DarthPuppy wrote:Of course the devil might be in the details. How much solar production is required? Enough to cover the average needs of the home being built? Home plus an EV? Or just a token amount of solar production to help reduce the power company bill?
It's certainly true that it takes government to screw any good idea up, and I don't doubt that this will be different.
Here are my ideas of how this will likely get messed up:
- Like Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Apple mentioned above, many will be able to get around the requirement to put solar panels on their new home by paying others to say that their solar power is magically delivered to that home, even if that is not true.
- Many homes will likely have some or all of their solar panels installed in the shade.
- Other homes will likely leave massive swaths of sunny South-facing roof uncovered even though it should be used to fully cover the home's usage.
- Many systems will likely fall into disrepair not long after installation.
- As you can see from the press release, corporations and governments are immune from this requirement, even though they are the largest wasters of electricity.
- Most new homes (and commercial and government facilities) in CA will likely still be connected to a natural gas pipeline, so the solar requirement will likely not come close to meeting most of the homes energy needs.
- Most new homes (and commercial and government facilities) in CA will likely have gasoline-powered cars in the garage, further reducing the percent of the overall energy requirement provided by the home's PV system.
- Ultimately, providing the net amount of energy will not be sufficient to allow the system to keep operating.
So, yes, while this seems like a great idea, there are so many caveats involved that it will be difficult-to-impossible to implement in a meaningful way. New construction with PV to meet all of the home's energy needs (including heat and vehicle needs) can be done very well even in a cold climate, as Zythryn has demonstrated with his home's construction, but even then the energy provided on-site is net, not load-following.
What HAS worked in the past are requirements in the permitting system for new homes to provide for proper waste disposal, fire safety, meet structural requirements, provide clean water for the home's needs, etc. I don't know if CA can make meaningful PV construction requirements workable, but it will be interesting to see this play out.