China Introduces 70% Solar Subsidy For The Poor. - Polidicks

[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/2jgEE2j.jpg?1[/IMG] [QUOTE]Disadvantaged energy users in China could receive a subsidy of as high as 70% for the installation of solar power facilities. China’s National Energy Administration (NEA) has just released its General Outline for the Solar Power Disadvantaged Support Implementation Plan ([B]Trial[/B]) which envisages a raft of policy measures for expediting the deployment of solar power in disadvantaged communities throughout the country. Perhaps the most noteworthy of the measures proposed by NEA’s new policy plan, however is the provision by local governments of an initial investment subsidy of as high as 35% for solar power projects in support of the disadvantaged. The national government would in turn provide an initial investment subsidy matching that granted by the local government, with the obvious upshot that the total subsidy for such project could run as high as 70%. In addition to the provision of subsidies from both local and national governments, solar power projects in support of the disadvantaged could also enjoy access to discounted five-year loans, or ten-year loans in the case of large-scale plants. While the measures described by the outline are only intended for reference purposes during the drafting of concrete implementation plans in trial policy areas, should they prove effective they could influence the development of subsequent policies by the Chinese government to foster the adoption and usage of solar energy – in particular distributed solar systems that are best suited to users in disadvantaged or rural communities.[/QUOTE] [URL="http://cleantechnica.com/2015/03/14/china-introduces-70-solar-subsidy-poor/"]Source[/URL].

What's this? China doing something well-intentioned for its people?

pfft those solar panels are just gonna break cause they're made of chopsticks USA #1

Sweet. One of my future goals is to have a house with enough rooftop solar power to be more-or-less self-sustaining. From what I've heard they've gotten remarkably easy to install and operate. You basically mount a box on the wall next to the main fuse panel and splice it in to the outside power feed. The box automatically supplies all the house circuits from the solar panels, brings in outside power when more is needed, and sells excess power back to the grid. I even met some people once that rigged up a shed full of lead-acid car batteries to provide partial overnight power when the sun went down...and keep their homemade electric fence energized. Yeah, those people were kinda crazy.

[QUOTE=Used Car Salesman;47374515]Sweet. One of my future goals is to have a house with enough rooftop solar power to be more-or-less self-sustaining. From what I've heard they've gotten remarkably easy to install and operate. You basically mount a box on the wall next to the main fuse panel and splice it in to the outside power feed. The box automatically supplies all the house circuits from the solar panels, brings in outside power when more is needed, and sells excess power back to the grid. I even met some people once that rigged up a shed full of lead-acid car batteries to provide partial overnight power when the sun went down...and keep their homemade electric fence energized. Yeah, those people were kinda crazy.[/QUOTE] My father has some property in northern California and we built a house on it that's powered entirely by solar, which I think he set up by himself.

Think of all the money saved using Solar.

a lot of villages in Fiji had solar panels for several buildings, which I believe were provided by Chinese developers as they also work on the infrastructure and roads on the north island. I'm sure they could provide cheap access to solar for a SHIT ton of people.

[QUOTE=BFG9000;47374333]What's this? China doing something well-intentioned for its people?[/QUOTE] Ever since Mao died, the general quality of life in China has improved markedly. It's no longer a communist shithole, but is actually becoming a fairly nice place to live (once the pollution is cleared up and a few more political and economic reforms are introduced).

My father is an electrician and thinks solar is a crock of shit. He won't install it on our house because the sales people won't put it in writing that he'll save any money. Not to mention the people that come and install that stuff aren't even licensed electrical contractors so they do hack jobs. He says if solar was so good he would know someone that has it and is saving money because of it. He has LED bulbs in his house and cut his energy bill in half. He confuses me with all the electrical talk but I tend to believe him because he's my father. Not sure what to believe about solar lol.

[QUOTE=apierce1289;47374768]My father is an electrician and thinks solar is a crock of shit. He won't install it on our house because the sales people won't put it in writing that he'll save any money. Not to mention the people that come and install that stuff aren't even licensed electrical contractors so they do hack jobs. He says if solar was so good he would know someone that has it and is saving money because of it. He has LED bulbs in his house and cut his energy bill in half. He confuses me with all the electrical talk but I tend to believe him because he's my father. Not sure what to believe about solar lol.[/QUOTE] Around the 45th parallel in Europe the best you're getting out of a square meter of solar is about 250W, provided that you're getting maximum sun and not the crap semi-overcast shit that takes up just about... most of the days of the year. All in all, if you're not close to an area with often clear weather, you won't be getting much power out of solar. Now, don't get me wrong, there's solar panels that can give as much as about 1000W, but an average joe is never going to be able to neither afford nor acquire those.

