California to Become First US State Mandating Solar on New Homes

Mchart said:
Take your skills elsewhere.. No one is forcing you to live in CA. If you were smart you'd move.
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Both my wife an I are native Californians. All our relatives still live here.
This used to be the golden state, where the middle class had a good chance at the American dream.
Now we have the large difference between the rich and the poor, most people on welfare, most homeless, etc.

Why should I have to move because others are destroying this state with excessive taxes and regulations?

Even so, I just trying to hold out until the kids are out of college and I can retire.
Have enough equity in my house to provide a nice retirement in a lower cost state.
 
nutzo said:
Both my wife an I are native Californians. All our relatives still live here.
This used to be the golden state, where the middle class had a good chance at the American dream.
Now we have the large difference between the rich and the poor, most people on welfare, most homeless, etc.

Why should I have to move because others are destroying this state with excessive taxes and regulations?

Even so, I just trying to hold out until the kids are out of college and I can retire.
Have enough equity in my house to provide a nice retirement in a lower cost state.
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CA is fucked and normal hard working people like you don't have the political influence. Move to somewhere that appreciates hard work, and individual freedom. If most of the workers and tax base move CA will implode, and at this point it's the only way the problem will be fixed.

At the end of the day you're fighting a loosing battle, and they'll keep bringing in illegal's to vote the way they want. Same exact crap is happening across the EU.
 
Texas is calling you...

[FWIW, I support Cali pushing solar- mostly because, as evidenced in this thread, they can; they can afford to do it, and they can afford to figure out the grid problems, and by doing so they will increase economies of scale, making it faster/easier/cheaper for the rest of the nation to follow]
 
Tsumi said:
PG&E charges exorbitant hookup fees if you want to remain on the grid with solar, negating nearly all solar savings. The only way to truly save with solar in California is to go entirely off the grid.
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I am not sure where you obtained your information, but looking at my actual bills - it's about ten dollars a month (varies per days in month) to remain connected. That's not anywhere near the amount I am saving
 
Mandating solar without mandating storage and an intelligent system to manage it is a waste.

That said, my libertarian rat-brain thinks that this mandate is wrong. Too often the left is unable to see the heavy hand they use to shape their vision.

P.S. Solar power, shmolar power, your McMansion is a rotting piece of shit anyway. This website is funny and educational if you're into bingeing websites.
 
nutzo said:
If you are actually going to break even in 5-6 years, you either got a smoking deal, you had an really high electrical bill, or you are using the sales persons numbers that ignore some of your real costs.
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Yes, I had very high electrical bills - that's why I did the math on a solar install, and decided to put in a system. The only numbers I used from the solar people was how much my desired size of install would cost.

The math can vary wildly of course depending upon how you finance the install and your usage.
 
And those that don't have solar will be raped hard as they'll need to upgrade the grid to handle all of the extra power it can't handle. Happened here. We have a gold plated electricity network here and the only mandate is that every new house has to have solar hot water.
 
Called, don't live in Cali if you don't want to deal with that crap. That's why Texas is better.
 
Azphira said:
You never actually own a home. Paying property tax is not owning. Best just to rent and let someone else pay for the repairs.
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Renting is fine, but I disagree with you about taxes.

Property taxes are used to build and repair infrastructure that you consume. It's just levied against property because it's a cheap way to do it. The other option is having a guy at the end of your driveway waiting to bill you for you consuming what society builds together. And since never leaving your property is probably not an option, you can't choose (legally) to not pay taxes.
 
Megalith said:
California will be the first state to make solar standard on virtually every new home. The mandate, which will become effective in 2020, includes a push to increase battery storage and reliance on electricity over natural gas.

The proposed new rules would deviate slightly from another much-heralded objective: Requiring all new homes be “net-zero,” meaning they would produce enough solar power to offset all electricity and natural gas consumed over the course of a year. New thinking has made that goal obsolete, state officials say.
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So they want to force people to adopt a technology where the cells are manufactured in countries with little to no regard for the environment? Whats wrong with using natural gas? Its pretty plentiful right now and burns pretty clean compared to coal...
 
