
New homes will now require solar panels in South Miami - xbmcuser
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/south-miami/article162307863.html
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brudgers
For context, South Miami is a small city (~12k population) in the Miami Dade
Metro. It is pretty close to 100% built out. There are not large developable
tracts for subdivisions. I suspect that most new homes are teardowns (and
hence the 75% rule).

In terms of regulation, Florida has had an energy code for new houses since
the 1970's. Florida has regulated windows by orientation (i.e. solar gain) and
air conditioning efficiency and insulation for decades. This is just one small
local addition to an existing regulatory framework.

In terms of politics, South Miami is not a libertarian paradise and Florida is
not a do what you want with your land state. That's why its happening there
and not in Wyoming.

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JustSomeNobody
> If the house is built under existing trees, the shade may exempt it.

Maybe this will stop them from simply clearing a site. We have many beautiful
old trees in Florida that just get destroyed when new housing goes up. They
then plant of bunch of tiny junk trees after construction. It's truly sad.

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humanrebar
I understand the desire behind this sort of regulation, but it ends up pricing
working and middle class families out of homes in the long run:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/LosAngeles/comments/6lvwh4/im_an_ar...](https://www.reddit.com/r/LosAngeles/comments/6lvwh4/im_an_architect_in_la_specializing_in_multifamily/)

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melling
I don’t think mandating ground parking is the same as requiring solar panels
on the roof. Solar will eventually pay for itself?

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ars
> Solar will eventually pay for itself

In 10 to 30 years.

In the meantime you have to pay the capital costs upfront, so the home will be
more expensive upfront.

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dx034
The whole house will take that long to pay for itself. Any new home that pays
off earlier points towards a bubble.

So if you assume that it takes 30 years until the house has amortised (via
rent or saved rent), why not assume the same for the solar roof?

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TheSpiceIsLife
_“So even if we were were going to give up one-sixth of that, it would still
be 1 percent of our budget. Where is the substitute?”_

Well, if the Mayor himself has an electricity bill of ~$10 per month then the
shortfall in city's budget could be made up by increase rates.

The article doesn't address how the city thinks it will handle intermittent
nature of solar power. I don't know much about Miami's electricity generation
to know whether there are existing peaking plants that can cope?

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usrusr
The intermittent nature of solar power correlates nicely with the intermittent
nature of air conditioning power consumption. Miami is unlikely to run out of
airconditioning demand any time soon.

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vonmoltke
Not in South Florida. Air Conditioning demand is 24-hour there, and day/night
temperature swings are pretty small.

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criddell
That's true, but off peak hours it's easy (and cheap) to buy power from
neighboring states.

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CalRobert
Neat and all, but I wonder how this affects people who barely use electricity?
In San Diego in winter months my normal load was 50-70 Watts with an electric
bill around $10 per month; this seems like enormous overcapacity. Negawatts
are better than megawatts...

That being said, I'm still very much in favor.

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sheldor
Doesn't the aesthetic factor count at all? The panels are ugly (to say the
least) and they tend to blind you when the sun is at certain angles.

I'm all for efficiency and green-er energy, but I think we should find a
balance between an effective solution and an aesthetically acceptable one.

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EliRivers
Perhaps we can alter what people think looks beautiful so they find solar
panels pretty.

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usrusr
Happens automatically: a few years of seeing clean new buildings with panels
and badly maintained buildings without will rewire many brains. It's the basic
mechanism of fashion and design trends.

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dsfyu404ed
It's like how after 20 years of jellybean cars all the OEMs slap an angry
looking grill on their jellybean to prevent people from associating it with
the clapped out 90s Camry the janitor drives.

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Fej
Good! We need every inch we can muster in the fight against global
warming/heating. And I mean, come on, Miami is perfect for this.

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gravypod
It's important to remember that if something is mandated than people can
charge anything for that product/service.

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CPLX
That is literally nonsense.

Consuming food is effectively mandated by biology and there is incredible
competition in the sector.

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RoyTyrell
> Consuming food is effectively mandated by biology and there is incredible
> competition in the sector.

While I understand your point, I don't agree with your analogy. The reason is
because yes food production has a lot of competition, however it is easier to
produce and less expensive.

You can grow small quantities of food at home with about a $20 investment into
pots, soil, and seeds - of which that $20 can be spread over multiple years.
However you can't as easily produce solar panels at home. Solar panels with
the efficiency they have now has taken decades and billions of USD spent in
r&d. The production itself takes multiple large buildings, expensive
equipment, and many specialized people.

While yes my family in Nebraska has thousands of acres to produce corn, or my
family in California has hundreds of acres of pasture land for milk
production, I can guaranty you that they couldn't easily and cheaply switch to
solar panels.

Then there's the whole aspect of installation. Not everyone in the country can
install solar panels in South Miami but it's a hell of a lot easier for a farm
in California to sell tomatoes to a supermarket in Ohio. I'm sure the state of
FL requires some kind of license, including bonds and insurance for
contractors to operate. Probably also requires at least one licensed
electrician. You can't just be a CraigsList handyman today and do solar-panel
installation tomorrow; at least legally and correctly.

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CPLX
My analogy works just fine.

My point is that the fact that a good is necessary for life or mandated by a
government has nothing to do with how competitive the market is for supplying
it.

The original comment is nonsensical, supply and demand have different curves
with different elasticities. A government mandate affects the demand curve not
the supply curve.

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exabrial
Why is it ok to force someone to buy something?

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Sleeep
We do this all the time.

If you want a car you're forced to buy a catalytic converter, it's illegal to
buy a car without one and it's illegal to operate a car without one. If you
want to drive on public streets you are forced to pay to register your car
then on top of that you are forced to buy liability insurance. You're also
forced to buy a car seat if you're driving with a small child. In many states
you are forced to pay for regular safety and emissions inspections and forced
to pay for any negative findings.

It's also generally illegal to dump human waste in your front yard so you're
forced to buy a toilet and pay to connect it to the sewage system or pay for a
septic tank. And then forced to pay to maintain that septic tank.

You're also forced to buy flame retardant building materials that are
structurally sound and appropriate for the location you're building.

Businesses generally have to pay to dispose of environmental waste properly
too so that cost is bundled into many products.

Why? Because nobody lives in a bubble where their actions don't have an effect
on everyone else around them. We try to balance individual liberties with
collective good.

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vibrant
What a disaster, end of American freedom. Now politicians telling you what to
do or not do about your home.

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new299
There are a huge number of laws that apply to building a home, and have for a
long long time.

To single out this law, which appears to be an overwhelmingly a good idea, as
the "bad" one, seem a bit nonsensical.

If your against all regulation of building, then that might be a stand that
you could try argue for. But to pick out this one new law seems weird.

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loudmax
I'm in agreement that solar panels in south Florida are a good idea, and that
to single out this law as an end of American freedom is ridiculous. But we
have to admit that this isn't the best way to address the problem. The law
exempts houses in the case of shade, but there are are bound to be other edge
cases where solar panels don't make sense. IMHO, the ideal way to address the
problem of carbon dioxide emissions would be to tax it. A hefty carbon tax
combined with a flexible electric utility infrastructure would do more to
reduce emissions than compelling one particular house design over another.

Given that one of America's political parties has rejected the scientific
evidence behind anthropogenic climate change and more or less equates taxation
with theft, I don't foresee a carbon tax in the US any time soon. Compelling
people to buy solar panels isn't a good law, but it might be the closest we
can get in the current environment.

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KekDemaga
My thoughts are it seems that you either have to pick "mandate solar panels on
homes" or "build more affordable housing" as both views don't seem to work
together.

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spodek
A great idea for 20 years ago.

Better late than never, and a law 20 years ago would have to have been
appropriate for the technology of the time, but the something of this spirit.

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zappo2938
Huge parts of Miami and Fort Lauderdale are completely underwater on a full
moon. Climate change is going to be a disaster for the area with billions if
not trillions of dollars worth of property underwater.

