Solar PV and the Metastasis of GHG-emissions

Today, solar PV is all the rage. We're at it again, jumping on a technology before we have figured out the right way to use it. Wall street is loving it, but we are getting way ahead of ourselves... just remind me, how do we spell bubble again? As a society, it seems we keep looking for a silver bullet to fix our problem, and this is not realistic.

It does not matter that solar PV is "cheaper" in terms of component pricing. Solar thermal produces about five times the amount of energy for the same square area, so unless the cost of real estate is zero, solar thermal should be the winner in that battle. Granted, solar PV tends to be easier to integrate, but there is an obvious issue here, particularly in areas large urban areas, where you don't have one square inch to waste.

To use an analogy, if one year our government provides a tax incentive to sell more two-seater vehicles, and a father of five comes home with a two-seater instead of a family car, arguing that it was so cheap, most of us would side with the wife, if she divorced him. The five kids would have to take the bus from then on. Evidently, this would be a case of false economy, for it cannot solve your problem. How come we understand the fallacy of this proposition, yet in solar PV marketing, this is what is routinely done - selling people a solution that does not fit because it is "cheap." If in doubt, refer to the tax incentives.

Just like the two-seater cannot solve the transportation problem of a family of seven, solar PV panels cannot solve the energy problems of most homes and buildings in northern climes. In the south, it may work fine if your home is all electric, and you have enough roof space to economically generate adequate electricity, but in the north your energy bills are likely to be 70% oil and 30% electric, and yet the solar companies want you to jump up and down because they can save you 10% on your electric bills. That's the assumption anyway. It does not amount to the proverbial hill of beans, because 10% of your electric bill is 3% of your overall energy bills.

It actually gets worse, because the implicit assumption is that your roof space is valueless, which is likely not the case. If nothing else, that same roof space could be used for solar thermal equipment, which produces 4 to 5 times as much energy per square foot as does solar PV. Alternatively, one or more wind-turbines might be possible, and in all of these situations, it is one or the other, so you have to figure out what gives you the most bang for the buck.

Entropy and Climate Change

One of the first few things to realize about the whole climate change conundrum is that it is not solvable. The best we may be able to do is produce less entropy, and decelerate the decline of our physical universe. But in the end it's a lost cause, or, as Keynes would have it: "In the long run, we're all dead." The case in point is the Toyota Prius, which has a lifecycle environemental impact that is worse than a Hummer. So dream on.

For those who want to get into the final nitty-gritty of the issues, there is no better introduction that Alex Marchand's new book, The Universe is Virtual. Unless and until someone comes up with a better alternative to the second law of thermodynamics, the choices are limited, but right at the moment, the process is outright irrational, and we may be able to do better than we are. Again, the only thing we can do on the physical level, is to moderate the impact we are having, the problem is not solvable in any meaningful way as long as the laws of physics hold. If you want to stick to lighter fare, Jeremy Rifkin's, Entropy, is still always a fun read, although a bit dated.

The solar PV fallacy, oh to be green and foolish

These days the FTC has taken on greenwashing, and hopefully may be curbing some of the most egregious abuses, but if they got serious, very little of environmental business or products would be left standing, and certainly solar PV in its current form would have to be heavily restricted for the deceptive claims it makes.

What needs to be understood is that if we define the problem haphazardly, we are unlikely to solve the problem that we are presumably seeking to solve, in this case, reducing green house gases (GHG-emissions). To the promoters of solar PV, the problems is how much money can we make on selling solar PV installations (very little), or on financing solar PV (maybe something more), time will tell if it can be done profitably, but the current model of solar PPAs, solar leases, or even innovative lending like SolarCity's new MyPower program, will likely not be enough to make solar PV really viable in the long run.

At single family scale - Solar PV disappoints

The exception is if you live down south and you have enough roof real estate to generate close to all the electricity you really want, perhaps solar PV makes sense. But up north the problem remains that electricity is 20-30% of the energy budget, and tying up all your money and roof real estate for a project that saves you a few percentage points on your overall energy bills, and locks you out of solving the whole problem categorically is not a smart decision.