Austin Craig said:
It is utterly and completely pointless to moan about something that you can not change. The market is what it is. If people will pay the prices the prices will be high. If they won't or can't the prices will become lower.

Far as CA forcing people to put solar on homes well.. thats a bit of an overreach. Solar is fine and all but it should not be forced. Then again I do not live in CA as the liberalism is toxic.


So instead of moaning get a job, go to college, join the military etc.
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Yes yes. Lay back and try to enjoy it!

Are you fucking kidding me?
 
seanreisk said:
Mandating solar without mandating storage and an intelligent system to manage it is a waste.
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Exactly. Because the power being produced on a cycle that doesn't match with the demand cycle.

So most of that power is going to be dumped to ground.
 
Chas said:
Exactly. Because the power being produced on a cycle that doesn't match with the demand cycle.

So most of that power is going to be dumped to ground.
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Power somewhere will be dumped. Whatever the grid operator has control over.
 
Life long California resident here, and even worse SF bay area resident, so I know first hand about the cost of housing and how it has changed over the years.

1. This has been tried before in the past, I forget it was actually a bill (mandate) or if it was just bounced around in committee, but the result was that building industry basically sued because it would increase the cost of housing too much and the idea (again I think it was actually already law, but I may be mistaken) was squashed.
2. California housing is expensive true, but how much do you think a solar system would cost you? $35k? Ok fine your $650k home (not anywhere near SF or LA... at least the nicer non-gangy parts) increased in cost 5%, you might spend that much or more in closing costs, if you want a nicer bathroom or kitchen you definitely are paying that much more. Yes $35k isn't anything to shake a stick at, but it's hardly the breaking point.
2b. That $35k system to add, would be YOUR cost to install it on your house, builders will get a slight discount on materials and more importantly they'll get a massive discount on labor since they'd use their own crews to install this. This translates to a much cheaper system, which as anyone who builds/retrofit anything will tell you is much easier to do in new construction. So the cost actually will be cheaper.
3. This is on NEW construction, this isn't a mandate that you get solar panels installed on any home purchase, only for homes that are newly being built. We already don't have enough to go around here, whether it's electricity, water, parking space, driving space on freeways, etc, so it's about time that builders now contribute to part of that infrastructure rather than just happily build and say everything else is someone else's problem while they cash their checks at the bank.

Bottom line anything that makes things more difficult for people to move to California then the better, I'm sick and fucking tired of people bitching about affordable housing while also thinking they have some innate right to live anywhere they want for the price they want to pay, all the while making the standard of living worse for those who already live in those areas due to the influx of people. Housing is affordable in this country, just not in a few select areas. Look at this map https://www.trulia.com/home_prices/ and tell me it's not affordable to live here, with "here" being the country as a whole. Yeah you want to live in those small areas where the color map is super bright red, then guess what you need to pay for that honor.
 
Retarded. California never ceases to surprise me about the insanity. Moving out after 3 generations, because I can't afford the 8% YoY increase in rental prices.

Typical California scenario I just encountered: Went to take real estate exam yesterday, there was a brownout yesterday, because California recently SHUTDOWN THE NUCLEAR POWER PLANT that powered 19% of Southern California - brownouts are common. Of course, the state had no money to have BACKUP GENERATORS or laptops for the test, so the citizens suffer.

Sacremento's solution? Send everyone home, fail 50 people and make people who took the day off work and drove 6 hours from out of state to take the exam to retake it.

FU socialists in this state. You screwed my birth state.
 
Chas said:
Exactly. Because the power being produced on a cycle that doesn't match with the demand cycle.

