What I Learned About Solar While Biking Through Tuscany

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Even on vacation, I’m always thinking about solar and how it’s growing in the world…or not. So, it should be no surprise that as I biked through a small part of the Tuscany region of Italy last week, I got off my bike to take pictures of the solar installations that I saw, and I also learned about why Tuscany doesn’t have even more solar. As I bike

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jonr

Re: What I Learned About Solar While Biking Through Tuscany

In most places, the grid is already in place, So why put a few panels on each house when they could all be consolidated into a single, not very visible location (perhaps one per town). There are some economies of scale.

solarix

Re: What I Learned About Solar While Biking Through Tuscany

The problem with virtual net-metering is that in most places, the utility has been granted a monopoly on selling power and you transferring your power to someone else's account is an infringement. Around here in APS territory, you can't even transfer power between two of your own accounts. We're doing an install right now where we had to go through hoops and extra work (and $$) to consolidate a residential service and another commercial service (at his backyard workshop) in order for the solar system to feed both. Think of all the strip malls and apt. houses with multiple meters that are hard to do solar because it would be a bunch of small systems on each meter instead of one larger, more efficient system shared by all. A fundamental change needs to happen with utility regulation before widespread solar adoption becomes reality. Regulated utilities are supposed to be structured for the benefit of the society. A lot of times it feels more like we are just consumers, here to fund the utility unions.