Glut in Californian home-solar causes bubble to pop: sales down 75%
By Jo Nova
California was the Land of Solar Panels at the top of the Magic Subsidy Tree but that boom went bust
If solar panels were actually cheap and useful, everyone could have them, they’d pay for themselves, and there would be no point where the panel-party would grind to a halt. But if they were expensive, made something useless, and their product became toxic to the grid itself the government would have to artificially subsidize them to get them onto the grid in the first place, and then pop its own bubble before the bubble popped the grid. And so that time has arrived in California and there is carnage in the market.
The Duck has quacked
In a strange coincidence the Californian government cut the payments for solar-powered-electricity by 75% last year, and sales of solar panels fell to a quarter of what they were a year ago. That’s a “to” not a “by”. One in five solar contractors has already left the market. Careers and businesses — gone.
The new price for solar-powered-electricity is probably slightly closer to the true market value, which is almost zero, or even less for holy-green electricity at noon. The Duck Curve is the shape the daily load curve makes. As more and more solar panels are added to the grid the demand for electricity falls at midday, but stays the same at breakfast and dinner. So the amount of electricity required for the state gradually develops a “belly” at noon, and looks like a duck. As more solar panels are added, the grid ends up with too much electricity at midday, which is such a problem it has to pay someone else to use it. In a real free market, negative wholesale prices at midday should have killed off the solar panel rooftop industry years ago.
https://joannenova.com.au/2024/04/glut-in-home-solar-causes-californian-bubble-to-pop-sales-down-75/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=glut-in-home-solar-causes-californian-bubble-to-pop-sales-down-75