So most of that power is going to be dumped to ground.
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First, there is not a time of the year where more power is being produced by solar than is being used by people as a whole in California (you can actually see the demand/production at caiso.com)

Second, If power plants could change their output based on a forecast of need, why couldn't they change their output based on a forecast of need when solar is providing a certain amount of power?
 
sleepeeg3 said:
Retarded. California never ceases to surprise me about the insanity. Moving out after 3 generations, because I can't afford the 8% YoY increase in rental prices.
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Why blame California for that? Blame all the people who want to live here and push that cost, it's not like the state mandates the cost of rental.

And thank you for leaving, and I don't mean that in a snide way, I really wish more people like you were fed up with the cost of living here and would leave (and make sure that number is more than those who want to move here). Less people mean the quality of life is better for those that stay.
 
800px-Train_wreck_at_Montparnasse_1895.jpg
 
One more reason to not go to California. Of all the things that you could improve with housing codes, they decide to add a multi-thousand dollar requirement.
 
nutzo said:
Not out here in California.
I make decent money (more than the national average), and I wouldn't even be able to quality for a tiny 2 bedroom condo, with 20% down.

How about an 1,800 sqft track home for $879,000 ? That's the most recent sale in my neighborhood.

Luckily I bought my house 20+ years ago, when the cost was less than 30% of todays prices.
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crazy prices :eek:
something similar but with smaller numbers happens in my country (Jordan), average monthly salary is around $600 (though I think 80% of the population are way lower than that), and my 220 square meters (2,368 sqft) home on the 4th floor costs around $170000. my father owns the building. otherwise I would spend 80 years to afford it.

10000 sqft land cost starts from $150000 (very bad area far from anything) to $700000 (my area) up to 7 million dollars and more!!!
 
Paul_Johnson said:
Well, then don't say "There is 0 question that the money we make today does not go as far as our parents or grandparents."

Now, if you want to play around with those numbers you'll find that your supposition is still not correct for parents generation in the absolute you constructed. Use this interactive graph: https://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2016/08/daily-chart-20 and select price to income. Then hit reset so that it drops San Francisco and New York out and start looking at all the markets. What you will find is that it depends but, as usual, the left coast and Northeast are outliers in this country. Also, a lot of that increase can be accounted for here in size of homes over time (https://www.aei.org/publication/new...d-living-space-per-person-has-nearly-doubled/) and features. This would fall well in line with the fact that home ownership rates have increased from our parents and grandparents time https://dqydj.com/historical-homeownership-rate-in-the-united-states-1890-present/
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Yes, lets look at the two biggest outliers in the RE market, which by the way have driven other markets up as people fled to find more affordable housing elsewhere. Those fleeing bring in more money and demand, prices go up and locals can no longer afford to buy a decent house in a safe/good schools neighborhood. Ownership rates may seem higher but does that factor in the cheap money loans of the last 20 years? Did the housing bubble not occur in your world? The house I rent lost market value of close to $50k in 4 or so years from 2008 to 2012. Though rents are high because people can't afford to buy or are very very shy to take the risk as another crash is likely. All while idiots vote in more taxes, often for idiot things like buses no one uses (and the city-county gov who can't run the busses at a profit for over 20 years begging for more money). This reminds me of some goon NYC banker on CNBC years ago circa 2010 talking about how the housing market was making a comeback or hadn't gone down in some places because he'd just bought a "cheap" 700k type house on the Oregon coast for retirement. Why not the Hamptons eh? The most annoying bleat I've ever heard out of my so called wise elders of generations boomer and older (or younger idiot real estate agents of any age) in the last 15 years is, "buy now or be priced out forever!". Its becoming true.

As for planes, goods and electronics (certainly not cars), cheap junk, electronic or otherwise doesn't mean much either when three of the most important areas of an economy have been far far outpacing inflation in the past 50 years. Education, healthcare, and housing are all out of control. Hell, you have health insurance premiums that cost more than a mortgage for a family of 4+. So hey, housing has that going for it.

