Forbes gets it right! Yes, you heard me right. Forbes. Why is solar so much cheaper to install in Germany? Because they are systemically efficient, where we are systemically inefficient. Can we streamline the freaking process, please? Can we?
Cut The Price Of Solar In Half By Cutting Red Tape - Forbes
Quote:
Prices have plummeted so much over the past two years that the solar panels and associated supplies cost about $8,000 for a typical 4,000-watt residential system. A qualified solar specialist or electrician should be able to install these panels for about $2,000 given that it’s only about a day of work. The total installed price should be about $10,000, without any tax credits or incentives. That is about the price of a comparable system in Germany.
But the average price of a residential system in the U.S. is about $20,000. So where does the extra $10,000 go? I can assure you that it is not the result of greedy installers, paranoid utilities or greater German installation efficiency.
Studies by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and by the University of California, Berkeley both confirm that these higher prices are almost exclusively related to the paperwork it takes to “officially” install a standard rooftop system in the U.S. That’s right, government red tape -‐ local, state and federal.
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Coal is the biggest problem wrt CO2 emission, and it's what we need to tackle first. We have the means. We aren't going to run out of coal anytime soon, so we need the antidote to be economically feasible so we can
stop using coal as soon as possible, and despite its short comings, solar fits the bill. If we were spending on solar system storage batteries the capital we currently evaporate to non-productive, even counterproductive busy work, that in itself would give better economic utility returns.
