By Nick Wilson, The San Luis Obispo Tribune
What would it be like to live in a home that uses all electric appliances?
A panel of experts who spoke Thursday at an event hosted by the SLO Climate Coalition at the SLO library touched on questions around cost, safety and the ability of the grid to handle a transition from gas to electrically-powered homes.
The discussion comes in advance of a planned SLO City Council meeting Sept. 3 when a new policy around energy requirements for constructing new homes will be considered. The proposed changes to building codes would incentivize electrification by allowing construction with all-electric appliances to meet minimum state standards.
If the new policy is approved, those who choose to construct gas-powered systems would have to retrofit existing buildings to electric appliance systems or pay an in-lieu fee that will be used for the same purpose, according to city officials.
A panel of four state building and energy experts said they believe a transition to electrification is inevitable given California’s target of carbon neutrality in 2045. It makes good sense, they said, to start planning for a future in which communities will be faced with finding ways to reduce as much carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from the atmosphere as possible — a significant portion of those emissions now coming from use of gas appliances in homes.
Opinion: The Phony Numbers Behind California’s Solar Mandate
By Steve Sexton, The Wall Street Journal
California’s energy regulators effectively cooked the books to justify their recent command that all homes built in the Golden State after 2020 be equipped with solar panels. Far from a boon to homeowners, the costs to builders and home buyers will likely far exceed the benefits to the state.
The California Energy Commission, which approved the rule as part of new energy-efficiency regulations, didn’t conduct an objective, independent investigation of the policy’s effects. Instead it relied on economic analysis from the consultancy that proposed the policy, Energy and Environmental Economics Inc. Its study concluded that home buyers get a 100% investment return—paying $40 more in monthly mortgage costs but saving $80 a month on electricity. If it’s such a good deal, why aren’t home buyers clamoring for more panels already? Most new homes aren’t built with solar panels today, even though the state is saturated by solar marketing.
The Energy Commission is too optimistic about the cost of panels. It assumes the cost was $2.93 a watt in 2016 and will decline 17% by 2020. Yet comprehensive analysis of panel costs by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory estimated the average cost of installed panels to be $4.50 a watt for the 2- to 4-kilowatt systems the policy mandates. That is $4,000 more than regulators claim for a 2.6-kilowatt model system in the central part of the state, where 20% of new homes are expected to be built. Berkeley Lab further estimates that costs fell a mere 1% between 2015 and 2016, far short of the 4% average annual decline the regulators predict.
Now consider the alleged savings on energy bills. The commission’s analysis assumes California will maintain its net energy-metering policy, which effectively subsidizes electricity produced by a rooftop solar panel…
Read full op-ed in the Wall Street Journal