[QUOTE=croguy;47375566]Around the 45th parallel in Europe the best you're getting out of a square meter of solar is about 250W, provided that you're getting maximum sun and not the crap semi-overcast shit that takes up just about... most of the days of the year. All in all, if you're not close to an area with often clear weather, you won't be getting much power out of solar. Now, don't get me wrong, there's solar panels that can give as much as about 1000W, but an average joe is never going to be able to neither afford nor acquire those.[/QUOTE] 250W per square meter is really good actually, that is much higher effeciency than most panels out there are. A 15% eff panel is normal, with it needing 1.6m^2 will provide around 260 watts. It is about size really. A panel array like the house at the top of the page is several kilowatts output(like 10 I think at 250 per panel). If you think about it for a moment, a square meter isn't that much area as it sounds like, your bedroom if 3X3 meters is 9. An average US bedroom in my area is 10'X10' or 100 sq feet, with a solar panel being ~18 sq feet

The US used to do something similiar. But Banks refused to work with the Muncipial governments who acted as middle men meant to help and make sure people could pay for the solar panels.

[QUOTE=BFG9000;47374333]What's this? China doing something well-intentioned for its people?[/QUOTE] Actually, China's dealing with their pollution problem lately so this' a great way for them to built fields of green energy by utilizing people's rooftops.

[QUOTE=Ceil;47374577]Think of all the money saved using Solar.[/QUOTE] Um, what? Care to explain?

[QUOTE=Deng;47374679]Ever since Mao died, the general quality of life in China has improved markedly. It's no longer a communist shithole, but is actually becoming a fairly nice place to live (once the pollution is cleared up and a few more political and economic reforms are introduced).[/QUOTE] I thought this was only true for the major cities, while the rest of China remains rather shitty?

[QUOTE=Emperor Scorpious II;47376901]I thought this was only true for the major cities, while the rest of China remains rather shitty?[/QUOTE] The major economic reforms started in the cities, but in the past decade or so it's really started taking effect in the rest of the country. The Chinese government has been pretty big on developing infrastructure (especially high speed rail) in the central and western parts of the country. They plan on massively cutting down the time it takes to travel to or from Lhasa or Urumqi and boosting economic development in those areas.

[QUOTE=apierce1289;47374768]My father is an electrician and thinks solar is a crock of shit. He won't install it on our house because the sales people won't put it in writing that he'll save any money. Not to mention the people that come and install that stuff aren't even licensed electrical contractors so they do hack jobs. He says if solar was so good he would know someone that has it and is saving money because of it. He has LED bulbs in his house and cut his energy bill in half. He confuses me with all the electrical talk but I tend to believe him because he's my father. Not sure what to believe about solar lol.[/QUOTE] where do you live, what is the direction of the slope on your roof, whats the size of your roof, whats the pitch to it, and whats the weather like, all these questions greatly affect the effectiveness of solar power not sure about the unlicenced electricians because solar panels require a fair bit of equipment being installed including changes to the utility panel which in most states would require a certified electrician. the guys who physically install the solar panels wouldn't be, but there's definitely an electrician that has to wire it up

[QUOTE=Used Car Salesman;47374515]Sweet. One of my future goals is to have a house with enough rooftop solar power to be more-or-less self-sustaining. From what I've heard they've gotten remarkably easy to install and operate. You basically mount a box on the wall next to the main fuse panel and splice it in to the outside power feed. The box automatically supplies all the house circuits from the solar panels, brings in outside power when more is needed, and sells excess power back to the grid. I even met some people once that rigged up a shed full of lead-acid car batteries to provide partial overnight power when the sun went down...and keep their homemade electric fence energized. Yeah, those people were kinda crazy.[/QUOTE] Could you keep a backup generator powered by solar during the day and when the sun goes down have the generator turn on and power the house through the night?

Yeah to China's credit cheap solar is more of a thing now because of ramped up production

[QUOTE=LtKyle2;47377304]Could you keep a backup generator powered by solar during the day and when the sun goes down have the generator turn on and power the house through the night?[/QUOTE] Do you mean a battery? If so, yeah, Solar City is doing that already. Would be nice to have a system that generates and stores energy from your own solar panels but automatically pulls in energy from the grid any time you need it. (Intelligently, like if it notices sustained above-average energy usage or if the weather forecast predicts poor sunlight for the next few days)

[QUOTE=Zeke129;47377648]Do you mean a battery? If so, yeah, Solar City is doing that already. Would be nice to have a system that generates and stores energy from your own solar panels but automatically pulls in energy from the grid any time you need it. (Intelligently, like if it notices sustained above-average energy usage or if the weather forecast predicts poor sunlight for the next few days)[/QUOTE] Batteries have shitty lifetimes though, they aren't really suited for that kind of energy storage. Don't forget batteries are pretty shitty to the environment when being produced iirc.

Since this is an initiative in the poorer sections of the cities, I'd be scared of people stealing the solar panels and selling them for profit elsewhere.

