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Re:Activists who embrace nuclear power by throwaway894345 on Sunday February 21, 2021 @01:48PM (#26215983)
I’m not talking about persuading people to install solar, I’m talking about the sheer bureaucratic work (on the part of the utility) to manage contracts with thousands of property owners instead of just one. Similarly, the overhead of servicing thousands of roof-top installations (scheduling appointments, driving to sites, climbing onto the roof, etc) versus a single contiguous site at ground level. I don’t think residential solar is a major feature of any serious green energy plan, and for good reason.
Re:Activists who embrace nuclear power by FooHentai on Sunday February 21, 2021 @03:04PM (#26216601)
I don’t follow. You could make the same argument about communal water heating versus having a heater in each home, yet of course such a position would be absurd.

Millions of individual homes running their own solar, even with everybody hooked up for exporting, is quite feasible. It’s happening today.

Having it be an arrangement where a power provider owns and maintains the panels isn’t necessary or desirable. Lease-to-own or outright purchase by homeowners works fine.

Re:Activists who embrace nuclear power by throwaway894345 on Sunday February 21, 2021 @05:22PM (#26217873)
> You could make the same argument about communal water heating versus having a heater in each home, yet of course such a position would be absurd.

If we could cheaply and efficiently transport hot water over miles and miles like we can with electricity then communal water heating would be much more common. Note that communal water heating is fairly normal (i.e., not "absurd") in large apartment, condominium, and commercial office buildings (one large boiler providing hot water for all tenants).

> Millions of individual homes running their own solar, even with everybody hooked up for exporting, is quite feasible. It’s happening today.

The question isn't whether there's an issue hooking individual residential solar installations up to the grid--no one disputes that. The relevant question is how expensive is it to build and maintain tens of millions of individual rooftop solar installations versus several orders of magnitude fewer, larger installations. According to https://www.solarreviews.com/blog/what-is-a-solar-farm-do-i-..., it would cost at least ~$2.8M to generate 1MW via rooftop solar systems while it would cost only about ~$1M to generate the same amount of energy via solar farm.

Re:Activists who embrace nuclear power by rhodozelia on Sunday February 21, 2021 @07:40PM (#26219026)
Given that residential customers pay quite a bit more than the wholesale rate for power rooftop solar must be an investment that pays for itself or nobody would do it!
Re:Activists who embrace nuclear power by throwaway894345 on Sunday February 21, 2021 @08:24PM (#26219515)
No one is disputing that it pays for itself, but that doesn’t mean it competes with farmed solar.
Re:Activists who embrace nuclear power by rhodozelia on Sunday February 21, 2021 @08:42PM (#26219695)
Uh ... it does compete with farmed solar? Anyone deciding whether to buy power from the utility or generate their own is doing the analysis to see which “wins” the competition.
Re:Activists who embrace nuclear power by throwaway894345 on Sunday February 21, 2021 @09:15PM (#26219979)
I wouldn’t call 2-3X the price “competition” and whether people were buying rooftop solar doesn’t refute the cost analysis.