Socially negative impacts of solar

Hedges said:

$4.86 to $10.42 per watt?
Is that grid tie only, or battery backup?

Tennessee, 6kW average cost $10,293 after 26% tax credit, 13.09 ¢/kWh

How Much Do Solar Panels Cost In 2024?

Get expert advice on improvements to your home, including design tips, how much you'd expect to pay for a pro and what to ask when hiring experts.

www.forbes.com

That's $13,909 before credit, $2.32/W (which sounds a bit low to me, thought closer to $3)

Annual benefit and payback portions of their table is useless, because it is based on a mixed-up measure of consumption.
Tennessee has half the electric rate of California, similar installed PV cost, but same number of years payback, obviously incorrect.

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Lightwave Solar, which is based in Nashville, but covers most of Tennessee (I'm in the Knoxville area). Grid tie, battery (Tesla) backup with 2.5X array capacity (i.e. a 10KW array would have 25KW-hr battery). Enphase or Solar Edge microinverters/optimizers if I used those, Hanwa or Q-cell 400Watt panels. "Minimum" would be $70K, which may be for only a 10KW system, and it "may be as high as $150K." She seemed to really be pushing a 10KW system, despite me having 850-900SF of space that could be used for mounting an array (a 12X3 array of 460W BlueSun panels will yield 16.2KW). Said the 10KW system would save me $100 most months, but up to $160 in the Summer. ANd yes, I know I said 14.4KW earlier, I was going off of memory, but was taking notes in a document which I just checked. The 10KW system is waht she was pushing. I was probably assuming her 400W panels in a 12X3 grid when I got 14.4 stuck in my head.

I don't know where Forbes gets its info, but it is inconsistent with what I was told during my first consultation. And again, this was assuming a ground mount system that I'd be building, not a roof mount as is more common. But otherwise, it was paying a company to come in, and do the work.

Like I said, this type of info is why I was basically in the "stuff that" camp, and have decided to go the DIY route. But this is the kind of cost most folks in Tennessee are incurring. I have an acquaintance who has a small solar business who encouraged me last Fall to do it, myself, and offered to help. He even told me back then I could put up a system for under $30K. But he is so overrun right now that he won't be able to help me, but still told me to do it, myself. ONly bring that up to just say that the demand right now is driving up costs significantly.

Here is a cut and paste of the notes I took, FWIW:

Notes from Lightwave solar meeting:

(removed name of employee):

Questions – Brands of panels, battery backup

Can claim the 30% tax credit IF it does not have a roof. Keep it made for solar, and can claim the pergola.

Don’t let builder run 225A panels, MUST stop at 200A panels

$70K minimum, could reach $150K. Pay back is 30-40 years.

Solar wires into 1 200A panel at a time. Put all on 1 200A panel. On main panel.

2nd system – ground mounted 2 deep panels, often 45 x 10 feet.

Battery storage is roughly 2.5 times grid, maybe slightly more. Typically Powerwall.

10KW system generates about $100/month, up to $160 in Summer months, savings

So typical 10KW system would use 2 powerwalls (each is 13KW)

Max breaker backup is 30A per Powerwall (so 2 PW allows for 60A breaker).

Standard panels are about 400W, typically. 72cell typical. About 6X6. Look up Hanwa Q Cell 400W black on black. Look up spec sheet, most likely panel.

Inverters. Solar Edge and In Phase are micro inverters or power optimizers. They prefer Solar Edge. Don’t necessarily need that. Exclude them would save some cost.

Average 2000SF house consuming 2.5-3KW during the day.

These are good questions that should be answered. Their rates on their wholesale power are next to nothing compared to what retail pays, same as the power that's produced during the 9am to 3pm hours or whatever peak solar happens to be that day. Their wholesale rates would be the same regardless of what time it is. At this point the poco makes a good case for grid tied residents to store it themselves for later useage, or pay the cost of transport and still get paid what the poco pays to produce it wholesale.

The poco should have been building out their own storage network (gravity(hydro), chemical (battery), etc.) and could have even justified selling the free power back at retail rates to pay for the storeage cost, but instead these systems have been pretty well implemented from the beginning with enticing 1 for 1 payment from the poco and valuable clean energy credits that the pocos use and trade amongst themselves, which happens in california a lot and it's heavily abused which is a different more convoluted issue.
Doing away with these many layers of subsidies would help the individual solar user at this point, and especially the offgrid solar user in the form if lower and more competitive prices on new solar panels.

