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Comment by giantg2 | Hacker News Reader

If it's really a financial thing that will save you $1M per year and you're waiting on a grant for $1M, then why not finance it? It could be years until you get it if the grant system only does about 25 schools per year with thousands in the state.

Yeah, roof top solar can make sense but I hate the solar farms. They clear cut a mountain top to put one in. Yes, let's save the environment by ruining more of it...

I don't see what the big deal is about paying wholesale rates for electric generation whether it's a company or resident generating it. Paying retail rate could raise prices if you have a residential vs commercial imbalance.

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> I don't see what the big deal is about paying wholesale rates for electric generation whether it's a company or resident generating it

Is that the big deal? It looks like the big deal is that utilities are being forced to buy energy at a higher-than-market price. If it wasn't legally required there is no way they would be paying retail prices for solar. It'd be like a supermarket paying retail prices to buy their stock - they can't make money if they buy at retail prices, sell at retail prices and have overheads of doing business.

That is a lot of money they're talking about. Such things are big deals.

Yeah, but I'm questioning what the opposition is to them paying wholesale rates. Like why is there opposition to that amendment?

Literally? Because then the people with rooftop solar will have less money. It is like asking why there is opposition to a 1% increase/decrease in taxes. Any change will face stiff opposition from some interest group.

And the rooftop solar group should be much smaller than the rest of the grid users. So that makes it odd they would get their way.

This is my thought exactly, if what they say is true: "It was always a financial decision,” Suppon said. “We wanted to be able to offset our energy costs, produce our own energy and only pay distribution [fees] back to the grid.” Then they should be able to finance it. If it takes a grant to break even, then the financial decision is about getting grant money, not solar.

Solar panels are taxed due to tarrifs dating back before the present administration. The subsidies bring it back a little closer to neutral.

The point of those tariffs were to overcome unfair practices such as dumping. Using subsidies after the tariffs seems self defeating.

Yes, policy is often self-defeating. However it's not exactly cancelling out: tariffs + subsidies transfer consumption of specific products to domestic producers, tariffs alone just reduce it. Subsidies alone would raise consumption and direct it domestically.

It goes without saying this all comes at the cost of everyone who's not receiving the subsidies.

Eh it kinda makes sense.

You want to boost domestic production but you also don't want to stifle domestic adoption.

So if you implement both tariffs and subsidies, consumers can still pay the market price but will buy up all domestic production first.

This sounds correct to me? But I haven't given really thought about it deeply yet.

Those types of tariffs typically just bring foreign imports up to the domestic range, so it doesn't really mean that domestic will be adopted first. If you wanted a targeted affect, you could put tariffs on the imports and subsidize the domestic manufacturers.

Don’t the subsidies apply to all panels regardless of their origin?

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