The current sales paradigm for solar PV mistakes a marginal cost savings for the basis of a capital improvement to the property, and a permanent alteration of its energy infrastructure. The result is an impairment of the physical asset (property) and the balance sheet (liability), and the simple most obvious problem is that if the next buyer does not want to assume the remaining liability, it can depress the value of a property, as reported by Bloomberg here. Typically the risks include:

• The lease or PPA may be under water at the time of the sale.
• Newer solar technology may be more efficient.
• Other technological alternatives offer superior economics.

If you are still in doubt, look at alternatives that are about to hit the market, like the Archimedes wind-turbine, and the Zonbak solar thermal solution, as well as a long-since proven solution of Geothermal Heat Pumps, which allows you to do complete central HVAC, heat your pool, and put a snowmelt in your driveway, while eliminating your oil bills.

One of the issues is that solar PV is still early in its developments, while Solar Thermal (85-95% efficiency), and geothermal (3-600% efficiency) are much higher, and mature, and wind turbines, in the right locations produce more energy per square area than solar PV does. Solar PV is now going from 15-18% efficiency and jumping by about 30% to 21-24% efficincies, while new technologies in the 30% and 40% efficiency ranges are in the pipeline for commercialization in the future.

Worse yet, as net-zero construction is growing and consistently profitable already for decades, just imagine selling your home 7 years from now when there is a new development of net-zero homes going up nearby. If those new homes offer $0 energy bills, and you are saving 3 or 5, or even 10% off your 2015 bill, what do you think that will do for the value of your property? The correct answer is: it will sell at a discount. Your investment in PV under those conditions is likely to produce a liability. You will be looking for ways to take those panels down in order not to depress the price of the house, and then you have a waste disposal problem on your hands.

At societal scale - Solar PV disappoints again

New York State has an ambitious energy plan, but it sadly lacks realism. The top-line goals are 50% reductions in GHG-emissions by 2030, and 80% by 2050, but there is very little detail on how to get there. Too many line items in the plan achieve 15-25% reductions in GHG-emissions, and are financially burdensome like solar PV. To tie up a lot of capital, and assume unnecessary 20-30 year liabilities to save 3% on your energy bills, and lock yourself permanently out of better alternatives is counter productive. We are throwing good money after bad, and mostly it is consumers who are on the hook, deceived by government incentive programs.

This first round of Solar PV-madness will prove to be regressive for climate change in the long run, because it locks properties into 25% reduction of GHG-emissions, instead of pursuing the 75%, which would make a difference. So, not only are these owners locking themselves out of the real solution, the collective effect is that we are averaging down, and ensuring we will never achieve anything like 50% GHG-reductions by 2030 or 80% by 2050.

With the current approach GHG emission reduction will be limited to something in the 20-30% range with solar PV and some energy efficiency, and GHG-emissions will metastasize into an unsolvable problem, so present programs guarantee we will never make those glorious goals of 50by30 and 80by50. It sounded good while it lasted.

It's not those batteries either - thermal batteries are free

Remember the jokes about the Fisher ballpoint that could write upside down, and cost a million dollars to develop? Presumably the Russians used pencils instead. The truth is the Russians switched to Space-pens also. The point is clear however. We humans have a terrible tendency to reinvent the wheel.

In energy solutions for buildings, thermal solutions come in the form of passive design as well as active generating technologies such as solar thermal and geothermal. Batteries are cheap: it is also known as Domestic Hot Water, or depending on the application you can have some high temperature water storage. Overall, this is far cheaper and safer than the chemical batteries that are the norm for Solar PV.

Conclusion: time for method over myth

We have had the Internet bubble, and the subprime mortgage bubble, but now we have the budding distributed solar PV bubble. Some of the same people are promoting it, for the securitization machine was looking for work after the bust of subprime. Once rational analysis gains the upper hand--which may take a long time--this bubble of solar subprime will also burst, and it won't be pretty.

Having said that, there are plenty of good applications for Solar PV, but the mass market that is currently forecast will dry up sooner than later. Serious GHG emission reduction will have to wait until the Solar PV-mania gives way to a more methodical approach using Solar thermal, and other solutions, providing a whole-house solution, not a 3% savings on your bills.

