Mike's Comments

"Since as much as a third of the cost of PV can be recaptured via its benefits to the electric grid when properly placed in the distribution system, having this information is crucial for solar developers."

This map shows developers where they can interconnect and avoid high penetration areas where either it's not possible to interconnect or there are added costs. This is a useful thing.

However, the grid 'benefits' are less certain and depend on the situation. On a single distribution feeder, 'capacity benefits' are binary - they are either there 100% of the time, or they aren't, unless you add storage. 90% of the required need doesn't cut it and so the operational benefits of solar at this micro-level tend to be oversold.

When you start to aggregate distribution feeders across geographies, and the risk of total non-performance is shared by multiple feeders then system level capacity becomes a reasonable discussion that has some benefits, but they aren't life-changing. How to monetize system level benefits and then distribute them among tens and hundreds of PV systems is something that needs more study - there isn't a tangible model right now.

Recovering one-third of the cost of PV seems high, but if it was theoretically agreed upon by everyone, even these benefits are hard to monetize - they are allocated across time (short-term vs. long-term benefits), jurisdictions (RTO, utility, society), capacity application (distribution, transmission, system), etc. It's not insurmountable, but there isn't just a single entity who is getting all the benefits and willing to pay for it directly.

The return on investment for solar with their large FITs is about 7%...they have half the solar resource of California, so theoretically the FIT can be cut in half too. The beauty of FITs is their simplicity - connect and go...No need to go to 5 different organizations for your incentives and interconnection processes. Guaranteed security in a simple package will bring the financial industry to the game to take care of the up-front costs. There are a lot of inefficiencies in our process...

In the U.S. electricity does not come from oil in any measurable amount.

To get off foreign oil, drive less.

1. Don't the performance based incentives on the customer-side of the meter in California do the same thing as a feed-in tariff? They are lower, because the consumer can offset on-site electricity, which they can't with a FIT - it's on the utility side of the meter. The third-party solar ownership model is strengthened by the customer's involvement in wanting to significantly reduce their bills, not in leasing their roof for a nominal fee.

2. The reason Germany was so successful is because the FIT was set so high - perhaps too high. A high PBI would do the same thing. Germany is forecasting the bill from their FIT and anywhere from $30-100 billion. That's not a lot in the context of the Iraq War, but it is in a lot of other circles. I don't think the boom frenzy happening in Spain because of their generous FIT is good for long-term solar sustainability.

There are a few reasons why residential consumers probably aren't participating as expected:

1. Residential consumers like rebates, and getting the upfront money reduces or eliminates their need for a loan. The loan industry will probably take time to get comfortable with these types of projects - I doubt you can go to your local bank and get one without getting funny looks.

2. Over a 10 yr period, 42 cents CAN is worth about $8000 USD for a 2 kW system, or $4000/kW before discounting for time of money. That's fine but not great.

3. Consumers take time to make decisions - it's a good chunk of change up front and the building season is largely from spring to fall. Winter isn't conducive to outdoor dreaming...

Some ideas...

A few more thoughts - residential consumers are also very transient. How many know they'll be in the same house in 10 years? That $4000/kW (maybe $3000 on NPV) accrues over time and there's risk beyond just the money. That's one reason CA decided to start with Commercial systems for their PBI and use an EPBB for residential (which is what Wisconsin has been doing for years actually).

Your capacity factor is off by a factor of 3 - 10-15%, depending on location in the country.

Why not put it on YouTube and other online video sharing networks so that bloggers can pick it up and spread it virally for free? Would it poach on the "sales" market for specific companies to help pay for it? Maybe some, but not entirely.

Unfortunately, the report makes a causation error in their rankings, which are driven more by incentive programs than any correlation with the quality of a net metering regulation, and which wasn't corrected for...

$/watt is roughly meaningless without factoring efficiency in...

$4/watt producing 1500 kWh/kW/yr vs. $3.75 producing 1400 kWh/kW/yr are about the same in cost/kWh...

The Minnesota Solar Electric Rebate Program has public data available here.

The program rebates $2000/kW DC unadjusted. Before you start laughing about how small it is, realize that the rest of the world isn't Califorinia or New Jersey. Solar capacity has increased almost 200% in four years and on a per capita basis it places Minnesota in the top 20.