New Concept in Solar Energy Poised to Catch on Across US | Hacker News Reader

New Concept in Solar Energy Poised to Catch on Across US

abcnews.go.com

44 pointsMz12 comments

TL;DR A loophole to get a subsidy on something.

Personally I think it's a bad idea, giving commercial incentive to destroy land for solar panels.

How about we cover all the available roofs first.

And I know in theory it could be a 'garden' on existing roofs, but this is not the way they seem to being created. It's cheaper to just knock down trees and put them up.

A big lump of land with some panels on isn't "destroyed"; it's being used. This is what land is for. Using. Putting banks of panels on areas of land is much more efficient in every way than scattering them over rooftops.

Land can be used for many other things, while roofs are quite limited in what they can house. It is, in fact, much more efficient to install solar panels on all the roofs instead of (literally) the ground...

But roofs already being used, as roofs. They are of limited area, you can't work on them so easily as open land, each roof will need its own negotiations and agreements, each roof will be different, each building will need to be connected separately to the grid, harder and more expensive to maintain, harder and more expensive to inspect, on and on; it's massively inefficient compared to just doing it on open land.

I'm more of a fan of individual installations than a distributed grid.

My point is, you can install solar panels on roofs, but you can't install anything above and around solar panels.

Poorly written article. How do the economics work? Who pays to install the farms? What do you subscribe to? What are you agreeing to for 25 years?

it is probably not an article, it is a copy. Community solar power catches Walgreens by storm, etc...

Agree that it's not a great article.

The wikipedia article [1] might help with some of your questions.

And this article [2] talks about their prospects in Australia.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_solar_farm

[2] http://reneweconomy.com.au/2013/community-groups-look-to-cro...

> lock in for 25 years and shelter against rate increases. Some developers say customer bills will drop below regular retail rates within a few years; others say the savings begin immediately.

Ouch ouch ouch.

Electrical rates are unlikely to go up, they are going down instead.

And prices for solar cells are also going down, not up. Buying now, with the expectation of making money later is a sure way to lose money.

Why do you think prices will go down? That's not at all what's been happening lately or the consensus estimate by analysts.

There is a massive energy glut right now, and it shows no sign of slowing down.

Coupled with increasing efficiency that reduces demand, and energy prices should go down, not up. (Adjusting for inflation.)

According to the Energy and Information Administration, retail electricity prices have gone up by 25% over the last 10 years. [0]

In comparison inflation has raised prices by 19% over that same period [1]

I think it's also not obvious that the natural gas glut is a long term trend. It's a complex issue for sure, but here are some perspectives: http://www.businessinsider.com/arthur-berman-shale-is-magica...

[0] http://www.eia.gov/electricity/data/browser/#/topic/7?geo=g&...

[1] http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/

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