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So Boutons is against cheap solar panels?
you would think you wrongies would know that China dumping panels on US is not how their adored "free market/invisible hand" is supposed to work.
How about SUBSIDIZING solar and wind for the next 100 years they way BigCarbon is/has been subsidized for the past 100 years?
So Boutons is against cheap solar panels?
And Boutons would rather subsidize solar panels with US tax dollars than let the Chinese subsidize them for free?
U.S. Residential Solar PV Installations Exceeded Commercial Installations for the First Time in Q1 2014
Driven by strong year-over-year growth in the utility and residential markets, the United States installed 1,330 megawatts of solar photovoltaics (PV) in the first quarter of 2014. According to GTM Research and the Solar Energy Industry Association’s (SEIA) Q1 2014 U.S. Solar Market Insight Report, the U.S. installed 232 megawatts of residential PV, exceeding the non-residential (commercial) market’s 225 megawatts for the first time in the history of the report.
Ongoing strength in the residential sector and volatility in the non-residential market spurred this historic milestone. Despite the dip in non-residential installations, GTM Research and SEIA expect the market to rebound and exceed the residential market in 2014 annual PV installations.
http://www.altenergymag.com/stories/2014/05/us-residential-solar-pv-installations-exceeded-commercial-installations-for-the-first-time-in-q1-2014/789
... while retrograde BigCarbon REPUG TX lags way behind with NO state incentives for distributed solar, and even in Austin/SA with their municipally owned electric utilities not really pushing rooftop solar.
This is true, but at the same time, what good is it if we don't make them in US factories?
Why not let them make the relatively dirty manufactured panels and we make the inverters, etc. It doesn't all need to be born in the USA if the only way to do it is subsidize it with tax dollars.
We disagree there.
I say we let the natural supply and demand take shape. As electricity becomes more expensive, and manufacturing costs of solar cells comes down, solar will become attractive.
I am a firm believer that we need to roll back the Clinton Tree Trade Zones.
the benefit/cost is not just the purchase price. Foreign solar panels forestall coal and nuclear as well as domestic panel.
the hard costs are WAY down, it's the soft costs that are proving resistant.
Any excuse to put the jobs overseas, so you don't have to work. Right?
you're the one who said overpaid US workers should be put into compe ion with Asian workers.
Cheap chinese solar panels make boos head want to explode. Love em? Hate em? Arghhhhhhh!
read the rest on linkhttp://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/csi...-1226943557823
CSIRO claims game-changing solar discovery could end reliance on fossil fuels
lol the liberal leader got of this country just cut all funding to science, he doesnt believe in that ....but has no problem leeching off wifi technology that this company discovered/invented
Link please.
Any reference to such things are by means of a tariff, or changing our tax structure to a consumption tax.
I never advocated reducing US wages to achieve that goal. I have however said that we are in such reduce wage situations, because we cannot compete.
Warren Buffett Investing $15 Billion More Into Renewables
The Warren Buffet cash-train appears to still have more on it for renewables, based on recent statements made by the mega-investor.
While making a speech at a conference in Las Vegas earlier this week, Buffet made the comment that while his Berkshire Hathaway investment house had already invested around $15 billion into the clean energy sector there was “another $15 billion ready to go, as far as I’m concerned.”
Not an insignificant amount of money.And considering that Buffet is already one of the largest clean tech investors in the US, another $15 billion would put him well above nearly anyone else.
The investments aren’t likely to stop there, though, as Bloomberg notes:
Unlike other utility-holding companies, Berkshire Hathaway Energy retains all of its earnings. That probably will continue, Buffett said yesterday, estimating that the unit could reinvest about $30 billion into its business in the next decade.
“We’re going to keep doing that as far as the eye can see,” he stated. “We’ll just keep moving.”
In related news, Warren Buffet’s news agency, PR Newswire, recently ran a strongly worded report calling on Congress to reinstate production tax credits for renewables.
The report highlights, in detail, the employment costs of “federal uncertainty” over PTCs — making the case for state legislators to resist fossil fuel industry–funded attacks on pro-renewable energy policies.
Specifically, the report calls for the reinstatement of PTCs for “wind power, biofuels, and energy efficiency technologies,” a worthwhile cause, but hard to say if the report will have much of an impact.
http://cleantechnica.com/2014/06/12/...eanTechnica%29
LOL...
Berkshire Hathaway is the 5th largest company in the world. With annul revenues at $183 billion, that $15 billion invested over the years is a drop in the bucket. The company wholly owns GEICO, BNSF, Lubrizol, Dairy Queen, Fruit of the Loom, Helzberg Diamonds, FlightSafety International, and NetJets, owns half of Heinz and an undisclosed percentage of Mars, Incorporated, and has significant minority holdings in American Express, The Coca-Cola Company, Wells Fargo, and IBM.
