New California rules mandate solar panels on new homes
To address the likely increase in homelessness due to more expensive housing, a “Right to Shelter” rule is being crafted!
While the Yellow Jackets in Paris are rioting over restrictive new rules, the citizens of California may soon be wearing straight jackets after even more restrictions and mandates flow from Sacramento.
Despite a critical housing shortage contributing to the homeless crisis the Golden State is experiencing, bureaucrats have decided to add an expensive, green-justice requirement for new homes.
The California Building Standards Commission on Wednesday unanimously upheld a May 9 decision to require solar panels on homes up to three stories. The requirement goes into effect Jan. 1, 2020.
Currently, just 9% of single-family detached homes in California have solar panels. But as the state pushes toward decreasing greenhouse gas emissions—and with a 2045 goal to transition to a fully renewable energy grid devoid of fossil fuels—this rule will help accelerate that progress. Aside from energy efficiency, solar panels reduce ozone-damaging household emissions, most of which come from natural gas-generated electricity.
In the long-term, solar panels benefit homeowners. While the upfront cost for building a home will increase—by as much as $10,000, according to the California Energy Commission, or as much as $25,000-30,000, according to home construction company Meritage Homes—long-term energy bill savings will be considerable.
California is now the first state in the nation to require homes be solar-powered. However, not all of its residents are thrilled with this achievement.
Nobody spoke Wednesday in opposition, but the commission received about 300 letters opposing the mandate because of the added cost, the Orange County Register reported.
Energy officials estimate the provisions will add $10,000 to the cost of building a single-family home — about $8,400 from adding solar and about $1,500 for making homes more energy efficient.
A quick check on social media readily located some opposing point of views.
This should do wonders for the affordable housing crisis: California Gives Final OK To Require Solar Panels On New Houses https://t.co/jvRgJ2UvdH pic.twitter.com/EPnDqI0Ujc
— Voice of The Mute (@eduardoauthor) December 7, 2018
Then there are other factors beyond theoretical “savings” the progressive bureaucrats have failed to consider.
Solar energy has the major drawback that its production peaks when residential demand is low, and it plummets late in the day when demand peaks. This gross imbalance between supply and demand leads to bizarre market outcomes, including California producing so much power at midday that it pays Arizona to take the excess production to prevent an electrical grid overload.
The large imbalance between supply and demand also stresses conventionally generated electricity production, which operates at inefficient low levels during midday, but then must increase production extremely rapidly in the late afternoon. As California increases its solar power share, this tightrope act of matching supply and demand becomes increasingly complicated and will tend to increase brownouts as operators struggle to keep up with demand.
So, how will the state deal with the likely increase in homelessness as a result even more expensive housing?
Why, with a new “right to shelter” regulation!
Every homeless person in California would have a right to a bed year-round under a statewide “right to shelter” policy proposed by Sen. Scott Wiener.
The San Francisco Democrat announced SB48 on Wednesday, although key details of the bill — including how much the added shelters will cost, how they will be paid for and who will be responsible for ensuring enough beds are made available — will not be worked out until at least next year.
So, how long before San Fransisco becomes the new Paris, for reasons beyond fashion and wine?
New law in California demands EVERY home install solar panels. Yellow vest riots might start appearing there like in France.
— David Kemp (@davidkemppp) December 7, 2018
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Does this include RVs and cars ?
“Solar energy has the major drawback that its production peaks when residential demand is low, and it plummets late in the day when demand peaks.”
Not true. The above written by someone living along the LA coastline? Running a heater throughout the day to keep a house on the SF peninsula, Monterey to Half Moon Bay, Marin county up the north coast warm during summer is pretty common due to the summer marine effect the fog rolls in over the coastal hills and chills San Mateo to 50f or lower. And that fog, yeah, 100% humidity. I know. Lived in the highlands for 30 years.
Summer valley temperatures between 95f-115f pretty much require AC to run throughout the day. Attic space easily reaches 150f or more. One way to save $$ cooling super-heated air in an attic is to route moist, cool air from a 300cfm evaporative cooler straight into the attic on one side of the house and vent it through gable vents on the opposite side.
3000cfm not 300cfm
Won’t the fog block the sunlight from the solar panels?
Shh. And don’t mention what the hailstorm does…
That’s Part B of the plan: “Climate Change causes billions of dollars in unprecedented damages to homes in California. Amongst the hardest hit infrastructure is the mandatory solar panels that were installed on new houses in an attempt to mitigate the risks of storms and especially hailstorms caused by Global Warming™. We must act now to require not just every new house has these panels, but require every existing house be retrofitted with solar panels and at least one wind turbine.”
