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Feed in tariffs (FITs)Here are just a few links about FITs. California Approves Feed-In Tariffs for Renewable Energy Systems Renewable Energy World article 1-21-09 Wind-Works.org by Paul Gipe is an exhaustive source of RE info Gainesville will be the first city in the U.S. to implement a solar feed–in tariff Policy Action on Climate Toolkit
Please contact The house of Representatives and the Senate and let them know that properly structured feed in tariffs are the best solution to advancing solar energy! Now, some people suggest slapping a feed in of over 50¢ per kWh for PV systems, and that it should only degenerate slightly over the years. This would only work for the PV companies. Everyone would be trying to get it, and PV prices would go up due to high demand and large margins of "tariff error". The realistic solution is to first have our new President to spend a few billion on silicon* PV factory development and automation (we quite literally need robots making PV). Only after such a factory is successful in test runs should the FITs be enacted. That way, less money will have to be spent by each utility customer, each independent gets paid almost the same, and far more PV is installed. This would be as a result of factory automation (and competing factories) being able to meet demand in a timely fashion (hence the robots). The tariff should be set to just over twice the normal rate for kWh, continuously (throughout on and off peak hours), and would degenerate based upon the amount of profit made over time. Toward the end of say, a fifteen year agreement, the independent would still recieve a small profit of like 40% above "normal" per kWh. At first, these "massive double rates" would only reflect less than one percent of overall electrical generation, thus there would be no noticable difference in the monthly bill. At the end, presumably (a whopping) 20% of overall would be produced by millions of independents. But since the FIT would have degenerated, all rate payers would be paying just 140% for 1/5th of the overall. This would cause the monthly electric bill to only go up about 10% to get 20% from solar PV. Of course this could be an overly optimistic scenario. PV may never account for such a high fraction of overall (since it does not store its electricity cheaply enough), however, this is an example of how the idea of a feed in works (and 20% does not need batteries or other storage). In reality, "big solar thermal" (that stores heat for later electrical generation at night) should recieve (somewhat smaller) feed ins also. This would insure massive RE influx and can dramatically reduce fossil fuel usage all the way up to about 80 to 90%! As long as fossil fuels dominate, the costs of such feed ins will not be prohibitive. This is why I believe that it is next to impossible for Al Gore to make a 100% fossil free transition in less than ten years Federal incentives must be devoted to RE automation in advance of feed in tariffs. This ensures that such rates are not too high for the ratepayer and a much more hopeful future with millions of assembly and matainence jobs! It insures that the government get their money back through the newly created tax base. And insures hope and success for the rest of the planet! * Silicon PV has practically zero toxicity issues. The only supply issue is in making it fast enough to meet demand. Given enough time, silicon based PV could blanket the entire planet. On the other hand, material for thinfilms are almost as rare as silver and appear not to be abundant enough to provide a large fraction of world energy needs. Currently, it is estimated that CIGS thinfilm can collectively cover only a few hundred square miles. However, such materials can also be used in concentrating PV. That would transform the few hundred square miles into about one hundred thousand square miles! Feel free to copy this message and talk about it! (I would post a forum, however, too much spam caused me to delete it). Thanks for visiting Yes on Solar! |
fireofenergy sez solar power can sustain total global poulations by itself, and yes, unlimited clean energy!!!
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