What Energy Efficiency Said to Renewable Energy

The tortoise of energy efficiency (EE) always makes sure that we never get more than half-way there, and tries to convince Achilles that by the time he catches up, the tortoise will be ahead again, and he'll never win, when in fact the reverse is the case. Renewable energy (RE) in the broadest sense is Achilles, who only by fallacious logic could fail to outrun the tortoise of energy efficiency. The truth is, only renewable energy can reduce GHG-emissions in a permanent way, EE creates at best a temporary reduction, at the cost of extending the use, thereby ensuring an overall increase, wherever renewable energy would have been an option. Notice how politicians like to claim we're half-way there towards some climate change objective, and at the same time they endorse policies (energy efficiency), which positively guarantee that "half-way there" is as far as we will ever get.

As noted in my comments on the Draft 2014 NYS energy plan,  if we want to achieve 50% GHG-reductions by 2030, let alone 80% reductions by 2050, we cannot afford to do a single project that does not at least get us a 50% GHG reduction. To continue doing "energy efficiency" projects will allow the tortoise of energy efficiency to waste Achilles' time with his logical conundrums. Projects that reduce GHGs by 15-25% are the norm in energy efficiency land and won't cut it. Every single project has to produce over 50% GHG-reduction, and that means that aside from the analytical problems of energy efficiency as an end in itself, we are now entering a time when we simply cannot afford to bother with it anymore, and serious investment in renewable energy should begin.

Lewis Carroll and Energy Efficiency

In short, it's very much like Lewis Carroll's story, What the Tortoise said to Achilles, the only way for the tortoise to win against Achilles is by keeping him wrapped around the axle with philosophical paradoxes, going all the way back to Zeno's paradox. The tortoise argues Achilles can never catch up. The same logic drives the adoption of energy efficiency as policy. It makes no sense, but everyone believes we'll always be halfway there before renewable energy catches up. Except we'll never get beyond halfway there.

George Orwell and Energy Efficiency

It gets truly Orwellian when we get to newspeak like "the Fifth Fuel" (Amory Lovins), and "Negawatts," and to top it all off the  energy efficiency "Ministry of Truth" is the EDF's "Investor Confidence Project." Their masthead says: "Enabling Markets for Energy Efficiency Investment," and a little further on they claim they want to deliver "investor ready energy efficiency projects," a complete non-sequitur. Like any other confidence man, it all starts with some variation of: "I'll be very honest with you." And nobody seems to notice that the only reason for all these extra assurances about proper "energy efficiency" projects, is the fact that it is not at all an investable asset, for the simple reason of diminishing returns. So never mind how many bells and whistles you add in order to provide "investor confidence," anyone who understands the basic financial/economic reasons for diminishing returns on investments in "energy efficiency" would run for the hills.

Obviously, if you own the plant or the building, you want to run it as efficiently as possible, regardless if it runs on fossil fuels or on renewable energy, but that is an operational savings, not a capital investment, unless it is part of the original installation. Energy efficiency, in spite of popular myth and various rationalizations, does not generate electricity, and it is not--in its own right--an investable asset, in spite of all rationalizations to the contrary. Yet a whole industry has grown up around this fallacy. This is the sub-prime sector of the environmental business.

Incrementalism and energy efficiency

Along with the thinking of "energy savings" comes the financial fallacy of the payback period of the equipment based on marginal energy savings, which is a meaningless approach since the only thing that matters is how the equipment adds value to your building, which may be quite a different issue if you take all factors into account. This whole mistaken logic is reinforced by programs like Energy Star, and widget-level incentives.

The incremental approach of energy efficiency and "energy savings" is a paradise for the sellers of widgets, for property owners end up spending money like drunken sailors and the model guarantees they'll never get there. This is not investment, this is squandering money on a losing proposition in the strictest mathematical sense: diminishing returns. Energy efficiency spending always starts out with some window caulking, and some screwy light bulbs, and progresses to bigger and bigger projects, until finally it culminates in the latest absurdity, the solar PPA.

In the end, the energy efficiency approach leads to a dead-end and then property owners become desperate enough to try some solar PV and "save" a bit on electricity. It seems to be the lowest cost renewable option. Here in the North East, the proportions of electricity to heat & hot water might be in the range of 30% versus 70%, and property owners are now backed into a corner where saving 10% on those 30%, which is their electrical bill, seems like a good deal. In short, they will pay good money to lower their energy bills by 3%. If they do get a PPA, they'll be paying for it for 20 years, and not only that they will give up most of their usable roof space, without realizing that if they had done a proper plan, they might have gotten a solar thermal installation instead, which could have wiped out most of their heating/cooling and hot water, and reduced their electrical bills at the same time. Solar thermal gives you 5 to 8 times more energy per square area than solar PV.

