Posted on 11/28/2005 7:06:17 AM PST by NormsRevenge
Interested in solar power?
How much you'll pay in city fees to put solar panels on your home depends on where you live -- and some fees around Silicon Valley are so high they are placing a cloud over renewable energy, according to a new study.
Saratoga, for example, charges $95 for a permit to install solar panels on a house. Yet in Los Gatos, two miles away, city planners will sock a homeowner with a $1,287 bill for a permit to install the same system.
The findings come from a survey of 40 cities in San Mateo, Santa Clara and San Benito counties by the Loma Prieta Chapter of the Sierra Club.
``There's a huge gap in what various cities charge,'' said Carl Mills, a Milpitas technical writer who helped compile the survey. ``Something is very wrong.''
Silicon Valley may seem like the perfect region to embrace solar power, with lots of high-income, technologically savvy, environmentally friendly residents. High fees send the wrong signal, Mills and other solar supporters say -- especially when rising natural gas prices are sending electric bills soaring, global warming is on the increase and America's reliance on Middle East oil is growing.
In addition to high fees, in some towns delays, red tape and bureaucratic hassles also are making it harder to go solar, the survey found.
Sierra Club volunteers phoned 40 municipal building and planning departments over the summer and asked how much it would cost to install a typical solar-panel system on a house. They chose one that would cover 320 square feet, with the solar panels installed flush to the roof, generating 3 kilowatts, and costing $27,000.
(Excerpt) Read more at mercurynews.com ...
As Raymond's wife would say "Idiots"
The competitiveness problem for distributed solar (e.g. for home heat and power) is easily stated - the cost of installing the system, even if the solar cells were free, exceeds the lifetime present value of the delivered electricity at coal or nuclear enery prices.
You could take what you pay the builders, put it in government bonds, and pay your electricity bill with the interest. And to spare.
The cost of the solar equipment itself is extra and a couple times more expensive than the rival sources. The cost is just up front as capital rather than ongoing as fuel.
Centralized solar may eventually become competitive, if prices continue to fall. Proponents frequently site Moore's law like price decreases in favor of solar. But past evidence shows prices of solar cells dropping about 10% per year, not the 30% per year of Moore's law. That is still enough to put the equipment itself in the competitive range in 20 years or so. But the labor cost of installing the stuff is a different matter, and does not decline over time. On the contrary, it rises with general living costs, wages, etc.
``We're not trying to make money here. We are trying to recover our costs,'' said Bud Lortz, Los Gatos director of community development."
Exactly what is the cost of sending an inspector to look at a soalr installation and review the specs according to prints?? Since prints are generally approved per building code the installation is the only question.
Making money also includes the enhanced value of the property which will certainly be reflected in property taxes.
Do these permit fees include the loss of franchise taxes collected from the sale of gas and electricity in the community?
No wonder alternative energy development has not taken off. The costs inposed by greedy government tax and fee revenue mongers appear to be detrimental by not making alternative energy affordable.
It's Bush's fault. He is planning to sell all mineral rights to the sun to Haliburton. Like Montgomery Burns, Dick Cheney will rule the world someday.....
Those who do, do. Those who can't work for the county.
Yea, that's really cost efficient. Spend $27,000 for a system that might save you $30 a month on your energy bill. Don't worry, it will pay for itself in 75 years.
They chose one that would cover 320 square feet (17.88 ft sq), with the solar panels installed flush to the roof, generating 3 kilowatts, and costing $27,000
That big ugly thing isn't very cost efficient is it. Then again 'solar' never was, nor will be.
BTW, 3KW is 'whooping' 4.02HP.
Excuse me, but can you explain to me why I should subsidize this experiment?
3 kilowatts, and costing $27,000.
If you want to spend your money on doing that, then by all means, go ahead.
But why do you expect ME to help you pay for it?
These are upscale areas. You wouldn't allow pig farms to be built atop people's houses, why ugly power plants? Solar collectors are industrial looking and don't fit in with expensive houses.
Indeed. But this is more than a little.
3 kW. Assuming it produces 3kW for 6 hours per day (a generous assumption), 365 days a year (a generous assumption), for 20 years, that's 24 kWH per day, about 540 kWH per month. That's 129,600 kWH over 20 years. That's almost 21c per kWH.
And you know that the peak power (3 kW) is only produced when the panel is directly facing the sun. Unless you track the sun, that won't happen more than an hour a day.
And unless you manage to store ALL the energy, you can't count all of it.
And there are a few cloudy days, I would assume.
I don't know about the 20-years guess - that may or may not be realistic.
PV systems like this are for well heeled enthusiasts and people who want to make a political statement. They make no sense for energy production.
Imagin what happens when you have solar panels blocked by high rise condo developments.
Then raise trees for firewood. It would be more efficient.
I imagine it costs much more because they are putting it on an existing roof. Putting it on a new roof would be much cheaper. I'm not sure exactly what the price would be, but my guess would be a little more than half of that price.
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