In Germany, with labor costs and protections at least as high as the US, per-watt installation costs for residential solar are a small fraction of what they are in the US:
That report is from 2012, but soft (non-hardware) costs have remained stubbornly high in the US. Even with the recent solar tariffs, all-in costs for a kWh of residential solar in the US would be significantly lower than in Germany, if the US could get soft costs down to German levels. The solar resources of most of the continental US are that much better than Germany.
Australia too has much lower installed costs than the US. A former residential solar company CEO blames American red tape:
Don't underestimate the lobbying of electric utilities. In some very sunny western states they tried to make private solar illegal. When that failed, they made it so expensive that it's not an attractive option.
(High mandatory fees to tie into the grid, and making it illegal not to be tied into the grid, according to a homeowner I know who tried.)
The companies are regulated. Roughly speaking what happens is that the regulator guarantees the company a 5% return on investment. Each year the regulator sets the electric rates in order for that return to happen.
Consequently it is the company interest to build as much stuff as possible (aka "investments"). People making their own "investments" like panels on their roofs detract from that.
The people most wanting to do solar are those who pay the most for electricity. Once they have solar they reduce the amount of revenue available, which means that 5% return has to come out of the remaining customers, which would need to push their rates up. That is why the regulators even entertain the bans.
Grid tying is more complicated. There are two components to electrical supply - the wiring and maintenance to the property (infrastructure), and then the electricity that is actually supplied. Electrical bills charge very little for the former and almost all for the latter. Say for example the infrastructure really costs $10 per month and the electricity costs $40. You get a $50 bill but it says $3 is for infrastructure and $47 is for electricity. If you use solar for all electricity your bill will now be for $3, but the infrastructure cost is really $10. That really means other customers are now paying for your infrastructure costs. This is where minimum monthly charge proposals come from. In our example $10 per month would be appropriate. Changing the underlying pricing to be more realistic will hit the poorest the most since their effective infrastructure costs will go up.
Some places are banning putting solar back into the grid because there is no use for the electricity at the time it is put back in.
In Las Vegas, most of the big casino companies are off or getting off NV Energy's grid. They've built their own solar farms and solar furnaces, or are contracting with other companies that have them.
You mention the set percentage of return. Having a massive customer like Caesar's jump ship hurts NV Energy enough that the hotels have to pay huge "exit fees," and if they don't NV Energy threatens to pass the loss on to the customers.
In the case of MGM, it had to pay $87 million to go solar[1]. Otherwise, NV Energy would have charged each of its residential customers $200 to make up the difference.
>Some places are banning putting solar back into the grid because there is no use for the electricity at the time it is put back in.
May be in the northern countries. Cue rolling midday blackouts in CA :) US is a pretty Southern country with a lot of AC running midday - exactly when you have the most solar.
I think the issue here is that midday electricity is the most expensive, ie. the most profitable for the utilities, and solar eats right into it.
>Peak AC consumption is in the afternoon as people get home from work.
not really. The "duck" curve you're referring to is "net" load - ie. actual demand minus solar. The solar smooths/removes the midday peak (which in summer is significantly higher than the evening demand).
> A former residential solar company CEO blames American red tape
I'm sure there's an army who would call that red tape "important safety protection regulation."
It's telling that the bureaucrats who put this NREL report together to reduce costs look at market maturation, business model integration, product innovation and economies of scale, but--shockingly!--not reducing regulatory overhead. Inventing new forms of photovoltaics is considered more realistic than addressing rent seeking.
I think that Germany and Australia are pretty safe too. "The cost of safety" is a legitimate thing to consider vs. developing nations, but not vs. other developed nations that seem to get more bang for the buck.
To be clear I meant that to be sarcastic :) Obviously the regulations around US solar deployments are excessive at best and very likely the result of rent seeking.