/sarc
I suspect the Communist Chinese manufacturers of these are giving HUGH KICK-BACKS to the CA politicians……
IMO
A “right to shelter” is a strategy to allow judicially ordered tax increases which cannot be reversed by either referendum or the legislature. The ultimate goal is the end of any actual democratic government, and rule by a self-appointed elite. Of course, the actual end game is being played out by the yellow vest in Paris right now.
And of course that won’t end well either. History teaches that any time society reaches this point, a Napoleon always turns up sooner or later to take advantage of it. We’re not exampt; in fact, we’re more vulnerable now than ever.
It’s a bit nuts, but it’s helpful for one stayed out of 50 to do this as an experiment. At least solar parents do produce something of value which could potential he be used. Right now solar is delivered a few hours I had of the time when it is needed, but a storage solution could fix that.
California is geography fits pumped water storage very well, or you could simply run a train full of gravel up a mountain, and then let it run down in region when the power is needed. Use old subway car motors on every axle, plus maybe a few locomotives pusrchased about 70% of their service life. It’s not very demanding service for a train, and the whole thing would still work even if half of the electrics are out of service. Used ballast hoppers are similarly quite cheap, You would have to set up a small assembly line to add the second hand motors, wiring + overhead 3rd rail arms.
OR you could just generate energy from generation forms that actually work..like coal, natural gas, oil etc at a fraction of the cost of these unicorn horn and windmill generation options that dont actually work when power is needed the most (ie. when its cold and the wind aint blowing and there is no sun OR when its hot and EVERYONE has rarked up the aircon to level eleventy eleven).
Secondly how do you propose to smooth out the demand and supply while your choochoo train trudges to the top of a really big hill (no doubt being pulled up by a herd of Unicorns)?
This is the fallacy of renewable energy generation…you still gotta them evil coal, gas and oil power plants because it takes time to spin up extra capacity at short notice (and why would you build all these ivory tower generation systems when you still gotta keep them evil humanity generation systems running in the background anyways!!!.
Were you using voice to text software to write that? The errors look very much like my wife’s text messages and that is the exact reason her texts invent new applications of existing words and even new words.
Mangled. That’s what I get for relying on speak to text.
Wait for solar powered speech to text. It will be slightly less mangled, but cost four times as much.
Sorry, I didn’t read past the original post to see this.
Exactly who “owns” the power from the solar batteries? The cost is also electronics and batteries… heavy acid lead batteries to store the energy IF the homeowner is allowed to “keep” the energy.
Never thought of that. They could require you to make your battery power available. I am sure they thought of it and like all collectivists have a collectivist answer.
Nah fuck California. They voted Democrats in to power now they can reap what they have sown.
When the state goes bankrupt you can count on the fact that they’ll come to the federal govt hat-in-hand looking for a “bailout.” We’ll ALL end up paying for this idiocy.
I didn’t!!! I didn’t I didn’t I didn’t!! But I only have one vote, not 6 like every Democrat in the state has.
Now wait for a surge in injuries from falling debris, and from workmen slipping and falling off roofs.
I could so easily succumb to temptation. Job security for you, eh, Milhouse.
Must. Not. Give. In.
So, how are the Festival of lights going for you?
Brilliantly, thank you. A month ago, just before Diwali, the Indian stores were selling diwi so I bought eight and have been using them as my menorah. They’re pretty.
And the obligatory California cancer warning.
Fishing reel I bought this summer here in flyover had that Cali cancer warning.
Still scratching my head over that one
Attorneys have a way of making fun of the idiotic warning. We say the product “causes cancer in California” thus implying no where else.
Pour your significant a glass of wine. “Excellent year. And it causes cancer in California.”
Just a bit of fun. Decades ago, a local gas station advertised their fuel as containing no cyclamate, and a local ice cream place assured us their products contained no hexachlorophene.
The latest is a local mechanic. His reader-board invited us in for a Pumpkin Spice Oil Change.
Straitjackets, not “straight jackets.”
Photovoltaic panels installed on preexisting structures may actually be a viable choice for low risk, low availability applications. They still need to manage a program of obfuscation and normalization of shifted environmental disruption and damage, but good perceptions, a little redistributive change, legal threats, gerrymandered votes, and cheap sites in China, Libya, etc., should smooth the transition.
Wait, is this just on new homes, or does it also cover existing homes? If it’s just new homes, how long before they expand it to include existing homes, too?
You know they won’t be satisfied till everyone is
being treatedsuffering equally.I am not one for profanity. One of my personal heroes Manilla John who could train you, in seconds, to strip down and reassemble the Browning machine gun wasn’t a big fan of profanity.
In most cases it’s not necessary. This is not most cases.
It’s never necessary – except on the battlefield.
Which BMG, the M-2 or the M-1917 Heavy MG (which was still in service when I entered the Army)?
Thank you. I’ve stopped reading and commenting at several sites because the comment-makers have a lack of the ability to make their point without use of reproductive or excretory verbs.
