Why Solar Installations Cost More in the U.S. than in Germany

And, on the flip side, Germany has massive tax subsidies for solar power. It's a lot easier to convince someone to get solar panels installed on their roof if you can show them a tax benefit for doing so.

On a broader note, I don't get why we think it's a good thing for Germany to have this much solar energy. Unlike, say, Spain, the German climate is not especially well suited to solar power. It's too far north, as a country, and climatically, Germany has a lot of cloudy days, which means that solar panels are not really running at peak efficiency most of the time. Germany would be much better served by wind power, because of its advantageous position on the North European Plain. In a free market, that is exactly what would have happened. Instead, German government subsidies have unfairly advantaged solar energy, leading to an inefficiently high number of solar panels and underinvestment in wind.

My first thought when reading this was that it was really confusing cause and effect and (deliberately?) failing to cover the alternatives to solar. So I was pleased to see the currently top rated comment here started out with:"The reason is because grid power is more expensive in Germany: $0.30/kWh compared to $0.10/kWh on average in the US. Therefore potential customers are easier to convince to use solar in Germany." Many of the issues highlighted in the US simply relate to where the US is in the curve of adoption. If Solar was more competitive with the regular grid then a) There would be more demand = lowered customer acquisition costs = lowered installation costs (vols and skills) = reduced red tape based on political clout from industry and consumers. So everything outlined in this article seems more about symptoms than causes. What we do about that can either be government regulation driven or market driven but either way it feels like a pretty big missing piece from the original article.

Virtually every jurisdiction in the United States has adopted the National Electrical Code [NFPA 70]. Nearly all construction is governed by the International Building Code or a derivative state code (e.g. the CBC).

What varies are enforcement standards and local conditions. Some local conditions such as earthquakes and hurricanes are environmental. Others such as zoning and other land development regulations are political (and some of the most extreme regulations are private in the form of covenants upon title to the land).

There are sound reasons for regulation and enforcement (and unsound ones as well). Among them are life safety issues. Unlike grid power, solar panels have no disconnect. They remain live while exposed to sunlight. This creates a hazard during fires and similar emergencies. It creates a new class of hazard during electrical repairs and unrelated tasks such as re-roofing or cleaning gutters.

Wealthy and suburban tends to correlate with all construction projects being difficult to permit because such jurisdictions have more vocal and resourceful citizens with a concern for maintaining property values.

If one goes to the sticks, there are still places in the US which don't require a building permit.

I got solar a while back, and the company seems desperate for customers. They call and want to throw parties for my friends at my house, ask for referrals, etc. I think part of the challenge is that solar here in the US is still a pretty big up-front expense. We need to get the financing figured out better. Maybe the power company should own the panels...

No it’s not, silly. There aren’t any tax breaks for solar installations in Germany. There are guaranteed prices energy companies have to pay for solar energy from small private installations.

And besides, this is about the cost of the installation. You did read the article?

If you want to spur private investments it seems to me smarter to target the middle class than those closer to the welfare benefit system.

Home owners are a lot more willing to put money into their property today, i.e. invest money today for the vage promise of the government paying it back over the next 20 years. This seems a much more value creation oriented idea than just to stimulate short term consumption.

Germany had a lot of solar a long time before Fukishima.

Germany's use of solar drove up prices of silicon in 2004.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cell#Cost)

> The price of solar panels fell steadily for 40 years, until 2004 when high subsidies in Germany drastically increased demand there and greatly increased the price of purified silicon (which is used in computer chips as well as solar panels).

You sure about that?

Interest rates are at all-time lows. Lending standards may make loans unavailable, but the cost of capital is anything but high.

Well for one, in some parts of the country residential solar means a $0/mo electric bills and in somes cases you spin the meter in reverse and build a credit. The panels themselves are maintenance-free, have 20-30 year warranties and (personally) just look plain cool.

I have a family member who has a large array on his roof and he runs his entire house and charges his Tesla all off the grid. He's still connected, but in most cases he runs a $0 bill.

You can use otherwise unused space - that's the theory. Now if you install solar heating panels on your roof you can actually heat your house and warm your water with that, even in winter. They're fairly efficient. Nobody does that in germany though, since it's more economical to sell the power generated by solar panels.

That's exactly what's happening in some places in Vermont. (I know, not the first place you think of when you hear 'solar.') People can buy shares of a solar co-op and get credited on their power bill for their portion of any electricity generated. It will be interesting to see how that model works in the long run.

There may be advantages if you are using it to run an air conditioner somewhere sunny. Peak output will sync up to peak usage, and you won't need to take the losses stepping it up and down for distribution.

There might be a bit of conspicuous environmentalism, but it's probably mostly about permitting and property rights issues. No one would lease you the roof for $50/month so that you can install panels over them, but they'll happily install their own.

In the UK, energy used in homes accounts for more than a quarter of all national energy use and carbon dioxide emissions. Space heating consumes the largest amount of energy for most households. An alternative to solar panels is simply better insulation for housing. This can dramatically cut energy consumption.

BTW, Germany has been a pioneer in this regard too as it developed the PassivHaus standard for energy efficiency in buildings. The standard is over a decade old and it's been demonstrated that existing or older housing stock can also be retrofitted to meet the standard (although it can be expensive).

But even without the rigour of the PassiveHaus standard, there are many other techniques to substantially improve the insulation of existing buildings so their energy costs shrink. To me, it seems sensible to think about reducing our energy consumption as well as finding alternative, cleaner (greener) technologies.

What else is your roof doing during the day if it is not raining? In the hotter areas of the US, covering your roof in solar panels not only generates electricity, but reduces attic temps and the need for A/C.

Real estate: if data centers could not stack servers vertically I imagine there'd be a business to renting out rooms in your homes to Google!

Also transmission to places where real estate is cheap is costlier than you'd think, largely due to red tape.

It turns a surface that mostly transfers heat into your attic into a surface that transfers less heat into your attic and a great deal of electricity into your house during the part of the day that requires the most air conditioning.

If you live anywhere that's hot much of the year, it's a great deal, dropping your electric bill precipitously and recouping costs often in 2-4 years in that type of situation (as opposed to 7-12 in less reasonable areas). Also due to the nature of how cheap the electricity is during the day, you can set the A/C low during the day "coast" off the temperature differential during the night closer to a temperature you'd like.

Bad areas for solar: Constant cloud cover, Lots of overhanging Trees, far northern latitude. I would not use it in Alaska, Portland or Atlanta for these reasons.

This is something that's allowed for in some solar regulations, using a system called Virtual Net Metering. It works the same way as normal net metering (where power sent back into the grid runs your meter backward), except that the power output can be allocated over multiple people's electric bills. IIRC, there are community solar projects that do exactly what you describe.

http://www.cpuc.ca.gov/PUC/energy/DistGen/vnm.htm