New Law Passed In France:ALL New Rooftops Must Be Covered With Plants Or Solar Panels

[GennGreymane]

Far too many, It's just spamming, Nothing else, They should enforce the rule that they once said that you shouldn't just mindlessly spam the forums with news posts, without adding your own opinion to it, But hey, Mods only give a shit if it's something they don't like.

OT: I think that's a very good idea.

I have been banned enough for other reasons to prove that I am not one of the mods favorites. I am certainly not spamming. I am posting (subjectively) interesting topics for the forums to discuss.

[Azadina]

Green roofs can look nice when done well, but I suspect it's hard to maintain the nice looking ones. A lot of the google images of green roofs I'm looking like are more like this:



Which just looks like someone has abandoned the home and let nature reclaim it. It looks pretty terrible.

I actually think this looks lovely. Even if it's abit overgrown. The idea on the topic is great in my opinion, whether it's solar panels or green roofs.

[GennGreymane]

On that house, as it is stone, it looks very nice, but I am in the U.S and I cant see too many houses fairing well with what a lawn on your roof would cause. Then again we also have a ton of stone houses and brick and it would still cause issues.

[Reeve]

Far too many, It's just spamming, Nothing else, They should enforce the rule that they once said that you shouldn't just mindlessly spam the forums with news posts, without adding your own opinion to it, But hey, Mods only give a shit if it's something they don't like.

OT: I think that's a very good idea.

Spam is useless content. GGTs tend to be content that sparks discussion.

[Azadina]

On that house, as it is stone, it looks very nice, but I am in the U.S and I cant see too many houses fairing well with what a lawn on your roof would cause. Then again we also have a ton of stone houses and brick and it would still cause issues.

I don't see what problems it would cause, if new houses are designed, and built to withstand it. Switching the roof to older houses could cause some problems, sure.

[Talon8669]

Stateside, the utilities company would add a fee onto your bill "for infrastructure" if you go solar, so you're about breaking even even if you're producing most of the power for your home yourself.

Arizona I believe has done it already, with Florida pondering it as well.

I don't know about other states but my Mom did a solar system at her place and all she pays is the utility companies minimum meter fee each month and they actually pay her every so often for the power her system generates. I think she is getting $0.56/KWH.

Edit: specified minimum fee is only for the meter.

[Druover]

Green roofs is just a stupid marketing premise that can be marketed well but does not work in actuality. There are many forms of insulation that would be much cheaper, and would be much more effective for energy savings, that could be mandated. But it doesn't sound as cool. Its hilarious that an actual government is trying so hard to be progressive that they bought into this BS. Doesn't surprise me its France.

[Mistame]

Oh my. Whatever will they think of next. /facepalm

[Cosmic Janitor]

Looks like an increased burden to the roof (which can make or break your hut in stronger winters..), the finances of the owner and I'm not really sold on having grass on top of your house in regards to pests, fungi etc, not to mention if it is actually be most efficient insulator. I guess you can go for the solar panels instead, but it seems a rather dumb thing to demand of your people.

[Druover]

I don't know about other states but my Mom did a solar system at her place and all she pays is the utility companies minimum fee each month and they actually pay her every so often for the power her system generates. I think she is getting $0.56/KWH.

$0.56 / kWh???? Holy cow...where is this? In my area, people are getting paid closer to $0.05 / kWh. How much do you guys pay for electricity???

[GennGreymane]

I don't see what problems it would cause, if new houses are designed, and built to withstand it. Switching the roof to older houses could cause some problems, sure.

They would need to do a lot of design around the lawn aspect, not the panels

the roof would need to support more weight, be more resistant to insects, deal with run off much better, handle dirt absorbing water, staining caused by mud, actual maintenance that is doable without someone falling off the roof, and decay that can occur due to glass and flows growing into your house. More reistence would be needed to prevent plants from causing cracks in the roof

its a whole thing, but I approve the panels 100%

[Independent voter]

The roots of the grass would get under your shingles and wreck havoc. Even with solar panels, if you're installing them on your roof after the fact, that means drilling holes in your roof for wires and water pipes and then sealing them off. If the job is done correctly okay, but I bet there's going to be a lot of leaky roofs in France.

