Solar Subsidies

The biggest concern for anyone who installs a solar system is, "will the price drop right after I buy mine?"

I suppose you can't time the market. One may never get in at the bottom, or the 'right' time. Investments in alternative energies are fraught with uncertainty. This partially explains why they comprise less than 0.3% of our total energy needs.

Late last year I read that Spain announced they'd be ditching their subsidy programs. I am a fan of European feed-in tariffs, which, unlike the U.S., provides for a fixed rate of return for your solar energy. This is the reason solar is so much more widely accepted in Europe, because it removes risk and uncertainty. Sure...solar panels might drop by 85% within two years of your installation, but if you are receiving a fixed rate for your energy, it matters less. What you've done by installing early is assume some risk for leading the curve, which is acceptable, but to shoulder all the risk? I ask all, because the social benefits of widescale PV production are immense; everyone gains by incremental PV generation, but not everyone has a stake in losing.

That's what I've done by building my own PV, and what everyone else will face if they install their own system: if prices drop, we'll have eaten 100% of the risk. And why, unless you're some ardent environmentalist or imbecilic capitalist, would anyone do that?

Your typical Hannitzed conservative would instruct that alternative subsidies are inherently bad and free markets should dictate the pricing of alternatives and the pricing of delivered energy. When the market determines that its prudent to install PV, then that's when you ought to do it. If the market fails to provide those signals, all the while we wage multi-front wars to secure foreign energy, while we produce less and less domestic energy each year, while we face a possible future climate calamity, while we deal with thousands of asthma attacks and pollution related premature deaths, while we turn our cities into autocentric suburban shitholes not worth caring about...well, you shouldn't do it.

I heard today, that due in part to Spain's subsidy reduction, the price of U.S. PV systems is falling because there is less demand. Will I take it in the shorts for having installed mine in 2007?