Comments on: California Passes 600MW Shared Renewables Program

By: Dan Hue

Dan Hue — Sat, 14 Sep 2013 20:28:00 +0000

Shouldn’t we wait until the program is implemented before making that judgment?

By: Matt

Matt — Sat, 14 Sep 2013 14:34:00 +0000

Let me ignore who makes/saves money on this plan. Looking at the size of the CA market (521MW installed in Q2 2013), then isn’t 600MW between now and end of 2019 kind of small? By quarter that is 1/25th of the current market, which was already growing. Yes, I know not everyone is able to own, and yes I use Pear so pay an extra 2% for green power. But I not sure I see much benefit of this program. I guess I would have to dig into a lot more detail.

By: Matt

Matt — Fri, 13 Sep 2013 14:16:00 +0000

Many HOA in the this part of the country (Ohio) have HOA boiler plate written in the 70s that bans all solar (PV or hot water). Even new communities that claim green. Best part is the sales people don’t even know it exists. The builder (that is who sets up the HOA) just uses the same old document they have always use. It is a total pain to try to change.

By: Marion Meads

Marion Meads — Fri, 13 Sep 2013 08:40:00 +0000

This is just one creative way of milking out the consumers by the utilites by letting the consumers simply select in their checkboxes that they are paying for more expensive renewable energy source. At today’s solar PV prices, and how the sun shines in California, the cheapest retail price of renewable is from your property. But of course not everyone can have renewable energy from their property, and in order to get a high feeling that they are using renewable, they pay premium price, without really following an audit trail where their electrons really come from. This worse than organic food, because at least when buying organic food, you can trace the real source. What this “shared” renewable name is simply putting a renewable label to the electrons that could come from a coal plant. This is the same as simply putting a “Certified Organic” label on a Chinese produce that was bombarded with pesticides that even the locals wouldn’t touch them, and yet we are buying them as organic, because of the label and the sad thing is that it works on some of us. This shared renewable is simply a relabeling gimmick. So in effect, this is a little bit of a pay back pork barrel for the utilities.
There once used to be a Solar Transfer company banking on the same logic, but of course, the reason why they folded up is that they were charging less than the utility would charge their customers for a renewable source.

By: agelbert

agelbert — Fri, 13 Sep 2013 04:04:00 +0000

I wish they would pass a law like that in Vermont. Right now, Green Mountain Power will let you buy renewable energy (cow power, they call it) but it costs more than the already high 14.7 cents a kwh we are paying.

By: beernotwar

beernotwar — Thu, 12 Sep 2013 23:30:00 +0000

Every state should pass a law forbidding homeowners associates from creating any rule that would prohibit or penalize installation of renewable energy equipment that is otherwise legal for the location it’s to be installed.