Voters Are Interested in #RooftopSolar, but See Barriers to Personal Adoption
"The findings reveal strong bipartisan support for solar energy, but highlight key obstacles to solar deployment, such as high upfront costs and limited awareness of available incentives like tax credits or rebates."
This startup makes it easy to install a rack of solar panels on your EV
https://cleantechnica.com/2024/12/09/how-to-repurpose-your-ev-cargo-rack-for-solar-panels-part-1/
Australia hits 4 million rooftop PV installations, reaching 25 GW of capacity
Australia has recorded its 4 millionth rooftop solar installation, maintaining its status as a world leader with 25 GW of total capacity, surpassing the amount of nationwide coal generation.
#solar #rooftopsolar #renewables #baseload #Australia #CleanEnergy
Rooftop solar supplies more than 50 per cent of Australian main grid’s power demand for first time.
1pm (AEST) on Saturday, the output of solar PV mounted on the rooftops of millions of Australian households and businesses reached 50.4 per cent.
This beat the previous record of 49.3 per cent set just six days earlier.
There is now more than 23 gigawatts (GW) of rooftop solar in Australia.
#solar #pv #Auspol #energy #rooftopsolar #cleanenergy
#energyrecords
https://reneweconomy.com.au/rooftop-solar-supplies-more-than-50-per-cent-of-main-grids-power-demand-for-first-time/?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=thesun
Amid #Australia’s chaotic climate politics, the #RooftopSolar boom is an unlikely triumph
"Homes' [solar rooftops] have contributed 11.6% of electricity – nearly as much as windfarms, comfortably more than large-scale solar farms or hydro plants, and twice as much as gas-fired power.
More than 3.7m households and small businesses have solar systems. It means more than one in three homes across the country generate their own power when the sun is out."
"In a hearing last month in Arizona, an expert witness for the state’s largest #utility said he agrees with the idea that utilities oppose #RooftopSolar because it is a threat to their profits.
The comment was stunning because it’s something renewable energy advocates have long been saying but that utilities have danced around."
#EnergyTransition: The #climate law is helping bring #solar to more apartment buildings https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/solar/the-climate-law-is-helping-bring-solar-to-more-apartment-buildings
The tax-credit markets created by the #Biden-#Harris Inflation Reduction Act are boosting #CleanEnergy in tough-to-crack markets — like #RooftopSolar on multifamily housing.
#EnergyTransition: Low- and moderate-income #Florida homes could get #solar from federal funding
https://www.wusf.org/environment/2024-04-23/low-and-moderate-income-florida-homes-could-get-solar-from-federal-funding #USpol
"About 10,000 single-family households in the state will receive help installing #RooftopSolar. #LowIncome households could be subsidized 80% to 100%, moderate: 60% to 80%. This is part of the #GreenhouseGas Reduction Fund within #Biden's Inflation Reduction Act, the largest investment in reducing #carbon #pollution in U.S. history to combat #ClimateChange."
"In a country infamous for its political ‘climate wars’, #RooftopSolar is a national success story – a bipartisan winner.
But With a third of Australians renting, home ownership is one of the biggest barriers for people to participate in #solar."
Enter #CommunitySolar.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-04-23/australia-s-first-solar-garden-/103657946
Living in #AuroraIllinois, I've seen the same effect. Part of that is changing local govt regulations & mindset.
The first home in our neighborhood to get solar had to jump through lots of extra hoops to get approval. For example, the city sent out structural engineers, because they were unsure how safely a roof could support the panels. There were no #regulations in place for #SolarPanels, so new ones had to be written.
The other aspect the pioneering #solar neighbor says they experienced was that other neighbors would wait a year or so, then ask common questions-- Did they find it cost-effective in the suburban #Chicago climate? How did they panels work in the winter snow? Was it worth the investment? Etc.
The first to install #RooftopSolar forced a change in local govt, and became both a test case & a source of education for others around them.
Now, #solar is so established in our local culture that we regularly get scammers knocking on our doors.
"While #Australia has the world’s highest uptake of #RooftopSolar panels – one in three Australian households has them – only 1 per cent are made in Australia.
The #SolarSunshot program will be run by the Australian Renewable Energy Agency and deliver grants and production credits. Those credits are then typically cashed in by manufacturers via tax breaks."
For the past 15 years, when we turned on the lights at Firestorm we were using electricity generated by a Duke Energy plant on Lake Julian, south of Asheville. Prior to its retirement in 2020, that plant burned 400K tons of Appalachian coal per year, mined through a process known as mountaintop removal, making it a frequent target of environmental activists. When Duke moved to replace it with a new facility that burns fracked gas, that plan was opposed by Appalachian Voices, NC WARN, and others who argued that the environmental impact could be just as bad, or worse. (Mountaintop removal and fracking are both nightmarish, go read about them, if you haven't already!) Today less than 10% of Duke's electricity is renewable, and the company's future plans for industrial scale wind, solar, and hydro are sure to replicate the environmental racism and extractive practices on which the company built its fortunes.
It shouldn't be surprising to learn that, as anarchists, our vision for energy justice is decentralized and radically democratic! We're excited to share that our co-op is now meeting most of its electric needs through a 7.5 kW rooftop solar system installed by the good folks at Asheville Solar Company. Like other energy sources, solar has significant environmental impacts—from materials mining to end-of-life waste—but the shift to neighborhood-scale energy production, alongside a reduction in energy use through degrowth, is essential to the solarpunk future we dream of.
#RooftopSolar #SolarPower #FeministBookstore #FirestormCoop (- L)
America has learned very little from the subprime mortgage crisis:
"In Germany, where installation is done locally and there are fewer intermediaries, the typical residential system costs about 50% less than it costs in the U.S."
#RooftopSolar #financialization
https://time.com/6565415/rooftop-solar-industry-collapse/
For our large home in Seattle, the electric bill for Nov/Dec is $14.97. Why so cheap? Solar panels! We even power a hot tub and charge our electric car. We are warm in winter and cool in summer with a heat pump. People need to STOP saying solar won't work in the cloudy Pacific Northwest. It's been great for us for 3 years. People also need to stop saying hydropower is renewable. It's horrible for salmon, and we are spending billions to modify dams.
#Solar #RoofTopSolar #Seattle #PNW #EV
"A #RooftopSolar boom that’s powered #China’s world-leading pace of renewable energy installations is hitting new challenges as multiple regions run out of grid capacity for additional projects."
A fast and massive energy transition is bound to run into hiccups - nothing that can't be solved with some determined policy.
This graph is pretty amazing:
"The first ever life-cycle analysis comparing big and small solar photovoltaic systems has concluded that small-scale solar systems are in fact better for the environment than even the largest, and most efficient, #solar farm.
#RooftopSolar uses the existing infrastructure of the house or building [as support]. Similarly, by putting the solar panels close to the electric load, transmission losses across the grid are reduced."
Every rooftop helps.
"Negative prices are now happening more often, and in the middle of the day, because of the sheer scale of output from #RooftopSolar, which is absorbing half of all demand in big states like #NewSouthWales (NSW), and occasionally all of demand in smaller states such as #SouthAustralia."