67King said:

I don't know where Forbes gets its info, but it is inconsistent with what I was told during my first consultation. And again, this was assuming a ground mount system that I'd be building, not a roof mount as is more common. But otherwise, it was paying a company to come in, and do the work.

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Your quote had battery storage, which is why it was much more expensive and won't provide payback, given your low utility rates.

If you can get net metering at retail, then grid-tie only without battery might pay back. But your cost for power per kWh isn't much more than what I put turn-key installed GT PV at (around $0.10/kWh amortized over 20 years, ignoring time value of money.)

If backfeed is credited well under retail, you can't win without batteries and those will add at least $0.05/kWh (cheapest batteries), bringing total higher than utility kWh rate.

If you ran A/C all day, maybe GT PV no battery offsetting that would help.
I put DIY GT PV at $0.025/kWh so you might consider.

But given your power rates, consider investing elsewhere for return in dollars.

Hedges said:

Can San Jose Clean Energy buy power from a rooftop PV generator (e.g. me) and pay PG&E to distribute it (entirely on secondary side of last transformer) to my next door neighbor?

Do they have to pay PG&E the same to transport power 200' as 200 miles? Or is local delivery less, so they could pay me more and charge my neighbor less than PG&E's NEM 3.0 credits and rates?

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Well the question would be does your intermittent exporting over the secondary to your neighbor reduce the cost of the distribution equipment PG&E has to maintain to serve your neighbor? And the answer would be no. You, not personally, but as a generic solar producing customer, are an unreliable generator. PG&E has to maintain full distribution capacity to serve your neighbor's entire load for any number of reasons, because it's rainy, because your inverter died, because it's night time, or because you just felt like turning it off.

So if there's no distribution equipment savings, how can a distribution fee discount be justified?

The idea that any kwh ever actually incurs literal transport cost across the distribution network is just an abstract fiction that we use for cost recovery purposes. Building cost justifications on top of a fiction will not lead to rational conclusions.

hwy17 said:

So if there's no distribution equipment savings, how can a distribution fee discount be justified?

The idea that any kwh ever actually incurs literal transport cost across the distribution network is just an abstract fiction that we use for cost recovery purposes. Building cost justifications on top of a fiction will not lead to rational conclusions.

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I believe it does reduce the amount of power transmitted over long-distance transmission lines.
There is significant PV capacity in urban areas, and their production coincides with greatest heat load that A/C has to deal with.

If PG&E does need transmission capacity as well as local distribution for the sum of all simultaneous loads (e.g. because remote generation needs to supply the city during a total eclipse of the sun), then no discount can be justified.

If rooftop PV means that only local distribution needs to be expanded to meet full needs of new construction, and long distance transmission requires less or no expansion, then I think the discount is justified.

I propose a simple test to evaluate this: During hot weather, a "power emergency", all rooftop PV owners shut off their systems. If the grid stays up, the utility does have sufficient capacity. If the grid collapses, they do not. We will then sit down and negotiate how much our power contribution is worth, what capital investment and fuel consumption it offsets.

I deliberately limited my point there to distribution because it's a simpler model to work with and debate.

Transmission costs are broken down separately on the bill and are a clusterfuck to debate because you have a fictional consumer cost recovery model stacked on top of the CAISO semi fictional market settlement system and the whole thing turns into an inception of complexity.

venquessa said:

Also, I think for the vast majority of people..., you absolutely will 100% want the grid to be there when the battery is flat and it's raining in January.

Having not paid a cent to the grid all summer, you will still expect it to be there and to serve you when you need it.

While everyone else pays for it.

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If I am off grid, I will expect nothing from the POCO. They can expect nothing from me.
If I am grid tied, I will have to pay a monthly minimum fee whether I use one watt, or not.
You had better believe I will still expect it to be there to serve me when I need it, if I am paying for the "privilege" of being connected.
The POCOs set the rates, so if they don't charge enough as the minimum, that's on them.
Most POCOs have assistance programs for poor customers.

I pay for the food, rent, telephones, internet, education, medical care (in the form of taxes) for people who spend their money on booze, cigarettes, lottery tickets, junk food etc. etc.
There are people who truly need help, and I really do not mind helping them, but I do not like being forced to subsidize
behaviors I do not approve of.
I pay taxes that subsidize the lives of people who are not citizens of this country. I do not like that at all.
I donate to charities that provide for those less fortunate. Some of my tithes go to help those in need.