"Green Finance," wolf in sheep's clothing

If the business of finance is: Who has equity that we can steal today? Then "green finance" is a winner. It delivers extortionate finance solutions under the beneficent guise of  being "green." Currently, what goes for "green" finance is Asset Backed Lending on the basis of marginal energy savings, and therefore it drives least cost quick payback equipment sales. The commercial pressure is for solutions that can be offered on this basis as "self-liquidating" propositions.

The net result of this is cherry picking of the clean energy retrofit potential of a property. If you were to look at a whole property, the process of converting to renewable energy is only profitable if it is undertaken as a comprehensive retrofit plan. If the property has been cannibalized by various partial "energy efficiency" solutions, this will undermine a renewable energy retrofit in several ways. It will undermine liquidity, and financial carrying capacity of the property, and from an engineering point of view, ill-conceived partial solutions are likely to get in the way of a more profound clean energy retrofit. Write-offs will result, and this is how the tortoise would win against Achilles. The incrementalism of energy efficiency derails the real solutions of renewable energy.

Profitable Renewable Energy Retrofits

Once you look at properties as an energy investment, it is immediately clear that on-site clean energy generation moves energy from liabilities to assets. Furthermore, if you can integrate multiple technologies in a property, very often legitimate synergies can be accomplished which offer compound returns. In terms of payback, it may mean that two components which by themselves have 7 and 8 year paybacks, suddenly combine to offer a 6 year payback. For example, geothermal heat pumps offer 400% efficiency because they extract free BTUs from the subsoil by heat exchange, but they require some electricity to run. But if you can generate your own electricity with wind, sun or water, you suddenly have a virtuous circle, including storage in the form of pre-heated hot water. These compound returns with renewable energy make it a proper investment, as opposed to the diminishing returns of energy efficiency.

Regressive non-profits in renewable energy

Sadly, the non-profit sector which should be leading the way, is mostly regressive, with NRDC and EDF completely buying into the usurpation of the green objectives by energy efficiency, and oblivious to the fact that they have made themselves into a customer retention program for the fossil fuel industry. The Sierra club is only marginally better, hawking solar leases or PPAs, which are soon to be the sub-prime scandal of the green business.

And then there's always Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE), which is a smart way to finance the big capital bulge of renewable energy conversions, but the movement has been completely hi-jacked by the energy efficiency cult. This results in the classical problem of financing short term fixes with long term money, but it gets worse, because in its confrontation with the GSEs the PACE camp, barely snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, by hitching their case to energy efficiency, which misses the central point of PACE, namely that with an on-site clean energy retrofit, you are moving energy from liabilities to assets, and therefore this type of an investment permanently raises property values. And of course you'll do it as efficiently as possible, but that's entirely secondary. The decision is always between fossil fuels and renewables.

Renewable energy retrofits and Green Underwriting 2.0

Only renewable energy can permanently displace fossil fuels, and energy efficiency is a stalling tactic. For evident reasons, we must shift towards more renewable energy retrofits. That's where the great GHG-reductions are, and that's also where asset appreciation is, thus the economic justification, and the legitimate finance opportunity in which the asset appreciation accrues to its owners, instead of being ripped off by the financiers, as in the case of energy efficiency "investments," which benefits widget manufacturers and energy companies, not property owners. Green finance needs to grow up.

What will tie it all together is a proper green underwriting standard, which incorporates a target of at least 50% GHG-reduction, along with the correct economic analysis of a whole property from the standpoint of make-or-buy (energy), and focused on asset appreciation by generating as much onsite renewable energy as possible, energy efficiency should bring up the rear.

Off the grid in four easy lessons #2

Getting off the grid even partially is an obstacle course, but surprisingly, the biggest obstacle is not technology, it is financial decision-making at all levels. From the top down, with various federal programs, down to the level of the individual homeowner, there are some severe misunderstandings and pervasive analytical blunders that generally lead to inferior projects getting priority and the best projects often never being discovered. The combined result is often an unintended subsidy to the fossil fuel industry, and unintended decreases in long-term real estate values because owners fail to uncover the financially optimal decisions for their properties. Renewable energy is generally better financially because it comes with lower operating and maintenance costs, mostly negligibly low fuel costs, for backup mostly, and usually nearly little or no maintenance.

