SolarCity

[ERICOPOLY]

QUOTE: In short, the way solar incentives work is by taking money from the poor to subsidize the rich homeowners, businesses, and investors who can afford the high upfront costs of installing solar power (a reverse Robin-Hood structure),

 

Complete bullshit.

 

The cost is ZERO to install solar for the poor (as long as they own the home).  Solar City comes out to the house and installs the solar for no money down.

 

Zero Zilch  Nada.

 

The rate Solar City charges is less than what they are already paying the utility.

 

So they are guaranteed to pay less than they currently do each month. 

 

After five years, they can ask Solar City to remove the panels if they aren't happy -- they will remove the panels at ZERO cost.

 

 

[Liberty]

http://reneweconomy.com.au/2014/energy-prices-crash-as-queensland-solar-takes-hold-21256

 

http://reneweconomy.com.au/2013/stanwell-blames-solar-for-decline-in-fossil-fuel-baseload-54543

 

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jul/07/solar-has-won-even-if-coal-were-free-to-burn-power-stations-couldnt-compete

 

http://reneweconomy.com.au/2014/solar-sends-energy-prices-below-zero-in-middle-of-day-63767

[ERICOPOLY]

Solar will start by shaving off the most profitable peak during the day. By the time that's done, storage will be a lot less of a problem. Most opponents of solar like to pretend we'll go from zero to 100 all at once, which would be incredibly hard. But like with electric cars, it'll be gradual and we'll have ample time to adapt.

 

How is that the most profitable time of day?  They have extra transmission lines that need to be built just for a few hours of the day of peak usage.  There are plants that are idled most of the time... except during the peak load hours.

 

They might be charging a ton during those hours, but they have to recover the costs of all that extra infrastructure that needs to be built to service those peak hours.

 

In other words, if we all ran our air conditioners off of batteries, and charged the batteries evenly throughout the day, we could then get to a near-constant load on the system.  That would mean an optimal configuration of transmission lines and power generation plants.  Electricity costs would then be able to fall... because there would be less infrastructure expenses to service.

 

Although, I suppose the state regulators allow them to price-gouge a bit during those peak hours in order to discourage usage -- so we can get by with less transmission lines... etc...

 

I didn't mean for the peakers, I meant for baseload. If you own a coal plant, you make your money selling power during the day, not at night. It's the most profitable time for them. But if the daytime peak is shaved off by solar, like it is right now in Queensland in Australia (you can google it), the whole dynamic changes a lot.

 

The real cost of coal electricity generation is driven higher then, as the coal plants are only necessary at night.  So they would need to charge more at night to cover their operational costs. 

 

So coal itself might be cheap... but not the power generated by it due to the lack of utilization when the sun is shining.

 

Glad coal is more expensive than it looks.  Funny, that's the same argument against solar power for years and years... if only the sun was shining at night, it could be cheap.

 

Okay, so coal is cheap if only it could be run all day long... but we don't need it all day long so it isn't cheap after all.

 

 

 

[jouni1]

well first off - that price quoted above is wrong. That's delivered.  The generation price is 8.5c kwh.  That's sort of a blended average of what plants run when - as its regulated generation so the cost is something like energy*efficiency+ opex+capital*roe

 

Whereas fortum's generation is mostly deregulated and purchased sorta via nordpool - where spot is like 38EUR Mwh or 3.8 eurcents Kwh

 

But the difference is that (and I don't have the data in front of me ) there are lots of times during the day when hydro or wind are the marginal producer so prices are something like 0.  If you look at the underlying data you can see hydro producing regions offering power for negative prices (because of how the market clears you can't get < 0, it just tells the market you will generate at any price).  So even though there are parts of the day where much more expensive than US gas might be the marginal producer, in aggregate costs are a lot lower.

 

If you are as dull as me and this actually interest you, Nordpool's website is hands down the most user friendly of any of the power pools I've looked at.

it's not wrong.  there's no sense in breaking off the two components. that's why i was talking total prices for energy delivered and thought you were too.  the 49c number we were talking about was energy+transmission also.

 

i buy my electricity with hourly nordpool prices also. generation isn't that expensive if the average price is 8.5 and the added bonus of population density and a mild climate make transmission easier.  i don't see the structural price difference you were talking about.

 

i think eric is on point about the AC's. it's a capacity/balance problem.

