Farmers, solar advocates, and legislators from both parties are trying to remove these restrictions through Senate Bill 559, which would allow the limited development of community solar by entities other than utilities.
Wisconsin lawmakers considered similar proposals in the 2021–2022 and 2023–2024 legislative sessions, with support from trade groups representing real estate agents, farmers, grocers, and retailers. But those bipartisan efforts failed in the face of opposition from the state’s powerful utilities and labor unions.
Community solar supporters are hoping for a different outcome this legislative session, which ends in March. But while the new bill, introduced Oct. 24, includes changes meant to placate utilities, the companies still firmly oppose it.
“I don’t really understand why anybody wouldn’t want community solar,” said Klevesahl, whose wife’s family has been farming their land for generations. In addition to leasing his land for an installation, he would like to subscribe to community solar, which typically saves participants money on their energy bills.
Well “anybody” would be the existing utilities, who fear losing control of the (natural) monopoly they have enjoyed for the past 100 years.
Railroads lost some of their power when trucking became viable. AT&T didn’t want MCI to operate a communications system by microwave. I’ll wager the honchos at the Post Office were not happy at the emergency of FedEx and UPS. And so on.
I live in TVA territory, and they make it very difficult to put in solar. You can do it, but they hate hate hate being used as “the battery” and rebate a pittance of what they turn around and sell your overage for, making your break even years in the future. But they will let you add to your bill to help them build “industrial solar” in another state, if you want to feel green.
Also, because Wisconsin has well above average utility rates, and has for years. They have aging infrastructure which suddenly needs upgrading, demand is increasing (data centers, mostly but also EV’s & industry), fuel costs are higher (volatile, they have long term contracts which may or may not be internally profitable.) Oh, and they have shut down two nuclear reactors because of cost - several many years ago. 20-teens and 19-90s, I* think. They still have one operating.
I think it more useful to look at pay-back time. When will the system pay for itself. That is a function of the efficiency of the panels, their orientation, local temperature**, the cost of the panels/inverter/install, and weather (i.e. sunny days / solar intensity).
If it pays for itself in 5 year, or 10 years, that is what is important. Ours paid for themselves in about 6 years in reduced power usage. Now they just print money.
**Solar panels lose efficiency when it gets hot, which nullifies some of the advantage of deploying them in -for example- Phoenix. We get the most out of ours in late spring and early fall.
I don’t know about economical, but it is inefficient. I am reminded of a thread you started in 2023 titled “Offshore wind is definitely coming to the Gulf of Mexico”. I pointed out that it was unlikely given the relatively low wind speeds (inefficiency) in the area. The first auction only had one bid; the second auction was cancelled due to lack of interest.
My statement was made before the anti-wind creep became President. The other nations of the world are still going for offshore wind. It does not matter that it is less efficient in Gulf of Mexico. Wind energy is great and will continue to expand after with the next President.
Powerful business lobbies—including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, ExxonMobil-aligned groups, and major agricultural federations—are asking the Supreme Court to block California’s forthcoming climate-disclosure laws by claiming that requiring companies to publish emissions data and climate risks violates their First Amendment rights, complaining that such a law “pressures [firms] to alter their behavior.” Aside from the climate consequences of a potential reversal, legal experts warn that if courts embrace this “compelled speech” argument, it could undermine a host of transparency and consumer-protection rules nationwide. Read more about it here at The Lever.
IIRC, you live in sunny Phoenix, Arizona. A day ago, in another thread on this board, XMFBigFrog wrote that his new system has a 14-year breakeven period – and that is with the 30% Federal tax credit which, IIRC, is expiring next month.
Correct. Though, the panels get very hot in June-Aug, and efficiency goes down. Also, we installed only as much as the utility would give a rebate (5kW). My former boss installed, IIRC, about 15kW, which was enough to almost zero his bill every month. I don’t know what his breakeven point was, but it was longer than 6 years.
BigFrog may have installed a bigger system, or his utility didn’t have a rebate, or some other factor that we would have to consider. However, in the end, if he’s going to be in the house for 20 years (let’s say), he still benefits. If he’s moving in 5 years, maybe not the best decision(??). I don’t know his situation.
I have noted before that my brother has an extensive solar set up on his house, basically enough to run everything and have some left over. He lives in Massachusetts, not exactly a southern state, and paid for his system in about 6 1/2 years. Crossed that threshold last year.
It’s worth noting that Massachusetts is a net energy importer state, and has incentives for people to produce their own power. With the Federal and State incentives, he was/is able to produce more power than he uses, and have a comfortable margin left over for the day (coming soon) when he buys an EV.
Of course he is still paying the subsidy costs for other energy: oil allowances, military “protection”, nuclear development & insurance, etc. as is everyone in Massachusetts, whether they directly benefit from them or not.
And others are paying for his ‘incentives’, as you noted.
The EIA has told us about Federal energy subsidies. The total for 2022 was $29 billion. ‘End use’ is for EVs and home energy efficiency.
Share
Renewables 53%
End use 30%
Nat gas & oil 8%
Conservation 5%
Coal 3%
Nuclear 1%
It should be noted that government subsidies for renewables, already a majority in 2022, have increased considerably since the IRA became law in 2022. And when normalized for the amount of energy produced, renewable subsidies are more than an order of magnitude greater.
Natural gas and petroleum-related subsidies became a net cost to the federal government. Natural gas and petroleum-related tax expenditures increased to $2.1 billion in FY 2022 to reverse a trend from an estimated revenue inflow (versus a positive tax expenditure) of $1.1 billion in FY 2016 and FY 2017; combined, these tax provisions had been, in aggregate, the largest energy-related, revenue-generating tax provisions to the government in any of the fiscal years covered in this report.
It is wonderful that intelligent people provide subsidies for clean energy that the people of the country want.. They do not want more coal and oil running our environment and health into the garage dump.
