Solar grants held hostage in Pennsylvania legislature – as demand soars

https://capitalandmain.com/solar-grants-held-hostage-in-pennsylvania-legislature-as-demand-soars

by rntn • 1 year ago

36 57 1 year ago

capitalandmain.com

buckle8017• 1 year ago

It's the title really referring to demand for free money? .... yes that demand is always high.

If demand for solar is high then subsidies should expire.

bawolff2• 1 year ago

Well its not "free" money, you have to install some solar panels.

Subsidies are just an indirect way of paying someone to do something. Its no more free money then if you like your job, your job is free money.

Its true though, if demand is high it probably means you are overpaying and could get the wanted result while paying less.

jsnider32• 1 year ago

Subsidies are too low if we want Pennsylvanians to install solar and their state is doing that less than 48 other states.

jsnider32• 1 year ago

Look, if Pennsylvanians want good things, they really need to vote for them.

crab_galaxy• 1 year ago

We do. PA politics are the absolute worst. Democrats are useless, and republicans perfected the art of voting for absolutely nothing positive, then call for privatization. As a cherry on top they loathe the cities, which are the core of the states economic engine.

roenxi5• 1 year ago

Case in point: Solar for All, a federal grant program initiated by the Biden administration that awarded Pennsylvania $156 million for residential solar installations on low-income households, was designed to save residents $192 million over the next 20 years

This seems like a mistaken use of funds. A 5% rate of return suggests that the scheme should be saving something like $400 million to really be cost effective. These people would be better off if they were just given $156 million in 20 year US government bonds which as I recall yield about 5%. Productive users of the money would probably often even higher yields! Then the recipients of this largess could buy their own solar panels if they want and have money left over.

If someone can't afford solar panels on their own then making bad financial decisions on their behalf doesn't seem like much of an improvement. Cash is a great help to people without much money.

Spivak• 1 year ago

It depends if you believe the government is buying something with that money or not. A local example the township just installed bunch of sump pumps in people's houses free of charge— they covered whole neighborhoods with them. This is great for the homeowners who will save money on water damage repairs and flooding but it's possible that actual rate of return for the homeowner isn't that much and they would have been better off with the cash. But this analysis excludes one crucial fact which is that the city doesn't care if the homeowners save money, that's not what the program is for, it's to control water flowing into the storm sewers. The fact that the homeowners also save money is the carrot that gets them to agree to the program.

So if you believe that the government is getting some tangible value out of rooftop solar being widespread then you need to account for that value as well as the value for the homeowner.

roenxi5• 1 year ago

Sure. So what is the benefit here? Will this protect the city against solar storms somehow? I haven't heard of such a thing and it looks like these people are living in low income houses that could potentially be given 2x as much money at no cost to taxpayers.

This looks like lending for non-commercial project; there are guaranteed to be better uses of the money than this scheme even if it is going to end up as welfare. They could even end up with more money for these people and still get solar panels installed by deferring the purchase for 10 years.

A much better alternative plan is ban coal, wait until electricity prices jump so high that the panels generate a 5-8% rate of return, then install them. Which is a terrible plan, but better than what they seem to be doing here based on one admittedly rather detail-light sentence.

giantg27• 1 year ago

If it's really a financial thing that will save you $1M per year and you're waiting on a grant for $1M, then why not finance it? It could be years until you get it if the grant system only does about 25 schools per year with thousands in the state.

Yeah, roof top solar can make sense but I hate the solar farms. They clear cut a mountain top to put one in. Yes, let's save the environment by ruining more of it...

I don't see what the big deal is about paying wholesale rates for electric generation whether it's a company or resident generating it. Paying retail rate could raise prices if you have a residential vs commercial imbalance.

roenxi5• 1 year ago

I don't see what the big deal is about paying wholesale rates for electric generation whether it's a company or resident generating it

Is that the big deal? It looks like the big deal is that utilities are being forced to buy energy at a higher-than-market price. If it wasn't legally required there is no way they would be paying retail prices for solar. It'd be like a supermarket paying retail prices to buy their stock - they can't make money if they buy at retail prices, sell at retail prices and have overheads of doing business.

That is a lot of money they're talking about. Such things are big deals.

giantg27• 1 year ago

Yeah, but I'm questioning what the opposition is to them paying wholesale rates. Like why is there opposition to that amendment?

whatshisface3• 1 year ago

Solar panels are taxed due to tarrifs dating back before the present administration. The subsidies bring it back a little closer to neutral.

giantg27• 1 year ago

The point of those tariffs were to overcome unfair practices such as dumping. Using subsidies after the tariffs seems self defeating.

mattmcknight• 1 year ago

This is my thought exactly, if what they say is true: "It was always a financial decision,” Suppon said. “We wanted to be able to offset our energy costs, produce our own energy and only pay distribution [fees] back to the grid.” Then they should be able to finance it. If it takes a grant to break even, then the financial decision is about getting grant money, not solar.

amazingamazing3• 1 year ago

Seems better to give the money to electricity providers to install solar panels as solar farms and force them to discount electricity rates based off pre calculated solar electricity yield.

