Vote NO on Amendment 1

[finehoe]

LOL. The Supreme Court of Florida is known for leaning to the left.

Maybe in the far-right sources you read, but academic research found the Florida Supreme Court to be the 8th most conservative court in the country: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2169664

"JEA is a body politic and corporate of the City of Jacksonville created pursuant to chapter 92-341, Special Acts, Laws of Florida." Even JEA's alliance with other power companies was described by the Supreme Court as an association "in the nature of a public or quasi-public entity organized primarily to discharge duties to the public or to provide a governmental benefit."

JEA is in the minority.  Approximately 93% of the electricity sold to consumers in the US is from private companies: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1022064

[Tacachale]

I still cant believe this is on a ballot.

Florida Supreme Court, five members appointed by Republicans; two appointed by Democrats.

Believe it.

LOL. The Supreme Court of Florida is known for leaning to the left.

Pariente (Chiles), Perry (Crist), Quince (Chiles), and Lewis (Chiles) are strongly to the Left while Labarga (Crist) is probably a swing vote but has some tendencies on certain issues that lean more liberal. Polston (Crist) and Canady (Bush) would be the only conservatives on the Court according to any legal observer.

True.

Most of the power companies.

Sorry, they aren't quasi-governmental agencies, they are private, for-profit corporations.

"JEA is a body politic and corporate of the City of Jacksonville created pursuant to chapter 92-341, Special Acts, Laws of Florida." Even JEA's alliance with other power companies was described by the Supreme Court as an association "in the nature of a public or quasi-public entity organized primarily to discharge duties to the public or to provide a governmental benefit." Why do you think they have monopolies on different areas? Companies like Duke Energy skirt this line but they are still formed on local levels as quasi-governmental.

JEA is publicly owned. It's also not one of the companies pushing for Amendment 1.

[finehoe]

True.

Not true:



https://ballotpedia.org/Political_outlook_of_state_supreme_court_justices

[FlaBoy]

True.

Not true:



https://ballotpedia.org/Political_outlook_of_state_supreme_court_justices

I am now just interested in how they came up with this. Among the legal community, whether Republicans or Democrats, Justices Pariente, Quince, Perry, and Lewis are seen as more liberal members. The GOP openly campaigned against Pariente, Quince and Lewis in 2014. Actually, the Court is about to head in a very conservative direction with Justice Perry leaving this year and Pariente, Quince, and Lewis leaving in 2018 due to the 70 rule. The next Governor will appoint three Justices immediately. If it is Putnam, he and Scott will most likely work in unison on that as to fill the Court earlier.

[bencrix]

http://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/support-for-the-anti-solar-amendment-1-is-plummeting-poll-says-8890840

Floridians finally seem to be getting the message about the bogus amendment. According to a new poll released by Saint Leo University, support for Amendment 1 has dropped from 84 percent of the state in September to 59.8 percent in October.

Because 60 percent of voters need to approve the amendment before it passes, Saint Leo's poll shows that — if the downward trend continues — citizens are on their way to killing the initiative.

[finehoe]

Tesla CEO Elon Musk unveiled the company's latest technology: solar cell roof tiles.

The glass tiles, of which there are four different styles, look almost identical to conventional roof tiles, making them the sleeker evolution of the bulky solar panel that has become a hallmark of energy-efficient living. Despite their quartz glass composition, the tiles are apparently both stronger than and approximate the look of traditional materials like clay and slate.

"Musk said the secret to the tiles' appearance is a special coating that becomes more or less see-through depending on your viewing angle," Wired reported. "He described it as a series of micro louvers that work like a privacy screen on a laptop, and said the company is working with 3M on the technology."

"The effect is dramatic in person. From shallow angles, the tiles appear nontransparent. But as your viewing angle approaches 90 degrees, the underlying solar cell becomes more and more visible. The result is a tile that permits the passage of sunlight from overhead, but still looks opaque to anyone at ground level."

