Articles re Tesla—Fact or Fiction?

[EinSV]

Are electric cars worse for the environment?

A stunning article on a well read site.

Does anyone here have anything on the author's background/funding?

On the Manhattan Institute I have is this, FWIW:

Source:
Manhattan Institute for Policy Research - SourceWatch

Ties to the Koch Brothers
The Manhattan Institute has received funding from the Koch brothers. The Claude R. Lambe Foundation, one of the Koch Family Foundations, reported giving $2,075,000 to the Manhattan Institute between 2001 and 2012, the last year for which data is available. The Charles G. Koch Foundation gave $100,000 to the Institute in 2012.

And, for more background, we have this from 2016:

The Kochs Are Plotting A Multimillion-Dollar Assault On Electric Vehicles | HuffPost

The Kochs Are Plotting A Multimillion-Dollar Assault On Electric Vehicles
A new group could spend $10 million a year on the campaign.
By Peter Stone

The oil and gas industry may have thought it had killed the electric car, but sales — boosted by generous government subsidies — rose dramatically between 2010 and 2014, and energy giants are worried the thing may have come back to life.

Time to kill it again.

A new group that’s being cobbled together with fossil fuel backing hopes to spend about $10 million dollars per year to boost petroleum-based transportation fuels and attack government subsidies for electric vehicles, according to refining industry sources familiar with the plan. A Koch Industries board member and a veteran Washington energy lobbyist are working quietly to fund and launch the new advocacy outfit.

Koch Industries, the nation’s second-largest privately held corporation, is an energy and industrial conglomerate with $115 billion in annual revenues that is controlled by the multibillionaire brothers — and prolific conservative donors — Charles and David Koch. James Mahoney, a confidante of the brothers and member of their company’s board, has teamed up with lobbyist Charlie Drevna, who until last year helmed the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers, for preliminary talks with several energy giants about funding the new pro-petroleum fuels group.

Late last year, Mahoney and Drevna flew into San Antonio to explain the need for a new group to executives at two Texas refining giants, Valero Energy and Tesoro Corp. Then, in late January, Mahoney moderated a seminar on “Changing the Energy Narrative” at the brothers’ twice-a-year retreat for mega-donors in California. The panel drew a mix of CEOs from big energy companies and other wealthy attendees who, in conjunction with the Koch brothers, bankroll numerous conservative advocacy groups. And last month, Mahoney and Drevna had further conversations with Koch executives about the new project, sources say.

Neither Mahoney nor Drevna returned multiple calls seeking comment about the new group. A Koch spokesman also didn’t respond to a request for comment.

It’s not clear when the still-unnamed group will be launched, but energy industry sources predict it’s likely to be up and running by this spring or summer, and that Koch Industries — or a Koch foundation or allied nonprofit — will be the lead financier.

[truncated]

@ZachShahan at CleanTechnica published a detailed and scathing rebuttal of the Manhattan Institute EV hitpiece published by Politico. Hopefully Union of Concerned Scientists and other experts in the field will also weigh in.

Oh, POLITICO, Please Don't Publish Garbage — Reality Check For Electric Vehicle Hit Job | CleanTechnica

 

[Vern Padgett]

@ZachShahan at CleanTechnica published a detailed and scathing rebuttal of the Manhattan Institute EV hitpiece published by Politico. Hopefully Union of Concerned Scientists and other experts in the field will also weigh in.

Oh, POLITICO, Please Don't Publish Garbage — Reality Check For Electric Vehicle Hit Job | CleanTechnica

Thank you. Very good to see this critical review. -- Vern

 

[brucet999]

@ZachShahan at CleanTechnica published a detailed and scathing rebuttal of the Manhattan Institute EV hitpiece published by Politico. Hopefully Union of Concerned Scientists and other experts in the field will also weigh in.

Oh, POLITICO, Please Don't Publish Garbage — Reality Check For Electric Vehicle Hit Job | CleanTechnica

While I don't believe the assertions of the Politico piece, I found the Clean Technica rebuttal to be equally filled with unsupported assertions and specious arguments.

What exactly are those huge "fossil fuel subsidies" that Shahan decries? If they are real, he should have identified them.