Loughla• 1 year ago

I do not want the legislature setting my power costs. That's absolutely a recipe for disaster.

Let me put in solar to lower my costs and let the solar company put in solar to lower their costs if they want. Then they can pass the savings on to me (ha ha).

amazingamazing3• 1 year ago

Most utility companies in USA are already regulated regarding pricing

firesteelrain2• 1 year ago

Sounds plausible but reality is the utilities may not pass discounts down to consumers or the savings won’t be realized. Ideally decentralized solar gives individual users control and back to the consumer. The land required for solar farms usually is far from the actual consumer and requires long transmission lines.

amazingamazing3• 1 year ago

Yes, that’s why any money given would be conditional like I mentioned…

vondur2• 1 year ago

It looks like big parts of Pennsylvania only average about 3.5 hours of sunlight per day over the year. Maybe not the best investment?

Jtsummers2• 1 year ago

Source for that claim?

pfdietz• 1 year ago

The maps I see show somewhere just below 4 kWh/m^2/day for much of Pennsylvania.

https://www.altestore.com/pages/solar-maps-for-the-usa

The desert southwest is only at most around 6 kWh/m^2/day, mind you.

This is horizontal irradiation; a PV module tilted properly would receive more effective hours per day. Also, half the solar intensity for twice as long would enable inverters to be downsized, even if the average kWh/m^2/day were unchanged.

vondur2• 1 year ago

https://www.usatoday.com/picture-gallery/travel/destinations... This is what I looked at.

djoldman• 1 year ago

A slightly adjacent question:

Why is it that at many levels of US government, there aren't more and smaller bills?

It seems like bills on solar energy end up getting smushed together with bills on police spending. Two or more almost totally unrelated issues.

The naive answer is that two unrelated issues in one bill allows for direct compromise: you vote for my thing and I vote for your thing. Also, usually the majority party gets to bring a vote to the floor so they have the power.

But an advantage to the single issue bills is that you'd get your opponents on record voting against stuff that may be popular, if it's truly what the people want.

You'd also get to pass a ton of items that would make for great PR bites. They might be small in effect but great talking points.

As majority leader, you can force everyone to vote yea or nay, I wonder why they don't use it more often.

michaelbuckbee• 1 year ago

In general, this is the "wheeling and dealing" and "quid-pro-quo" and "you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours" of creating new laws.

The sponsor of the bill starts with a clean, straightforward version of their solar bill...but they don't have enough votes. So they start adding in causes from other legislators who want to pass other things (crime, etc.).

kjkjadksj• 1 year ago

This is known as pork barrel legislation

JumpCrisscross6• 1 year ago

sponsor of the bill starts with a clean, straightforward version of their solar bill...but they don't have enough votes. So they start adding in causes from other legislators who want to pass other things

It’s also necessary for a legislature representing diverse interests. California, Louisiana, Texas and New York will care about a ports bill. You know who doesn’t? South Dakota and Wyoming. (We don’t export or import much by sea.) But both care deeply about federal lands. So a natural compromise bill is one that tackles both ports and federal lands. Add the rest of the fifty states and the fact that republics going back to Rome featured omnibussing isn’t a surprise.

lurk2• 1 year ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omnibus_bill

Many legislatures may have a tradition of extensive deliberation and debate prior to the adoption of laws, which can postpone passage of necessary legislation. Thus, in order to pass all desired laws within a reasonable timeframe, they are consolidated into a single bill and voted on quickly, typically near the end of a legislative session.
Because of their large size and scope, omnibus bills limit opportunities for debate and scrutiny on the actual final bill. Historically, omnibus bills have sometimes been used to pass controversial amendments. For this reason, some consider omnibus bills to be anti-democratic.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rider_(legislation)

In legislative procedure, a rider is an additional provision added to a bill or other measure under consideration by a legislature, which may or may not have much, if any, connection with the subject matter of the bill.

foolswisdom• 1 year ago

Because you don't want the other side (political party) to do the same thing. The US congress has relatively recent rules designed to actually prevent this from happening, and rather keep everything in reconciliation bills. Which obviously is a great way to hobble our legislative branch. But that's the point, no one wants the other side to try their hand at being a normal legislature. Which is part of why you end up with courts (and now the executive) wielding more power, because congress is effectively weaker and less nimble/responsive than it should be.

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconciliation_%28United_State...>

Ekaros• 1 year ago

Spending on grants and spending on police is both spending. And in general you want to at least mostly balance budget. So doing all the spending at one time is the sensible move. You can do tax changes as well to get whole picture.

It is more responsible than just spend, spend, spend and spend in smaller patches of the year.

markvdb• 1 year ago

Solar has won the market's backing. Whatever Pennsylvania politicians decide, they better take that into account.

In most places, solar is perfectly competitive without subsidies. Take my prosperous corner of the EU. No direct subsidies, nor the indirect subsidy net metering is. .37€/kWh average residential all-in electricity price caused a solar boom anyway.