Tesla's innovation is meant to offer a more attractive, accessible and enticing solar roof. "It needs to be beautiful, affordable, and seamlessly integrated," Musk said. "If all of those things are true, why would you go any other direction?"

Pricing, availability and installation details are yet to be disclosed, although the solar roof tiles are intended to work in tandem with the Tesla Powerwall, a home battery system for which Musk also revealed a newer, thinner version on Friday. Both systems are part of Tesla's planned merge with SolarCity.

https://www.wired.com/2016/10/tesla-unveils-new-line-camouflaged-solar-panels/

[Chris Hand]

In a media conference call this morning, former Florida Governor and Senator Bob Graham urged Floridians to vote NO on Amendment 1. Here are a few clips:

news4jax.com/news/politics/graham-criticizes-solar-ballot-initiative

tampabay.com/blogs/the-buzz-florida-politics/bob-grahams-warns-amendment-1-will-set-the-states-energy-progress-backwards/2300913?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

floridapolitics.com/archives/226072-bob-graham-says-passage-amendment-1-affect-solar-initiative-passed-august

tallahassee.com/story/news/2016/11/01/bob-graham-calls-defeat-solar-amendment/93114390

[spuwho]

Tesla CEO Elon Musk unveiled the company's latest technology: solar cell roof tiles.

The glass tiles, of which there are four different styles, look almost identical to conventional roof tiles, making them the sleeker evolution of the bulky solar panel that has become a hallmark of energy-efficient living. Despite their quartz glass composition, the tiles are apparently both stronger than and approximate the look of traditional materials like clay and slate.

"Musk said the secret to the tiles' appearance is a special coating that becomes more or less see-through depending on your viewing angle," Wired reported. "He described it as a series of micro louvers that work like a privacy screen on a laptop, and said the company is working with 3M on the technology."

"The effect is dramatic in person. From shallow angles, the tiles appear nontransparent. But as your viewing angle approaches 90 degrees, the underlying solar cell becomes more and more visible. The result is a tile that permits the passage of sunlight from overhead, but still looks opaque to anyone at ground level."

Tesla's innovation is meant to offer a more attractive, accessible and enticing solar roof. "It needs to be beautiful, affordable, and seamlessly integrated," Musk said. "If all of those things are true, why would you go any other direction?"

Pricing, availability and installation details are yet to be disclosed, although the solar roof tiles are intended to work in tandem with the Tesla Powerwall, a home battery system for which Musk also revealed a newer, thinner version on Friday. Both systems are part of Tesla's planned merge with SolarCity.

https://www.wired.com/2016/10/tesla-unveils-new-line-camouflaged-solar-panels/

Solar shingles have been around for a few years now, but they more challenging to wire up. Hopefully Tesla has improved it.

The radio ads are getting more irritating and condescending this week.

[JHAT76]

They are ready to take this to Legislature too:

Since January 2015, $20 million of the industry's profits went to finance and promote Amendment 1, the ballot initiative that attempts to frustrate the expansion of consumer-owned rooftop solar in Florida. And another $22 million more went to fuel the campaigns of a select group of powerful legislative leaders in an effort to prepare for a prolonged war against rooftop solar.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/election/article111832342.html#storylink=cpy

[JHAT76]

"If the utility has to pay retail rates for net metered generation, the utility could be losing money during the ramp hours.  Also, the utility may be buying excess solar at a time of day when they have cheaper generation on or ramping."

Except that the utility pays nothing for the solar system. The energy created by the solar system costs JEA nothing. ZERO. ZIP. NADA.
Why would JEA be entitled to make any money on the solar system, since they have invested nothing into it?  The credit to the solar owner is nice, and an important part of the equation, but the reduction in monthly electricity charges is what makes this work. If our state leaders got behind the concept we could implement the systems on a vastly larger scale, bring installation and manufacturing costs down even more.


"This is a good conversation to have, although I feel a constitutional amendment is not the way to go."

Agree with you 100%!!

Under the current billing model, net metering pays retail rates for electricity which include distribution expenses rolled into the electricity rate that are in excess of the line rate.  So JEA doesn't get the power for free.