[Azadina]

They would need to do a lot of design around the lawn aspect, not the panels

the roof would need to support more weight, be more resistant to insects, deal with run off much better, handle dirt absorbing water, staining caused by mud, actual maintenance that is doable without someone falling off the roof, and decay that can occur due to glass and flows growing into your house. More reistence would be needed to prevent plants from causing cracks in the roof

its a whole thing, but I approve the panels 100%

Still, it can work when designed and built properly. I'd agree on the panels being much easier, and cost-efficient at this time though.

[GennGreymane]

Still, it can work when designed and built properly. I'd agree on the panels being much easier, and cost-efficient at this time though.

At least we can agree on that

Personally I wouldnt want a lawn on my roof as I am also allergic to pollen and dear god...... spring would suck even hard with that.

[Reeve]

$0.56 / kWh???? Holy cow...where is this? In my area, people are getting paid closer to $0.05 / kWh. How much do you guys pay for electricity???

Seriously. I only pay the electrical company like $0.10 per kWh.

- - - Updated - - -

The roots of the grass would get under your shingles and wreck havoc. Even with solar panels, if you're installing them on your roof after the fact, that means drilling holes in your roof for wires and water pipes and then sealing them off. If the job is done correctly okay, but I bet there's going to be a lot of leaky roofs in France.

You don't use shingles under a green roof. It's more like this:

[Cosmic Janitor]

Also the article mentions that green roofs are popular in Germany. All I can ask is, compared to what? Corrugated iron sheet huts in central Africa? Because I can count the houses that actually have one on purpose in this region on the fingers of one hand, I don't even need to use binary for that.

[Poopymonster]

I don't know about other states but my Mom did a solar system at her place and all she pays is the utility companies minimum meter fee each month and they actually pay her every so often for the power her system generates. I think she is getting $0.56/KWH.

Edit: specified minimum fee is only for the meter.

Arizona says "Fuck you using the sun, you'll pay for that!"

[Talon8669]

$0.56 / kWh???? Holy cow...where is this? In my area, people are getting paid closer to $0.05 / kWh. How much do you guys pay for electricity???

Washington State, she specifically lives in a town called Shelton. I think the average is between $0.07-0.09/KWH from the utility company. In order to get $0.56/KWH everything has to be made within Washington State. I think last year she generated 936KWH and she has a fairly large solar system, after rebates from the federal and state government she ended up paying either $36K or $42K (I honestly cannot remember). Basically the system will pay for itself in like 20 years and she will only pay the minimum meter fee from the utility company.

[Reeve]

Arizona says "Fuck you using the sun, you'll pay for that!"

Damn, one of the best places in the world for solar energy, and the electric companies are succeeding in protectionist policies...

The good news is $0.70 per month per kWh of installed capacity isn't very much money, all of which should easily be offset by the excess power being sold back to the electric company.

[Talon8669]

Arizona says "Fuck you using the sun, you'll pay for that!"

Back in 2010 the federal government gave Mason County here in WA grant money to do a test project with solar lighting. Our company was awarded the contract and we installed light poles at remote intersections that had no immediate source of utility power to power a normal light. The end result was a waste of money, the systems were far to under developed, even with LED's the light out put at night was similar to the natural lighting you would get from a full moon on a clear night. Point is solar has its applications. I am extremely surprised Arizona shot it down, with the amount of sun exposure they get I would think Solar would be the hot ticket item.

Now I haven't done much solar for the past 3 years other than some very small systems with some of our commercial project, however, at the time they were only about 17-20% efficient (top end). I would imagine that with better tech that could be pushing closer to 22% but even then it is still just not that efficient and then you deal with the fact that if you actually want to store the power you have to have massive battery banks as the power generated is in DC. We have no efficient way of long term storage for AC power. Batteries at best will last around 10 years which in reality is really only going to be more like 6-8 years. Most of the solar applications I have seen dump straight back on to the grid.