 

edit: i am as dull and probably even more so than you :D i have done work for fortum and other utilities and am really interested in the stuff. as soon as hourly pricing for consumers was possible i switched and set up alerts to save a few eur every now and then. just because it gives me the warm fuzzies.

[Liberty]

QUOTE: In short, the way solar incentives work is by taking money from the poor to subsidize the rich homeowners, businesses, and investors who can afford the high upfront costs of installing solar power (a reverse Robin-Hood structure),

 

Complete bullshit.

 

The cost is ZERO to install solar for the poor (as long as they own the home).  Solar City comes out to the house and installs the solar for no money down.

 

Zero Zilch  Nada.

 

The rate Solar City charges is less than what they are already paying the utility.

 

So they are guaranteed to pay less than they currently do each month. 

 

After five years, they can ask Solar City to remove the panels if they aren't happy -- they will remove the panels at ZERO cost.

 

I agree with Eric, and I'll add that there's a big double-standard with solar and wind subsidies. The people who dislike them rarely say anything about the tens of billions (if not trillions) of direct and indirect subsidies to the fossil fuel industry over time (how much has been spent on military deployments that primarily benefit oil interests?). We're also not talking about the costs of pollution (health, lost productivity, ecosystem damage, global warming, etc). What China is going through right now with its air quality the US went through a few decades ago (look up photos of Pittsburgh smog in the 1940s...)..

 

I'm all for removing solar subsidies if we could somehow retroactively remove fossil fuel subsidies.... I think that would make solar even more attractive against the alternatives, but I don't think we can do that, so I'm fine with some help to kickstart things at first. We're about at the tipping point when subsidies stop being necessary anyway, so it'll be moot soon.

[ItsAValueTrap]

QUOTE: In short, the way solar incentives work is by taking money from the poor to subsidize the rich homeowners, businesses, and investors who can afford the high upfront costs of installing solar power (a reverse Robin-Hood structure),

 

Complete bullshit.

 

The cost is ZERO to install solar for the poor (as long as they own the home).  Solar City comes out to the house and installs the solar for no money down.

 

Zero Zilch  Nada.

 

The rate Solar City charges is less than what they are already paying the utility.

 

So they are guaranteed to pay less than they currently do each month. 

 

After five years, they can ask Solar City to remove the panels if they aren't happy -- they will remove the panels at ZERO cost.

 

1- My bad, the article is old and came out before all the new financing plans became available.

 

2- If I remember correctly, doesn't SolarCity have credit requirements for their financing plans?  So technically people with bad credit are somewhat disadvantaged.

 

3- People without solar are effectively subsidizing the people with solar.  That's potentially a problem if consumers without solar figure it out and want cheaper electricity.

 

There is a subtle wealth transfer here that makes solar appear more economic than it actually is.

[Liberty]

There is a subtle wealth transfer here that makes solar appear more economic than it actually is.

 

What about the much bigger wealth transfers that make fossil fuels appear more economic than they actually are?

[ERICOPOLY]

There is a subtle wealth transfer here that makes solar appear more economic than it actually is.

 

Solar is more economic than it looks because it relieves us of needing the transmission lines that carry the peak loads, and we don't need to build the peak load coal/gas plants.

 

It is a lot cheaper than it looks for this reason.

 

The naysayers are only looking at the dollar cost per watt for generating rooftop solar... they are not looking at the dollar cost per watt of what it offsets (peak load electricity costs).

 

When people compare coal/gas to solar, they obfuscate the issue by just quoting the average costs for coal/gas.  That's completely absurd and unrelated.  I don't know if they're really that dishonest or just plain ignorant. 

 

It's the peak load generation costs for coal/gas that we should be comparing to solar.

 

It is sort of a resounding "duh" moment.

 

 

 

 

[SharperDingaan]

All you really need is a battery that you charge at night (cheap rates) & draw on during the day (expensive rates).

Capture the rate difference & suffer far less efficiency loss (solar doesn't work well when its hot outside). The 'battery' could simply be a flywheel (buried in an underground vault), or even an air-bag at the bottom of a lake (water pressure squeezing it). Cheap, simple, & little technological magic required.

 

SD

 

[Liberty]

(solar doesn't work well when its hot outside).

 

Please elaborate on what you mean here. Because you know, they build solar PV farms in deserts, so it's not like it's a dealbreaker... Also, concentrating solar uses lenses to focus the sun tens if not hundreds of times on a small high-efficiency solar cells, generating temperatures that are way higher than anything on a rooftop would ever see.