Shahan also states that "…nearly 50% of EV drivers have been found to also have rooftop solar panels…", giving the perception that they must be "driving on sunshine". But simply having solar panels does not necessarily mean having enough solar production to offset their BEV electricity consumption. He then displays a graph clearly showing that only about 35% of EV drivers have any solar panels. Since when is 35% "nearly 50%?
Completely ignored is the fact that most rooftop solar installations offset considerably less than total annual household usage. The way Net Metering rules are set up with TOU rate structures, in most of California at least, offsetting more than about 75% of annual kWh consumption does not further reduce annual electricity costs. Beyond 75% of kWh offset, the additional capital expense for more panels gains nothing in year-end dollar value return, just the feel-good value of knowing that your carbon footprint is smaller, so most systems are sized to offset monetary value, not kWh consumption.

 

[wdolson]

While I don't believe the assertions of the Politico piece, I found the Clean Technica rebuttal to be equally filled with unsupported assertions and specious arguments.

What exactly are those huge "fossil fuel subsidies" that Shahan decries? If they are real, he should have identified them.

Shahan also states that "…nearly 50% of EV drivers have been found to also have rooftop solar panels…", giving the perception that they must be "driving on sunshine". But simply having solar panels does not necessarily mean having enough solar production to offset their BEV electricity consumption. He then displays a graph clearly showing that only about 35% of EV drivers have any solar panels. Since when is 35% "nearly 50%?
Completely ignored is the fact that most rooftop solar installations offset considerably less than total annual household usage. The way Net Metering rules are set up with TOU rate structures, in most of California at least, offsetting more than about 75% of annual kWh consumption does not further reduce annual electricity costs. Beyond 75% of kWh offset, the additional capital expense for more panels gains nothing in year-end dollar value return, just the feel-good value of knowing that your carbon footprint is smaller, so most systems are sized to offset monetary value, not kWh consumption.

The Clean Technica article does make some open ended assertions. As EV ownership grows, more and more people who can't have solar panels on their roof (because they don't own it) will be driving EVs and the percentage of EV owners with solar panels will drop.

There are subsidies for fossil fuels. Oil companies got a hefty tax break in the 90s when they were hurting because oil was so cheap. I know it was still in effect a few years ago, though I don't know about its current status. The oil companies lobbied heavily to keep the tax breaks even though they really didn't need them when oil got expensive.

Another tax break is for anyone who invests in an oil and gas exploration project. I don't know if the loopholes have been tightened, but the breaks were so good some people were drilling oil wells places where it was almost certain there was no oil just to get the breaks. Armand Hammer was a pretty odd guy in a lot of ways. He was an MD who worked in the USSR just after the Russian Revolution and made his first fortune smuggling Russian art out of the country/ After Stalin kicked him out of the country, he got involved in a California oil project that was almost guaranteed to fail for the tax breaks. They ended up finding a new oil field completely by accident and it started Occidental Petroleum.

Articles like the CT one talk about these subsidies but I have not seen anyone list them all in one place. It probably exists out there somewhere, but it would help further the argument if someone could cite the list.

 

[ZachShahan]

@ZachShahan at CleanTechnica published a detailed and scathing rebuttal of the Manhattan Institute EV hitpiece published by Politico. Hopefully Union of Concerned Scientists and other experts in the field will also weigh in.

Oh, POLITICO, Please Don't Publish Garbage — Reality Check For Electric Vehicle Hit Job | CleanTechnica

Thanks. UCS said they are working on a rebuttal as well. I'm sure we will cover it and they will have a more mild-mannered approach that focuses on certain facts and assumptions in an academic-like response.

 

[ZachShahan]

While I don't believe the assertions of the Politico piece, I found the Clean Technica rebuttal to be equally filled with unsupported assertions and specious arguments.

What exactly are those huge "fossil fuel subsidies" that Shahan decries? If they are real, he should have identified them.

