> Michelle Moore, the chief executive of Groundswell, a nonprofit group that received a Solar for All grant, said revoking the award would undermine the Trump administration’s efforts to address soaring electricity demand fueled by artificial intelligence data centers.
Solar is so expensive and cost-inefficient per-household. Data centers need their own large, uninterrupted power supplies.
Wrong, solar is cheap and probably the cheapest energy source a household can get if they have a sunny roof. Source - I have solar, have done the math.
It's not ideal for everyone's situation but it's damn cheap. One of my neighbors has solar panels, no battery or storage of any kind, we don't have net metering here, and their electric bill is single digits.
Not only that, the demand from AI Data Centers is going to push up the price of electricity tremendously. Add in demand from electric vehicles too and there could be shortages as well. Who knows, but one thing is certain: demand for electricity is going to skyrocket.
Having an alternative source for your house is a wise idea.
Don't worry the utilities will still make sure you pay their fees. Watch the markets move from paying per kwh or demand charges to just straight up fees. Its disheartening.
Wouldn’t it just make more sense to use nuclear and keep the grid reliable so individual homeowners don’t need to worry about huge blackouts ruining their quality of life?
Nuclear is very expensive to build. It takes a long time to build. Also, it takes quite a bit of time to power up and power down a nuclear power plant. Nuclear plants use a lot of water. Water that could be used to cool the AI hardware.
As a result nuclear power isn't cheap.
Then there is still the safety issues and environmental concerns regarding the waste. Some people say they are safe now and you can just bury the waste deep underground. Putting it deep underground seems a bit like just pumping the carbon into the air: someone else's problem further down the line in time.
Do you want to live next to a Nuclear Power Plant?
I live in Minnesota, we get about 34% less sun than most of the southern states like Arizona or Florida.
Arizona - 3,800 hours of sunlight hours per year
Minnesota - 2,500 hours of sunlight hours per year
Ergo, I can't generate as much energy as someone who lives in a state that gets significantly more sunlight.
I would also add that setup and installation of even a small solar array has an ROI of around 10 years because I can't generate as much energy, therefore it takes longer for me to break even.
Right now in Minnesota:
The average cost of installing a 5 kW solar panel system in Minnesota is approximately $14,900 before applying the 30% federal tax credit, which can significantly reduce the overall expense. After incentives, the out-of-pocket cost can be around $13,860
Sorry, I'm not going to lay out 15K and then have to wait ten years before I break even. If you want to know why people aren't adopting solar, this is the reason. Its cost prohibitive for many, many people.
Does it make sense for people in those Southern states? 100%. For everybody else? Not so much.
You can finance the purchase to avoid upfront payments. And in many cases, the energy savings exceed the finance payments, resulting in a net monthly gain from a cash flow basis with no upfront payment.
>> You can finance the purchase to avoid upfront payments.
Yeah and then you pay interest on the loan. Which then makes it EVEN MORE expensive AND lengthens your ROI just to break even.
FYI you're not "saving" anything until A) Your loan is paid off and B) Your array is generating enough energy to compensate for your existing energy use.
Your numbers just don't add up:
$15,000 for a 5Kw array.
$15,000 loan with a VERY generous 5% interest rate on an also very generous 6 year term.
Interest paid over six years: $4,500
Total paid after six years: $19,500
Monthly payments would be around $240.00
The average monthly cost of electricity for Minneapolis is about $190.00 which is about 1,097kWh
The monthly average your 5kWh array can generate in a month (assuming optimal conditions) is around 700kWh. Leaving you with a deficit of 397kWh you still need to pay for.
So no, I'm not seeing how the cost savings will exceed your finance payments. It will eventually pay for itself once you get outside of that ROI period. And then what? You get 15 years of free electricity which amounts to:
$190.00 * 12 = $2,280
$2,280 * 15 = $34,200
So then, over 25 years, your net gain is about: $14,000? Which is about $560/year?
Every single year I talk to companies and the cost has gone down, barely. I've been told every year for the last 20 years that technology is getting so much better. The panels are so much more efficient, cost less, the state and federal govt have tax breaks, blah blah, blah. The Chinese have found a way to produce them this way and that way, "Oh you just wait, its really going to be affordable in the next few years!"
No, its still not affordable. If it were, like OP said you would see them on every house in your neighborhood.
I've wanted to put solar on my house for very long time and every year its the same thing. "Finance a $15,000 loan and in ten years you'll have free electricity!!"
I would say anybody who's rational, informed and interested looking at that would 100% of the time its not worth it.
Solar module prices over the past 20 years went from $2/watt to $.3/watt. Installed prices are a little more, going from maybe $6/watt to ~ $3/watt. I paid about $3.5/watt installed in Berkeley 3 years ago, a place not known for affordability. In the meantime, (average in the US) electricity rates went from ~$.10/kW to about $.16/kW. If over that period, your payback period has remained constant, you must have dramatically (like 20x ) reduced your power usage. Congratulations!
Having solar myself, I completely agree with you that solar is - comparatively - cheap. But because it is cheap, the argument goes that you don't really need to subsidy it.
There are many reasons for subsidies and it is a complex field. I was not discussing subsidies I was replying to a flat out false statement that solar is very expensive.
