N. California surging ahead on solar power

[jpak]

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/business/20080504-9999-1b4solar.html

When California launched the nation's biggest solar incentive program at the beginning of 2007, the idea was to transform the landscape by installing a million solar rooftops throughout the Golden State.

Now a progress report reveals that fogbound homeowners in San Francisco and Northern California are rushing to “Go solar” at a much higher rate than residents in sunny San Diego and the rest of Southern California.

The difference is practically like night and day.

Solar proponents offer a variety of explanations for the difference, but most agree that utility and government support have been stronger for installing rooftop solar systems in Northern California.

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[NMDemDist2]

1. if they put em in the Central Valley they'll be in good shape except the 2-3 months of tule fog

we had solar in the Central Valley and it did awesome, we never installed a 'conventional' hot water heater and we also used the system to do radiant heating under a 500sf tile floor. we had the system set to run through the back of our woodstove in winter when the sun was hiding above the tule fog. we had no conventional heating, A/C or hot water. and we did fine even in the hot summers.

the house was designed for passive cooling too, deep overhangs, the cool water ran through the floor in summer (instead of hot) and with high ceilings and ceiling fans we stayed comfortable.

and this was with technology from the mid 1980s, bet it would work even better today

[diane in sf]

3. They work just fine in the fog--there's plenty of light to run them.

[mike_c]

2. we have an established tradition of living off the grid up here...

That might be part of the reason. A lot of rural land was homesteaded up here in the 70s and 80s, well after any gov't assistance with rural electrification, so the cost of connecting to the grid is often prohibitive. PG&E told one of my friends they'd run the wires to his home for $40,000 and that was back in the 80s. One can only imagine how expensive it would be today. The result is large rural communities generating their own electricity. Some of those have likely taken advantage of incentives to upgrade their existing PV systems, but having an established solar sales, installation, and service industry here has probably helped extend solar installations into urban areas too.

[Oerdin]

4. Subsidies

"Solar proponents offer a variety of explanations for the difference, but most agree that utility and government support have been stronger for installing rooftop solar systems in Northern California."

Read: Subsidies.

[diane in sf]

5. Alas, not as good as the subsidies for oil, gas, coal and nukes