By comparison, investments in energy efficiency, as long as you're on the grid primarily, are really not investments at all, they are about operational savings. There are many other traps, and often times they are made worse by various government programs however well intended. Not only do many programs that purport to support renewable energy barely do so, their results are often antithetical to what they claim, and the postponement of the low-carbon future is the effect. To get largely off the grid these choices need to be made very carefully.

Solar PV: green energy for the postcards to send to mom

Look ma, we've gone solar!

The Solar PV Model

It makes a nice postcard, but does it make financial sense?  Getting Off the Grid is slowed down by solar PV compared to the alternatives, but solar PV is generally easier (read: cheaper) to install. However, Solar PV efficiency, remarkable as it is, is in the range of 15-16%, while solar thermal is up to 98% efficient, in other words, you are gaining more energy per square foot by a factor of 5 from solar thermal, and the overwhelming energy demand in residential living is thermal: Domestic Hot Water (DHW), Heating/Cooling.

The main reason solar PV gets so much press is because it is easy to deploy and because there have been a lot of tax-incentives. It may not necessarily be the most sensible investment. But everything differs from property to property based on implementation details. The principal driver for PV is that because it produces electricity, transportation is easier, but that argument may not hold water if it is installed locally for local production. Also PV has been the beneficiary of a lot of tax incentives, but for residential use, it is at best a second choice, rarely the first. In short, if you own a piece of desert in Arizona, and you need to transport the energy long distance, solar PV is a great choice. For your house, maybe not so much.

Off the grid: the secrets of Solar Thermal versus Solar PV

With solar thermal, you will find conversion efficiency as high as 98%, or easily 5 times higher than with PV, but integration costs may be higher, however in most cases thermal should win out if it is properly evaluated.

The most important thing is that with solar thermal the sun's energy is captured as heat, which is directly usable for DHW (Domestic Hot Water), as well as for heating and cooling. Perhaps even more importantly, that thermal heat can be captured and stored in the cheapest battery of them all, a hot water tank. Storing energy is the single biggest (read: most expensive) problem, and with solar thermal that problem is solved. We're talking seriously green energy here, and a major step towards getting off the grid. You are now building an energy system. If you think about the cost of real estate, and the frequent limits on available space, that higher energy efficiency per square foot should not be underestimated.

Tankless water heaters: throwing out the batteries with the bath water

As a home owner, your mission is not to burn gas most efficiently, it is to increase your living comfort, as well as the value of your home. As I've pointed out in the previous post in this series, tankless water heaters, with or without Energy Star labels, seldom make any sense if you evaluate the energy infrastructure of your home properly. The example of solar thermal here makes it clear how important Domestic Hot Water can be as an energy store. Too often there are incentives, such as low-cost financing, and or tax benefits, which seduce home owners to make the wrong decisions. Domestic Hot Water as a free energy store is very valuable in the energy household of your property. Other forms of batteries tend to be expensive.

Conclusion

As noted elsewhere, when visiting salesmen come to your door, and try to sell you equipment based on tax incentives, and other programs, and showing you a fantastic payback period based on reducing your energy bills, it's katy, bar the door, and go do your financial homework first. They are interested in their commission, not the value of your property, unfortunately many counter productive government and state programs seem to reward the wrong decisions, and unwittingly favor the incumbent energy providers, to the detriment of long-term real estate values.

Only by doing a proper long-term energy plan, and evaluating the alternatives, do you have a chance of making the best decision. A 30 year model is usually adequate, given the lie spans of a lot of energy equipment, not to mention the length of a typical mortgage. Start thinking of your property as (potentially) your own private energy plant. Don't be seduced by all the incentives in the world. Remember this: advantageous financing can never make a bad project good, but it can only make a good project better.

Hopefully we will also see modifications of various program, including financing packages, which often turn on specifying Energy Star rated equipment, and very often force property owners to over-invest in the wrong parts of the plan, or make the wrong choices altogether.