Perhaps I'm just too jaded. In 2009 in my area they were still trying to sell new $225k homes in an section of town that did not have a great reputation crime wise (meth/drugs) that while plumbed for it, didn't even come with A/C.
 
sfsuphysics said:
First, there is not a time of the year where more power is being produced by solar than is being used by people as a whole in California (you can actually see the demand/production at caiso.com)

Second, If power plants could change their output based on a forecast of need, why couldn't they change their output based on a forecast of need when solar is providing a certain amount of power?
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Because the power industry works on a peaking model.
They have baseline (nuclear, coal, geothermal, hydro) power which has the chief property of STEADY OUTPUT. You can't simply "dial up" or "dial down" such power.

Then, if you have times where the demand exceeds baseline, you have things like oil and gas fired plants which can be fired up quickly to increase capacity.

Solar is basically uncontrolled capacity at times when the demand isn't there.

And taking baseline powerplants offline and gambling that you won't have a cloudy day is a great way to have rolling blackouts.
 
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Chas said:
Because the power industry works on a peaking model.
They have baseline (nuclear, coal, geothermal, hydro) power which has the chief property of STEADY OUTPUT. You can't simply "dial up" or "dial down" such power.

Then, if you have times where the demand exceeds baseline, you have things like oil and gas fired plants which can be fired up quickly to increase capacity.

Solar is basically uncontrolled capacity at times when the demand isn't there.

And taking baseline powerplants offline and gambling that you won't have a cloudy day is a great way to have rolling blackouts.
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You're touching on one of the main thrusts of solar power in CA - air conditioning. Our biggest cause of rolling blackouts (by far) is a very hot day causing a massive spike in AC usage far exceeding normal "baseline" generator capacity. Having a form of electricity generation which tracks pretty well with this need is a really nice addition to the generation panoply. Unlike some areas of the country, CA has low humidity so hot days are highly correlated with intense sunshine. We also have zero rain (and little cloud cover) from May until October.

While not ideal, there are actively-used ways of recapturing at least some of the excess power generated when demand isn't high. For example, the dual-reservoir technique - pump water to the higher altitude when there is surplus or cheap power, reclaim via turbines when there is demand. Excess power isn't just being used for bitcoin mining. :)

Don't take any of this as some partisan defense of CA's intended policies. I don't know that I have a good opinion on that. But solar power in CA makes more sense than it does in other places, for some of the reasons mentioned above.
 
zamardii12 said:
Median Home value in my county is $250,000.

So $1200 on a computer I saved up for over 6 months and that I will be using for at least 5 years through college and my one source of entertainment equates to a $50,000 down-payment on a house? You are being a dick.

There is 0 question that the money we make today does not go as far as our parents or grandparents.
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20% down is almost never required anymore, FHA loans are 3% down plus some closing costs. Buyers of my previous home we just sold at right around 260k paid a tad under 10k total, we covered some of the closing costs though. 20% down now is for stuff like jumbo loans, and straight up conventional financing like second homes, vacation homes etc. House I'm in currently, we put 15% down, but only because it was jumbo mortgage. It's doable talk to a mortgage guy, home ownership might be easier than you think.
 
Azphira said:
Unfortunately less people means less of other people's money to spend. So quality may actually decrease.
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And less people mean less money you have to spend too, and chances are those people who leave cost more than the ones who stay.
 
Apart from the large initial expense, you do know that the panels don't last forever. And I do mean potentially thousands of dollars every 1-5 years. It would be like replacing a high quality A/C system, but at least twice as often. And of course, your roof has to support it, etc.

I have a bad feeling about this.

Now... if CA wants to maintain (key) a high capacity solar farm (which would costs a whole lot less in so many, many ways)... go ahead. Would think you'd do better with wind though (a lot better).
 
Paul_Johnson said:
Well, then don't say "There is 0 question that the money we make today does not go as far as our parents or grandparents."