He's one of your rich bankers Be .
Of the companies I didn't list, he also has holdings through Berkshire in:
Chicago Bridge & Iron Company N.V.
ConocoPhillips
Costco Wholesale Corporation
DaVita HealthCare Partners Inc
Deere & Company
DIRECTV
Exxon Mobil Corporation
General Electric Company
General Motors Company
Goldman Sachs Group Inc
Graham Holdings Co
Johnson & Johnson
Kraft Foods Group Inc
Lee Enterprises, Incorporated
Liberty Global plc - Class A Ordinary Shares
Liberty Global plc - Class C Ordinary Shares
Liberty Media Corp
M&T Bank Corporation
Mastercard Inc
Media General, Inc.
Mondelez International Inc
Moody's Corporation
National-Oilwell Varco, Inc.
Phillips 66
Precision Castparts Corp.
Sanofi SA (ADR)
Starz
Suncor Energy Inc. (USA)
The Bank of New York Mellon Corporation
The Coca-Cola Company
The Procter & Gamble Company
Torchmark Corporation
U.S. Bancorp
United Parcel Service, Inc.
USG Corporation
Verisign, Inc.
Verisk Analytics, Inc.
Verizon Communications Inc.
Viacom, Inc.
Visa Inc
WABCO Holdings Inc.
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.
By the way.
It isn't Buffet making these investments, it's the Holding company he is CEO of. Most of the $15 billion is likely a 1:1 tax write-off.
He's all talk. A very good Charlatan to the left.
Texas Utility Doubles Large-Scale Solar, Says It Will Be Coal-Free By 2016
Thanks to new investments in natural gas and utility-scale solar energy, El Paso Electric, a Texas utility with nearly 400,000 customers, announced on Monday that its electricity mix will be free from coal by 2016.
Thanks to successive investments in large solar projects, EPE has doubled its utility-scale solar portfolio in less than one year. “Our west Texas and southern New Mexico region has the right kind of sun for optimal solar energy production, making this region the ‘goldilocks’ in terms of climate, humidity and heat characteristics that allow us to expand our renewable portfolio with cost-effective technologies and reliable energy resources,” said Tom Shockley, Chief Executive Officer at El Paso Electric, said in a statement.
The utility signed a 20-year power purchase agreement with the massive Macho Springs solar plant in New Mexico, a 50 megawatt (MW) facility with the capacity to power more than 18,000 homes. According to the agreement, signed last year, EPE would buy solar power from Macho Springs for 5.79 cents a kilowatt-hour — less than half the 12.8 cents per kilowatt-hour average price for electricity from new coal plants, according to Bloomberg.
In February, EPE signed a 30-year power purchase agreement with Newman Solar to build a 10 MW solar facility in El Paso that is expected to come online by the end of 2014 and power an additional 3,800 homes.
Deciding “it is in the best interest of its 395,000 customers,” EPE plans to sell off its seven percent stake in the Four Corners coal plant, located on Navajo Nation land near Farmington, New Mexico. The plant came in at number 15 on Environment America’s list of the nation’s top 100 dirtiest power plants, emitting 13.8 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions per year.
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/201...utility-solar/
Australia has led way in slashing solar costs
In 2013, the United States installed more solar photovoltaic (PV) capacity than either Germany or Australia for the first time ever.
(The U.S. has tripled their combined population, so arguably this should have happened long ago…). With the decline of feed-in tariffs and other incentives in Germany, it is likely that the US will continue to outpace that country in new PV installations.
However, the U.S. continues to lag behind global PV leaders Germany and Australia in another important category: prices for residential systems installations.
As of Q2 2013, the average installed residential system price was $4.93/W compared to Germany’s $2.21/W and Australia’s $2.56/W. That needs to change.
Whether you look at U.S. DOE SunShot targets or RMI’s own Reinventing Fire vision, which has the U.S. solar market scaling from 4.5 GW PV installed per year to 20 GW, system costs have to come down to accelerate residential and commercial customer adoption. A new analysis and report from Rocky Mountain Ins ute (RMI) and Georgia Tech Research Ins ute (GTRI)—Lessons from Australia: Reducing Solar PV Costs Through Installation Labor Efficiency—identifies opportunities for the U.S. solar market to take important steps in that direction.
Non-hardware costs (permitting/inspection/interconnection (PII), customer acquisition, installation, and margins/overhead) now dominate system prices in the U.S.
For sub-10-kW systems, 80 percent of solar system cost decline in the U.S. since 2008 has been due to hardware price reductions.
In the U.S., non-hardware costs now account for 70% of system costs.
Setting aside margins/overhead, the U.S. spends $1.22/W on PII, customer acquisition, and system installation. PV leaders Germany and Australia, on the other hand, spend just $0.33/W and $0.65/W, respectively. The U.S. clearly can and should pursue significant cost reduction opportunities to eliminate this difference.