I do not feel any remorse, shame, or guilt for providing energy security for my family.
I grew up in a relatively poor family. My mother's parents did not get an indoor bathroom until 1975.
My father had to drop out of school to help put food on the table. He slaved in a deafening factory to make a better life for his children.
My wife and I busted our humps our entire adult life, and finally learned the lesson of delayed gratification.
We can now afford the things we want, within reason, but we are still frugal. I just recently retired, she will soon.
To say that I owe anyone else because my wife and I scrimped and saved for decades is laughable.

Here's an example of helping to redress the balance:

Tesla launches Phase 4 of South Australia’s Virtual Power Plant, adds 3k, for a total of more than 8,000 Powerwalls

A large chunk of these Powerwalls (nearly half) were installed in South Australia Housing Authority homes - dedicated state run public housing.

So not only do the low income residents benefit from lower power bills and better energy security, the Powerwalls are part of a 100 MWh virtual power plant helping to support the state's transition towards being powered by 100% VRE.

The VPP is being tested for provision of grid voltage support, fast frequency response (FFR) (less than 1 second response time) and for supporting system inertia.

So while grid scale batteries provide similar frequency control and ancillary services, this is a nice way to share the benefits of VRE on the grid with those who have little hope of ever affording solar PV.

venquessa said:

Not sure if anyone has seen "Technology Connections" on YouTube.

He voiced a concern about "roof top" solar going forward which I personally had not considered much.

Basically his point, if I may butcher it a bit, is... The electrical grid needs to exist. Without it normal roof-top solar doesn't work. The electrical grid needs to be upgraded because in many places it is under equipped to deal with houses generating many times what they are consuming.

Net effect, the electricity companies and distribution network operators have to invest into the grid infrastructure not only to keep expanding it to meet expanding demands, but also sureing it up for more and more micro-gen roof-top solar = more and more money.

At the same time however, more and more people who "can afford it" are putting 3-5kW of solar on their roofs and slashing their electrical bill massively and in many cases actually netting an income!

So, people putting engineering pressure on the grid are also putting financial pressure on the grid.

Here is the catch. Only those people who can afford solar have a way out from the rising electrical costs caused by those who can afford solar. It's a self perpetuating problem and without any intervention will result in massive "fuel poverty" for those who cannot afford solar.

Here is my attempt at a solution, which, honestly I would sign up to myself.

We fund and organise a charity electrical retailer. (locality specific probably). That retail operator buys and sells electricity just like all the others. However, this one gets it's incoming electricity by donation and gives that energy in units to a pool which is distributed out to other electrical retailers to reduce registered "fuel poverty" suffers bills.

Explained differently. If/when I have 3-4kW on my roof and I am over-producing. The net export units, instead of netting me about 4p per unit, instead get donated for free to this retail charity. My certificates of micro-generation are donated to this charity. When reconciled they amount to a number of "kWh" units of electricity, normally paid for in a feed-in tarif. The stream of these coming in, can be exchanged for actual electrical units from other retailers and go against poor peoples bills.

It's a very communist, socialist and "communal-energy" based.

But... you know what? I would far, far, far rather the over-production from my panels goes towards the 41p per unit electrical costs of present instead of the electrical retails insulting me with something less than 10p a unit in feed in.

It would take government intervention to prevent retailers from only paying out 4p or something for those generation units. It would work perfectly well if it was unit for unit. Or even unit for unit - transmission and distribution losses (which are normally paid by the retailer).

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I understand most of this argument and agree in many aspects to the problems/limitations you are presenting; the proposal you make I find somewhat challenging to accept because to me the solar energy drawbacks are not poverty related but thermodynamic.

Concretely I can name 2 negative impacts:
- The phenomenon of consuming more electricity because when someone has solar panels its electricity is cheap/free.
- The energy return factor of a panel; which I presume when used in installations with shadows or overpaneling (just because panels are cheap) could be below 1. So the energy deficit in the world keeps growing.

My proposal is small energy communities where people becomes independent from the grid (while maybe still connected) and the users actively collaborate on setting up their system, understanding how hard it is to have electricity 24/7, comprehend limitations, pay for usage somehow and work on making their community more resilient, efficient and cost-effective.

wattmatters said:

Here's an example of helping to redress the balance:

Tesla launches Phase 4 of South Australia’s Virtual Power Plant, adds 3k, for a total of more than 8,000 Powerwalls

A large chunk of these Powerwalls (nearly half) were installed in South Australia Housing Authority homes - dedicated state run public housing.

