Government spends millions to save thousands!
October 2nd, 2009 at 9:22 am (Bermuda, Economics)
Government misses the point. Spends millions to save thousands. Shows utter inability to invest our money wisely. Again.
The Solar Photovoltaic Rebate Initiative, which launched yesterday, will offer residents a rebate of up to $5,000 for the instillation of solar panels.
Rebates are offered at $1 per watt up to a limit of 5,000 watts, or five kilowatts, per home.
A single solar panel can produce more than 300 watts from sunlight.
The Department of Energy spokesperson said that initiative will continue until the funding, $500,000 according to the 2009/2010 Budget, runs out.
The spokesperson said: “The subsidy programme is designed to encourage hundreds of homeowners to install photovoltaic systems on their property and to stimulate the local solar instillation market.”
Great, right?
Not so much. They’re spending half a million dollars ($7.36 per resident) to subsidize the solar electric industry… With current technology solar electric systems produce small amounts of power at huge cost. Meanwhile, solar water heaters pay for themselves right now, today.
In short – spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to save thousands of dollars of electricity when there are options that allow one to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to save hundreds of thousands of dollars of electricity.
Terrible cost/benefit. Terrible use of our money.
Typical.
Ventril said,
October 5, 2009 at 12:40 pm
If the intent is to save electricity, an even simpler plan would be to subsidize people to replace old hot water heaters with new efficient ones.
Tips said,
October 5, 2009 at 3:42 pm
The Onion is right. Solar water heaters and windmills should be way higher on the list than photovoltaics.
Ventril,
If you are talking about electric heaters the difference in efficiency between an old tank-type water heater and a newer one is minimal at best. Tankless is a bit better but probably not worthy of a subsidy. Heat pump water heaters offer very substantial energy savings (comparable to even solar which actually DOES require electricity) but don’t seem to be ready for the single-family home market yet. When it comes to the typical Bermudian household, solar water heating is the greenest and most cost-effective way to heat your water. In my opinion, it should be legally required for all new home construction as it is now in places like Israel.
New Onion » Blog Archive » More hot water… no, not the Mid Ocean News said,
October 5, 2009 at 11:30 pm
[...] makes a couple of good points in a comment. …the difference in efficiency between an old tank-type water heater and a newer one is [...]