You Are Rich Cunts; Do You Do Solar?

Solar has been undermined in the country by electric companies. They basically killed solar in California last year.

A patio solar panel isn't going to do squat and it isn't worth it.

We should be far more advanced on solar in the US and we're not - although significant progress made in the last 15 years. Electric companies don't like it.

I do my best to use up all available fossil fuels so the nation and world are finally forced to be wiser about energy sources and consumption.

You're welcome.

Your are drunken.

Green Energy has turned into another cynical marketing scheme. The power of the utility companies over the regulators is clear. Currently in California they will buy your solar but only if they can pay like 4 cents a kilowatt hour for your electricity. Our utility company Pig-E charges us 41 cents for that same amount. The regulators here beg for favors from the corporations. Its disgusting.

R1 and R4 are correct.

R4 - actually it's $0.05 cents - but yes, it used to be parity, meaning you get a credit for the cost of the energy you would have purchased.

They reduced it theoretically because of the abundance of solar in California and that power companies couldn't use it all, so they would run it in the ground or give it away cheaply to neighboring states. Then when sun goes down and peak usage starts in early evenings, they have to turn up expensive peaker power-plants to make up the difference.

So what they're doing is making everyone going solar have to buy expensive batteries (Tesla, sonnen, etc.) to store your solar energy at home that you can draw from later and not use during peak expensive time periods. It adds about $15-$20k on top of the avg cost of a $40k solar system. And you have to replace those batteries (and panels) every 15-20 years. It really doesn't pencil out anymore.

Of course the electric companies in California (who make INSANE profits and have some of the highest rates in the country) could have built their OWN storage systems to take on the electricity, but nah - they'd rather pass it on to the consumer.

Our CA electric bills are crazy compared to the rest of the country. Absolutely insane. I used to work for a solar company so I know more than most. It KILLED the industry.

I diverted the money that I was going to spend on solar panels for my roof to buy stock in dividend-paying electric utility companies.

The companies I bought stock in are Southern Company and Entergy.

The dividends the stocks throw off quarterly more than pay for the additional electricity I buy to charge my PHEV Toyota.

I do Solar and Wind Power, the latest rage. My wash line.

Apparently part of the BS the power companies fed the state re lowering the rates they paid solar generating homeowners was that, as OP's title suggests, solar is for the rich (or richer) people, so they have to make it affordable for The Poors to get solar too.

I'm not sure how their plan achieves that, but that's what they said.

I don't understand. Can't you have solar panels and a battery for personal use, like running a generator? Why does it have to go through the power company?

R10 - because you need to be hooked up to the electric company - you don't always produce energy due to cloud cover, rain, etc. The batteries only hold so much - enough for a couple of days at most. I don't believe you're allowed to be fully 'off the grid' except if you're in a very remote area.

Before, if you had solar panels, you would get one bill a year from electric company - called a true-up Bill. It takes your yearly credits from solar against your usage.

For many people under the old system, their bill is $0 or less than $50 a year. That doesn't happen anymore.

R9 - yes - they want to increase rates and charges on solar even MORE because they say that non-rich people who don't have solar have to pay more for their electric. It's a bullshit argument. Solar has produced so much energy - billions of dollars worth that electric companies did NOT have to build out for or generate - but that's their think-tank marketing ploy they're trying to push. It's putting the burden onto poor people!

NO - they're raping Californians in fees because there are only 3 companies in the entire state - AND they've had to pay out massive fines for all the electrical fires and damage they've caused the past 15 years.

You know about all those fires in California? Many of them were caused by the electric companies' hardware. 8 out of the 20 most destructive fires were because of electric companies. Electrical equipment was the cause of 479 fires in 2023 alone.

Then they pass the cost of the lawsuit and for new infrastructure on to the citizens. They still make BILLIONS in profit each year though - so THEY aren't paying for it.

We luckily bought our home with an existing solar panel system, so we are "grandfathered" into the old plan, and will get the "old" rate of compensation for energy our panels generate until 2031.

But most new systems or new homes built after 2023 have shitty awful rates of compensation now.

All posts for living condition in Europe have curtain windows on the front.’

I see this on very few in Seattle.

It’s a HUGE SCAM.

Not a scam, at least not in Ohio. We have net metering so what we overproduce during the daytime is credited back to us when it’s dark or when we don’t produce enough like in winter. Annually, we produce a bit more than we use but the point is to build out about what your needs are with some cushion. Took advantage of the federal rebate so we were credited about $8,300 on our taxes this year. Overall, we’ll break even in under 8 years. I just looked at our March electric bill which was over $200 lower than last year. There are more complexities than I want to get into but I’m really glad we took the plunge. If you’re serious about it, check out EnergySage which can point you to qualified local installers. It’s going to make more sense in some states than others due to your climate and various state laws.