Shahan also states that "…nearly 50% of EV drivers have been found to also have rooftop solar panels…", giving the perception that they must be "driving on sunshine". But simply having solar panels does not necessarily mean having enough solar production to offset their BEV electricity consumption. He then displays a graph clearly showing that only about 35% of EV drivers have any solar panels. Since when is 35% "nearly 50%?
Completely ignored is the fact that most rooftop solar installations offset considerably less than total annual household usage. The way Net Metering rules are set up with TOU rate structures, in most of California at least, offsetting more than about 75% of annual kWh consumption does not further reduce annual electricity costs. Beyond 75% of kWh offset, the additional capital expense for more panels gains nothing in year-end dollar value return, just the feel-good value of knowing that your carbon footprint is smaller, so most systems are sized to offset monetary value, not kWh consumption.

Fair enough. While I dealt with a number of faulty assumptions on TMI's end, this was not an academic rebuttal and wasn't meant to be. The hit job was not an academic hit job — it was a piece of political messaging. My response took a political messaging approach which required not getting too deep in the weeds on each individual point (there are many places where I could have gone down deep tunnels of explanation).

Yes, "nearly 50%" was rounding up too much, so I've adjusted it to "approximately a third."

And your points about roof capacity & solar system size & such are fine, but many, many EV owners do size their rooftop systems to include electricity usage of EVs. I don't think there's research indicating how much is covered, but the point that many EV drivers are indeed using/offsetting much if not all of their extra electricity use with extra solar is an important one to acknowledge, imho. Many also "buy" green electricity (but that's another matter to go down much more deeply if bringing into the discussion, imho).

We dove into oil subsidies years ago, but admittedly need to do a thorough update (it's in the plans). Subsidies — in theory — weren't even the focus of the POLITICO article (well, they were, but they weren't the headline or primary message getting passed around), so I didn't want to spend too much text on them. That'll have to come as a separate piece/series. It's a favorite anti-EV talking point at this stage and needs a thorough rebuttal. Though, inspired by you, I added this link to the story. Of course, there are many more to tap for a broad piece on energy subsidies:

Oil Subsidies & Natural Gas Subsidies -- Subsidies For The Big Boys

https://cleantechnica.com/2018/01/2...s-fossil-nuclear-sources-gotten-continue-get/

$5.3 Trillion A Year In Fossil Fuel Subsidies Is Idiotic | CleanTechnica

OECD: Rich Nations Provide Far More In Export Subsidies For Fossil Fuel Technologies Than For Renewables | CleanTechnica

https://cleantechnica.com/2014/11/11/g20-supporting-fossil-fuels-tune-88-billion/

https://cleantechnica.com/2014/02/05/fossil-fuel-subsidies-back-2008-levels/

https://cleantechnica.com/2013/11/1...-billion-year-government-subsidies-worldwide/

https://cleantechnica.com/2013/04/02/international-monetary-fund-us-is-1-fossil-fuel-subsidizer/

https://cleantechnica.com/2017/03/1...expose-social-economic-cost-energy-subsidies/

Now, if I was going to play Lesser's framing game, I'd have to tease out the non-health, non-climate benefits of EVs over gasmobiles or I'd have to just note that other studies have found significant health savings from EVs. Again, I didn't want to get too deep into the weeds on this matter for the story at hand and make people fall asleep before getting through the core points, so subsidies are left for another day.

 

[Electroman]

In Texas we have excessive power at night mostly from renewable sources such as wind. So much that TXU is offering free power at night for a marginal increase in rate during day.

So most of the EV charging that happens here emits close to zero emissions.

 

[winfield100]

Fair enough. While I dealt with a number of faulty assumptions on TMI's end, this was not an academic rebuttal and wasn't meant to be. The hit job was not an academic hit job — it was a piece of political messaging. My response took a political messaging approach which required not getting too deep in the weeds on each individual point (there are many places where I could have gone down deep tunnels of explanation).

Yes, "nearly 50%" was rounding up too much, so I've adjusted it to "approximately a third."

And your points about roof capacity & solar system size & such are fine, but many, many EV owners do size their rooftop systems to include electricity usage of EVs. I don't think there's research indicating how much is covered, but the point that many EV drivers are indeed using/offsetting much if not all of their extra electricity use with extra solar is an important one to acknowledge, imho. Many also "buy" green electricity (but that's another matter to go down much more deeply if bringing into the discussion, imho).

