Grid parity

That's the PC term for comparing the cost of conventional electrical power and PV (that's the PC term for what we troglodytes call solar power).  A new study cited at Greenbuilders claims that a handful of states, including Texas, my Texas, already have reached grid parity, with more on the way.  The calculation includes heavy federal subsidies set to expire in 2016.

Casa Texan99 is interested in solar, notwithstanding our climate skeptic character flaws, because we enjoy independence and because there are more reasons to favor renewable energy sources than mixed-up anxieties about carbon poisoning.  That is, I don't consider CO₂ a toxin, but that doesn't mean mining and burning fossil fuels produce no unpleasant effects of any kind.  On the whole, I believe they produce benefits far outweighing the costs, but I'd move to solar power for my home in a heartbeat if I thought it made economic sense.

As my husband points out, though, this study, like most, glosses over durability and the time it takes to recoup upfront capital costs.   From what he hears the solar panels are getting cheaper, but they aren't lasting the advertised 20 years, either.  In some states, the upfront capital investment is addressed by leasing arrangements, but a few states, like Florida and South Carolina, have outlawed these.  In South Carolina, for instance, public utilities so far have succeeded in arguing that a company that installs solar panels on a homeowner's roof and then charges them for the power produced is a utility that must jump through all the usual monopolistic hoops.

This Grist article points out that our society can be unpredictable about which emerging industries get the red carpet treatment, in ways that don't necessarily line up with our usual assumptions about libertarian trends:

It’s been interesting to watch this play out in light of the Wild West atmosphere that so often surrounds technological breakthroughs.  I’ve been reading American Odyssey, Robert Conot’s history of Detroit, and I’m continually surprised at how easy cars had it in the first few decades of their creation.  They killed people left and right, but it was was years before “drivers’ licenses,” “insurance,” or “parking tickets” came on the scene.  Airbnb, Uber, and Lyft were able to muscle into long-established monopolies and get comfortable before facing any major pushback, and the first major online retailer, Amazon, was able to go nearly two decades without charging the sales taxes that brick and mortar stores had to.

It’s not that this kind of preferential treatment for new technology is fair.  And to be sure, solar has gotten some breaks over the years as well, particularly at the federal level.  Solar may have widespread appeal to everyone from hippies to libertarians.  Yet it’s still having to fight to claw its way into a surprising number of markets, while other industries get to zoom ahead.

I wouldn't want to minimize the headaches the "distributed power" causes for electric utility companies. I've been involved in a dozen or more power utility bankruptcies, and the administrative nightmares caused by allowing people to force utilities to run their meters backwards when their co-gen power was being produced were always a big part of the intractable disputes.  But it does seem as though we make it unnecessarily difficult for people to generate some of their own power.  I was pleased to see that South Carolina appears to have taken some steps recently to reduce the barriers to solar leasing.