Germany Reconsidering their Awesome Solar Subsidy Program

With respect to how much sun they get, Germany has taken their lemons and made lemonade.

The Renewable Energy Sources Act of Germany forces power companies to buy all the alternative energy created by citizens, at a price greater than market prices, and for a long time (20 years). That massively compelling subsidy has turned Germany into the world leader on solar (and keep in mind, they only get half the sun San Diego does!).

As a salesperson for solar energy here in San Francisco, customers with glorious giant flat roofs will often install the smallest possible system because they have low energy usage. PG&E, the utility company here, does not pay you cash if you produce more than you consume for the year. They will credit towards your next months bill, but no wampum in your hand if you go over.

The only way to incentivize someone to install more solar than they need is to pay them for the excess electricity they generate, which is the only way to create a healthy and clean distributed generation network. That is what Germany does, and it kicks butt. The rub comes from the fact that the money for this subsidy is paid for by the consumers that don’t have solar. Right now they are just paying a Euro more than normal, but that could spike to more, alienating consumers.

The proposal by conservatives is to increase the rate at which the subsidy declines, and possibly lower the term from 20 to 15 years. It is unclear to me exactly whether it only effects new installations, or is horribly nasty and effects people that have already installed (which I doubt). Either way, a deal’s a deal as I see it.

Spain has a similar subsidy, and a hell of a lot more sun, so Germany is concerned they will overtake the lead in the market.

The moral of the story is simply that if you make something compelling financially to people, they act in droves. We need to do that here.

I am good at my job. That being said, even with the most progressive culture in the US, a lot of recent legal lubrication for coding/permits, the best subsidies in the nation, and a ton of sun, my job is hard hard hard hard hard.

I got this info from the NY times: Here is the original article.

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Solar is getting more expensive

A while back I wrote about people innovating in the web space for solar, where I mentioned how I had a beef with the way the media portrays new solar energy technology. Here’s why:

First, they always understate time frames and cost, and overstate benefits. Read this. It’s just an example, but there are hundreds of these types of articles written each week, and they make my skin crawl. The article leaves you feeling as though a revolutionary startup is going to have $1/watt solar panels on your doorstep next week. They’re not.

• Will they be able to PRODUCE solar panels for $1/watt at some point? Possibly, some day a long time from now. Will they be able to meet demand and distribution problems on the day they meet that production price point? Probably not. Will they sell them for $1/watt? NO, they will cost more, that’s how companies make money. Will the distributors resell them for the same price? No, or they would go broke too. Will it cost $1/watt for installers to put them in? No, it will cost more. In fact, if the panels were available TODAY, my (totally off the cuff) guess is you are looking at something like $6/watt, turnkey.
• Will they work on homes? Probably not. Initial applications will be commercial applications with large roofs. Homes with small roofs will need highly efficient panels to capitalize on that space. The best thin film you can get out there at the moment is going to require four times the space to get the same power out of it. That is simply not an option for homes. That is why no one is installing the stuff on houses right now, and it doesn’t look like we will be anytime soon. Ironically, the article makes it sound as though it will be more efficient than current photovoltaic panels, which is ludicrous.

And another thing. We’re in a subsidy sweet spot, in many places, including here in California. The federal tax credit on solar energy, as it stands, is gone at the end of 08′. The California Solar Initiative, our state-wide subsidy, steps down in 30 cent/watt steps as more people install solar. Add that to the rising production costs of solar, this space age product, whenever it comes out, may end up costing you the same as installations do now. And by then you’ve paid another 80 months of power bills.

That’s right, you heard me correctly. Solar is getting more expensive. The price of energy has increased the cost to manufacture solar panels. Additionally, many are made in Asia and must be shipped over, and shipping costs have exploded. Finally, heavy demand in places like Spain and Germany, due to their excellent, forward thinking subsidies has caused a lot of local distributors to ship overseas.

For the company I work for, our products cost substantially more per watt than they did last year, and that trend is going to continue. Are breakthroughs in solar energy technology that allow for much cheaper production that will also work in residential applications going to be employed at some point? Yes. But it’s wayyyyyyyyyyy longer into the future than the media would lead you to believe, and solar energy is cost effective right now. If you get a PV system on your roof, and 15 years later some flexo-thin film product is available at half price, you’ll still have the last laugh, and you will have been energy independent for those 20 years.

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Happy Mother’s Day

That’s my mom.  She made my lunch in elementary school so I didn’t have to eat the cafeteria business, she helped me with my science projects, and has provided 29 years of unconditional love, even if I screwed up.   She put in an 18 year full-time job with ZERO PAY.  Here’s to you, mom, and all the moms out there.

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Thomas Edison’s thoughts about solar power

“Sunshine is spread out thin and so is electricity. Perhaps they are the same, but we will take that up later. Now the trick was, you see, to concentrate the juice and liberate it as you needed it. The old-fashioned way inaugurated by Jove, of letting it off in a clap of thunder, is dangerous, disconcerting and wasteful. It doesn’t fetch up anywhere. My task was to subdivide the current and use it in a great number of little lights, and to do this I had to store it. And we haven’t really found out how to store it yet and let it off real easy-like and cheap. Why, we have just begun to commence to get ready to find out about electricity. This scheme of combustion to get power makes me sick to think of–it is so wasteful. It is just the old, foolish Prometheus idea, and the father of Prometheus was a baboon.”

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HOMEWORK

From VoteSolar.org:

Friends-

You’ve probably seen it.  Thomas Friedman’s April 30 New York Times op-ed, “Dumb As We Wanna Be“, chided Congress for failing to figure out how to pay for the extension of critically needed clean energy tax credits.  At a “time when we should be throwing everything into clean power innovation,” he wrote, Congress is “squabbling over pennies.”

As if on cue, Congressional leadership just made a decision to yank inclusion of the solar investment tax credit (ITC) from the Iraq War Supplemental legislation, without a clear plan for addressing energy security in this country.

The House and the Senate have each passed versions that the other side finds distasteful, and now we seem to be at an impasse, close to Memorial Day recess, without a clear path to victory. So what is going to cause a breakthrough in this Congressional log jam? Nothing short of constant constituent pressure.  Can you make a call to your Congressional representatives?  Tell them that solar means energy security, and you’d like to see an extension of the solar tax credits attached to the next legislative vehicle that moves. Capitol switchboard is 202/224-3121.

Or, mail the Friedman op-ed to your representatives in Congress, asking them to find the energy to be serious about extending the solar ITC.  Take action here.

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