RMI and GTRI previously launched a PV installation labor data collection and analysis effort under the SIMPLE BoS project, which investigated differences in non-hardware costs between the U.S. and Germany, including installation labor. This 2013 report provided a detailed breakdown of primary drivers of PV installation labor cost differences between the U.S. and Germany. Now, in 2014, RMI and GTRI are following up on that groundbreaking work with further investigation of Australian solar installations.
Australia has emerged as a dominant player in the world residential solar market, with more than 10 percent of households possessing a solar system on the roof and system prices rivaling Germany’s. Even as feed-in tariffs (FITs) have declined, demand in Australia for residential rooftop solar has remained high and costs have continued to decline. Much of this is due to a focus on customer-owned PV, and thus an extremely compe ive marketplace around system cost. Both retailers and installers have been forced to lean processes in order to offer lower pricing and gain market share; they rely on high volume rather than high margin to remain profitable. According to our on-site analysis, Australian installers are averaging 6.1 labor-hours per kW solar installed, while the U.S. is more than 50 percent higher at 9.4 labor-hours per kW installed. This is similar to averages observed in other industry surveys and studies.
Unlike Germany, Australia does not use motorized lifts, scaffolds, or other advanced installation equipment. Instead, economic incentives drive labor—installers in Australia receive a flat rate per installation, and thus make greater profit by mounting more systems in less time.
That Australian installers were able to shift so quickly towards a one-day install as an industry standard indicates that Germany is not an outlier; optimized installations are possible and should be pursued at both the U.S. and international levels.
We noted several factors that may increase efficiency based on observations and analysis of installation practices in Australia, Germany, and the U.S.:
- Optimizing the pre-installation process
- Reducing time spent on base installations, especially for clay-tile roofs
- Pursuing rail designs that minimize installation labor
- Reducing the number of meters installed in each electrical system to monitor PV output
- Viewing the one-day installation goal as an opportunity to reduce time spent on non-production activities such as meals, travel, breaks, setup, and cleanup
These opportunities vary in magnitude, but in combination could have a significant impact on the number of labor-hours/kW U.S. installers typically invest in system installations. We believe installers in the U.S. could approach or go beyond Australian levels of efficiency by pursuing these primary measures, as well as other opportunities that help the industry approach the one-day installation as standard. If it can be done in Australia and Germany, there is no reason it cannot be done in the U.S.
We hope this report on Australia, the report on Germany, and all follow-on work under the SIMPLE BoS project will help the U.S. industry continue to reduce solar PV costs and enable the widespread, cost-effective deployment of residential solar PV systems.
http://reneweconomy.com.au/2014/lessons-australia-85029
reason why alot of aussies are switchin to solar, cause fkn energy bill prices have increase higher then inflation, when ur payin 600bucks for gas bills per quarter, u might as well cough up the money to install solar...u can get a decent system for around 5k...u write that off in 2years easy
2010:
can't find a more recent one
more recent, but not current:2010:
can't find a more recent one
http://www.eia.gov/countries/prices/...households.cfm
how electric utilities are trying to stop distributed solar, same idea as CPSEnergy SA proposing to stick rooftop solar with $500+ fee
Solar Companies Sue Over New Rooftop Solar Tax In Arizona
Two solar companies are suing the Arizona Department of Revenue over its hotly-disputed decision to tax leased solar panels, an additional charge that would hit Arizona’s growingsolar leasing industry.
SolarCity Corp. and Sunrun Inc. filed a lawsuit Monday against the state Department of Revenue alleging that the department’s interpretation of a state law to mean that Arizonans who lease solar panels aren’t eligible for tax exemptions granted to those who own them is illegal. This tax on leased solar panels would result in $152 extra in property taxes for the first year of a homeowner’s leased $34,000 solar-panel array, a charge that would decrease each year as the value of the array goes down. For larger, commercial arrays, the taxes will be higher — a leased 80-kilowatt, $360,000 system would carry a $1,615 charge its first year, and a 250-kilowatt system would be charged $4,485.
The first payments would be due from solar companies in October 15, and Bryan Miller, vice president of public policy and power markets for Sunrun Inc, say the additional cost to the companies will be passed along to the consumer.
“This would absolutely be the end for solar in Arizona,” Miller said. “It would burden those solar owners with a large tax increase that they were promised would never happen by top policy makers.”
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/201...e-arizona-tax/
This violates the original idea of Sherman anti-trust because this is large companies/"trusts" to block/re /penalize new market entries and "free industry".
the credit rebate starting from 1/7/2014 here in australia...those on previous grandfather plans at 44c will remain unchanged, those who signed later all plans will be 8cents only...lmao
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