So, California is determined to make Solyndra a Progressive success story no matter how much it costs.
Our entire grid shut down last month for an hour because solar and hydro hit 100% triggering one of 2 or so county wide circuit breakers. Luckily there was no damage, but the solution is very expensive. They must take a chunk of the solar off line and store the energy in batteries. Read expensive. The alternative is to use it in a hypro-power pump and store system. That is also a large capital investment, however the shelf life is a hundred years or more, as opposed to 7 or so for batteries.
The state of South Australia in Australia (duh!) was convinced to buy an Elon Musk’s battery to power the state when its reliance on 50% renewable power (at best) from solar and wind fails and its emergency power connection to other states fails as it has done so twice already. The batteries are able to power the whole state for two and a half minutes, by which time diesel and gas generators better be working or the whole state’s power supply might go down. The state government proudly announced the installation of this battery, but was not quite as willing to proudly announce the huge set of diesel generators which were an essential part of the uninterruptible power grid the battery was just part of. http://joannenova.com.au/2017/12/south-australia-heads-back-100-years-to-diesel-with-battery-back-up/
In a couple of weeks, I’m closing on a home that’s solar powered (a good solar system is cheaper than bringing electricity to the property). I’m doing this willingly because when I finally retire, I want to get the hell away from everyone.
I see nothing wrong with that as it is YOUR choice, not the government mandating you do this.
If I could have a system that would work in my area well enough I would consider it, be it wind or solar, but I know people who did that investment here and regret it due to our weather.
In your case, good for you. Seriously. That is the consumer deciding. It makes economic sense for you, but as with all things, one size fits all is a bad solution especially when it comes to the government telling you how it is going to be.
There are parts of California where it makes good sense to have solar but not everyone can afford it. Other parts of the state, it seems like a waste of money with no real return on investment. Housing prices are already insane there, why make it worse?
LED and digital apparatus has done miracles in downsizing the electrical usage of appliances. I suggest you microwave (a huge energy saver) be no more than 800 watts and you never let a hair dryer in the home.
The seller of the property is highly motivated since they live out of state and I made a cash offer so I’ve saved enough to put in a much larger solar system with a back up propane generator. I’m also in New Mexico at 8500 ft in an area that gets almost 300 sunny days per year. We’re working with a company to upgrade the solar system to meet our energy demands. I’m not doing this to be environmentally friendly, I’m doing it because an equivalent property where I currently live 40 miles south (but in the same county) would cost 400K+ more. 50 acres, 2100 sq feet house, a good well, septic system and no neighbors seems like a fair trade off for any minor inconveniences of being off grid.
An even bigger problem they have is drinking water. Don’t forget, ever summer they have a drought and water restrictions. I hear there is a bill in the works to require all urinals to have their waste treated and returned into the water supply. Kevin Costner could drink his own urine in Waterworld, so can Californians.
Freedom’s just another for nothing else to lose.
Why is it that leftists believe in freedom so long as you are shackled to their rules, their controls, their dictates? Healthcare a perfect example, if you don’t abide we will charge you big money for not complying and you get nothing. This is not a horrible thing for people, but it should be your choice, not the government mandating (and isn’t this crony capitalism where they are telling you how to spend your money and to whom it goes to?)
I hate mandates like this. In my area it is so cloudy it is barely going to make a dent in what my needs vs. what this output would be. I’m sure there are areas in California which won’t be as efficient. I wonder what the power companies think, and how those who work in them will feel with this when they lose jobs because of the government picking an industry to back while stabbing the existing one in theirs.
And then there’s what to do when all these panels reach end of life.
https://www. forbes .com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2018/05/23/if-solar-panels-are-so-clean-why-do-they-produce-so-much-toxic-waste/#397b45f3121c
(Delete spaces to paste.)
Will the shelters for homeless include all this solar stuff?
Planning on the bankruptcy of some state seems prudent to me. For one, pensioners can go to the back of the line behind real creditors: those collecting pensions already collected generous salaries.
But, I like the idea of when a state goes bankrupt, it reverts to a territory, and Congress gets to decide if it becomes a state in the same form, or if it is reconfigured. Then before the 1960s states had senates based on territory, on area, not on population. Regional interests were recognized, sort of like Wyoming gets as many Senators as California. That kept a lid on crazy. With senate seats proportional to population, large cities can wag the state. My recollection is sometimes Cook County can carry an Illinois election. Speaking of Illinois, could there be 2 or 3 states there, one being Chicago and the ring counties.
Why is it constitutional for the U. S. Senate to be based on regions, but not for states? It was acceptable for many years for many states. Proportional representation in the state senates still skews things towards bigger cities.
