solutions. If you want to be pedantic, not using any power at all, and going back to an agrarian lifestyle is more efficient that centralized solar.

Don't let perfect be the enemy of good. There's no way that our governments are going to put all possible resources into a centralized renewable grid, so we should also incentivize private individuals to invest while we are waiting for our politicians and power companies to get on board.

It’s superior $ for utilities though? Didn’t the public pay $0 for it?

I mean, if you want to waste your money, fine. The question is whether encouraging residential PV is good policy. I don't think it is in most cases (maybe if it allows homes to be totally disconnected from the grid, saving the cost of running lines out to them?)

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