Energy freedom for everyone is at our fingertips. But why does it still seem so far away? Because there are some very powerful people preventing us from attaining it. In Power Trip, filmmaker Jonathan Scott (HGTV’s Property Brothers) travels the United States confronting those at the root of the issue and meets the everyday citizens fighting against a deeply entrenched, powerful system that’s waging war against the solar industry—and against the rights of the people who want to choose how they power their lives. Jonathan Scott’s Power Trip will infuriate, enrage, and compel you to take action to make solar energy a global reality.
I was able to preview about twenty minutes of this, I was actually invited to watch the full documentary through my local college, but a work-related issue interrupted my viewing.
I will say from what I saw, it’s worth taking a look at – it will be on PBS Independent Lens on Nov 16th (check for times).
When I have a moment, probably over the holiday, since we are pretty much on lockdown here and I’m not a #covidiot, I’ll take a good look at Biden’s climate plan and then I’ll write up a post on it.
Still on the list of topics: solar power and micro-grids are next up. But there are a lot of interesting and clever solutions out there, so I think I can keep this going for a while.
As always, if this is your actual bailiwick and want to contribute, please let me know, I’m sure we’d all like to hear from some experts.
x-posted Living Lightly TV
Yutsano
It’s not my bailiwick (I really love that word!) but I can attest that the hydroelectic power generated in the Northwest could be ramped up to alleviate times when the solar/wind gap is existing. The big issue is that the infrastructure in Grand Coulee is massively outdated and inefficient. If the feds could kick in to add in some better generators that could boost the output of the dam and make our usage of that power source even more reliable.
Charluckles
We just had a meeting with a local solar company today. Last week we looked at the idea of a Tesla roof. I think solar makes so much sense. Thanks for the doc recommendation.
Barbara
We installed solar panels last year. We estimate $120 monthly reduction in electric bills. We decided that the more people who can afford it now forge ahead the more the per unit cost will come down.
TaMara (HFG)
@Charluckles:
@Barbara:
I hope when I do the solar post a bunch of people chime in with their experiences with it.
catclub
I thought the HGTV Property Brothers with Trump fans. Did I miss something?
Some other TV twins?
catclub
@Charluckles: is Tesla actually delivering on that roof material? I am surprised.
TaMara (HFG)
@catclub: Maybe before you throw accusations out there, do some googling on your own and see if that’s true.
Regardless, the documentary has won awards and looks promising.
Doug R
Here where we don’t get sun so much, wind is also promising. And next door in Alberta where they have lots of drilling experience and data from their wells AND the geology to make it work:
Geothermal energy is poised for a big breakout
Geminid
@Barbara: In a March 2019 article in The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, U. Mass. economist Robert Pollin emphasizes that with wind and solar electrical energy reaching cost parity with natural gas generation, the transition to clean power in this sector is now just a matter of financing. One of the several components of Elizabeth Warren’s excellent energy package was a federally sponsored “Green Bank” that would generate private investment in clean energy. Germany made much of its investment in clean power this last decade through a nationally sponsored bank that was a holdover from the Marshall Plan. We can do similarly. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists are the folks with the Doomsday Clock on the cover. They do a lot of coverage of climate science and policy. In February 2019 they published a good article by British climate scientist Miles Allen, who had some good observations on the Markey/Ocasio-Cortez “Green New Deal.” Allen served on one of the working groups that wrote the 2018 U.N. climate report calling for net zero CO2 emissions by 2050.
Dan B
We installed Solar PV on our roof 9 years ago. It’s “sunny” Seattle. The panels paid off this year. All the power generated is gravy at this point. It’s about three thousand per year. Our electricity is municipal: Seattle City Light. Since the city is growing rapidly they wanted a way to supply more green energy than could be supplied by our dams in the North Cascades and the Bonneville Power Administration. Getting homeowners and businesses to cough up the money upfront was a way to finance the increased power production.
Seattle is very cloudy but we are much better than Germany. Alaska is similar to Germany in solar capacity potential. We’re similar to northern Italy. Most every other state in the US has higher potential than us. PV costs per panel have dramatically dropped. The expense is in the wiring.
geg6
The reality is that you don’t need tons of sunny days to have solar and save thousands every year. My sister and her husband had panels installed on their previous home about five years ago. We live in Western PA, which jockeys with Seattle for most cloudy days per year. The bill for their over 4000 sq ft home averaged about $40 per month. They sold that place in order to downsize and are now in a 1200 sq ft house and just had panels installed there. They also installed an in ground heated pool. Their bill is still under $40 per month. Now that they’ve turned the pool heater off, I know he’s going to have their house lit like the Griswolds’ for the holidays just because it will cost them next to nothing and he’s a total geek like that.
MomSense
My dear friends live in a partially underground, passive solar and geothermal home. It’s so cozy and always about 68 degrees. In the winter they run the wood stove if they feel cold. They also have photo voltaic panels on their garage roof that power their electric needs and their car. I haz envy.