1 allows urilities, on a county-by-county basis, with the approval of the state regulator and the county boards to change the net metering rate such that they would only have to pay wholesale (generation) rates for excess power rather than retail rates (generation + distribution). Ultimately under the proposal, utilities will end up having to pay power plants and individuals the same for their produced power without providing a subsidy to the consumers using solar panels by pay the retail rather than the wholesale rate for their excess power.

[spuwho]

They are ready to take this to Legislature too:

Since January 2015, $20 million of the industry's profits went to finance and promote Amendment 1, the ballot initiative that attempts to frustrate the expansion of consumer-owned rooftop solar in Florida. And another $22 million more went to fuel the campaigns of a select group of powerful legislative leaders in an effort to prepare for a prolonged war against rooftop solar.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/election/article111832342.html#storylink=cpy

Interesting double standard here.

The #1 advertising says it will take the decisions away from lazy politicians, yet the same groups are the ones giving all this money to same politicians.

So basically, if its an amendment, they save money on lobbying costs as well. Who zoomin who?

[BridgeTroll]

Tesla CEO Elon Musk unveiled the company's latest technology: solar cell roof tiles.

The glass tiles, of which there are four different styles, look almost identical to conventional roof tiles, making them the sleeker evolution of the bulky solar panel that has become a hallmark of energy-efficient living. Despite their quartz glass composition, the tiles are apparently both stronger than and approximate the look of traditional materials like clay and slate.

"Musk said the secret to the tiles' appearance is a special coating that becomes more or less see-through depending on your viewing angle," Wired reported. "He described it as a series of micro louvers that work like a privacy screen on a laptop, and said the company is working with 3M on the technology."

"The effect is dramatic in person. From shallow angles, the tiles appear nontransparent. But as your viewing angle approaches 90 degrees, the underlying solar cell becomes more and more visible. The result is a tile that permits the passage of sunlight from overhead, but still looks opaque to anyone at ground level."

Tesla's innovation is meant to offer a more attractive, accessible and enticing solar roof. "It needs to be beautiful, affordable, and seamlessly integrated," Musk said. "If all of those things are true, why would you go any other direction?"

Pricing, availability and installation details are yet to be disclosed, although the solar roof tiles are intended to work in tandem with the Tesla Powerwall, a home battery system for which Musk also revealed a newer, thinner version on Friday. Both systems are part of Tesla's planned merge with SolarCity.

https://www.wired.com/2016/10/tesla-unveils-new-line-camouflaged-solar-panels/

Solar shingles have been around for a few years now, but they more challenging to wire up. Hopefully Tesla has improved it.

The radio ads are getting more irritating and condescending this week.

Consumer Reports crunched the numbers...

http://www.consumerreports.org/roofing/heres-how-much-teslas-new-solar-roof-shingles-could-cost/

Here's How Much Tesla's New Solar Roof Could Cost
CEO Elon Musk claims installing the solar tiles would be as cheap as a regular roof—so we do some number crunching

By Daniel DiClerico
November 02, 2016

Can you really install a solar roof on your home that would cost about as much—or even less—than a regular roof? That's the claim Tesla CEO Elon Musk made Friday when he announced plans to create Solar Roof tiles that will "look better than a normal roof, generate electricity, last longer, have better insulation, and actually have an installed cost that is less than a normal roof plus the cost of electricity."

Tesla's Solar Roof tiles would be made of glass over a photovoltaic substrate. Unlike aftermarket solar panels, they stand in for traditional roofing materials and look like the real thing from the ground.

That's an important distinction, aimed squarely at one of the hurdles to the wider adoption of solar: the questionable aesthetics of those black silicon panels. Tesla unveiled four styles: smooth glass tile, textured glass tile, Tuscan glass tile, and slate glass tile.

"People like the idea of being energy efficient, but solar panels can be an eyesore," says Giovanni Bozzolo, a partner at Roof4Less roofing in Seattle, Wash. "To be able to combine the energy savings with aesthetics would be a very big thing in the industry. But the pricing has to be right."   

