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Comment by benrutter | Hacker News Reader

This is a good question - there are fairly high imposed tariffs on solar in the US[0] but I think the labor is the big part. Over here in the UK, solar installation would cost about $12k dollars, so quite a bit cheaper, but still not below $10k.

One thing that isn't super obvious from the article is that a lot of it is talking about industry solar panels rather than rooftop. The overheads of installation etc get a lot smaller if you're installing a whole bunch at once.

This isn't to say that installing solar panels on your house is a bad idea - they normally pay for themselves after something like 10 years from memory, so are similar to double glazing.

[0] https://www.energy.gov/cmei/systems/overview-trade-and-polic...

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> they normally pay for themselves after something like 10 years from memory

I would guess this varies by locale, and people usually assume the time value of money to be zero when they make the claim. In much of the US, I think the payback time is more realistically in the 15-20 year range, which means you really only want to install panels when you install a new roof. Otherwise the lifetime of the roof will happen before break even on the panels.

> This isn't to say that installing solar panels on your house is a bad idea - they normally pay for themselves after something like 10 years from memory

I am with you, this would be better on a town or regional basis instead of on everyone’s roof. Our houses already have wires going to them and I can’t imagine my particular roof or garage is the best place to put panels and batteries. But I understand it’s a political / administrative issue which may well be not solvable easily in many places.

Rooftop solar costs 3x more per watt than utility scale. The only reason it would pay off is that you're able to avoid grid maintenance costs built into per-kwh pricing.

Rooftop solar (ideally with battery backup) allows you to be independent of the grid (yes, even if you're interconnected, if you do it properly), which means PG&E's garbage infrastructure can largely become irrelevant if your system is properly sized.

If you're "independent of the grid" go off grid. You'll pay nothing at all.

Most people are not willing to make the tradeoffs that entails but still want free access to the grid.

Which is gaming a particular kind of rate structure. They would not do nearly as well if grid maintenance charges were decoupled from consumption.

Residential electricity pricing is 3x-4x wholesale pricing.

Coincidentally, ~75% of PG&Es costs are from the grid and not generation.

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