So not only do the low income residents benefit from lower power bills and better energy security, the Powerwalls are part of a 100 MWh virtual power plant helping to support the state's transition towards being powered by 100% VRE.

The VPP is being tested for provision of grid voltage support, fast frequency response (FFR) (less than 1 second response time) and for supporting system inertia.

So while grid scale batteries provide similar frequency control and ancillary services, this is a nice way to share the benefits of VRE on the grid with those who have little hope of ever affording solar PV.

Click to expand...

All of the power wall type systems that I have read about in AUS have the people on fairly severe "demand response" rates.

Their rates were discounted during specific periods, but the trade off was that if they ran their air conditioner when it was actually needed (hot outside ) or cooked dinner during the normal time (peak demand ) the rates were astronomical.

They also didn't have control of their own thermostat.

So that is something that can be "force fed" on people, but it isn't what someone really wants.

HarryN said:

All of the power wall type systems that I have read about in AUS have the people on fairly severe "demand response" rates.

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News to me. There is a dedicated Powerwall thread on our local technology forum. People are on all sorts of plans - there is wide choice of retail plan types here. If someone is on a Demand plan, it's by choice. Demand plans can work for those with battery systems as the battery does peak demand shaving, while the base consumption tariff is much lower at other times than regular tariff plans.

HarryN said:

Their rates were discounted during specific periods, but the trade off was that if they ran their air conditioner when it was actually needed (hot outside ) or cooked dinner during the normal time (peak demand ) the rates were astronomical.

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Time of use tariffs are the norm in Australia.

But with a Powerwall it will largely negate that impost.
For regular households, the cost of a PW is pretty steep (>A$16k) and by and large they are not financially viable.

HarryN said:

They also didn't have control of their own thermostat.

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Again, news to me. Utility control of thermostats I've not heard of here. We have DRED control capability but it's not used by the utilities.

Perhaps you can point me to the details of such things.

Jordi said:

Concretely I can name 2 negative impacts:
- The phenomenon of consuming more electricity because when someone has solar panels its electricity is cheap/free.

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That's not a thermodynamic issue. More an example of Jevon's Paradox.

Jordi said:

- The energy return factor of a panel; which I presume when used in installations with shadows or overpaneling (just because panels are cheap) could be below 1. So the energy deficit in the world keeps growing.

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That is unlikely.

The average embedded energy payback period for well positioned panels is 1.5 - 2.5 years. Even less well placed panels are going to recover their embedded energy cost well before their end of life.

Meanwhile, in sunny Thailand, our local coffee shed ...



I need to get a photo, but since this Google image was taken the chicken-lady has "installed" a panel that runs the spits and lights when it gets dark

Solar really is no longer a rich man's toy when you only need a few hundred Wh per day.

A 300W panel is less than USD100 retail, give it a car battery and a cheap Chinese PWM controller and you're good to go for next to nothing.

wattmatters said:

That's not a thermodynamic issue. More an example of Jevon's Paradox.


That is unlikely.

The average embedded energy payback period for well positioned panels is 1.5 - 2.5 years. Even less well placed panels are going to recover their embedded energy cost well before their end of life.

https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/content/dam/ise/de/documents/publications/studies/Photovoltaics-Report.pdf

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That is a very interesting info to be read slowly. (and I will)

The concerns I have come from a reputable scientist saying in optimal conditions the energy return of solar could be just 3 times after its full life-time (so 8-9 years payback); that takes into account the whole cycle of collecting raw materials, manufacturing and recycling to get back to the beginning of the game. I do not have that much time to check the facts myself, but at first I trust him.

The energy payback you have sent me looks really cool, is just 1.5 - 2.5 years, but I doubt it includes mining the raw materials nor recycling; two of the most energy intensive processes. Even worse, processes highly dependent on fossil fuels which means that the energy payback should not be interpreted right away; world electrification barely covers 20% of all consumptions and PV only produces electricity.

And one last front is the scarcity of raw materials which also has an impact on energy costs; the more exhausted mines get, the more energy it costs to extract raw materials from them. Mines operate mostly on fossil fuels.

venquessa said:

That's true.
However they are far, far more influential at night taking money away from the grid.

Also, I think for the vast majority of people outside of Spain and California, you absolutely will 100% want the grid to be there when the battery is flat and it's raining in January.

Having not paid a cent to the grid all summer, you will still expect it to be there and to serve you when you need it.

