Lawsuit challenging Alabama Power solar panel charge

[BarracudaBob]

Summary of Alabama solar incentives 2024

The phrase “Alabama solar incentives” is a bit of an oxymoron, because the state legislature and public utilities commission here have done basically nothing to help homeowners add solar panels to their home. Instead, they allow the state’s largest utility, Alabama Power, to pay pennies on the dollar for excess energy generated by solar installations, leaving solar panel payback times at nearly the worst in the nation.

If you’re a truly committed environmentalist or a staunch DIY-loving off-gridder, you might find an investment in home solar well worth your money in Alabama. All others will likely not find a solar investment very favorable here.

 

[Zwy]

Farmers Hen House’s processing facility is powered 100% by solar energy.​

Iowa is generally considered solar friendly, with a variety of incentives and a high potential for solar energy:

• Incentives
  Iowa offers a sales tax exemption for solar equipment, which can save 6% on materials. Iowa also offers property tax exemptions for the first five years after installing solar panels.

Well, I don't buy much from Sig Solar as they like to charge sales tax on items to Iowa residents. Just bought another Chargeverter from CC, no sales tax but SS wanted sales tax.

• 
  
• Solar potential
  Iowa has a high potential for solar energy, with an average of up to five peak sun hours per day. The southwest corner of the state has the greatest solar potential.

SW Iowa also gets some large hail and weather from Kansas and Nebraska.

• 
  
• Cost
  The cost of installing solar panels in Iowa has decreased significantly in recent years. The average cost per watt is now between $2.71 and $3.67.

Way too high. The solar contractors in Iowa have been making easy money with overcharging.

• 
  
• Adoption
  Iowa has seen a wide range of solar installations across the state, including farms, rural businesses, and community solar projects.
  
• Solar companies
  Local solar companies in Iowa can offer competitive prices. For example, Energy Consultants Group in Anamosa, Iowa offers a 10-year quality of work warranty and a 25-year product and performance warranty.

If you call the local utility about a solar installation, they will first recommend you invest in one of their commercial coop solar arms

• 
  

However, Iowa's payback period for solar panels is longer than ideal, at about 12 years. Iowa's start-up costs are also higher than other states.

At the installed price listed above probably more.

 

[Chispas]

Summary of Alabama solar incentives 2024

The phrase “Alabama solar incentives” is a bit of an oxymoron, because the state legislature and public utilities commission here have done basically nothing to help homeowners add solar panels to their home. Instead, they allow the state’s largest utility, Alabama Power, to pay pennies on the dollar for excess energy generated by solar installations, leaving solar panel payback times at nearly the worst in the nation.

If you’re a truly committed environmentalist or a staunch DIY-loving off-gridder, you might find an investment in home solar well worth your money in Alabama. All others will likely not find a solar investment very favorable here.

Ive just had a look at the situation in Spain & as you might imagine, it's very different. There are a whole raft of tax breaks & incentives but importantly, money for installing panels & batteries for your own consumption, with €600 per KW of panels & €460 per Kw of batteries.With grid connect, you have the option of not exporting & with the dynamic pricing, batteries might be a better bet.The overall philosophy of the incentives is to encourage production for your own consumption.

 

[TM48]

I'm definitely going to take advantage of the 30% federal tax break this year. That should be around $8000.

 

[BarracudaBob]

I'm definitely going to take advantage of the 30% federal tax break this year. That should be around $8000.

it worked for me! $$$$$$$$$

 

[Kornbread]

the fact that an entity could suggest that your power should be higher because you make more money is insane... I am honestly surprised that nobody shot the people responsible... its like you work your ass off to provide and just because someone else is too lazy or stupid to make an effort you have to pay for them as well? fuck that.
I obviously do not believe that there is any discrepancy between blacks and whites, its all bullshit as straight up physical numbers there are more poor whites, then there are all black people combined in the US... so being poor has nothing to do with race, and everything to do with being lazy or stupid... and in regards to stupid thats why we still have full on manual labor jobs available, but they (most poor people) are too lazy for that. they use excuses like thats below me... really? you are surviving by either handouts form the government or by theft and honest work is below you?

Looks like you view me as both lazy and stupid considering I have been poor most of my life. First job at 15, younger if mowing yards count. Pedaled a bicycle several miles down country roads to get to work. Worked all summer long saving as much as possible, and bought a $500 car that fall.

I've worked all my life and never been on any kind of government welfare. Stupid ... sure, as I could have just signed up for free $hit and sit on my a$$ drawing a check, or moved off for a higher paying job instead of staying local to be around family. Maybe we can call it chosen stupidity?

Lazy ... you are way off on that one!

Contrary to what everyone thinks or has been told, it was not an 'official' education that finally elevated my family a couple degrees in the social economic ladder, it was the skillset developed during the hard times. Need something fixed? Learn how to fix it. Then fix it. Otherwise, go without because you sure as heck can't afford to pay anyone to do the job.

 

[Quattrohead]

The best things in life are earned.

 

[Daddy Tanuki]

I have no beef with you.

Your posts in reply to mine are quite reasonable. They've contained actual content to continue the discussion and aren't just purely antagonistic trolling.

Oh i know I was joking. and contrary to popular belief I am not here to troll, but I do not suffer fools gladly. Cut them off hard and fast and send em packing is my motto.

 

[Daddy Tanuki]

Looks like you view me as both lazy and stupid considering I have been poor most of my life. First job at 15, younger if mowing yards count. Pedaled a bicycle several miles down country roads to get to work. Worked all summer long saving as much as possible, and bought a $500 car that fall.

I've worked all my life and never been on any kind of government welfare. Stupid ... sure, as I could have just signed up for free $hit and sit on my a$$ drawing a check, or moved off for a higher paying job instead of staying local to be around family. Maybe we can call it chosen stupidity?

Lazy ... you are way off on that one!

Contrary to what everyone thinks or has been told, it was not an 'official' education that finally elevated my family a couple degrees in the social economic ladder, it was the skillset developed during the hard times. Need something fixed? Learn how to fix it. Then fix it. Otherwise, go without because you sure as heck can't afford to pay anyone to do the job.

My comments were generalized, but as i mentioned in the last sentence it is the people who are stupid and lazy that stick their paws out for handouts form the government and your and my tax dollars. if you are not on hand outs then you are not stupid and lazy.

Welfare is a needed thing, but it should never ever be a way of life. We have people in the US who are generational welfare abusers. If you work and pay your own way, (and even if you occasionally need some help), i have no beef with you. I lived out of a car for a period of time... not some van or camper... a subcompact as I could not afford an apartment or house. been there myself. the times that i have not had work, I could not ask the government for welfare, or unemployment as I do not live int he US, though I still have to pay the taxes... as well as the japanese taxes.

when I first got divorced in 97 I lived in a subcompact for about 6 months. I had just started working on the base at an entry level position making 5.45 an hour as a 30 year old.... it was not fun... i fixed people cars on the side for 6 months straight to save up enough to rent a little one room apartment. now 3 decades later I am sitting reasonably safe, though i could lose every single contract I have tomorrow and have to start all over.... so that being said once again I do not look down on you. success requires a lot fo things, sometimes it's jsut being in the right place, at the right time... other times it's grinding it out for years on end. good luck in your efforts to make a better life for yourself.

 

[ksmithaz1]

So my $35/mo and 0kwh usage at my camp pays for... what?

Meter is read remotely so no paying a meter reader. Breakers are all secured. No grid tied panels or windmills or water wheels putting power back into the grid. When I'm up there I pay for every kwh I use on top of the $35 and the taxes (separate line items) and when I'm gone I still pay the $35 +tax.

So, what does that $35/mo pay for if not grid operation and maintenance?

Pretty much just the meter and the cable that connects it to the transformer in your neighborhood. It's the scale problem for most large businesses. You get to a certain size you can't just scale down overnight. The problem is ... (Sometimes I sound like a broken record) DEMAND. You see, you want the ability to all of a sudden pull 12KW (on say a hot cloudy day for AC, etc) along with all the rest of the neighborhood/whatever you happen to live in that all converted to Solar. That means they have to provide the underground cable and DEMAND generation capacity to feed you and everyone else like you when requested. So I have a multi-million dollar investment (My Capital!) sitting earning nothing until something happens and you and everyone else with usage like you all jump on at once wanting electricity.

This is the problem. If the exorbitant capital expenditure I made/financed can pull a hundred or so dollars a month from a hundred thousand folks the margin on the generation cost vs sale price, covers all that, I can do it cheap. Half those folks go to solar my capital cost does not change, but now I'm pulling in 1/2 the money to cover the capital expense. Further I cannot reduce that expense because you just might hop on and DEMAND power at whatever your service allows.

What should probably happen is you should have a meter charge that "comes with" a volume of electricity for no additional charge... Example you get a meter for $50/mo with a demand booster and a hundred KWH or so. Charge should be based on service capacity/demand. I think we need to maintain a viable grid into the near future, and we need to figure this out reasonably equitably. If I decide not to go solar I should not have to subsidize your ability to tap into infrastructure I have to overbuild to meet your occasional demand.

Welcome to the muddy water. Bring the waders.

 

[Daddy Tanuki]

Pretty much just the meter and the cable that connects it to the transformer in your neighborhood. It's the scale problem for most large businesses. You get to a certain size you can't just scale down overnight. The problem is ... (Sometimes I sound like a broken record) DEMAND. You see, you want the ability to all of a sudden pull 12KW (on say a hot cloudy day for AC, etc) along with all the rest of the neighborhood/whatever you happen to live in that all converted to Solar. That means they have to provide the underground cable and DEMAND generation capacity to feed you and everyone else like you when requested. So I have a multi-million dollar investment (My Capital!) sitting earning nothing until something happens and you and everyone else with usage like you all jump on at once wanting electricity.

This is the problem. If the exorbitant capital expenditure I made/financed can pull a hundred or so dollars a month from a hundred thousand folks the margin on the generation cost vs sale price, covers all that, I can do it cheap. Half those folks go to solar my capital cost does not change, but now I'm pulling in 1/2 the money to cover the capital expense. Further I cannot reduce that expense because you just might hop on and DEMAND power at whatever your service allows.

What should probably happen is you should have a meter charge that "comes with" a volume of electricity for no additional charge... Example you get a meter for $50/mo with a demand booster and a hundred KWH or so. Charge should be based on service capacity/demand. I think we need to maintain a viable grid into the near future, and we need to figure this out reasonably equitably. If I decide not to go solar I should not have to subsidize your ability to tap into infrastructure I have to overbuild to meet your occasional demand.

Welcome to the muddy water. Bring the waders.

thats kind of how the Japanese system works. Base charge that covers x amount of total kWh used at a maximum of xx amps (input breaker determines.)
Then anything over that gets charged additionally. and the total monthly surcharge goes up depending upon the size of your breaker as well. no idea why its like this as solar is relatively new to the scene, but its been that way for the 40 years I have lived here and other than the rates slowly but surely going up there have been no major changes.

 

[cs1234]

and the total monthly surcharge goes up depending upon the size of your breaker as well. no idea why its like this

Spoiler: Why it's like this

They have to reserve power for other things.

 

[ksmithaz1]

Most people really don't understand business. Much less how you leverage capital. The reason most commercial power is relatively inexpensive is because of scale. The current distribution model has worked well for the last 100 years, but solar has caused a shift to a more localized generation model that is decidedly unreliable on it's own. This is forcing the power company to maintain the generation capacity, and the distribution system for that capacity, with an increasingly diminishing utilization of it.

It bothers me when people bitch about this stuff without understanding the ramifications of what they are asking for. All this stuff was built out with the expectation of a percentage of utilization recouping the costs of expenditure (Capital) used to create it. I drop some solar panels at my house, now I expect the power company to pay me retail for any power I send back to the grid. The power company is then forced to take power it really does not want at a price that does not allow it to even cover the cost of re-distributing it to someone else, assuming it has somewhere to actually send it, and idle equipment that produces power and revenue to pay for itself and the supporting infrastructure. It's a lose-lose for the power company.

 

[BarracudaBob]

Hear I thought it was BlackRock doubling down on Bitcoin

 

[BarracudaBob]

I drop some solar panels at my house, now I expect the power company to pay me retail for any power I send back to the grid.

We are way past that with a minimum meter & maintenance charge. We need to support the grid. Done.

Now they want to charge you for that solar panel if you use it to run your stereo in your shed?


Sounds like mob territory on all electricity. You are using in their territory, time to pay protection from prosecution. It pays to go green.

 

[Chispas]

This is forcing the power company to maintain the generation capacity, and the distribution system for that capacity, with an increasingly diminishing utilization of it.

No one is being forced to invest in this company, the stockholders are free to take their money elsewhere, but it looks like they're doing ok. Your argument has some merit, but we need to apply scale to it. How many MW are being generated by homeowners?

 

[HighDesertDrifter]

Elected officials who make the laws are usually not experts in the field of whatever laws they intend to write.
Let's say they want to make new legislation that increases fees for solar. Are they professionals in the solar industry and know what the impacts are? Probably not! If they want to make new legislation that taxes gasoline or EV fees, are they industry experts in those fields? Probably not! It is my opinion that elected officials who make the rules are the least qualified to make those rules.

Personally, I don't really believe any elected officials actually use their own thoughts to "Make the rules." They just make what rules they are "advised / told" told to make by those who contribute the most to their favorite charities / campaigns who they recognize as "ex-spurts" in the related field.
If I am correct, we live in a Technocracy, not a Democracy... But have been provided with the illusion of democracy so we will continue to contribute as a well assimilated part of the collective.
I wonder would William Wallace call what we supposedly enjoy to day as freedom? Hmmm, I think some where along the way definitions have been updated / changed...

O well as long as it last enjoy what little you have...

 

[HighDesertDrifter]

brilliant and I love it

Perhaps you could post a generic copy of that cease and desist order? Way to go! Kick em in the ass!

 

[HighDesertDrifter]

I have at least one of those. All scientific measurements are done in metric system. When we lay out grids for fossil digs we use meters. And all of my photos include a metric scale.

Hope you are selling them and not donating to a museum basement somewhere! Cool man, you got to dig digging fossils! The university people took over all the good fossil beds around where I grew up. Now us peasants aren't allowed there anymore... ;-(

 

[Q-Dog]

Hope you are selling them and not donating to a museum basement somewhere! Cool man, you got to dig digging fossils! The university people took over all the good fossil beds around where I grew up. Now us peasants aren't allowed there anymore... ;-(

They are cleaned, prepared, curated and stored in a museum where anyone that wants to can come and study them. We have students currently using them for thesis work.

 

[HighDesertDrifter]

They are cleaned, prepared, curated and stored in a museum where anyone that wants to can come and study them. We have students currently using them for thesis work.

Just curious, how many would you say come and study the fossils in any given month? Like < 20 or >20?
I grew up around Baylor in Central Texas and was able once many years ago as a child to wonder around the basements of the collections.

 

[Q-Dog]

Just curious, how many would you say come and study the fossils in any given month? Like < 20 or >20?
I grew up around Baylor in Central Texas and was able once many years ago as a child to wonder around the basements of the collections.

Not as many as I would like, but we've only been actively building the collection for about 10 years. Covid shut us down for a while. We had been taking students out to collect every year ... trying to get that going again.

 

[HighDesertDrifter]

Corrupt politicians are a problem everywhere. And actually that is on topic.

Makes you wonder how they mock us all when they get together behind closed doors?
Corrupt Politicians, are there any other kind?
updated version:
Honestly they are only human and as such are by nature corrupt, just as any one of us would be when exposed to the same decisions they face. Fall in line or be ostracized, defunded, smeared and eradicated if not assimilated by the beast...

 

[HighDesertDrifter]

Not as many as I would like, but we've only been actively building the collection for about 10 years. Covid shut us down for a while. We had been taking students out to collect every year ... trying to get that going again.

Hope you are able to generate some enthusiasm among the students from grade school through graduate school to learn from and enjoy the collection. I remember 50 + years ago as I wondered through the basements of the Baylor museum, that I seemed to be the only one around other than a couple of students working on cataloguing. That was when at least a few parents still tried to encourage such things....
So indeed you have a challenge at hand!

 

[Rmart30]

Summary of Alabama solar incentives 2024

The phrase “Alabama solar incentives” is a bit of an oxymoron, because the state legislature and public utilities commission here have done basically nothing to help homeowners add solar panels to their home. Instead, they allow the state’s largest utility, Alabama Power, to pay pennies on the dollar for excess energy generated by solar installations, leaving solar panel payback times at nearly the worst in the nation.

If you’re a truly committed environmentalist or a staunch DIY-loving off-gridder, you might find an investment in home solar well worth your money in Alabama. All others will likely not find a solar investment very favorable here.

Im not grid tying my system and dont care to help them profit. Im going with 2 panels with a transfer switch between them I just dont want to be "penalized" and charged for having a system on my house.
Im not trying to go 100% solar. I want solar to run my high demand items. Specifically my heating and cooling, then clothes dryer, fridge /freezers etc. The way they are doing it why the solar charge but I can sit a 30kw genset outside and run off it with no penalty.