Now, if you want to play around with those numbers you'll find that your supposition is still not correct for parents generation in the absolute you constructed. Use this interactive graph: https://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2016/08/daily-chart-20 and select price to income. Then hit reset so that it drops San Francisco and New York out and start looking at all the markets. What you will find is that it depends but, as usual, the left coast and Northeast are outliers in this country. Also, a lot of that increase can be accounted for here in size of homes over time (https://www.aei.org/publication/new...d-living-space-per-person-has-nearly-doubled/) and features. This would fall well in line with the fact that home ownership rates have increased from our parents and grandparents time https://dqydj.com/historical-homeownership-rate-in-the-united-states-1890-present/
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Nice try citing a source with no date on the article. Here is one from February of last year that clearly shows that home ownership is at a 50 year low.

http://time.com/money/4665272/mortgage-homeownership-racial-gap-discrimination-inequality/

and here's another

https://www.cnbc.com/2016/07/28/mil...-rate-to-drop-to-lowest-level-since-1965.html

and another if you want something directly from the government census posted this year...

https://www.census.gov/housing/hvs/files/currenthvspress.pdf

Look at the graph for "Median Asking Rent for Vacant for Rent Units: 1995-2018."

Right now the Median is $954. 10 year ago in 2008 it was around $700 and 10 years before that in 1998 it was around $425. When my ex and I moved into a apartment together about 7 years ago we could rent in the same town a 2 bedroom 2 bath apartment for $780 a month. Now that same apartment in the same place is $1250.

The per-hour rate that I got hired at the company I work for now was the same as my colleague who started 17 years ago. If wages had kept up with inflation then I should have started at around 24% more. I renegotiated my pay after the first year and was only given 2%. And this is a IT job that I would not have even been considered for had I not gone to college.

Joust said:
The original argument, that as a whole the millennials are under-achieving their parents as a function of spending power at an equivalent point in life/career is valid and quantitatively verifiable.
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Chas said:
Because the power industry works on a peaking model.
They have baseline (nuclear, coal, geothermal, hydro) power which has the chief property of STEADY OUTPUT. You can't simply "dial up" or "dial down" such power.

Then, if you have times where the demand exceeds baseline, you have things like oil and gas fired plants which can be fired up quickly to increase capacity.

Solar is basically uncontrolled capacity at times when the demand isn't there.

And taking baseline powerplants offline and gambling that you won't have a cloudy day is a great way to have rolling blackouts.
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Good point, now lets look at California's power production
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_power_stations_in_California
Coal, the state has 1 power plant, with a 55 MW capacity
Nuclear, the state has 1 with 2240 MW capacity
Geothermal, the state has a handful with a capacity of 1457 MW
Hydro, the state has a crap ton with 6235 MW capacity
So that's the extent of the state's "baseline", just under 10,000 MW, although I'm not sure why hydro really fits here since you can effectively let the power go, or send it to the grid but whatever I'll admit beyond the fundamentals I don't know how hydro works.

Then we are the natural gas fired power plants of the state which add up to over 27000 MW of capacity

http://www.caiso.com/TodaysOutlook/Pages/default.aspx
Shows the actual demand of the state, the least predicted demand at 4am is 20000 MW
The bottom graph shows a real time demand structure, and including all the solar/wind generation the minimum demand was still over 12000 MW, so the "STEADY OUTPUT" power sources still are deficient by about 20%. California seems to have a fair share of "fired up quickly" power at it's disposal.
 
...and if you left because of the result of policies causing insane housing prices, perhaps you should leave those policies behind, as well.
 
cjcox said:
Apart from the large initial expense, you do know that the panels don't last forever. And I do mean potentially thousands of dollars every 1-5 years. It would be like replacing a high quality A/C system, but at least twice as often. And of course, your roof has to support it, etc.

I have a bad feeling about this.

Now... if CA wants to maintain (key) a high capacity solar farm (which would costs a whole lot less in so many, many ways)... go ahead. Would think you'd do better with wind though (a lot better).
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I have never seen a panel which had less than a 20 year guarantee to be working and producing 80% of intial power at that point. Many had a 25 year. Nothing was less than 20 though, so I'm curious where the 1-5 year figure comes from.

