Again, you don’t need an advanced degree in anything to get to the root of grid parity — is it as cheap for someone to go solar as it is to buy electricity from the grid? I’m sorry that you still miss the end point.
Now, if you actually wanted to get into the full costs (to determine if solar is getting propped up on subsidies artificially… or the opposite), you’d have to go beyond simple issues such as transmission and distribution costs. You’d have to get into a whole host of other costs and externalities. So, outright claiming that solar is being unfairly subsidized because of on piece of the subsidy pie is absurd.

For starters on some of the other issues, see:

http://cleantechnica.com/2011/06/26/true-value-of-solar-power/
http://cleantechnica.com/2012/04/06/its-here-solar-renewable-grid-parity-or-better-in-californias-latest-renewable-power-auction/

I’m surprised to hear that you were a CT subscriber (and wonder how long that might have been for). Your comments wouldn’t indicate that at all. They look like those coming from what is termed a ‘troll’ in the internet world (someone who pops in to cause trouble in the comments section and then dashes off – like an anti–clean energy person dropping long and incorrect comments on a clean energy site).

I’m sorry that it wasn’t easier for you to cause trouble here (trying to leave the last, misleading word under a post), but we’re not a big fan of letting people deceive others on such matters here on CT.

Enjoy your misguided attempt to convince people that solar power gets more subsidies than its dirty competitors, or that someone getting solar for cheaper than they’d pay for electricity isn’t, in essence, grid parity.

The German policy has been in place for a long time. And recent surveys still show residents saying they will pay more for clean energy. Don’t make this into an attack on citizens that it’s clearly not.

And my point about grid parity is that it’s occurring many places now, and those places are expanding. If you want to get comprehensive with subsidies and be inclusive of FiTs, we should also be inclusive of externalities created by coal, natural gas, and nuclear. But my guess is that you don’t want to go down that road.

The comment about wind is even more absurd. Look at the LCOE tab here — compare onshore wind to any other electricity source: http://en.openei.org/apps/TCDB/

Comparing the cost of buying electricity or producing it yourself with solar panels is very practical for an end consumer. To claim otherwise is ridiculous.

Now I will grant you that the FERC bent over backwards to accommodate the CPUC by allowing it to define avoided cost  in terms of a subset of generators from which the utilities must purchased to fulfill its renewable portfolio requirement.  In other words, the FERC allowed a set-aside for renewable energy, which of course is a subsidy and is also discriminates against non-renewable generation.  

It’s not clear that this is legal under the Federal Power Act, which prohibits rates that are “unduly discriminatory.”  The only way to find out is for someone to sue the FERC and see what the courts think.  

Yes, this stuff is “in the weeds” but the devil is always in the details. 

FITs exist to provide a selected generator (e.g., rooftop solar or other DG sources) a price that exceeds the market price, i.e., it contains a subsidy component.  

Now when you say they are supported by “citizens,” you are implying that the people paying the subsidies are doing so voluntarily.  That’s bull***t.  The subsidies are being forced on electricity customers through the monopoly power of the distribution utilities serving them.   

Now we can debate whether this is good public policy, and how large these subsidies should be, but let’s not delude ourselves into believing that solar or wind energy is economically competitive with fossil energy today.  They aren’t.  

Comparing the cost of rooftop PV with the host customer’s retail tariff is absolute nonsense – except to exploit what I have already pointed out is a regulatory loophole.   

To claim that “The California PUC recently got slapped down” seems to me to be an overreach of the actual facts.

The way CA had gone about setting feed-in tariffs was found to not be acceptable to the controlling body.  Seemingly because the justification used was the incorrect one.  The FERC redirected CA to continue with its feed-in tariff but under a different regulation.

That’s my interpretation, but I’m no attorney and this is “deep in the weeds” stuff.

See the following link to get a quick and clear explanation of PURPA and how the CPUC was required to comply with it:  
http://www.irecusa.org/2010/10/ferc-provides-clarification-on-feed-in-tariff-options-for-states/

1. you are off your rocker. you are stretching so far to try to make solar ‘nonviable’ that you really may as well be typing this on a typewriter and mailing it in.

2. we’ve covered the FiT policy changes in European countries, writers from those countries have much of the time. these changes are happening mostly due to who is in political power. if you look past that essential first point, there’s really no point in discussing this with you. but, furthermore, as Bob notes, as the price of solar drops, the FiT was *supposed* to be reduced over time. Germany has gotten the price of solar down to about half what it is in the US! this has been a massive success, much better than almost anyone anticipated. the result: even without a FiT, solar would continue to grow fast in Germany.

3. Are you lost? Or do you just come to sites that clearly won’t by your bull and decided to drop it in our comments anyway. WIth thousands of stories on solar power alone, do you actually think your tired, narrow-minded thinking on the matter is going to confuse us. Please, move along now.

and, notably, FiTs aren’t subsidies. except in a *Very* loose sense of the word.

furthermore, they’re supported by citizens!

lol.

