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>We should be investing solar in lower income communities, as those people could really use cheaper utilities, and any saving they get would immediately go back

>We should be investing solar in lower income communities, as those people could really use cheaper utilities, and any saving they get would immediately go back into their communities. Good news, these are called "community solar gardens" and they exist all around the USA, here's a large one based in Minneapolis: https://www.cooperativeenergyfutures.com/ https://www.cooperativeenergyfutures.com/

hedora 2y ago
Community net monitoring isn’t allowed in California. Instead, PG&E let the grid fall apart, so now they’re charging crippling amounts of money to people that can’t afford solar. On the one hand, with the help of subsidies, our house is off-grid capable, and our power bill is $0-50. On the other hand, there’s a red-tagged neighborhood near by (they built homes despite not having power grid access), and they usually end up having a generator fire take out a few houses every couple of years. Anyway, I really wish California had a second political party (not the GOP).
- selimthegrim 2y ago
  Net metering?
- r00fus 2y ago
  PG&E is a factor in net emigration out of CA. Agreed single-party-controlled states are full of inefficiency (aka corruption).
  - entropicdrifter 2y ago
    On the other hand, living in a purple state doesn't necessarily help with corruption either. I live in PA and we had billions "go missing" from our Department of Transportation over the course of over a little over a decade. Things have improved in the last like 6 years or so, but we had to get to the point where our bridges were crumbling and just having permanent detours setup around them first before people really got on a crusade about properly fixing our roads. Josh Shapiro's done a bang-up job actually properly allocating the funds we managed to get from the big infrastructure bill, but that's been a major change from how things have been for the last 30 years I've lived here.
- renewiltord 2y ago
  How is it crippling? My 1900 sq. ft. loft in SF cost like $100/mo most months. That’s 5 hours of minimum wage work here. Even the $200 it hit at peak is 10 hours of minimum wage work. That was with 4 people living in it.
irq-1 2y ago
> CEF has financed and developed 6.9MW (~$16M) of low-income-accessible community solar arrays that ... offsets the utility bills of over 700 Minnesota households for the next 25 years $16M for 700 homes = $22,857.14/home That's not an investment, it's just charity by other means.
- solarpunk 2y ago
  That number is in the ballpark of what it costs to install solar on a rooftop here in Minnesota. The other part is these solar gardens don't stop paying for your electric bill if you move, so it's especially equitable for renters.
  - ben_w 2y ago
    6.9MW / 700 homes is 9.85 kW/home. Two of these would do more than that (10.5 kW), for (at current exchange rates) $5934, or just over a quarter that price: https://www.kaufland.de/product/512021383/?search_value=solar%20garage https://www.kaufland.de/product/512021383/?search_value=sola... And even at that price, it's overlapping in price range with the non-solar equivalents. The funny thing is, I grew up (in the UK) with news stories about how the latest computers were so expensive in the UK that it was cheaper to fly to NYC, buy one, and fly back with it, than to buy local — and now the US is having the same problem in reverse with PV (you might well be able to fit some of the much smaller flexible PV systems I've seen around here in Berlin into oversized luggage). (Sure, I get that big projects aren't exactly the same as small ones… but usually that makes big things cheaper, not more expensive, even for home PV vs. park PV).
    - vel0city 2y ago
      That's just the panels. So, I buy a bunch of panels, they get dropped off by a truck, and then...? I'm going to use slave labor to assemble it all and wire it all up? The price for installed solar in the US isn't high because of the panels. Its high because of the labor costs.
      - 2y ago

hedora 2y ago

Community net monitoring isn’t allowed in California. Instead, PG&E let the grid fall apart, so now they’re charging crippling amounts of money to people that can’t afford solar. On the one hand, with the help of subsidies, our house is off-grid capable, and our power bill is $0-50. On the other hand, there’s a red-tagged neighborhood near by (they built homes despite not having power grid access), and they usually end up having a generator fire take out a few houses every couple of years. Anyway, I really wish California had a second political party (not the GOP).

selimthegrim 2y ago
Net metering?
r00fus 2y ago
PG&E is a factor in net emigration out of CA. Agreed single-party-controlled states are full of inefficiency (aka corruption).
- entropicdrifter 2y ago
  On the other hand, living in a purple state doesn't necessarily help with corruption either. I live in PA and we had billions "go missing" from our Department of Transportation over the course of over a little over a decade. Things have improved in the last like 6 years or so, but we had to get to the point where our bridges were crumbling and just having permanent detours setup around them first before people really got on a crusade about properly fixing our roads. Josh Shapiro's done a bang-up job actually properly allocating the funds we managed to get from the big infrastructure bill, but that's been a major change from how things have been for the last 30 years I've lived here.
renewiltord 2y ago
How is it crippling? My 1900 sq. ft. loft in SF cost like $100/mo most months. That’s 5 hours of minimum wage work here. Even the $200 it hit at peak is 10 hours of minimum wage work. That was with 4 people living in it.

irq-1 2y ago

> CEF has financed and developed 6.9MW (~$16M) of low-income-accessible community solar arrays that ... offsets the utility bills of over 700 Minnesota households for the next 25 years $16M for 700 homes = $22,857.14/home That's not an investment, it's just charity by other means.

solarpunk 2y ago
That number is in the ballpark of what it costs to install solar on a rooftop here in Minnesota. The other part is these solar gardens don't stop paying for your electric bill if you move, so it's especially equitable for renters.
- ben_w 2y ago
  6.9MW / 700 homes is 9.85 kW/home. Two of these would do more than that (10.5 kW), for (at current exchange rates) $5934, or just over a quarter that price: https://www.kaufland.de/product/512021383/?search_value=solar%20garage https://www.kaufland.de/product/512021383/?search_value=sola... And even at that price, it's overlapping in price range with the non-solar equivalents. The funny thing is, I grew up (in the UK) with news stories about how the latest computers were so expensive in the UK that it was cheaper to fly to NYC, buy one, and fly back with it, than to buy local — and now the US is having the same problem in reverse with PV (you might well be able to fit some of the much smaller flexible PV systems I've seen around here in Berlin into oversized luggage). (Sure, I get that big projects aren't exactly the same as small ones… but usually that makes big things cheaper, not more expensive, even for home PV vs. park PV).
  - vel0city 2y ago
    That's just the panels. So, I buy a bunch of panels, they get dropped off by a truck, and then...? I'm going to use slave labor to assemble it all and wire it all up? The price for installed solar in the US isn't high because of the panels. Its high because of the labor costs.
    - 2y ago