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« Keep CALM with the TV on | Main | I am perpetual. I keep the country clean. »

Goverment bureaucracy we won't try to get rid of

Take this with a grain of salt since one of the writers of this editorial runs a solar energy company and would surely like to see less regulation in his industry. But it does seem that the combination of sanctioned monopolies and local regulations are not helping what ought to be an obvious conversion to solar.

Solar panels have dropped in price by 80 percent in the past five years and can provide electricity at a cost that is at or below the current retail cost of grid power in 20 states, including many of the Northeast states. So why isn't there more of a push for this clean, affordable, safe and inexhaustible source of electricity?

First, the investor-owned utilities that depend on the existing system for their profits have little economic interest in promoting a technology that empowers customers to generate their own power. Second, state regulatory agencies and local governments impose burdensome permitting and siting requirements that unnecessarily raise installation costs. Today, navigating the regulatory red tape constitutes 25 percent to 30 percent of the total cost of solar installation in the United States, according to data from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and, as such, represents a higher percentage of the overall cost than the solar equipment itself.

In Germany, where sensible federal rules have fast-tracked and streamlined the permit process, the costs are considerably lower. It can take as little as eight days to license and install a solar system on a house in Germany. In the United States, depending on your state, the average ranges from 120 to 180 days. More than one million Germans have installed solar panels on their roofs, enough to provide close to 50 percent of the nation's power, even though Germany averages the same amount of sunlight as Alaska. Australia also has a streamlined permitting process and has solar panels on 10 percent of its homes.

We've reached the tipping point on solar panels where the ROI is clear and in a "free market" customers would be moving in that direction. The fact that increased energy from solar has benefits beyond an individual consumer's power bill ought to mean that this is an issue you would think Republicans and Democrats alike could get behind.

Here in New Jersey, PSE&G actually started doing some good things along these lines under Governor Corzine, like putting up solar panels on all their utility poles, but Christie put a stop to it. Even so, i'd rather see something that doesn't rely on the existing grid, at least exclusively. I find it very odd that people who have solar panels on their roofs still can't get power during a power outage, because all those panels do is feed back into the grid, not directly into your home. I don't see why the panels can't be designed to feed your home directly and then you draw from the grid to make up the difference when necessary.

Min and i live in a townhouse, so the whole conversation is moot for us, but we still harbor (increasingly fleeting, as we get older) dreams of building our Earthship. I probably need to adjust my thinking, but to me it's not really solar power unless you're off the grid.

By fnord12 | December 13, 2012, 10:37 AM | Liberal Outrage