We dove into oil subsidies years ago, but admittedly need to do a thorough update (it's in the plans). Subsidies — in theory — weren't even the focus of the POLITICO article (well, they were, but they weren't the headline or primary message getting passed around), so I didn't want to spend too much text on them. That'll have to come as a separate piece/series. It's a favorite anti-EV talking point at this stage and needs a thorough rebuttal. Though, inspired by you, I added this link to the story. Of course, there are many more to tap for a broad piece on energy subsidies:

Oil Subsidies & Natural Gas Subsidies -- Subsidies For The Big Boys

Renewable Energy Doesn’t Get More In Subsidies Than Fossil & Nuclear Energy Have Gotten, & Continue To Get | CleanTechnica

$5.3 Trillion A Year In Fossil Fuel Subsidies Is Idiotic | CleanTechnica

OECD: Rich Nations Provide Far More In Export Subsidies For Fossil Fuel Technologies Than For Renewables | CleanTechnica

G20 Supporting Fossil Fuels To The Tune Of $88 Billion | CleanTechnica

Fossil Fuel Subsidies Are Back Up To 2008 Levels

Fossil Fuels Receive $500 Billion A Year In Government Subsidies Worldwide | CleanTechnica

International Monetary Fund: US Is #1 Fossil Fuel Subsidizer | CleanTechnica

New Research Needed To Better Expose Social & Economic Cost Of Energy Subsidies | CleanTechnica

Now, if I was going to play Lesser's framing game, I'd have to tease out the non-health, non-climate benefits of EVs over gasmobiles or I'd have to just note that other studies have found significant health savings from EVs. Again, I didn't want to get too deep into the weeds on this matter for the story at hand and make people fall asleep before getting through the core points, so subsidies are left for another day.

go here and lodge a reasoned complaint and see if it does any good, maybe an article refuting. this is the link to Politico comments that i could find
Contact Us

 

[brucet999]

go here and lodge a reasoned complaint and see if it does any good, maybe an article refuting. this is the link to Politico comments that i could find
Contact Us

Good idea.

 

[EinSV]

Completely ignored is the fact that most rooftop solar installations offset considerably less than total annual household usage. The way Net Metering rules are set up with TOU rate structures, in most of California at least, offsetting more than about 75% of annual kWh consumption does not further reduce annual electricity costs. Beyond 75% of kWh offset, the additional capital expense for more panels gains nothing in year-end dollar value return, just the feel-good value of knowing that your carbon footprint is smaller, so most systems are sized to offset monetary value, not kWh consumption.

Assuming your 75% estimate is correct (I haven't seen data one way or another), it seems reasonable to assume that many new EV owners will expand existing solar systems to cover a similar portion of their EV charging. Moreover, a new EV purchase may motivate the owner to purchase solar for their entire home, and in that circumstance there is a virtuous cycle where the EV purchase indirectly generates even greater GHG emission savings because the entire house generates far less CO2. You can see this dynamic clearly in Tesla's business plan -- on their website and in their stores they cross-sell solar panels, solar roofs and Powerwalls to customers who walk through the doors initially interested in their cars because they know that customers who are buying or already own an EV are prime customers for solar (and vice versa). However you slice it, the high percentage of EV owners who also have solar provides substantial GHG benefits beyond the numbers calculated from using figures from the grid.

The Clean Technica article does make some open ended assertions. As EV ownership grows, more and more people who can't have solar panels on their roof (because they don't own it) will be driving EVs and the percentage of EV owners with solar panels will drop.

I am not sure the percentage of EV owners who have solar will drop, at least not anytime soon. In fact, I think the opposite may be true.

In the U.S., 70% of people live in single family homes. http://www.builderonline.com/money/...mericans-prefer-single-family-homeownership_o And many condos, townhomes and apartment buildings are also suitable for rooftop solar -- for example the recent CA solar mandate requires solar to be installed on all new residential buildings under 3 stories (with some exceptions for locations not suitable for solar), and condo associations, etc. are also required to permit solar installations. Also, condos and townhomes have options besides rooftop solar, such as ground-based solar systems or community solar. One recent study estimated that rooftop solar alone could generate 40% of the entire U.S. electricity requirements, and this does not include ground-based systems. Rooftop Solar Panels Could Power Nearly 40 Percent Of The U.S. With the cost of rooftop solar and stand-alone solar systems continuing to decline along with the cost of storage, and regulatory changes that incentivize or require rooftop solar, I think it is more likely that the percentage of EV owners with solar will increase rather than decrease for the foreseeable future. At the same time, the grid will continue to get much cleaner as more utility-scale solar and wind comes online.