There is no requirement that providers be paid for their power with dollars.  They can be paid with provided power at a different time or with a bag of beans.

Germany’s average installed rate was $2.44/watt over a year ago.  With panel prices continuing to fall that price is likely lower now.  The US will catch up over time.

As the price falls then subsidies can be phased out, which is what is happening.  It is not a matter of not being able to afford them, that’s bull.  It’s a matter of reaching a point at which force is being applied to drive down costs faster.

Rooftop solar, large commercial rooftops, in CA and the rest of the US sunbelt is now $0.15/kWh.

Are you aware of the cost of gas peaker power?  That is what rooftop is competing against.

In order to sell into the wholesale market a party must be a market participant.  Retail customers are generally not market participants but they could be if they are a   large C&I customer that buys directly from the grid.  But even an owner of rooftop solar is a market participant he is competing with wholesale generators, i.e. gas-fired CTs and CCGTs, so his retail tariff is irrelevant.  

At least you are correct in stating that utilities will purchase electricity at the lowest price offered to them, which will be the wholesale market price.   Why would any generator sell for less?  Which gets us back to my original comments, which stated that rooftop solar must compete against the cost of gas-fired CT and CCGT energy, which is cannot today without substantial subsidies.  Germany is phasing out such subsidies as are other European countries because they can no longer afford them.  California will learn this lesson as well because the state is in a deep financial hole.  

Utilities own the transmission lines which bring the power from all their providers, rooftop and peaker plant.  Those costs are already calculated into the mix.

Utilities will not charge those costs back to rooftops any more than they do to peak plants.  Which is zero.

Utilities will purchase the cheapest available power and since they can pay for rooftop at their lowest wholesale power price they will purchase all the rooftop they can get.

Perhaps somewhere far, far out into the future enough retail customers will install enough generation (and storage) that utilities will need to adjust their retail prices some to cover fixed costs, but this is so far into the future than it is not worth considering at this time.  And it won’t matter to retail customers because it will be offset by not having to pay for peaker power and more expensive fossil fuel/nuclear power.

(There will be some bumps in this simplified model because some utilities own non-dispatchable generation which will be financially hurt by cheaper rooftop.  We’re seeing pushback in Germany right now.)

The California PUC recently got slapped down by the FERC for violating the PURPA QF law.  

If many owners of solar panels use them to reduce purchases (or sell back excess energy) under their retail tariffs the utility loses the contribution to its fixed costs that is built into the retail tariff design.  Once that loss becomes significant the utility (with approval from its regulators) will directly charge those fixed costs to the customer and lower the energy rate (at least in the tail block).  When that occurs the solar panels will compete with the wholesale price of electricity, as determined by the marginal generators, most likely gas-fired peakers and combined cycle plants because they set the hourly prices during daylight hours.  Thus, the investment in rooftop solar panels will need to be recovered by the savings (or revenues) from avoiding purchasing (or selling excess) energy at the hourly wholesale prices.    

Now do you understand the nature of the regulatory loophole?  It is the current misplacing of electricity at the retail level.  As long as only a few people exploit  this loophole it can exist; when the exploitation becomes rampant the loophole will be closed.  If it isn’t the distribution utility will go bankrupt and the customers with rooftop solar will be off the grid (good luck with that). 
Clean Technica (http://s.tt/18TUm)

no worries. ride your horse to the nearest market. call your family on a phone connected to the wall. and type your next response on your typewriter and send it over.

If you want to define “grid parity” to suit your own preconceived notions, go ahead and indulge yourself.  Fantasy can be a wonderful thing for cheerleaders.   

but a couple key points:

1) rooftop solar competes with the retail price of electricity — it doesn’t need to compete with the wholesale cost of electricity from nat gas.
2) people made claims like your making for years in Germany. now look at where the country is, and where it’s going. and plenty of people made the claim that landlines would be around/dominant forever. it’s hard for some people to see the future,… even when it arrives.

Furthermore, solar will not be phased in as baseload.  Baseload is a misleading term and it falling out of use.  The task of grid managers is to provide power when it’s needed.  Thinking about “baseload” is a distraction because it calls into the process plants which rumble along 24/365 and there is likely to be any of that on the future grid.

Then, PV solar does have a long time to go before it is as cheap as combined cycle gas, but when panels are hooked to the grid and the Sun comes out, those CCGT plants will shut down.  Gas costs money, sunshine doesn’t.

Lastly, solar does not create a “need for additional regulation/load-following ancillary services on the grid, the cost of which must be attributed to (and billed back to) the owners of the solar panels”.  Rooftop solar will cause dispatchable fuel-cost generators to shut down, saving the grid and consumers money.

Somewhere out in the future we are likely to see storage prices drop to the point where fossil fuels are totally pushed off the grid, but that’s many years out.

These corrections brought to you by one of the screwballs….