Can some of you math majors show me the savings and payback including maintenance on this please?What am I missing here?


http://www.contracostatimes.com/ci_1...nclick_check=1

Yosemite park to build major solar power system
The Associated Press
Posted: 05/17/2010 01:36:40 PM PDT
Updated: 05/17/2010 01:36:40 PM PDT

YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK, Calif.—Yosemite National Park soon will be home to the largest solar energy project in the national park system.

Federal officials said Monday that the park will install a 539-kilowatt photovoltaic electric system with $4.4 million in funding from the federal stimulus package.

Construction is scheduled to begin next month at the El Portal Maintenance Complex, where solar panels will be mounted on the roofs of existing buildings and new parking structures to shade government vehicles.

The system is expected generate about 800,000 kilowatt hours of electricity annually. Officials say it will save up to $104,000 per year and cut the amount of electricity purchased off the grid by nearly 12 percent.

 

You can't. It's one of those "Govbent" feel good things by spending taxpayers dollars......

MikeyB

 

ABSOLUTELY Mikey!!! Besides Iroc, it is being done in Commiefornia. When have they ever done anything that is cash flow positive???????

Besides, if 800,000 KWH =12% savings, by my math the state only uses a little more than 6,666,666 KWH per year. That recurring "666" kinda makes you wonder don't it??????

Must be "EVIL" government calcs!!!!!! LOLOL

Gary

 

Why not in the mojave desert? Somewhere nobody has to look at it?

Maybe Pelosi is gonna secretly use these as giant mirrors to send morse code into space and finally be able to talk back to all the voices in her head...

 

, now that's funny

 

Let's see: $4.4 million cost divided by $104,000 savings, asuming no maintenance costs over its life (yeah, right) that is a payback in only 42 years.

Who wants to place a bet that the original installation is still going in 42 years when the thing is finally breaking even. These frigging, bunny huggin hippies are ruining this country at a phenomenal rate. I grew up in Commifornia and have fond memories of what a neat place it was back in the 50's and 60's. I fell in love with my bride in 1972 in Yosemite park. I saw where it was going and escaped in 1980 to Colorado and never regretted it. Too bad the whole country is going the way of the left coast. We're hosed!

 

There is an efficiency loss when running electricity over long distances, better to put the panels where you need them to minimize the loss. I priced out solar panels and the payback is 5-7 years if I install them myself. so 42 years sounds about right after you calculate labor, setup, safety, insurance, overhead, pork spending and politicizing costs to make it look like you are going to save the world with your squanderous gesture of "going green".

 

42 years at todays energy prices. How much has electric gone up in the past 10 years? The payback will be shorter specially if there is a dramatic increase in energy in the next 10 years .

 

Quote:

"Under my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates will necessarily skyrocket".

Unquote:

BO, aka the Pres, aka POTUS, aka the boy who would be king.

 

Its not the amount used by the state it is the amount used by the park.

 

What’s the alternative to trying to use renewable power?

 

On a side note the savings are based on 13 cents a kilowatt. Anybody on here from around the park know what they pay for power? Just wondering if it is based on actual cost or not.

 

I have just recently been getting bids on solar for where I work. From the quote I have right in front of me lets see how this pencils out.

Our bid is for 30 kilowats(approx 33% of our usage) of panels and the price installed is $146,000.00. Our power company, Xcel, will give us a $60,000.00 rebate on this system. There is also a federal rebate of $44,755 on the system for a net out of pocket cost of $41,245 for this project. Our payback is based on 4.2 cents/kwh with a 5% cost increase per year. Along with the section 179 depreciation rules our out of pocket payback is 2 years. Not counting any rebates or section 179 depreciation (the whole 146k cost) payback is right around 10 years.

Lets forget about the rebates and just focus on the actual cost. Now 30kilowats is substantially less than 539kwatts they are going to use so lets convert it. 539/30=18 18 X $146,000=$2,628,000 way less(approx 1.8 mil less) than the $4.4 million they are quoting. Sounds like mr contractor is using a bunch of those $200.00 government hammers to install the system. 40% more than what we would pay for the equivalent system, now I know we are not really comparing apples to apples but 40% more seems a bit much. Especially if you consider for that amount of panels you would think they would get some sort of volume discount compared to our quote. They are also entitled to power rebates from power company but not the federal incentives according to the CA solar rebate site
http://www.gosolarcalifornia.ca.gov/csi/rebates.html
Which may or may not be included in the proposal but you would certainly think they would be at the very least to make it look better. So if they are in the total cost of the sytem it is actually worse than it appears.