China is really concerned about it's pollution problem, and as far as i know, are some of the heaviest investors into green technology in the world at the moment. The Chinese government isn't actually happy about the current state of environmental affairs either. The widely known pollution has a pretty negative affect on the world's current perception of China, and that perception is costing them potentially billions in tourist money. Not to mention that it fucks themselves over in the long run once contaminated waterways and such start negatively affecting surrounding populations to the point where the government needs to intervene. Either cleaning the water or simply moving them somewhere else, both costing large sums of money.

[QUOTE=apierce1289;47374768]My father is an electrician and thinks solar is a crock of shit. He won't install it on our house because the sales people won't put it in writing that he'll save any money. Not to mention the people that come and install that stuff aren't even licensed electrical contractors so they do hack jobs. He says if solar was so good he would know someone that has it and is saving money because of it. He has LED bulbs in his house and cut his energy bill in half. He confuses me with all the electrical talk but I tend to believe him because he's my father. Not sure what to believe about solar lol.[/QUOTE] Solar really isn't worth it for most people unless you are doing it as a hobby. Now with 70% subsidies, it is super affordable... but likely still way too expensive for china's poorest. Keep in mind if you are making $500/mo that is considered doing well for yourself in china. With a 70% subsidy, assuming a simple rooftop setup costs $10K to install, you are still looking at spending $3000, which is way way above and beyond what the poor can afford in china (and honestly still beyond what the poor can afford in the US). With current solar prices, it will take the average home in the US about 15-25+ years depending on location to break even on savings vs cost of investment. In a lot of areas, you will never break even in a lifetime. Solar power for most people is more expensive than just staying on the grid, even after a significant chunk of time. The tech is extremely expensive and extremely inefficient. Maybe in the future it'll be worth it, but it really isn't right now unless you just want it as a hobby. Something like Nuclear is vastly more efficient and almost as clean, yet everyone is so scared of it nobody wants to touch it.

[QUOTE=KorJax;47379109]Solar really isn't worth it for most people unless you are doing it as a hobby. Now with 70% subsidies, it is super affordable... but likely still way too expensive for china's poorest. Keep in mind if you are making $500/mo that is considered doing well for yourself in china. With a 70% subsidy, assuming a simple rooftop setup costs $10K to install, you are still looking at spending $3000, which is way way above and beyond what the poor can afford in china (and honestly still beyond what the poor can afford in the US). With current solar prices, it will take the average home in the US about 15-25+ years depending on location to break even on savings vs cost of investment. In a lot of areas, you will never break even in a lifetime. Solar power for most people is more expensive than just staying on the grid, even after a significant chunk of time. The tech is extremely expensive and extremely inefficient. Maybe in the future it'll be worth it, but it really isn't right now unless you just want it as a hobby. Something like Nuclear is vastly more efficient and almost as clean, yet everyone is so scared of it nobody wants to touch it.[/QUOTE] Isn't the production of those photovoltaic panels hella harmful to the environment too? I feel like it doesn't even pay off for either consumer cost nor for the environment?

[QUOTE=KorJax;47379109]Solar really isn't worth it for most people unless you are doing it as a hobby. Now with 70% subsidies, it is super affordable... but likely still way too expensive for china's poorest. Keep in mind if you are making $500/mo that is considered doing well for yourself in china. With a 70% subsidy, assuming a simple rooftop setup costs $10K to install, you are still looking at spending $3000, which is way way above and beyond what the poor can afford in china (and honestly still beyond what the poor can afford in the US). With current solar prices, it will take the average home in the US about 15-25+ years depending on location to break even on savings vs cost of investment. In a lot of areas, you will never break even in a lifetime. Solar power for most people is more expensive than just staying on the grid, even after a significant chunk of time. The tech is extremely expensive and extremely inefficient. Maybe in the future it'll be worth it, but it really isn't right now unless you just want it as a hobby. Something like Nuclear is vastly more efficient and almost as clean, yet everyone is so scared of it nobody wants to touch it.[/QUOTE] On this note, I'm wondering if part of this solar panel subside is 70% subsidy is due to the fact that it can be rapidly installed and implemented when compared to building a nuclear power plant (which they are doing) a fair number of steps China is taking seem to be focusing on alleviating pollution on the short term through alternate methods when the full solution will take a longer time (such as building a nuclear power plant). I mean, next year they will be closing their final major coal power plant. [url]http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-24/beijing-to-close-all-major-coal-power-plants-to-curb-pollution[/url] Granted, they are still building more, but there certainly seems to be a push towards more efficient and greener methods of producing energy.

[QUOTE=venom;47392925]Isn't the production of those photovoltaic panels hella harmful to the environment too? I feel like it doesn't even pay off for either consumer cost nor for the environment?[/QUOTE] Eh depends if they're US panels they have to abide by strict epa requirements and even then the economics might force them to recycle solvents instead of dumping them of course some companies dont do either and get caught, chinese panels though all bets are off