The bottom line is that an EV purchased today will continue to get cleaner over its lifetime while an ICE car purchased today will always generate the same level of CO2, if not more. This is an often overlooked benefit of buying an EV.

 

[Curt Renz]

...What exactly are those huge "fossil fuel subsidies" that Shahan decries? If they are real, he should have identified them...

Perhaps the largest and least quantifiable fossil fuel subsidy is US military presence in the Middle East.

 

[Bobfitz1]

In the U.S., 70% of people live in single family homes. http://www.builderonline.com/money/...mericans-prefer-single-family-homeownership_o And many condos, townhomes and apartment buildings are also suitable for rooftop solar -- for example the recent CA solar mandate requires solar to be installed on all new residential buildings under 3 stories (with some exceptions for locations not suitable for solar), and condo associations, etc. are also required to permit solar installations. Also, condos and townhomes have options besides rooftop solar, such as ground-based solar systems or community solar. One recent study estimated that rooftop solar alone could generate 40% of the entire U.S. electricity requirements, and this does not include ground-based systems. Rooftop Solar Panels Could Power Nearly 40 Percent Of The U.S.

Excellent and accurate post. I'd just like to add that recent developments in using certain perovskite compounds are likely to make it far more possible to generate substantial additional power from glass sided buildings, as well as significantly make rooftop panes more efficient and cheaper to produce. All of which will serve to further propel cost reductions incentivizing faster adoption of EV and power storage.

 

[wdolson]

I am not sure the percentage of EV owners who have solar will drop, at least not anytime soon. In fact, I think the opposite may be true.

In the U.S., 70% of people live in single family homes. http://www.builderonline.com/money/...mericans-prefer-single-family-homeownership_o And many condos, townhomes and apartment buildings are also suitable for rooftop solar -- for example the recent CA solar mandate requires solar to be installed on all new residential buildings under 3 stories (with some exceptions for locations not suitable for solar), and condo associations, etc. are also required to permit solar installations. Also, condos and townhomes have options besides rooftop solar, such as ground-based solar systems or community solar. One recent study estimated that rooftop solar alone could generate 40% of the entire U.S. electricity requirements, and this does not include ground-based systems. Rooftop Solar Panels Could Power Nearly 40 Percent Of The U.S. With the cost of rooftop solar and stand-alone solar systems continuing to decline along with the cost of storage, and regulatory changes that incentivize or require rooftop solar, I think it is more likely that the percentage of EV owners with solar will increase rather than decrease for the foreseeable future. At the same time, the grid will continue to get much cleaner as more utility-scale solar and wind comes online.

The bottom line is that an EV purchased today will continue to get cleaner over its lifetime while an ICE car purchased today will always generate the same level of CO2, if not more. This is an often overlooked benefit of buying an EV.

Many apartment complexes and condos, especially in the west have parking lots that can be covered with solar panels, but in more concentrated areas, lots of people live under one rooftop with a parking garage. The energy gathered from solar on that building isn't zero, but it isn't going to be significant either.

Even in owner occupied houses, there are going to be limits on what people can do. Some locations don't have good solar exposure, some regions of the country aren't good for solar, some houses are too old and rickety to have the panels put on the roof, and a fair number of people will not be able to afford it because they are living paycheck to paycheck now.

This can be fixed with new laws, but in a lot of places electric utilities are making it less cost effective to switch to solar.

And the places with the lowest rates of owner occupied houses are some of the most populated counties in the US. According to the US Census, the rate of home ownership in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and the New York boroughs are among the lowest in the country.

The US is unusual with large single family homes that can have solar put on the roof. In most countries houses are smaller and the most densely populated countries have too many people crammed into too small a space for solar on rooftops to be a significant part of their energy budget. There was a Caimbridge Physics professor named David MacKay who unfortunately died recently who wrote a book and did a number of lectures on the numbers for renewables. He was a definite believer in doing everything we can to get off fossil fuels, but he ran the numbers and pointed out that all renewables have downsides. They all have very low energy density per sq meter.