As for other generators, yes, large scale solar and wind are great - and of course CA has many of both. Rooftop solar is one more tool in the arsenal.
 
"California will be the first state to make solar standard on virtually every new home. The mandate, which will become effective in 2020"

huh?

"The proposed new rules..."

So which is it HardOCP? More great editing....
 
PhaseNoise said:
I have never seen a panel which had less than a 20 year guarantee to be working and producing 80% of intial power at that point. Many had a 25 year. Nothing was less than 20 though, so I'm curious where the 1-5 year figure comes from.

As for other generators, yes, large scale solar and wind are great - and of course CA has many of both. Rooftop solar is one more tool in the arsenal.
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If you think personal solar is affordable and "ok"... I mean, who can argue? IMHO, most with that opinion don't keep their houses very long. I've seen a lot of "dead solar". However, my statements about wind, especially in CA, talking about a "farm", makes good sense over a solar farm. And remember, 99.999% of the folks in California that "talk green" drive 8-14mpg large SUVs daily. Just saying (in other words, easy to "say" or "speak" or "make a law", especially when it never applies to you).

California has a terrible tendency to grossly underestimate (often by orders of magnitude) just about every undertaking. A tool in the arsenal is one thing. Foolishness is another. I'm still looking for wisdom coming out of CA.

Should we mandate "correct morality"? CA, says yes (but again, only a burden for the "lesser folks"). Personally, I don't think that approach is working too well.
 
sfsuphysics said:
Good point, now lets look at California's power production
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_power_stations_in_California
Coal, the state has 1 power plant, with a 55 MW capacity
Nuclear, the state has 1 with 2240 MW capacity
Geothermal, the state has a handful with a capacity of 1457 MW
Hydro, the state has a crap ton with 6235 MW capacity
So that's the extent of the state's "baseline", just under 10,000 MW, although I'm not sure why hydro really fits here since you can effectively let the power go, or send it to the grid but whatever I'll admit beyond the fundamentals I don't know how hydro works.

Then we are the natural gas fired power plants of the state which add up to over 27000 MW of capacity

http://www.caiso.com/TodaysOutlook/Pages/default.aspx
Shows the actual demand of the state, the least predicted demand at 4am is 20000 MW
The bottom graph shows a real time demand structure, and including all the solar/wind generation the minimum demand was still over 12000 MW, so the "STEADY OUTPUT" power sources still are deficient by about 20%. California seems to have a fair share of "fired up quickly" power at it's disposal.
Click to expand...

It's not quite that simple. While I am not as familiar with that region of the country, I can suggest some complications to add into your analysis. I will try to be brief.

First, California imports quite a bit of power. Those off-system purchases probably change the available generation profile significantly.

Second, baseline - baseload generation, as we call it in my part of the world - can only have so much penetration of the system demand - right? Since it is generation that is designed to run all the time. There are technical reasons for why these plants don't do well being ramped up and down which are beyond the current discussion.

Third - even in consideration of those plants that are in CA, you have to consider each plant's availability and capacity factors.

And so forth, and so on.

If you look at the chart at the bottom titled, "Net Demand" you can see the effect solar / wind has on system demand, and why, so long as California has lots of solar/wind it will ALWAYS have a lot of quickly dispatchable (and probably inefficient, for the same reason) generation plants; IE, gas turbines. Before those resources were installed, the demand curve was the top line - and it was much flatter. Generators are more efficient in continuous operation rather than ramping up/down, so it was easier to follow the system demand, right? There were demand changes throughout the day, of course, but they were gradual and predictable changes. Now, you can see the net system demand - that is, the system demand net of solar/wind - has a much steeper change twice per day. So, the result is that you have a faster (steeper, per graph) and more (delta of system high to system low) change than without those resources. Accommodation of those resources require generators, like gas, that can do it.

Where's our bulk system guy? Feel free to chime in, man.
 
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