Actually, they do address this - it's one of their baked in assumptions about 'integrated roofing' (they refer to those costs as PII):
"The roof replacement visionary pathway also benefits from savings in other cost categories. For example, the PII cost is reduced because we assume the PV permit cost declines to a standard $200 per system."
Given the huge complexity of various city, county, and state regulations, I think it's highly unlikely that permitting costs would go down for a system that is integrated into the roofing material. And if I'm wrong, I can't see them going down significantly - permitting and inspection fees are an income stream for cities and counties, and they do't just reduce them because of a PDF from the NREL...
They could do something similar to the FCC's OTARD rules, which make it generally hard for local governments and HOAs to impose limits or red tape around installing satellite dishes and antennae. This was hugely successful in making satellite TV competitive.
Your link directly contradicts your claim that labor and protection costs are 'at least as high':
> Costs for permitting, connecting the systems to the grid, and having them inspected are also far higher in the United States.
and
> U.S. installers also spend more on labor during actual installation (in some cases, higher winds force more expensive installations). They pay more in sales tax (German installers are exempt).
I meant generally, in terms of protections and wages for labor. It wouldn't be fair to compare Chinese or Indian residential solar costs with the US (less safety and much lower wages), but Australia and Germany are both developed countries with high minimum wages.
"Product innovation could take a variety of forms, such as reduced PV racking and mounting, preassembled PV, and low-cost PV roofing tiles. An integrated PV and roofing product, in particular, could yield significant cost savings, especially if the roof and PV system could be shipped and installed in unison. Although integrated products have low market share today, it is plausible that they could reach the mass market by 2030. For example, several companies have recently introduced or are developing integrated PV products (CertainTeed 2017, GAF 2017, Tesla 2017). Product innovation along these lines could influence the labor, supply chain, and
structural BOS cost categories."
Which would seem to be good new for Tesla roofs, etc. I hadn't really considered how expensive traditional rooftop solar is in terms of both sales (convincing a homeowner that the should install panels) and installation (people physically going out on the roof).
From the report: Panel (module) pricing, Admin Overhead, Sales and Marketing and Physical Installation are all roughly equivalent. PV roofing tiles take a big chunk out the latter 3 which seems really promising.
Also, currently solar roofing can be a bit of a tax-code hack (depending on where you live). If you buy a new roof, and then put solar panels on top, only the panels get green-energy tax benefits, but if the roof is the panels, then the total cost of the roof is used for calculating your tax benefits.
Larger installs will usually hit caps on the benefits before this matters, but smaller installs in places with high caps can collect more.
[edit] Reading other comments, it's apparently also a permit-hack, as panels need to be permitted separately from the roof (and in HOAs may be subject to board approval).
Can't speak to other states, but Florida state law specifically overrides HOAs when it relates to solar panels on your roof. They are inhibited from preventing you from installing solar on your roof.
"When the tariffs take effect, February 7th, 2018, they’ll add 30% to the price of most imported solar panels (aka modules). That’s a pretty huge markup, but because module cost is only a small part of the overall cost of installing a system, the final price you’d pay to a solar installer will only go up by a little.
In an earlier article, we wrote about a typical 5-kW solar system costing $15,000, with solar modules representing about $1,750. A 30% increase in module price would translate to $525 more for the whole installation, which can be erased by about half a year of the electricity produced by the panels. That’s not so bad!
After 2018, the tariff will “step down” by 5% per year, ending at 15% through 2021. So that $500 premium goes down to about $250, and goes away after 2021, but you shouldn’t wait that long to install, because of the “other ITC”."
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/509196/why-solar-installa...
That report is from 2012, but soft (non-hardware) costs have remained stubbornly high in the US. Even with the recent solar tariffs, all-in costs for a kWh of residential solar in the US would be significantly lower than in Germany, if the US could get soft costs down to German levels. The solar resources of most of the continental US are that much better than Germany.
Australia too has much lower installed costs than the US. A former residential solar company CEO blames American red tape:
https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/how-to-halve-th...