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Why New Jersey's balcony solar bill is a huge deal for renters

19 points by breve

by ticulatedspline

1 subcomments

I'm curious if these systems form a net positive. The cost of a thing provides a pretty reasonable proxy as a summation of the energy put into it's creation. The implication being that a balcony solar system is probably roughly net-negative, environmentally speaking, until it reaches its ROI.
I wonder if enough of these systems reach return to cover all the ones that don't for some reason or another. Looks like ROI might be 3-7 years, at the high end seems probable people would maybe move and not be able to use them and never really get their money's worth out of it.

by chiefalchemist

1 subcomments

Unfortunately, the article makes no mention of (approx) how many rental units there are in NJ. A step further would be, of those, how many have balconies. And finally, how many face south (or close).
I live in Central NJ. This bill certainly can’t hurt. But is the impact significant? Anecdotally, it doesn’t feel that way. The (new) governor still has a campaign promise to fulfill.