 

This one is a bit extreme, but it concentrates the sun 2000x: http://www.dailytech.com/IBM+Tries+Its+Hand+at+Concentrated+Solar+With+5000x+Collector/article30391.htm

 

It's literally true that above certain temperatures you lose some conversion efficiency, but at these high temps you also tend to have much more sun, so it can be a tradeoff worth making.

[topofeaturellc]

Yeah no he's absolutely right. And you are absolutely right about utility scale solar. But the solarcity stuff is distributed so it's a zero sum game. The T&D network has to be remunerated.

[SharperDingaan]

The PV generation process (because of the Gallium) drastically loses efficiency when ambient temperatures get hot, so to offset it - you concentrate the sun, & always keep the PV at 90 degrees to the sun (hence movable panels). You also try to put the things in the prairie where there's often snow on the ground in winter, & temps at <OC. The same panel, with the same amount of sun, now suddenly generates 2-3x the amount of power - simply because its being more efficient.

 

Similar thing with windmills; today's next generation, but similar sized windmill in the same location, will typically generate 6MW vs 1MW - & doesn't cost 6x as much.

 

SD

[barminov]

Southern California Edison rates:

 

31c per kWh for Tier 4

 

https://www.sce.com/wps/portal/home/customer-service/billing-payment/understanding-your-bill/!ut/p/b0/04_Sj9CPykssy0xPLMnMz0vMAfGjzOINLdwdPTyDDTwtfMLMDTyd3IMDwwLCDCxDjfQLsh0VAVoaPaU!/

 

On a tiered plan, you typically will wind up offsetting the 31 cents first.  Once the Solar Panels generate enough electricity to knock you down to the next Tier of usage, you are paying 27c.

 

So basically, Solar City can easily beat those rates and still earn a good rate.

 

Oh yeah, there's no doubt it makes sense in some scenarios. Keep in mind though you're talking about the highest tier in the state which has the 6th highest average rate of electricity in the country (Source: http://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.cfm?t=epmt_5_6_a ). The average rate for CA is around 17 cents. I'm in Los Angeles and our highest tier during the most expensive season is 21.5 cents. Even so, I was doing some back of the envelope calculations for a household in my area and installing solar would yield mid-teen returns (after federal and state incentives). I was just pointing out to yadayada that in his back of the envelope calculation for the power consumption of the entire United States, using 37 cents per kWh isn't appropriate.

 

I'm wondering if one were to sign a Power Purchase Agreement with Solar City, what kind of rates they would charge. Hypothetically, if someone was with Southern California Edison (Tier 1 - 13 cents, Tier 2 - 16 cents, Tier 3 - 27 cents, Tier 4 - 31 cents), and Solar City quoted a PPA for 20 cents a kWh, you would only get a system big enough to get you down to Tier 2 and no more. Has anyone received a quote?

 

From their annual report I see that cost of installation is about $3/Watt so a 1KW system would cost them roughly $3000. This should generate between 1400-2000 kWh  in California (more in SoCal, less in NorCal). Say 1700 kWh on average. If they sell this to the customer at 17 cents a kWh (average for CA), they get revenue of about $290/year. Federal and State incentives would bring the cost down (I have no idea what kind of incentives they receive) and maintenance would eat into some of that. Anyway, the stock looks absurdly overpriced but I'm off to do more reading since the industry is interesting and I'm realizing I don't know enough to even ballpark what they/any other company in the industry could potentially make.

I would say a 19% efficiency is lowballing it? Can probably do almost double?

 

40% range is doable but that would be near the current world record (44.7%) and these are extremely expensive. They're not used for residential or commercial applications. These are in the concentrator triple-junction category of cells and are used in space applications (think NASA).

 

Most residential solar panels (without concentrators) are in the 20% range.

[rkbabang]

I just looked at my electric bill.  I pay $0.06383/kWh for "Delivery Charge" and $0.0849/kWh for "Supply Charge" for a total cost of $0.14873/kWh.    I, like everyone in New Hampshire, have an old style meter that doesn't know the time of day and can't charge differently for it.  I pay the same price 24/7 (just another way those in CA are getting screwed).  My rates were even lower when I lived in Massachusetts.

