Posted on 04/19/2017 6:12:10 AM PDT by WombatKing
Sungevity’s sudden and startling fall from grace came to a quiet end yesterday after a Delaware bankruptcy court approved the sale of its assets to Northern Pacific Group for $50 million.
(Excerpt) Read more at pv-magazine-usa.com ...
It’s all a game. Get a government grant, find some investors, build a factory that is a Potemkin village, send some money to the DNC, and fold. Rinse. Repeat.
Surprised solar customers find themselves with liens
Jeff Leeds says installing SolarCity’s panels on the roof of his home in the Northern California city of El Granada was the sorriest day of his life.
Agreeing to the company’s 20-year lease was like partnering with the devil, he claims. He says he has endured skyrocketing electric bills, installation of an inferior system and contract violations because SolarCity refuses to clean the panels or to provide a payment for his system’s poor performance.
The latest surprise: a notice from his bank telling him that SolarCity had placed a lien on his home, and that his equity line of credit application could not proceed until the lien was removed.
http://watchdog.org/212170/surprise-solar-liens/
How much of this solar business was taxpayer supported?
So long as there’s market distortion caused by legislation compelling expansion of “green energy” - punishing businesses for not achieving quotas & gov’t funding* production - there will be a market for cronyism sucking up the money and disappearing.
Seems Tesla et al is the only company actually interested in creating viable solar power. Yes, they’re leveraging the available gov’t incentives (stupid not to) but are actually rolling out long-term plans & products rather than just soaking up federal money into high salaries and imputed expenses followed by a fast & ugly exit.
There IS a market for solar, and there IS interest in serving that market. Technology is improving to the point of making it economically viable, but there’s still a substantial gap. Solar may not be _the_ future of energy, but it absolutely should be a common secondary source. I’m surprised more conservatives _aren’t_ interested, as it’s a means of individual energy independence. I’d be thrilled to have an electric car substantially powered by home solar - the off-grid self-sufficiency is important, and prices actually are coming within viable range.
* - government actually writing large checks to businesses, vs simply providing tax breaks
The solar industry is booming. The solar equipment manufacturers in the US are in terrible shape. China and Europe dominate. At one time the US dominated but no longer.
It remains to be seen how the joint venture of Panasonic and Tesla do with the new manufacturing facility in New York.
It's not much different with wind either. Most of the windmills installed in the US are from foreign manufacturers. GE is the only US manufacturer and they got into it by accident. Fifteen years ago when Enron went bankrupt, GE bought their wind holdings
solar is a great idea
poor execution
Another democrat party backed money laundering scam goes down. But then, it is California which is a much larger democrat party backed power scam that is spiraling toward depths of the crapper. FAD!
IMHO, solar power has a definite place in society. But it’s not the be all and end all the Greens tout.
The biggest problem with solar power is that it does not readily support stored power. With fuels like oil, the power is there when you need it. You can store oil indefinitely and the power is still there. Not with solar.
One of the best uses of solar power I’ve seen is a pole mounted flashing caution light out in the middle of nowhere.
On top of the pole is a solar cell that powers the light during the day and charges a battery to keep the light flashing after sundown. Slick.
Solar is fine for limited applications but not for whole building power. Most parts of the US don’t get enough sun. I’ve seen solar radiation charts that show average amounts. On a 1-10 scale, most of the US is below 6.
At a previous job, our biggest customer manufactured solar panels. I spent lots of time in their large factories with huge amount of rooftop space. They operated completely ON THE GRID. If solar was so great, why didn’t they have it?
They went bankrupt when several nations cancelled their subsidies.
As an aside, I went to Costco yesterday and lo and behold
they had 2 Pack of LED Retrofit Indoor Floodlights (75 Watt equivalent) for $8.37 after an $8.00 Energy Rebate.
I have no idea who is paying the Rebate, but I replaced every Spotlight in my House. Since I live in CA, I will take a guess that my Taxpayer Dollars paid for it.
Without the Energy Rebate I wouldn’t have bought them.
BTW - They are made in China. Just looked at the Box.
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