So with the info (granted it is limited) I have and my crude calculation I have to assume the contractor is gouging the government. Or possibly the cost also includes the cost of the "new parking structures to shade the govenment vehicles" Which seems a bit of a frivolous use of my/our tax dollars. My truck doesnt get shade as much as I would like it to because I dont have the money to build a freaking sunshade for it. So I do without and my poor truck has to bake in the merciless sun everyday justlike it has for the past 10 years. So at great expense, time, effort, humiliation and what I would consider great undue mental stress I have to roll down the windows when I get in it on a sunny day. Then to top it off I have turn on the air conditioner and roll the darn windows backup just to do it all over again the next time. Wonder if I could get a stimulus package for my truck sunshade, I think the government owes me a sunshade better go write my Congressman and Senator to see about getting one.

By the way I am all for solar power and see no reason not to use it wherever possible as long as the cost and conditions merit its use.

 

Thank you Barry.

 

But wait,there is more..

“We are very excited about this project and grateful that the Recovery Act funding became available for us to begin the installation this summer,” added Yosemite Superintendent Don Neubacher. “This energy-saving photovoltaic project reflects Yosemite National Park’s commitment to sustainable and renewable energy sources.”

The rooftop and shade-structure mounted solar panels, to be installed beginning this summer at the El Portal Maintenance Complex, are expected to generate approximately 800,000 kilowatt hours of electricity annually. This will result in almost a 12 percent savings on electricity purchased off the grid, the Park Service said.

El Portal, the park’s administrative center, was chosen as the location for the solar panels based on the high amount of direct sunlight the site receives.

The solar panels will be installed on the roofs of existing buildings and on newly constructed shade structures in which government vehicles will be parked under. At 13 cents per kilowatt hour, the park is projecting a savings of up to $104,000 per year.

The Assumption

tart spending money for solar now in small, pilot-scale installations.

Your 40 years to recoup the investment misses a lot, but is probably in the right ballpark. The biggest omission is rising (real) electrical costs over the next decades, which will greatly shorten the payoff period. Foregone interest on that $4.4M would extend the payoff period, but interest rates are low and I expect electricity prices to rise much faster than inflation over the coming years. The PV panels are likely to need to be replaced at least once over the next 40 years, but the mounting hardware and wiring won't need to be replaced, and the PV panels will be much cheaper in 15 years.

But, note that NPS isn't rolling out PV solar everywhere, but only in a couple of locations. [Some remote Alaskan parks are starting to use PV because it is cost-effective now given transmission costs.] The lessons learned from trying to install PV on rooftops and shade structures at Yosemite are likely to be valuable over the next decade or more as PV prices come down and electricity prices go up. NPS will have data from Yosemite about the actual costs & efficiencies of decentralized PV, and thus will be able to make better economic decisions about when to roll out PV elsewhere. It will also have several years empirical experience on installing & maintaining PV, again, with substantial benefit in operational efficiency once PV is worth deploying widely. A good optimal investment strategy won't wait until results from other applications suggest PV will pay for itself for NPS, it will invest a small amount now in order to have the information to make better decisions and realize greater efficiency when the big investments are made in the future (or, to determine that the big investments would be a mistake and not spend the money). Therefore, the way I see it, the $4.4M investment now has a substantial return on investment over the next 20 years or so, and is a pretty smart thing to do. And no, I have nothing to do with PV or Yosemite (or business sense)

The Reality

Submitted by Kath on May 18, 2010 - 2:26pm.
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We aren't talking about foregone interest on the $4.4 million. This is borrowed money so you have to calculate how much in interest the government is paying out on top of the 4.4, which makes the expenditure even more[/COLOR]. And yes electricity rates are likely to rise, but here in L. A. they are being raised to pay for the increased costs of going 'green'.

Conserving electricity doesn't cost anything. You don't have to go into more debt to do it. Yosemite should evaluate where it uses electricity and then evaluate how they can use less.