There are a number of his lectures on YouTube. I've watched a couple of them.

Where practical, I do think installing solar is a good idea. Every little bit helps, but it isn't going to solve all the

Excellent and accurate post. I'd just like to add that recent developments in using certain perovskite compounds are likely to make it far more possible to generate substantial additional power from glass sided buildings, as well as significantly make rooftop panes more efficient and cheaper to produce. All of which will serve to further propel cost reductions incentivizing faster adoption of EV and power storage.

Solar panels are getting close to the theoretical maximum energy collection and things like solar glass and solar paint will help gather some energy, those other techniques are going to have much lower energy density than solar panels. Cheaper solar panels will help get more out there, but the energy we can collect per sq meter is not going to go up significantly from the best panels today.

 

[Vern Padgett]

Many apartment complexes and condos, especially in the west have parking lots that can be covered with solar panels, but in more concentrated areas, lots of people live under one rooftop with a parking garage. The energy gathered from solar on that building isn't zero, but it isn't going to be significant either.

Even in owner occupied houses, there are going to be limits on what people can do. Some locations don't have good solar exposure, some regions of the country aren't good for solar, some houses are too old and rickety to have the panels put on the roof, and a fair number of people will not be able to afford it because they are living paycheck to paycheck now.

This can be fixed with new laws, but in a lot of places electric utilities are making it less cost effective to switch to solar.

And the places with the lowest rates of owner occupied houses are some of the most populated counties in the US. According to the US Census, the rate of home ownership in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and the New York boroughs are among the lowest in the country.

The US is unusual with large single family homes that can have solar put on the roof. In most countries houses are smaller and the most densely populated countries have too many people crammed into too small a space for solar on rooftops to be a significant part of their energy budget. There was a Caimbridge Physics professor named David MacKay who unfortunately died recently who wrote a book and did a number of lectures on the numbers for renewables. He was a definite believer in doing everything we can to get off fossil fuels, but he ran the numbers and pointed out that all renewables have downsides. They all have very low energy density per sq meter.

There are a number of his lectures on YouTube. I've watched a couple of them.

Where practical, I do think installing solar is a good idea. Every little bit helps, but it isn't going to solve all the



Solar panels are getting close to the theoretical maximum energy collection and things like solar glass and solar paint will help gather some energy, those other techniques are going to have much lower energy density than solar panels. Cheaper solar panels will help get more out there, but the energy we can collect per sq meter is not going to go up significantly from the best panels today.

You wrote: "Where practical, I do think installing solar is a good idea. Every little bit helps, but it isn't going to solve all the
… "
I wanted to know what you though of our California plan to require solar panels on new construction in upcoming years.

 

[wdolson]

You wrote: "Where practical, I do think installing solar is a good idea. Every little bit helps, but it isn't going to solve all the
… "
I wanted to know what you though of our California plan to require solar panels on new construction in upcoming years.

Generally I think it's a good idea, though it does add some cost burden to people who are struggling to buy a house at all. That issue is a wider problem in much of the state and it goes beyond just mandating solar panels.

There are some parts of the state where solar panels might not be as effective like the coastal cities. My sister installed solar on her house in Bakersfield and found the dust fall was so heavy there the panels efficiency dropped sharply in only a few weeks. She said she'd have to be up there every week washing them to keep them working. And not only is that an extra home maintenance hassle, it could be dangerous for people who may not be completely steady on their feet, plus is puts pressure on water resources.

There is some glass for building windows that keeps itself clean, but I don't know if it would be appropriate for solar panels.

I believe California is a net importer of electricity and most of the state has a climate where the peak efficiency of solar input matches peak demand fairly well, so more solar definitely is a good part of the mix there (even with minimal storage). In climates with cold winters and more mild summers, the opposite peak demand situation applies. Energy use in those places is highest in the winter months, and usually more in the evening (after dark) than any other time. Some places don't get enough sun enough of the year for solar to be all that cost effective. Washington and Oregon west of the Cascades (where the bulk of the population lives) gets some of the fewest hours of full sunlight in North America, though summers tend to be clear and sunny.