Musk didn't provide specifics on how much the tiles will cost, and a company spokeswoman told Consumer Reports, "we haven't released details on pricing" when we followed up.

That begs the question: What will the Tesla Solar Roof have to cost in order to be the no-brainer proposition Musk describes?
We've run some numbers and determined that a textured glass tile Solar Roof should cost no more than $73,500, installed, to be competitive with an asphalt roof.

How We Did the Math
To get there, we pulled together ballpark pricing for the various roofing materials Tesla's solar shingles mimic, from sources like the Slate Roofing Contractors Association, the Tile Roofing Institute, and the Remodeling 2016 Cost vs. Value Report.     

There are plenty of variables, of course, including the location of the home and shape and height of the roof. (And we're leaving out any consideration of solar rebates and incentives.) But here's what the installed costs look like for the roughly 3,000 square feet of roofing needed to cover an average size home in the U.S.

Clay Tile: $16,000
Asphalt: $20,000
Slate: $45,000

So how could a $73,500 roof be considered cost-competitive with a $20,000 asphalt roof? To compensate for the proposed added value of the "free" electricity from Tesla's roof, we added in $2,000 a year, over the lifespan of the roof. That's a typical electric bill in states where solar is big, like California, Texas, and North Carolina.
Tesla says the life expectancy of its tiles will be 30 years. So that adds $60,000 to the value of the roof. (Our rough estimate assumes our hypothetical Solar Roof homes generate exactly as much electricity as they use.)

One final factor: the Tesla Solar Roof will work like any rooftop solar system, connecting to your home's electric panel through an inverter. You could stop there, but the system is being packaged alongside Tesla's forthcoming Powerwall 2.0, a battery storage device with a built-in inverter and an installed cost of $6,500. Combining Solar Roof and Powerwall 2.0, Musk promises, will power an entire home with 100 percent renewable energy.

The easy way to factor in the cost of a Powerwall to our roofing calculation is to subtract it from the value of the electricity over the life of the roof. So $60,000 worth of electricity becomes $53,500. (Though we should note that the warranty of the Powerwall 2.0 is 10 years, so you would most likely need to replace it more than once over the life of the shingles).

So put all that together, and here's how Tesla would need to price its tiles to meet Musk's claims.
Tuscan Tile (Tesla's equivalant of clay tile) would need to cost less than $69,500, installed (or about $2,300 per 100 square feet), to beat its traditional counterpart;
Smooth and Textured Tile (Tesla's equivalent to asphalt tile) would need to cost less than $73,500, installed (or about $2,450 per 100 square feet);
Slate Tile would need to cost less than $98,500 (or about $3,300 per 100 square feet).

Bottom line: For sure, $70,000 to $100,000 is a lot to spend on a roof. If Tesla's roofing tiles end up priced that high, it will be because consumers will essentially be paying for long-term electricity costs up front, according to Musk's formula. And even if Solar Roof products cost less than our estimates, it will most certainly be initially aimed at the luxury home market.   

Natural slate may be the easiest alternative for Tesla to beat from a pricing perspective, since its expense is largely due to the fact that the material is very heavy and hard to work with. If the Tesla slate is lightweight and easy to install, it could be a cost-effective option.

But that's a big if. "Roofers aren't electricians and vice versa, so I'm most interested in seeing how the costs of labor affect the end price to consumers," says Vikram Aggarwal, CEO of EnergySage, an online marketplace of solar installers.

No word from Tesla on whether it will back its Solar Roof like some installers do slate—with a 100-year warranty. Or stick with a more typical 25-year warranty. 

Musk ended his announcement at Universal Studios in Los Angeles by asking: "So, why would you buy anything else?" The question was rhetorical, obviously, but the answer will have a lot to do with price.

[MusicMan]

Amendment 1 was shot down. Thank you to all of you who saw that the state constitution was no place for this type of market based issue.