Somebody previously droned on about states being independent entities while counties were never independent. For the original states, yes. But not for the non-13. Having senates based on regions was good enough when they were territories and then states for a long time. Something to do with activist Supreme Court in the 1960s. In Colorado it was Lucas v. 44th Assembly of the Colorado Legislature. So Colorado entered the Union in 1876, and that was good then, and good until the 1960s. Reverting election of U. S. Senators to the state senate will have little good if state senates are still elected proportionally.
It was constitutional for states to have a bicameral legislature with one house based on population and the other based on region at least until the SCOTUS pulled a decision out of their collective rears and decided that it wasn’t.
One wonders when the SCOTUS will decide that the US Constitution is itself unconstitutional and demand that the Senate be based on apportionment. At least we can see examples of the inevitable outcome of such a decision in places like California and New York–effective disenfranchisement of rural regions and smaller cities.
Why would Californians go all yellow-vest and riot, they vote for these policies and the politicians that champion them all day, and twice on Sunday. Trying to figure out why the French are so pissed; they do the same.
They just voted to GET the bennies. They didn’t vote to have to pay for them themselves.
California is The State of Narcissus.
Do you expect any of the progs living there to EVER admit they were wrong about anything? They’ll take down the country before they insult their fragile egos – and take us along with them.
California is not a monolith: from what I gather from Victor Hansen Davis, and others, California is a land of inequalities. Housing prices in the Bay area price out ordinary workers. The wealthy, who indulge in environmentalism, can afford to buy houses with solar panels. The trend over the years has been to tax out the middle class. What is left is the wealthy who can afford the virtue signaling, and the poor who don’t care. The poor, and California has a disproportionate share of the nations welfare recipients, are subsidized or don’t follow the laws. The middle class can’t afford it, so they have left.
Environmentalism is a religion for rich white people who need something to virtue signal.
Instead of creating this requirement, which is really nothing more than a tax aimed at the home owner, wouldn’t the money be better spent on a nuclear power plant that can run at night and other times when the power is actually needed?.
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As it stands, with this new requirement, get ready for all the shocking news stories as the law of unintended consequences rears its ugly head and California discovers all sorts of major issues with this edict. Some ideas of how this will manifest itself will be the cost of replacement batteries to store the excess energy, the cost of recycling the lead in the batteries, effects of massive amounts of solar energy on the grid during the day and then eliminated at night, resource limitations needed to manufacture the number of solar panels required, etc.
CA is shutting down Diablo Canyon. CA relies on power from AZ during the peak time periods from our reliable Palo Verde plant (largest nuclear station in the US). We just voted down Prop 127 to force solar panels….the prop was funded by good doers from CA.
Knowing the idiocy in Kalipornia they will require solar panels to be built on the ground to provide shelter for the homeless people.
I am not nor have I ever been a firefighter so I may be wrong, but I would think solar panels make fighting a house fire more dangerous as the roof may have high voltage wires where a hole may be needed to vent heat. Would this not increase the amount of fire damage to a house if the firefighters need to take extra steps to be safe? Normally, a roof has no electric power wires.
There are benefits to using solar panel augmentation in areas where there is an abundance of sunny days. If the environment cooperates. Areas where there is significant snowfall or rain reduces the benefits to solar panels. Then you have areas which are prone to windstorms. Also, you have maintenance issues. The photo-voltaic panels have to be kept clean in order to function at optimum levels. They have parts which require periodic inspection, repair and replacement. And, of course, as most states require electrical utilities to purchase excess customer produced electricity, utilities generally have to raise their rates to make a profit, as customer generated power increases. Also, as noted, as power consumption usually increases at night, when photo-voltaic cells do not produce electricity, it causes the electricity generating utilities a while to get a handle on usage trends.
While solar power may be a benefit to individual users, if its usage becomes wide-spread, it further complicates an already complicated system.
Even if you want solar to make up more of your electrical power generating capacity this is the wrong way to do it. It is much more efficient to build fields of solar panels rather than doing custom installations on every rooftop. There are large economies of scale involved in maintenance, construction and energy storage on one site rather than piecemeal custom installations scattered about at sites which may be impractical for solar.
They chose this method because it makes everyone acknowledge the state religion and it shifts costs onto homeowners. Plus there is the huge amount to be made on kickbacks by licensing authorities etc…
The last thing this has to do with is the environment. That is not even a tertiary consideration. It is just a pretext to allow the power and resource grab. It is no different that requiring a windmill in every yard. That would be similarly impractical. But I guess the feel they have to resort to this because the wind and solar plants are losers even when done on an industrial scale. The only way they could force everyone off more efficient power generation methods was to do just that — force them off.
I think we should sell CA to Mexico while it is still worth something. In another decade or two we won’t even be able to give it away. And you should always excise a cancer as soon as possible.
Consider also the enormous amount of radio frequency interference that will be generated by all those DC to 60 Hz static inverters installed at individual households.