Solar Power Is Now As Inexpensive As Grid Electricity In China Charles Q. Choi

Researchers found that PV systems could produce electricity at a lower price than the grid in 344 cities.

Good news for air quality and climate. China has been relying on coal-fired plants (72% in 2016).

Two anecdotes. I have a friend that teaches for six-weeks in Beijing on occasion. I once said to him that it must be a great experience. He answered that it was terrible, the pollution was so bad. I have another acquaintance that is Chinese, now living in the US. He's been here about 20 years. I asked him if he thought ever of returning to China. He shook his head and pointed upward. I asked him what he meant, and he said, "blue sky." 

China is not alone in this in the developing world. Electrification is a big deal, and cost is a major consideration.

IEEE Specturm
Solar Power Is Now As Inexpensive As Grid Electricity In China

Charles Q. Choi
 

Laura Belin - New bill is “clear attempt by MidAmerican to monopolize the sun in Iowa”

A new bill backed by MidAmerican Energy would devastate the ability of Iowans to install solar panels for their homes or businesses. House Study Bill 185 would undo a longstanding policy of net metering, which “allows residential and commercial customers who generate their own electricity from solar power to feed electricity they do not use back into the grid.”

Iowans served by monopoly providers MidAmerican or Alliant Energy have been able to use net metering since the 1980s, under rules adopted by the Iowa Utilities Board.

In recent years, MidAmerican has periodically sought to subvert net metering in various ways. Environmental advocates have been concerned the policy would become the next target for Republican lawmakers who destroyed Iowa’s decades-old, successful energy-efficiency programs last year at the behest of utility companies.…

Disclosure: I am a resident of Iowa (Iowa City).

Bleeding Heartland
New bill is “clear attempt by MidAmerican to monopolize the sun in Iowa”
Laura Belin

Don Quijones — The Men Who Stole The Sun

Incredible.

If there’s one thing we should have learnt from this extended period of post-crisis drudgery, it is that there is no limit to how far our elected governments will go to protect the interests and privileges of oligarchs and oligopolies. In Spain, the government will even steal the sun’s rays to protect the country’s energy plutocracy.

Now the Spanish government is planning to tax homes that produce their own energy through solar power and store some of it using batteries. El País reports:

A draft decree prepared by the Industry, Energy and Tourism Ministry establishes a new fee to discourage the use of batteries or other storage systems by people who produce electricity, with solar or photovoltaic panels for instance, and who are connected to the national power grid.

This latest royal decree follows on the heels of an earlier one announced in 2013 that levied a tax solely on those who generate their own electricity. Once passed into law, intrepid small-time energy producers will be forced to pay a backup toll for the power from their solar panels, in addition to the access toll paid by everyone who consumes electricity from the conventional grid.

What’s worse, in order to figure out who is producing what level of energy (and, of course, how much to tax it), all solar panels would have to be hooked up to the grid. Energy producers who don’t connect to the grid could face a fine of up to 30 million euros (yes, seven zeros!). As Forbes reports, the intention is clear: to scare taxpayers into connecting to the grid in order to be taxed:....

Not mention that in some places gathering rain water is prohibited.

Wolf Street
The Men Who Stole The SunDon Quijones

Tyler Hamilton — Solar poses big risks for U.S. utilities: Barclays

Barclays warned that solar and storage combined is “likely to disrupt the status quo.” It already has in Hawaii, and it expects California, New York, and Arizona to closely follow before spreading to the rest of the United States. 

“In the 100-plus year history of the electric utility industry, there has never before been a truly cost-competitive substitute available for grid power,” the bank said. “We believe that solar plus storage could reconfigure the organization and regulation of the electric power business over the coming decade. We see near-term risks to credit from regulators and utilities falling behind the solar plus storage option curve and long-term risks from a comprehensive re-imaging of the role utilities play in providing electric power.”

As Barron’s reported, “It’s a noteworthy downgrade.” Electric utilities, it added, “make up nearly 7.5 per cent of Barclays’ U.S. Corporate Index by market value.”

Corporate Knights
Solar poses big risks for U.S. utilities: Barclays
Tyler Hamilton, Editor-In-Chief
(h/t Bill Totten's Blog)