 

[MacRocket]

Media articles of late are definitely more fiction than fact at the moment.

Some of you may not have seen this excellent Talk Tesla video which calls out the Media BS.

Well worth a look and it would be great if TMC members could copy and post it EVERYWHERE.

 

[winfield100]

.....My sister installed solar on her house in Bakersfield and found the dust fall was so heavy there the panels efficiency dropped sharply in only a few weeks....

a modest proposal and comment. Most PV arrarys get max input when the y are normal to angle of incidence of solar radiation, ie 39degrees north, angled at 39 degrees etc or actually, if not moving, about 15 degrees lower than latitude (like 24 degrees) to get max input summer.
they are not vertical mostly

The dust is a problem aching for a solution, so a small electric powered robot vacuum. like a say Roomba, iRobot® Roomba® 690 with slightly stickier wheels, like a gecco lizard, or the pads on the wheels they use for electrostimulation of muscles in TENS units, that runs around and cleans the panels (I use a Roomba to daily sweep my 1,700 square foot outdoor Lanai covering my pool (430square foot) with no problem, other than emptying the dust recepticle.

There are also Scooba's that use water to wash floors, reuse the water, etc. which could also do so. and be modified
I'm fairly sure there are a lot of "whiz kids" out there eager to sell product. I suspect the problem is solvable with easily modified, existing technology

 

[JRP3]

Compressed air jets?

 

[EinSV]

Generally I think it's a good idea, though it does add some cost burden to people who are struggling to buy a house at all. That issue is a wider problem in much of the state and it goes beyond just mandating solar panels.

There are some parts of the state where solar panels might not be as effective like the coastal cities. My sister installed solar on her house in Bakersfield and found the dust fall was so heavy there the panels efficiency dropped sharply in only a few weeks. She said she'd have to be up there every week washing them to keep them working. And not only is that an extra home maintenance hassle, it could be dangerous for people who may not be completely steady on their feet, plus is puts pressure on water resources.

There is some glass for building windows that keeps itself clean, but I don't know if it would be appropriate for solar panels.

I believe California is a net importer of electricity and most of the state has a climate where the peak efficiency of solar input matches peak demand fairly well, so more solar definitely is a good part of the mix there (even with minimal storage). In climates with cold winters and more mild summers, the opposite peak demand situation applies. Energy use in those places is highest in the winter months, and usually more in the evening (after dark) than any other time. Some places don't get enough sun enough of the year for solar to be all that cost effective. Washington and Oregon west of the Cascades (where the bulk of the population lives) gets some of the fewest hours of full sunlight in North America, though summers tend to be clear and sunny.

@wdolson I can't resist responding to a few points above regarding the new California building code provision that requires solar panels/roofs in new residential home construction, which is quite a remarkable regulation that I am personally very excited about. A good summary is here Everything You Need to Know About California’s New Solar Roof Mandate for anyone interested in the details.

The mandate is structured so that it will save money for the vast majority of new homeowners, making the total cost of new home ownership drop. To start with, it is estimated that the average homeowner will save $40 per month ($80/month energy savings - $40/month increased mortgage payment).

That is a big cushion that will minimize the number of the edge cases that do not make economic sense.

In addition, the regulation directly addresses your concern that solar generation is less efficient in foggy coastal areas. The regulation divides the state into 16 climate zones, with different requirements for each one. The California Energy Commission determined that in each of the climate zones the mandate would save homeowners money (details are summarized in the article above).

In addition, as many have observed, the California Energy Commission is likely substantially overestimating the costs of installing solar panels by failing to take into account cost savings that come from the mandate, for example, eliminating the cost of a retail solar sales force (no sales person is required when panels automatically come with the new home) and advantages of scale production and installation in new developments versus cumbersome and expensive retrofits.

It would not surprise me if this building code provision eventually catches on in other jurisdictions in the same way that other requirements for efficient home construction have once the advantages to builders, homeowners and the public are better understood.

California's great solar resource and high energy prices make the mandate especially appealing here, but I think the economics will end up working in many other regions as well.

 

[winfield100]

Compressed air jets?

will they scratch the glass causing diffusion and diffraction from the dust, more than sweeping or washing?