[volkl48]

(To preface: I am strongly in favor of renewable energy overall).

To the extent that there is anything real to their dislike:

Poorly structured/overly generous homeowner net metering initiatives, especially for solar without storage, legitimately have escalated costs for everyone else in some regions.

The excessive subsidy given to those homeowners for power that's often not very valuable (as it comes primarily at a time of day that's already well supplied) comes from somewhere, and somewhere is....the pockets of everyone who doesn't have home rooftop solar.

And those people are typically poorer people in rented, denser housing than the average homeowner.

Most places have been moving to correct this mistake for the future (ex: CA's "Net Metering 3.0"), but that also gets pushback from people who wanted to take advantage of that unsustainable deal from the government or who incorrectly think it's a part of general anti-renewable pushes.

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Aside from that, in regions known for production of coal/oil/gas or major processing of, it's seen as a potential threat to jobs + mineral tax revenues that are often what underwrite most of their local/state government functions.

While there are plenty of job creation claims for renewables, it doesn't take a genius to see that they don't appear to need all that many workers once built, and that the manufacturing chain for the solar panels or wind turbines is probably not to be put in places like West Virginia, Midland TX, Alaska, etc.

[AtlasBarfed]

Highest demand for energy is during the day.

Highest output of solar is during the day.

Your comment about energy supply implies we just don't need any solar at all.

I think we need is a large set of incentives to do home solar with storage.

[volkl48]

My comment doesn't imply that at all. We absolutely need more solar, and a lot of it. Just that we don't necessarily need more of it everywhere without making accompanying storage investments. (+ possibly transmission investments).

We shouldn't be overpaying in generous subsidies to homeowners for power mid-day where it's now worth the least.

Early net metering schemes were often basically 1:1. You supply a kWh mid-day where it's not worth much and that's "equal" in value to you drawing a kWh at 18:30, even though the market price of electricity then might be 10x what it was when you earned your "credit" and the grid is far more strained.

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Most regions that already have a decent amount of behind the meter home solar at this point exhibit a strong "duck curve" effect, at least on sunnier days. Mid-day demand is deeply suppressed while solar output is strongest.

Meanwhile, the AM/PM peaks remain and are at times of the day when solar output is very low.

With more storage - solar can help cover those peaks (+ overnight demand). Without, you're not accomplishing all that much by just depressing mid-day loads even further unless you can restructure society to better match it's energy demands to those solar supply curves.

A few illustrations/articles:

https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=56880

https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=42915

https://www.iso-ne.com/about/where-we-are-going/solar-power-... (New England).

[PaulDavisThe1st]

Highest demand for energy in residential areas is generally at the beginning and end of the work day, which is not when solar peaks at all.

p.s. owner of self-installed 7kW ground mount array in New Mexico