Tuesday, April 03, 2012

Juliane Poirier. Biggest douche in the universe.

Do you remember five days ago when I posted that Sonoma was the most retarded city in the universe? Here. Well, you can imagine my curiosity when I saw this article.

Solar Fun and Profit.

After all, I have a category in tweetdeck for any mentions of solar and profit. I want to be fair. If such a company were to exist, I'd have to stop my rants. So you can imagine my surprise when I saw they were talking about those car charging stations - that aren't even being used. I mean, if they aren't being used - how the eff do they know if they even work?

"The first public schools in the United States to be equipped with solar-powered charging stations are in Sonoma County, where four schools turn sunlight into money.

"It's an awesome project," says Les Crawford, superintendent of Sebastopol's Twin Hills District, which used local and federal bond money for a solar-energy system and vehicle-charging stations. "This solar project exceeded our expectations. Not only do we no longer use PG&E power, they are paying us a one-time incentive bonus of about $350,000 paid over five years, which will go into a maintenance fund for our solar equipment."


Self I said - what is this incentive bonus from PG&E? Because my local Costco isn't allowed to sell solar power back to the grid despite having 10% overcapacity at night. I blogged about it here.

That isn't the pressing question though. I'm curious how PG&E can hand out 350 grand to one city in California. And how many other cities/school districts have this deal?

"Alexis Persinger, architect for Twin Hills, explains that schools and solar systems make a perfect fit because schools can sell the power accumulated but not used during summer months. "PG&E wants people to use less power during the summer, because the statewide grid doesn't have enough electricity to run all the air conditioners in Los Angeles," says Persinger. "PG&E charges 30 cents per kilowatt hour at that time and will buy it at that same rate."

Okay. So they get that the grid in California can't even support - summer. And if that is the case - why can't Costco sell electricity back to the grid? You'd think they would take 10% at night any day of the week. Especially - summer.

"Persinger also sees added value in the charging stations. "They're a way for the district to encourage parents and employees to move into this new era of electric cars and solar panels."

I guess she doesn't read the news, because I think 5 large solar players fell out this week. Honestly, even I have started to lose track on how many. You need a frickin org chart to keep track of how they are connected. Q-cells caused a cascade. Or maybe it was Solar Millennium that caused the cascade. Which tipped over Solar Trust.

It's been a bloody week in green energy.

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