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U.S. seeks to speed rooftop solar growth with instant permits:
The Solar Automated Permit Processing (SolarAPP+) platform, developed by DOE's National Renewable Energy Laboratory, will be an optional portal for local governments to process permit applications automatically.
Approvals typically take a week or more currently, and permit-related costs can account for about a third of installers' overall costs, DOE said. The software speeds the process up by standardizing requirements, streamlining the application and automating some approvals.
Administration officials said the software will help speed adoption of rooftop solar and achieve President Joe Biden's goal of decarbonizing the U.S. electricity grid by 2035, a key pillar of his plan to address climate change. DOE has said that solar energy will need to be installed at a pace as much as five times faster than it is today to realize that goal.
[...] The portal performs an automatic review of permit applications, approving eligible systems instantly. Complex or ineligible systems are re-routed for additional review.
Local governments will not have to pay for the portal, DOE said. DOE is challenging 125 mayors and local officials to sign up for the SolarAPP tool before the end of the summer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 21 2021, @03:05PM (7 children)
How many years (actual or projected) to recover the investment?
On the whole glad you did it or regret it?
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Freeman on Wednesday July 21 2021, @03:45PM
Father-in-law got a system setup, where he uses his electricity from the panels first, then sells the excess back to the company. While you might be able to get them to build credit on your account, good luck getting them to cut you a check. They never have so far as I've heard and he generally makes plenty of electricity during the day to pay for his usage at night, with a bit of surplus.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 21 2021, @05:19PM (1 child)
The answer to the recover question will depend very heavily upon what government incentives were in place at the time vs. now.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 21 2021, @05:33PM
Factoring in also the middle east wars, pipelines and clean ups required to protect the supply of sun.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 21 2021, @09:06PM (1 child)
i got grid-tie solar.
in hindsight i have to agree that i am a freeloader, since my setup is "government" sponsored via Feed-In-Tarif (fit). so i get about double the money from selling ALL electricity then i pay for buying it back. so (not really numbers) i get 10 dollars for 1 kwh electricity generated by my solar system and uploaded to the grid. then over another (regular) meter i buy it back at 5 dollars.
my system has been running for 7years and should break even this year or next.
the FIT contract is for 20 years.
now this: i gambled that the system would break even before it breaks, so i didn't keep the money (for replacement parts) but used it to buy micro-inverters and panels incrementally.
when i had enough money to buy a "set" (that is one micro and one panel) i went shopping.
i build a small stand, angled south, big enough to hold about 7 panels. sofar i have 3.5 panels (one's smaller but was very cheap).
these i have wired to my house panel. my house electricity bill is halfed BUT if i don't use the electricity it produces (by bringing loads online, like tv, computers, etc) the electricity just leaves my house to the grid. i get no compensation, the meter ("smart" one) doesn't register it as an upload but it does show negatif watt(*) when there are no loads turned on in the house, so i am giving away electricity to the grid operator which they can sell to the neighbours.
i deeply hope that the grid operator and the powerplant operator (which are two different entities) have their very own gigantic meter inbetween themselfs that measures how energy is flowing from producer to distributor -aka- grid operator. if it's just a lump sum and "take it of leave it" then my free uploaded energy will not register and keep the big producer in play forever.
anyways, i learned alot and it opened my eyes to alot of "wealth distribution" and ofc electricity and how it works (blew up a two pole breaker wiring the neutral wrong on 3 phase setup. the micros are "evenly distributed over all 3 phases since the " smart" meter is a blackbox and i am not sure how it "measures")
i am seriously thinking about going "standalone". that is taking a hard look at the main circuit box and deciding which breakers are essential and which are luxury.
essential ones i would disconnect and wire to a standalone battery inverter (that produces a sine wave and can charge a battery from the AC side on which it produces the sine wave which is the required " heartbeat" that a "on-grid" and ANTI-ISLANDING solar inverter needs to work) and which will continue to work even if the grid goes down.
the non-essential ones (and mostly power hogs) i would leave "on-grid".
so, in short, 7years ago stuff was expensive, same shit is now half the price but my setup has a fit contract, so 7-8 years.
note: if you want to " try" solar, don't believe joda, you can try small and they're called "micro-inverters". you buy one, if you like, keep adding or as budget allows, no need to " dump a shitload of money" on a string inverter setup -aka- christmas-tree-setup (and partial shading problem), which can be "scary" commitment for n00b!
one tip: if in any way possible, ground mount your setup. the roof is a scary place to go to clean glass.
good luck skywalker!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 21 2021, @09:16PM
oh, i forgot to explain the (*) above.
it is BRAINWASHING! if i export or upload electricity it should show POSITIF.
also notice how your normal electricity bill shows positif numbers and your electricity meter does too?
a normal person is "using" electricty so it should be a debt and count BACKWARDS, thus be a negatif number. only electricity PRODUCTION and uploading it thru the meter is POSITIF!
but alas, using (consuming) electricity makes a positif number get bigger ... which is good right?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 22 2021, @12:38AM
For me, between the federal tax credits and the local rebates, it was about 7 years to payback. Without them it would have been 21 years and I wouldn't have bothered (it was around 7 years ago now).
Most of the price had nothing to do with the hardware. The amount of paperwork required was insane, and I didn't even have to deal with a lot of it (part of why installs are so expensive in the US).
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday July 22 2021, @02:20AM
YMMV - in Australia, you have the fee for delivering the power to your home (unless you go out of grid completely).
Then, you buy the energy at retail price and sell the surplus at wholesale price.
If you were to add an energy storage that allows you to consume at night with priority what you produce at day, you may end by being self-sufficient, but the grid fees will still be there. The good news: investment in an energy buffer went down over the last past years, but it's still in the range of $1500/kwh of storage for domestic consumers.
The problem becomes more complicated when you get a "peak" differential price - usually at night the energy is cheaper, even in retail.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford