WAPA Should Stand for “What A Piece A…..”
Well, the jury’s still out. There are a few cautious proponents, but there are more vociferous opponents to the supposedly carved- in-granite deal in which garbage from our landfills in addition to pet coke, a by-product from the oil refinery will be burned to produce electricity.
We need to get rid of our landfills, we need to get rid of our garbage, and something needs to be done with the pet coke. We also “need” a utility which uses cheap alternative energy to produce power. Well, people need jobs and the government of the VI needs to feel like their in control of the power situation. But this is going to be adding to the green house gases that some of us are trying to reduce.
I’d prefer everyone have solar panels on their homes and generate their own electricity.
As Van jones says in his book, The Green Collar Economy, “Solar energy is as reliable as the sunrise; through solar-thermal and photovoltaics, we can harness the sun’s majestyto make abundant clean energy. Enough solar energy falls on the Earth’s surface in one hour to power all of human civilization for a year.”
Many of us have been calling solar energy a “no brainer” for those of us in the sunny tropics, but the governor and his administration keep trying to demonstrate that they have less than no brains.
We’ll see what happens……
August 13th, 2009 at 3:13 pm
First one has to believe that the greenhouse effect even exists. But that’s another suject.
WAPA is as you say backwards. But have you ever priced out wind or solar to run your house? I live in St. Thomas and have looked at it every which way. It’s ridiculously expensive. I guess if you’re okay with a 35 year payback it’s just fine. And there’s the rub. Add to that they you need enough panels and because our roofs are made at angles we don’t have enough roof space. So you’re tied into WAPA anyway.
Until the government really gets serious it’s unaffordable to use solar or wind. Why is this stuff so expensive to make? They know they got you so they sell it very high. So believe it or not it’s actually cheaper to use dreaded WAPA than installing solar. Sad.
August 13th, 2009 at 3:49 pm
If solar does not make sense for you down here in the islands, it will not make sense anywhere. There are some fairly hefty rebates from the VIEO, some of which I have already received. Then in the “bailout bill” they put in 30% tax credits (dollar for dollar deduct on your taxes) WITHOUT the previous $2,000 cap – so the sky is the limit. The rest of the incentive is WAPA – we now have a combination of the most expensive electricity on the planet and WAPA’s net meters. gosh, if it doesn’t work for people here, it won’t work anywhere.
August 13th, 2009 at 4:47 pm
Agreed Larry.
BIG Kahuna – Yes, we have priced out solar and wind here in the islands, and we did it before the $2,000 cap on the tax credit that Larry mentioned was lifted. Because we were too forward-thinking, we missed out on about $4500 in tax credits, but it was still worth it. We have 2 sets of 10 solar panels (115W each) on our roof, plus a solar hot water unit. All told, they take up about 1/3 of the south facing side of our roof. So theoretically we could triple the number of panels on the optimum side of the roof. But we don’t nee to. Our 2.4Kw system completely covers our electrical needs. Before summer came, more fans turned on, and a minor issue with the water pump consuming more than usual, we were banking excess electricity. We got about 400Kwh ahead. Now we’re more or less breaking even each month, still holding that 400Kwh buffer. Added bonus: Our power never goes out and WAPA inconsistencies that were killing our electronics and snuffing out compact flourescents in record time are a thing of the past.
Consider these numbers. Solar panel costs are dropping and will soon reach $1 per watt (we paid about $7/W for ours). At that rate $440 million dollars would buy 440 Megawatts of solar production. Lets say half the cost would actually go to other equipment, such as inverters and installation and such. So were down to 220MWs. Lets say the cost panels, even bought on this mass scale, hasn’t quite reached $1/watt yet, half it again. 110MW is still more than double the output from these two plants they are considering, and there would be no fuel costs, ever.
August 13th, 2009 at 11:31 pm
Did you hear on Roger W’s that Allpine seems to have a connection to Elite? As in a company formed just to make gov’t contracts?
Someone compared it to 6905
Wish there were podcasts to review…
August 14th, 2009 at 9:24 am
I smell a lot of politics and some quick fix-itis in this one. While it may help the landfill situation, it won’t benefit the environment or local economy much. The large foot in the door committing to 20 years of burning petroleum coke is a problem. The only worse choice would have been coal.
August 19th, 2009 at 4:44 pm
Here in Washington and the surrounding Maryland suburbs, combining every incentive possible with the sale of renewable energy credits, I have both anecdotal and verified evidence that paybacks are down to 4 years in some cases, averaging between 7 and 10 (we’re still running the numbers on about 260 projects). I’ll be installing 2.2 kilowatts of thin-film on my home next spring, and expect my payback will be about 8.5 years. Not sure what’s going on down that way, but I recall VIEO having some pretty good incentives.
And since when was anything purely economic? Does someone consider ROI on the cost of a new television or personal car? Maybe, but I think that’s a bit of a strawman.
Good luck with this project though; I’m not really sure what to make of it just yet. The first few commenters are right-if you can’t make PV and wind work there, it shouldn’t work anywhere. Wholesale panels are down to $2/watt though, so most of the rest is pure profit. In this area we’re looking at an average of $9 or so installed, which is still high. Getting down to $5/6 would help a lot of people. One model worth exploring is tax financing through conveyable property tax assessments.
August 20th, 2009 at 10:58 am
Hey Emil, Good to hear from you!
Time will tell whether the deal with Alpine is strictly political (you know – maybe the big guys in government couldn’t get a big enough piece of the action from the solar and wind companies)…….