It’s time for rooftop solar to compete with other renewables
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-022-01015-8.epdf?shar…
Money spent on Californian rooftop solar subsidies can be much better set supporting more cost-efficient emission reduction measures, argues Severin Borenstein.
DB2
t’s time for rooftop solar to compete with other renewables
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That is true, and the subsides will be reduced but not eliminated!
Jaak
DB2
Life can be difficult without subsidies.
“The volume [of solar installations] has dropped by 80 to 90% of the volume of activity, the volume of interest,” said Beccar.
DB2
Life can be difficult without subsidies.
https://archive.li/46IVC#selection-333.0-333.47
California has long championed renewable energy, but a change in the state’s policies last year has led to a sharp decline in the installation of residential rooftop solar in the state.
Thousands of companies — including installers, manufacturers and distributors — are reeling from the new policy, which took effect in April and greatly reduced incentives that had encouraged homeowners to install solar panels. Since the change, sales of rooftop solar installations in California dropped as much as 85 percent in some months of 2023 from a year earlier, according to a report by Ohm Analytics, a research firm that tracks the solar marketplace. Industry groups project that installations in the state will drop more than 40 percent this year and continue to decline through 2028.
DB2
More from the NYT article:
"The utilities commission recently approved higher rates for customers of the investor-owned utilities, Pacific Gas & Electric, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric.
“Customers of PG&E will soon pay about 45 cents per kilowatt-hour, up from about 35 cents. That works out to about $250 a month for 571 kilowatt-hours, the average usage for homes in California. By comparison, the national average retail electricity rate was 16.2 cents in October.”
DB2
This is why so many in CA have installed rooftop solar. It lowers their bills and at the same time lessens the need for more transmission lines which are increasingly delayed in construction.
Mike