While everyone else pays for it.

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Or buy a generator

Jordi said:

Concretely I can name 2 negative impacts:
- The phenomenon of consuming more electricity because when someone has solar panels its electricity is cheap/free.
- The energy return factor of a panel; which I presume when used in installations with shadows or overpaneling (just because panels are cheap) could be below 1. So the energy deficit in the world keeps growing.

My proposal is small energy communities where people becomes independent from the grid (while maybe still connected) and the users actively collaborate on setting up their system, understanding how hard it is to have electricity 24/7, comprehend limitations, pay for usage somehow and work on making their community more resilient, efficient and cost-effective.

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Interesting take.

The boss in our work opened several initiatives for "corporate responsibility" and internal company communities taking ownership. Two of those initiative are energy (aka renewables and saving of) and communities. I figured combining the two into Energy Communities and using the company "clout" in the markets, including the utiltiies and DNOs to drive that through technology.

A lot of people might assume these things work 1 to 1, in that the energy you export is sold "as is" 1 to 1. It's not, it takes months potentially. Here in the UK the retailer who receives your export meter readings adds them into a big pot of renewable generation. When they get to a Megawatt hour they can generate a "certificate of renewable generation". This can then be sold on the open energy markets, like SEM and others.

"Green" tariff providing companies then trade on those markets to buy as many renewable certificates as they need to supply their customers with "green" energy.

So while the actual grid (UK) current has very little storage, that being a few pumped hydro-plants, and thus generation has to meet demand exactly 1:1 24/7, the financial and economic "flow" of energy is much, much slower and operates on a lag of at least 1 day to months.

There is of course "corruption" abound, but it depends on how you define "corruption". Those renewable certificates along with energy futures and derivatives are traded, offset, loaned, borrowed, etc, just like most other large corprorate finances.

Tying this to your point, at last, I agree there is an illusion being pushed by those "green energy" electric providers that the energy they are using right now is actually green. It usually just means the retailer has "certificates to spare" or "certificates easy to borrow or offset". It could be the middle of the night and be dead calm and they can claim the energy you are currently burning is "green", because it was generated a week ago when it was sunny and ended up being used back them by industry.

There definately is a sense that the solar energy is free, so why not use it up like crazy. Resulting in a net increase in the overall grid.

Similarly. If those people on green tarrifs are burning loads of energy because their retailer says it's green, then other retailers will not be able to sell as many renewables, thus the rest of the grid increases it's fossil fuel usage.

Jordi said:

The energy payback you have sent me looks really cool, is just 1.5 - 2.5 years, but I doubt it includes mining the raw materials nor recycling

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It does. It's an LCA - which covers the full lifecycle. The Fraunhofer Institute is is the largest applied scientific research organisation in Europe. They do thorough analysis.

They have done others - they did some work on the energy payback for Fronius as they wanted to know what the energy payback for their inverter systems was. Can read that report here:

Slightly more tongue in cheek, but I'm now finding it amusing as my own (partial) grid provider, that I am indeed metering my self on VA Apparent power! I understand why they want to do it now!

HarryN said:

My single biggest concern about solar is that everyone is trying to generate power at roughly the same time of day.

Unfortunately, this is not the same as the peak time of day when power is needed.

Many of the issues related to solar and grid balancing could be massively reduced simply by having people install solar panels facing 6 pm instead of 2 pm.

It is more or less the same problem that grid scale batteries, demand response, NEM 3, and a bunch of other pricing games are trying to solve indirectly vs just re-positioning 50% of the solar panels.

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When there is no net metering, people start taking this into account.
What I have seen is colleagues over panel to cover more orientations; it works for them because panels are cheap, not sure the world can afford having panels producing 30% of their nominal output but I find it comprehensible in times where energy storage still got many limitations to overcome. Panels with lower exposure last longer, right?

Jordi said:

And one last front is the scarcity of raw materials

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I don't think we have much scarcity of materials for PV manufacture.

Jordi said:

The concerns I have come from a reputable scientist

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Ask them to provide their literature review to back up their statement. This has been researched fairly thoroughly. I would be surprised if a reputable scientist would hold such a view after performing a decent literature review.

Aside from the previous reference, there are some earlier references which draw pretty much the same conclusion about LCA and energy payback for solar PV:

This is abstract only just as a place marker if you care to look further - may need library assistance to obtain the full paper.

and this one from the NREL of the US Dept of Energy if you prefer an American source: