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Comment by don-code | Hacker News Reader

Are you still able to sell your SRECs with the system disconnected, or are you foregoing that as a cost of being offline?

I'd probably lose out on $500 per year from my system if I didn't sell them. At this point, though, it might _actually_ be asking the question of how much I value my privacy.

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You can’t, because your production is verified by the data you upload to the SREC marketplace. You might even lose escrow you paid at installation.

If you sell your SRECs you're basically undoing any potential climate good your solar panel might be doing.

Interesting - can you elaborate on this?

The idea is that you're selling your SRECs to someone (say a coal-powered bitcoin miner) so they can offset the pollution they're doing and not have to build their own controls. The argument is that if you did NOT sell, they would have to solve the problem some other way.

Just like if Tesla didn't sell electric vehicle credits to other manufacturers, those companies would have to find other solutions to comply.

SREC mandates are used to achieve a percentage of renewable generation, not an emissions quantity.

It works out the same, someone doesn't have to build solar that would otherwise have to if the homeowners give them their credits.

Yes, the end result is that energy generated in the state is sufficiently renewable per the government mandate, with homes contributing to it where it makes more financial sense than building greenfield solar or wind. In states where total demand is falling, conventional fuel plants are also likely able to be closed.

I think the OP's point is that it would be MORE renewable if the homeowners sat on their credits.

Yes, I can see that, but that would have to be balanced against the lower number of installations due to the higher costs to the homeowners. For many people, the payback period would be too long without the credits. As solar becomes less expensive, these programs will cease to exist, and already don't exist in many sunny states.

Only if your base assumption is that everyone has to build solar, or would otherwise do it out of the goodness of their heart.

If your base assumption is that nobody is going to lift a finger for the common good, than the purpose of SRECs is so that a polluting Bitcoin miner pays you to put solar panels on your home, so that you get some good out of it and we don't all have an incentive to be polluting Bitcoin miners.

People who believe that everyone will naturally do the right thing out of the goodness of their hearts are often nicer to be around, but tend to get screwed by their inaccurate view of reality.

While you're definitely not wrong, there are probably better vehicles for home energy users to meaningfully affect emissions. I make ~7 SRECs (7MWh) per year, and assuming I'm average, it'd take close to 100 homes not selling their SRECs for one year to offset an average coal plant for just one hour (http://www.energyjustice.net/coal/igcc/factsheet-long.pdf says the average coal plant puts out 667MW).

My state doesn't have time-of-use based pricing, but I do see this as one particularly effective way of shifting load (not installed capacity!) towards more emissions-friendly sources. The sun shines on home solar panels while we're not home; then absent any other incentives, we come home in the dark and do all sorts of energy-intense activities, like heating rooms and cooking dinner.

That's not true because the purchase still raises the cost of buying credits.

Of course, the SRECs and other subsidies are the only reason that there is actually a solar industry anyway. The economics of solar simply don't work and would not attract any investment at all if it were not for huge crony-ready subsidies paid by governments.

(FWIW, I'm not anti-solar at all, but I am a realist, and spent six years in the utility/commercial solar industry.

I'm all for subsidies, but I don't like SREC. The truth is our economies and populations are still growing, and so is our demand for energy. If we let solar supplement out energy instead of replace it, it's close to useless. Solar needs to be a pressure to reduce our carbon footprint, only then would it be tax dollars well spent.

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