I know HN has lots of American readers, so maybe they can explain.
Why aren't the vast majority of America's suburban single family dwellings using rooftop solar? Huge numbers of Americans live in these homes - they're not so much a thing, especially to this degree, in other countries and they seem basically ideal for rooftop solar.
US homes are stick built. The roofs are not concrete, they are shingles. This is the single biggest bottleneck. On concrete, its super easy to add a simple steel frame, add panels and done.
Shingles have a shelf life of ~25 years. Most people buy old homes. And the roof is somewhere in the middle of its life. Its usually better to replace the roof and add solar at the same time.
The people who buy new homes have already maxed out their budget (people buy the biggest home they can afford, maxing out the downpayment) and they aren't thinking of adding solar rightaway.
2) Americans are pro fossil fuel (thanks to fossil fuel shills). Installers spend a third to half the money on door to door salesmen. This cost is absent in other countries.
3) US govts make solar unbelievably costly, by regulatory capture, tarriffs, banning panels from China. And they create perverse incentives of subsidies which make the installation costlier because it has to go through licensed installer to avail of the subsidy. The licensed installers always charge top dollar because its a captured market.
Virtually all roofs in the Netherlands aren't concrete but wood frames with ceramic tiles. The PV is just attached to the wooden frame, not the shingles or tiles.
Shingles have a shelf life of ~25 years. Most people buy old homes. And the roof is somewhere in the middle of its life. Its usually better to replace the roof and add solar at the same time.
You can just take off the PV when replacing a roof, costs a few hundred if you don't want to do it yourself. Trivial compared to the cost of a new roof and probably less than the savings in the meantime they're on the old roof.
Rooftop solar in the US is incredibly expensive from most installers even as panel prices have come down and energy prices are typically low enough that the payoff time and up-front cost are seen as not worth it for many people. The US also has a lot of homes where (cheap) natural gas is used for cooking, heating, and hot water, which you'd have to continue paying for even after you installed solar panels or pay a lot of money to convert to electrical equivalents.
That said, I know a lot of people who have recently installed solar panels on their roof and it's increasingly worth it from a financial perspective. The other thing worth noting though is that while cool, rooftop solar really isn't the best approach to installing solar capacity compared to grid scale solar farms on land which also tends to be abundant in the US.
Not living in the US but in the Netherlands. It's quite popular to do this, because the energy is really expensive, be it electricity, be it natural gas, be it petrol. If you are able to own a single family home, you are likely to have the means to invest 4k-10k euros solar installation costs (depending on how many panels) and benefit from reduced energy bill.
In short, cheap energy might be the culprit but I don't know for sure.
Most houses are old and many in shit condition, you'd want at least replace shingles before installing solar.
Everything becomes harder and expensive - no more standard gutter cleaning fee (200-300 bucks per average roof). For damp subclimates no more moss treatment possible.
For many houses you'd need structural engineer assessment to make sure roof can add such a load.
Many vents and outlets need to be relocated to cover large and nice area with the panels.
Dealing with contractors on standard things is such a pain already in US - expensive, many unskilled, trying to get more money out of your pocket. When they see someting expensive or non-standard their attitude changes even more.
The data that I've seen shows that the barriers to solar adoption for the average American home are high installation cost, low grid power cost, unfavorable net metering agreements for grid interconnect, and even some pushback from neighborhood committees (homeowners association aka HOA).
There are exceptions such as Hawaii where grid power is expensive and sunshine abundant, but the US is big, geographically diverse, and because of that adoption varies greatly on regional dynamics.
Tech workers located in South Africa and nearby regions suffer, because the power grid there is unreliable at best. Therefore, those workers may be required by employers to prove that they have arranged for reliable backup power and network connections in order to stay connected (nearly to the antipodes) and ensure that their performance is competitive with workers located in stable regimes with robust power grids and network backbones.
It may seem unfair or unnecessary for US employers to require US employees to have a UPS, solar array, a redundant network connection, etc. But if employers required these things up-front, surely some tech workers could step up to the challenge and perhaps even be distinguished from those who don't get it.
Yes. Why would US employers require US employees to have those redundancies?
It seems like the employer would be throwing away leverage in the employer/employee negotiation without giving the employer anything they actually value.
Hiring magaenrs and applications routinely ask if the applicant has reliable transportation. Likewise, they often require workers to bring protective equipment, tools, clothing, etc. whether they work on-site, or remotely from home. Employers can deny employment or hours to a worker without a computer or without a network connection, based on the essential requirements for BYOB policies.
The computer should be reliable, and the network should be reliable. I’ve seen how satellite connections flake out, freezing with every handoff like distant cell towers . If the tech stack and/or transportation isn’t reliable, then neither is the expectation of productivity.
If employees need reaction times that are reasonable, live teleconference connections on a presentation, then the employer may say that certain precautions are necessary to guarantee reliability up-front.
There are more people doing “digital nomad” work and more American expats in foreign countries. A worker who is a citizen of the USA and employed by a USA firm may be working from South Africa. A digital nomad may be less prepared or less well-informed about the prevailing conditions on the local power grid, network backbone, solar wind and aurora forecast. You name it.
If someone believes that employers are concerned about “throwing away leverage” then that believer is not me, because I have personal lived experience of such employers and such written requirements.
1. A lot of single family dwellings are occupied by renters. In this scenario, the renter has no ability to install rooftop solar, and the owner has no incentive to install rooftop solar because the renter is paying the energy bills. (The same goes for things like installing high-efficiency heat pumps etc.)
2. HOA regulations can block things like rooftop solar depending on where you live.
3. The up-front investment involved in rooftop solar can be prohibitive for many people. Things like tax incentives can help but we've been getting rid of those under the current administration, and tax incentives only go so far if your tax return is 6+ months away.
Why aren't the vast majority of America's suburban single family dwellings using rooftop solar? Huge numbers of Americans live in these homes - they're not so much a thing, especially to this degree, in other countries and they seem basically ideal for rooftop solar.
Am I missing something here?