 

Low electricity prices and the fact that there isn't as much consistent sun shine throughout the year here, I don't see how solar makes much sense in the northeast.  That said I am always surprised to see solar panels on a lot of roofs around here.

 

[Liberty]

Low electricity prices and the fact that there isn't as much consistent sun shine throughout the year here, I don't see how solar makes much sense in the northeast.  That said I am always surprised to see solar panels on a lot of roofs around here.

 

It's all a matter or price. Solar will become popular first in places where there's the best ratio of current electrical costs to sun.

 

But if in 10-20 years the cost per watt of solar panels is half/a quarter of what it is now, it might make total sense even in New Hampshire...

 

It's a bit like Moore's Law. What made no sense to try to do on computers at a certain time is trivial now just because transistors are cheap.

[topofeaturellc]

right. It would seem inevitable.

 

If you check out insolation maps even places like New Hampshire are better candidates for solar than anywhere in Europe

North of like a like drawn through somewhere in Northern Spain.

[rkbabang]

Low electricity prices and the fact that there isn't as much consistent sun shine throughout the year here, I don't see how solar makes much sense in the northeast.  That said I am always surprised to see solar panels on a lot of roofs around here.

 

It's all a matter or price. Solar will become popular first in places where there's the best ratio of current electrical costs to sun.

 

But if in 10-20 years the cost per watt of solar panels is half/a quarter of what it is now, it might make total sense even in New Hampshire...

 

It's a bit like Moore's Law. What made no sense to try to do on computers at a certain time is trivial now just because transistors are cheap.

 

Yes, certainly if the prices for solar continue to drop over the next 10 years at the same rate they have in the last 10 it will become worth it.  Like I said, I already see a lot of solar panels around.  I wonder if these people already think it is worth the investment, or if they just want to show off how green they are to their neighbors?

 

[Liberty]

Yes, certainly if the prices for solar continue to drop over the next 10 years at the same rate they have in the last 10 it will become worth it.  Like I said, I already see a lot of solar panels around.  I wonder if these people already think it is worth the investment, or if they just want to show off how green they are to their neighbors?

 

These are not the only two choices, though.

 

Maybe it's worth the investment on a purely cash ROI, or maybe they care enough about using clean power that it's worth the cost for them.

 

People do a lot of things that don't have good cash returns just because they like those things (do people expect a good ROI on big screen TVs and nice cars?), so it wouldn't be that out of the ordinary. It doesn't have to be about showing off, it can be an entirely internal motivation.

[Hielko]

(solar doesn't work well when its hot outside).

 

Please elaborate on what you mean here. Because you know, they build solar PV farms in deserts, so it's not like it's a dealbreaker... Also, concentrating solar uses lenses to focus the sun tens if not hundreds of times on a small high-efficiency solar cells, generating temperatures that are way higher than anything on a rooftop would ever see.

 

This one is a bit extreme, but it concentrates the sun 2000x: http://www.dailytech.com/IBM+Tries+Its+Hand+at+Concentrated+Solar+With+5000x+Collector/article30391.htm

 

It's literally true that above certain temperatures you lose some conversion efficiency, but at these high temps you also tend to have much more sun, so it can be a tradeoff worth making.

I don't think you read the article you linked in your own post, because it actually talks about cooling the chips that receive all the light: it's what the whole article is about!

Versus the passive air cooling of some previous concentrating solar systems, the microfluidic system is just tens of micrometers away from the chips, allowing them to stay virtually unheated at 2,000 times sunlight, according to the project team.

[Liberty]

(solar doesn't work well when its hot outside).

 

Please elaborate on what you mean here. Because you know, they build solar PV farms in deserts, so it's not like it's a dealbreaker... Also, concentrating solar uses lenses to focus the sun tens if not hundreds of times on a small high-efficiency solar cells, generating temperatures that are way higher than anything on a rooftop would ever see.

 

This one is a bit extreme, but it concentrates the sun 2000x: http://www.dailytech.com/IBM+Tries+Its+Hand+at+Concentrated+Solar+With+5000x+Collector/article30391.htm

 

It's literally true that above certain temperatures you lose some conversion efficiency, but at these high temps you also tend to have much more sun, so it can be a tradeoff worth making.

I don't think you read the article you linked in your own post, because it actually talks about cooling the chips that receive all the light: it's what the whole article is about!

Versus the passive air cooling of some previous concentrating solar systems, the microfluidic system is just tens of micrometers away from the chips, allowing them to stay virtually unheated at 2,000 times sunlight, according to the project team.