The short term result of that solar boom is an ever steeper duck curve [0]. Negative electricity pricing more frequently and longer. Lots of creativity aligning production and demand. Think dynamic pricing, energy storage both as heat and electricity, and more. Great to see these products and services springing up.

I see early signs of much larger actors adjusting to the changed electricity landscape. Ever larger scale industrial scale clients are embracing the entire spectrum of solar, electric steam generation, heat pumps and battery storage. Exciting things with the market providing a strong tail wind.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_curve

quantumfissure3• 1 year ago

Solar has won the market's backing. Whatever Pennsylvania politicians decide, they better take that into account.

I would argue it really depends and is highly dependent upon the region. British Columbia, Canada is mostly hydro-electric. Are we going to get rid of all the dams for solar in a mostly cloudy and rainy province? We have to choose what works best for the region. Solar works great in Southern California; Arizona; Florida; Spain; Southern France, not as well in places like Washington; British Columbia; or Scotland where alternatives are more conducive to the climate.

Pennsylvania already has a strong market in nuclear; hydro; and wind, with very reliable power when not flooded or ice-stormed. We are also larger then some EU countries, and get lots of snow in the Western/Northern areas of the state that are better served by those other methods over solar. I have also never paid over .12kW/h (.09kW/h now) near a major river. When I was looking into solar panels, my average was going to be between .16-.25kW/h (own-lease range). That's a hard sell to a lot of people with little payoff for most individuals in the state.

In PA, for most of the state, solar is better provided by requiring new public buildings or parking garages/lots have panels, rather then individuals.

koolba• 1 year ago

Tunkhannock believes it could save upwards of $1 million a year by switching to solar, money that could be used for student initiatives.
“It was always a financial decision,” Suppon said. “We wanted to be able to offset our energy costs, produce our own energy and only pay distribution [fees] back to the grid.”
There’s one catch: Tunkhannock’s plan to go solar is contingent upon winning more than $1 million in funding from the state’s Solar for Schools program. Currently in its inaugural year, Solar for Schools was born from a bill that faced an uphill battle in a legislature where environmental bills often die by attrition — a battle that required its creator, progressive Rep. Elizabeth Fiedler (D-Philadelphia) to reach across the aisle and help marry what are often competing interests in the state — labor, education and climate.

If they are really going to save $1M/year on a project that requires $1M, then they can easily issue a bond to cover this.

But those numbers are clearly exaggerated and I bet this entire idea is only going to be worthwhile at this latitude if the bulk of the capital costs are externalized.

quantumfissure3• 1 year ago

I mentioned this in another parent comment: Tunhannock doesn't even need a bond, they can easily pay for it just with what the town has made from gas extraction in the last 15 years.

quantumfissure3• 1 year ago

As a Pennsylvanian with a personal connection to the school district in the article, there are several things not mentioned that are critical to this conversation:

1. Tunhannock is in a prime area for Marcellus shale natural gas extraction. About 15 years ago, there was an extraction "boom." The town made a fortune off of it and took the town from very low income, PA "dump" to using it for massive improvements. Still not a booming town by any sense of the word, but much nicer then it was. Still a small population.

2. The town has a fortune in its coffers from the gas companies; employees; and other income related to above. In my opinion, they should use that for their solar, instead of getting a grant from the state that could be better used for solar in Philadelphia; Pittsburgh; Lancaster; Allentown; or other densly-ish populated areas without large land available for solar/rooftop panels.

3. Tunkhannock is also outside a former major coal and manufacturing region, on the Susquehanna, about 45 mins from Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. Except for employees of Proctor and Gamble, it's a relatively poor population compared to most of the rest of the state. They hear "improvements to school district" they think "higher taxes." PA taxes, especially school taxes are quite high, with little payoff or bang for the buck. When you're small town blue-collar, earning an OK income and your property tax goes up 1 mill (the antiquated way PA calculates property tax), there's obvious pushback.

4. PA is Philadelphia in the East; Pittsburgh in the West; Lancaster/Harrisburg in the south and nothing else in the rest of the state. Except for it being mostly woods/forest, it's prime for solar, but we also already have lots of environmentally friendly ways of producing energy as it is: hydro-dams; nuclear; windfarms (as well as coal and natural gas). Our power is also pretty reliable, outside of ice storms, so it's a hard sell to people to want to give up anything else.

5. PA is slow moving in general. We have the second largest full-time legislature in the US (we're 7th in population, 33rd in size). There's a lot of logistics; committees; and procedure with that. Most of our power is in the Towns; Townships; Counties; State (in that order). Just because it seems to be held up now, is not unusual for us. We tend to do things in slow steps, instead of one big leap that freaks people out. Pot legalization is a good example. We started medically; and there's very recent bills being proposed to legalize. However, that didn't fly. What will end up happening is decriminalization then eventual legalization after a few years of that. Everything works that way in PA. We're slow-progressive, with a priority on small region rights. Except for liquor sales. That's stuck in 1929.

6. And last, the most important, and probably most obvious, PennDOT sucks.

Solar grants held hostage in Pennsylvania legislature – as demand soars

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