When discussing solar subsidies one should keep several things in mind:
- Federal solar subsidies are expiring at the end of this year thanks to Trumps tax law with a name so ridiculous I shall not repeat it.
- This news item is talking about money that has already been granted. This is especially screwed up because these are situation where the government has already promised to pay and people have been making investments and putting in work in expectation of payment.
- Solar is actually much less subsidized than nuclear. In many cases solar subsidies will help the taxpayer avoid costs as they avoid much more expensive nuclear subsidies.
If so, please ask your representatives to copy Germany's "Balkonkraftwerk" rules.
We've got one, cost €350 including delivery and a balcony railing mounting kit, could've been €250 if we'd collected and not had the stands. Whole thing is trivial DIY, no skill or training needed: you literally just assemble the kit and plug it into a power socket, register it online as a small power station, and you're done.
Sure, the legal limit of 800 W output sure isn't a huge supply, but at that cost it's also a no-brainer — at €350, it will pay for itself in 1y8m.
With the notable difference that lawn flamingos are not necessary because of the terrible energy policies of the government, whilst balkonkartoffel are.
In other words you have lawn flamingos because you have bad taste not because the government impoverished you.
"Eyesore" is in your own opinion. What I've seen on balconies around here, anything covering them is a 50% chance of being an improvement — and unlike some acquaintances, I've not encountered balkon-FKK. And IMO they're a big improvement over, e.g. the AC units on the skyscraper walls of Manhatten.
I have balkonkraftwerk because they're a 60% return on investment, per year for 35 years, tax free and self-adjusting for inflation. By far the best (reliable) investment one can make.
That €350 is currently economically worth €7350 over their lifetime in reduced energy bills, tax free. The economics are so strong that it would be worth doing even if energy was 1/3rd the current price.
I had it priced out by 5 different vendors. Only one of those 5 was in any way truthful about the reality for my particular home: "you will likely only get 15% of what others with panels might due to the shape of your roof and tree cover now and especially in 10 years." That said, WITH grid-kickbacks (all of which are not at all guaranteed), according to 4 of them, I would be looking at a net zero cost in 30-36 years.
I'm not even talking about the fact that panels MAY act like a pool for resale. Some people DO want them--again depending on your locale--most, at this point, do NOT where I live.
I was looking primarily for cost reduction and a very small percentage of saving the environment or whatever you want to call it. But; depending on your locale, home structure, etc, solar may not at all be that. If you're leaning more on the side of energy independence and eco-friendliness, maybe it's a better fit for you.
> I'm not even talking about the fact that panels MAY act like a pool for resale. Some people DO want them--again depending on your locale--most, at this point, do NOT where I live.
A roof mounted solar array easily adds $20,000 - 25,000 to reroofing a house just in labor (assuming two electricians for one week on either side of the reroofing with labor priced at $150/hr)
If I was buying a house with a solar array on the roof I would consider it to be a liability that is going to add to the TCO of the home and ask for a discount to cover the future costs of removal. The labor to remove and replace the solar array when reroofing is never going to be paid for by the solar array, it’s just an added expense to the TCO of a home.
There are plenty of people who are not aware of the added costs of a roof mounted solar array, I just happen to be aware since I sell and run electrical work for a living.
> A roof mounted solar array easily adds $20,000 - 25,000 to reroofing a house just in labor (assuming two electricians for one week on either side of the reroofing with labor priced at $150/hr)
Why do you need two electricians for a week? My rooftop solar array went up in an afternoon. They had three labourers. The (singular) electrician came in separately and worked for under and hour.
the cost to remove isn't 2 electricians for a week, it's 2 people with arms for a day. This is like saying that you would consider light fixtures a considerable TCO increase because whenever the lightbulb goes out, you'll need to pay an electrician for a day of work to change it.
The study from Compare the Market finds the average residential solar installation cost in the US is $A4/W, while Canada’s national average was $A3.65/W. By contrast, Australia’s national average was $A0.89/W, more than $A2/W cheaper.
The cheapest offers for a PV system with 10 kW of power without storage are just over €1 per watt, the most expensive are around €2 euros per watt.
All these countries have access to the same solar panels. The national minimum wage is lower in America than in the other countries. So why do American rooftop systems cost so much more? Mostly because of high "soft costs" in America:
Soft costs are the non-hardware costs associated with going solar. These costs include permitting, financing, and installing solar, as well as the expenses solar companies incur to acquire new customers, pay suppliers, and cover their bottom line. These soft costs become a portion of the overall price a customer pays for a solar energy system. While solar hardware costs have fallen in recent years, soft costs represent a growing share of total solar system costs.
First of all your post is off topic. Second of all, the reason why solar panel installations in both Australia and Germany are cheaper than the US is solar panel tariffs. Neither Australia nor the EU has solar panel tariffs. The US does. The cheapest solar panels come from China, where there is significant overproduction of panels. If you do not have tariffs you get a lot of cheap Chinese panels.
He said “cost inefficient” which i would interpret as meaning “expensive”. I think it’s pretty plausible that a single nat gas or coal plant would be a cheaper way of generating a fixed amount of electricity than solar + enough batteries to last several days of cloudy weather. All the sources ive seen only include a few hours of battery storage to go along with their solar which keeps the cost down but also means frequent outages which data centers really dont want
Solar is so expensive and cost-inefficient per-household. Data centers need their own large, uninterrupted power supplies.