 

Of course concentrated solar has to be cooled. They use all kinds of passive and sometimes active methods. My point is that if you can concentrate the sun hundreds and even thousands of times on a solar panel, even with cooling, the relatively small temperature variations in un-concentrated solar PV aren't that hard to deal with comparatively.

 

As I said, the IBM one is an extreme case, and so the magnification is extreme and so is the cooling. Bu there's a lot of concentrated solar tech that only has passive heatsinks.

[rkbabang]

Yes, certainly if the prices for solar continue to drop over the next 10 years at the same rate they have in the last 10 it will become worth it.  Like I said, I already see a lot of solar panels around.  I wonder if these people already think it is worth the investment, or if they just want to show off how green they are to their neighbors?

 

These are not the only two choices, though.

 

Maybe it's worth the investment on a purely cash ROI, or maybe they care enough about using clean power that it's worth the cost for them.

 

People do a lot of things that don't have good cash returns just because they like those things (do people expect a good ROI on big screen TVs and nice cars?), so it wouldn't be that out of the ordinary. It doesn't have to be about showing off, it can be an entirely internal motivation.

 

You are of course correct.  I tend to view everything through a dollars and cents filter, but many people don't.  Which is why I have neither solar panels nor a large screen TV (my largest TV is 32", because it does the job and is cheap).  I'm sure some people buy solar panels just to feel good themselves about being green.

 

[Liberty]

You are of course correct.  I tend to view everything through a dollars and cents filter, but many people don't.  Which is why I have neither solar panels nor a large screen TV (my largest TV is 32", because it does the job and is cheap).  I'm sure some people buy solar panels just to feel good themselves about being green.

 

My largest and only TV is 32" too. I guess we're TV brothers :D

[rkbabang]

You are of course correct.  I tend to view everything through a dollars and cents filter, but many people don't.  Which is why I have neither solar panels nor a large screen TV (my largest TV is 32", because it does the job and is cheap).  I'm sure some people buy solar panels just to feel good themselves about being green.

 

My largest and only TV is 32" too. I guess we're TV brothers :D

 

Only on a value investing board would you find such people, every house I go in besides mine has a monster TV hanging on the wall in every living room.  My kids were literately jumping for joy and high-fiving one another when we replaced one of our 2 tube TVs with that 32" HDTV two years ago.  We still have the tube TV in the other living room though, I didn't want to get too crazy.

 

[Liberty]

You are of course correct.  I tend to view everything through a dollars and cents filter, but many people don't.  Which is why I have neither solar panels nor a large screen TV (my largest TV is 32", because it does the job and is cheap).  I'm sure some people buy solar panels just to feel good themselves about being green.

 

My largest and only TV is 32" too. I guess we're TV brothers :D

 

Only on a value investing board would you find such people, every house I go in besides mine has a monster TV hanging on the wall in every living room.  My kids were literately jumping for joy and high-fiving one another when we replaced one of our 2 tube TVs with that 32" HDTV two years ago.  We still have the tube TV in the other living room though, I didn't want to get too crazy.

 

That's my experience too. Even the poorest people I know have cable (which we don't have) and a TV larger than 45 inches.

 

We actually bought our 32" as a floor demo with a small scratch on the non-screen part, so we got a discount. It was a good value...

[SmallCap]

You are of course correct.  I tend to view everything through a dollars and cents filter, but many people don't.  Which is why I have neither solar panels nor a large screen TV (my largest TV is 32", because it does the job and is cheap).  I'm sure some people buy solar panels just to feel good themselves about being green.

 

My largest and only TV is 32" too. I guess we're TV brothers :D

 

Only on a value investing board would you find such people, every house I go in besides mine has a monster TV hanging on the wall in every living room.  My kids were literately jumping for joy and high-fiving one another when we replaced one of our 2 tube TVs with that 32" HDTV two years ago.  We still have the tube TV in the other living room though, I didn't want to get too crazy.

 

That's my experience too. Even the poorest people I know have cable (which we don't have) and a TV larger than 45 inches.

 

We actually bought our 32" as a floor demo with a small scratch on the non-screen part, so we got a discount. It was a good value...

 

I still don't have a flat screen TV, still using an old tube TV. Prices are dropping to the point where I think it's worth it for me to upgrade. My wife really wants one :)