I would install PV on my roof in a second, but it is prohibitively expensive. I wish we had utilities that rented our roofs, installed photovoltaics and then charged us some kind of reduced rate formula for the electricity we use with the electricity we generate factored in.
ETA My dad installed solar on his barn roof and it meets all their electric use.
skerry
My home is not a candidate for solar panels due to tree cover. However, my electricity is sourced through a community solar program. I participate in Neighborhood Solar in Maryland.
Hoppie
I remember Al Gore at Netroots in Austin, telling us the holdup was storage. From all I read, that is mostly solved.
I am glad to be an old, though. Our granddaughter has a challenge!
Frank McCormick
@catclub:
You’re thinking of The Benham Brothers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Benham_Brothers
Chris T.
@Dan B: We recently moved from sunny(ish) California (Bay Area, about 4.5 PSH) to the Pacific Northwet. I put solar panels on several houses (UT, then CA) and each time I spent a similar dollar figure but in CA I got 3x the panel wattage because the costs had dropped so much.
(Insolation was slightly better in UT at about 5, and where I am now it would be 3.8, but we have way too much tree cover so it’s impractical on the current house.)
The cost effectiveness was greatest in CA because the power prices there are so high. Conservatively, I estimate my avoided costs were about $.30/kWh (I was charging an EV and would have been paying 18 to 50 cents on each marginal kWh until I got the EV rate, after which the marginal price was 12, 27, and 50 cents depending on time of use [edit: numbers tweaked, I forgot to account for taxes in initial post]). So, in 6 years, I saved about $15k, which was about the after-tax price I paid for the system.
(We were planning to stay in CA longer but a combination factors chased us out to earlier-than-intended retirement.)
Ramalama
I hate our provincial electricity provider, Hydro Quebec. It’s state owned, just like the liquor stores here. But the liquor stores are receptive and good to customers who want X or just good customer service. Hydro does not give a fig about anyone. Apparently there’s a law that says Hydro cannot shut down the electricity in a person’s home if person is a senior citizen, and it’s winter. They did just that to a neighbor of ours, who waved my car down to tell me that she was very cold, and had no electricity. This was the same time last year, and we were due for a very cold spell. I ran to my house, loaded the car up with wood for her fireplace. A thermos of coffee and scrambled egg sandwiches every morning. Drove her to the bank after the weekend to get them to help her pay her bill. The problem was she was in the early-mid stages of some form of dementia that wasn’t super apparent. My french is terrible. I tried and tried until finally my partner, a francophone, got involved. We ended up finding a social worker to help our neighbor navigate whatever the problem was with Hydro. Hydro electric power is green energy. Turns out the neighbor had to be put into care in a home because she was unable to care for herself. So it turns out Hydro violating the law possibly saved my neighbor’s life by making her desperate to reach out. But now she’s locked up in a facility that’s just awful. I can’t return to visit her due to Covid. And I still very well bloody hate that monopoly.
Well, this certainly turned out much more differently than I’d intended when I started.
mad citizen
This is my bailiwick, midwest utility regulator staff here–electricity. I imagine one of this doc’s points is the buyback rate for residential solar; how regulators/utilities have been stopping or grandfathering current installations for net metering, and moving to a buyback rate more in line with the wholesale cost to produce a kilowatt-hour. Because the retail rate contains not just generation costs, but transmission, distribution, overhead and taxes. If people want to go off grid, that’s fine, do it. But if not, all customers should be paying for the other costs of having the system. Residential net metering has always been a program for mostly well-off customers to do. If you look at it that way, it has been a subsidy to the richer customers at the expense of the middle/poor customers.
Just to point out one issue, what if 20% of customers want to install solar panels, and the utility has to spend $1 million to allow and ensure a safe distribution circuit (which was built for one way power flow). Who should foot the $1 million? The solar customers, all the customers on the circuit; all the utility customers?
On the utility side, the economics of wind/solar/storage are there, and the utilities are procuring utility-scale renewables, which are more economic than residential solar panels. Both utility and customer resources meet demand, all is welcome, but there are at least two sides to this issue. As mentioned above, economics are greatly affected depending on how low or high your electric rate is.
My personal opinion is that by and large Americans are lazy people, and generally don’t want to deal with producing energy at their house. Solar is nice, though, because there isn’t much to maintain once it is installed. Like so many things, experiences will vary across our states.
Mai Naem mobile
My neighbor got solar end of last year principally for the tax credit after getting a Tesla(i am assuming that was also for the tax credit.) We looked into it and ,honestly, the projected difference in the electric bills wasn’t that huge. COVID put an end to our solar shopping. The salespeople who came out seemed to talk more about the tax credit savings than the electricity savings. Anyhow, it occurred to me that the tax credits are yet another tax subsidy for the higher income people. All electric cars are overall still high endish(I think the Nissan Leaf is the only exception) and using electricity instead of gas saves quite a bit of money.