Quite a shit opinion piece honestly. It’s a complex issue and the author’s argument of “but it’s 2024 come on” and then quoting the bible is lame.
The reality is solar is worth next to nothing in CA without storage, community solar is therefore worth next to nothing without storage, and the transmission level connections don’t offer the same advantage that individuals homeowners can achieve with batteries (actual backup), so utility scale comes out ahead on cost. The CPUC made their decision on cost, so unless the author has some actual data to back that up (they don’t, and they even sympathize with that argument), it’s all really just a feels piece. The Ward legislation was flawed in that it set constraints that could not be navigated through the cost modelling structures.
Other states that haven’t hit the belly of the duck will deal with this eventually and should thank early adopters like CA/TX for bringing down prices for battery storage for when they inevitably run into these issues. As a solar owner without battery in Colorado, I can guarantee you I’m taking more from the utility than I put in, which simply will fail at a certain scale and create inequities. You can argue that this is all fine and the carbon reduction is more important (and I generally agree), but there has to be a line somewhere where we need to agree on least cost solutions when all of the options get us to near net zero in the same timeframe.
Quite a shit opinion piece honestly. It’s a complex issue and the author’s argument of “but it’s 2024 come on” and then quoting the bible is lame.
The reality is solar is worth next to nothing in CA without storage, community solar is therefore worth next to nothing without storage, and the transmission level connections don’t offer the same advantage that individuals homeowners can achieve with batteries (actual backup), so utility scale comes out ahead on cost. The CPUC made their decision on cost, so unless the author has some actual data to back that up (they don’t, and they even sympathize with that argument), it’s all really just a feels piece. The Ward legislation was flawed in that it set constraints that could not be navigated through the cost modelling structures.
Other states that haven’t hit the belly of the duck will deal with this eventually and should thank early adopters like CA/TX for bringing down prices for battery storage for when they inevitably run into these issues. As a solar owner without battery in Colorado, I can guarantee you I’m taking more from the utility than I put in, which simply will fail at a certain scale and create inequities. You can argue that this is all fine and the carbon reduction is more important (and I generally agree), but there has to be a line somewhere where we need to agree on least cost solutions when all of the options get us to near net zero in the same timeframe.