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from the sunshine-state-finally-living-up-to-its-name dept.
Solar Industry Magazine reports
Following a long local--and national--campaign, Florida voters overwhelmingly approved a pro-solar ballot measure during the state's primary election on [August 30].
Passed with 73% of the vote, Amendment 4 implements a change to the state constitution and clears the way for the legislature to implement new tax laws that advocates say will end prohibitive tax liabilities and help boost Florida's fledgling distributed solar market.
According to Vote Solar, a big proponent of the measure, Amendment 4 was placed on the ballot after garnering unanimous support from state policymakers in March. Specifically, the amendment authorizes the state legislature to abate ad valorem taxation and exempt tangible personal property tax on solar or renewable energy source devices installed on commercial and industrial property. This reflects an extension of the existing ad valorem abatement for solar and renewable energy devices on residential property. Once implemented by the legislature, the tax incentives of the amendment will begin in 2018 and extend for 20 years.
[...] The ballot summary says, "This amendment establishes a right under Florida's constitution for consumers to own or lease solar equipment installed on their property to generate electricity for their own use. State and local governments shall retain their abilities to protect consumer rights and public health, safety and welfare, and to ensure that consumers who do not choose to install solar are not required to subsidize the costs of backup power and electric grid access to those who do."
The Florida Supreme court narrowly approved the amendment's language in a 3-4 vote, and in her dissenting opinion[PDF][1], Justice Barbara Pariente deemed the ballot measure a "wolf in sheep's clothing".
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(Score: 2) by Kromagv0 on Friday September 02 2016, @01:27PM
To add to this I have a property up in norther Minnesota that at some point I plan on putting a cabin on. If I want power I really have 3 options.
1. Pay to have a line run and pay for the transformer, the run would be close to a mile
2. Get a generator
3. Go with a small Solar+Wind system with a substantial battery system
Now a generator would be the cheapest up front but I got the property to enjoy the quiet outdoors and a quiet generator isn't a cheap generator. Add in the fuel costs and ongoing maintenance of the generator and they can get expensive quick. Getting grid connected or putting in a renewable system with batteries would cost about the same, but with a renewable system I wouldn't be paying for electricity afterwards or a monthly grid connection fee. The batteries are the interesting part as I would be looking to use some long lasting abuse tolerant batteries like nickle-iron ones so I wouldn't have to deal with replacement but these add to the cost of a renewable system. So as someone looking to the future it would make sense to go with a renewable off grid solution, especially since the costs of renewable will likely continue to drop and unless natural gas and coal become substantially cheaper over time grid power will continue to rise. Given that the property would likely be used at most on weekends being able to charge most of the week would mean I could get by with a smaller generating capacity but then install a larger storage capacity. The most trying time of year would be deer season when it would be used for 10 days straight but then there wouldn't be much electrical use as you are up early and to bed early but are out in the woods all day.
So ideally installing something like 2KW of solar and then 1 to 2 KW of wind with a 10 -20 KWh battery would work as it would take a couple of days to charge up but ideally by the end of a trip would be fairly discharged.
T-Shirts and bumper stickers [zazzle.com] to offend someone
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Friday September 02 2016, @04:48PM
I looked into these recently, and the difference isn't as big as you might think. Nickel iron batteries tolerate abuse and heavy use well, and you can cycle them from full to flat daily, for many years.
If you regularly cycle lead-acid batteries below 50% charge they will die quite quickly, even so-called "deep cycle" ones. Upshot of this is that you need to put in at least 2 or 3 times the capacity if you use lead-acid. This brings the real prices much closer together.
Nickel-iron do have their own problems, they need to be regularly topped up with distilled water. They won't die, but when the fluid level drops too far they just stop working until you fill it up. They also self discharge fast enough that a full battery will go flat in 1 to 3 months of storage.
200 million years is actually quite a long time.