What if you want to sell the house

I’ve not read the contract yet. Considering they include removal an reinstallation labor for free if someone renovates their roof, they theoretically might as well relocate them to another house when moving within their service area (which is constrained as well by the region of the green certificates).

What happens when you want to exit the contract within the 30 years?

Certainly you can buy the gear. And if you buy all the panels you are out of the contract. Price per panel as they age is something like this:

• years 0-5: €850
• years 5-10: €750
• years 10-15: €650
• …
• year 30: €0

If you want to exit the contract and return the panels, I have no idea. But since these prices seem to be heavily inflated to cover their labor, I imagine it’s quite uninteresting to return the panels because they likely factor in the labor.

When the sun is shining at peak brightness, what’s the guarantee that you get to use all of it?

All the boxes have LCDs. The 1st box shows the power generation. Then another box shows what of that you are consuming. I don’t recall what the 3rd box shows but I can only imagine it’s the energy fed to the grid. I assume the original electric meter is still installed, in which case it might be possible to check the math.

There could still be shenanigans because it’s probably hard to verify. I think as a low consumer I might be better off buying the panels and getting an i/o meter (not sure what the correct term is but something that compensates me for what is fed back to the grid).

Anyway, I appreciate the reply. I’ll have to mirror some of those questions to the supplier.

I can only guess. I don’t think that could even be in contract. My guess:

• another company buys it: the buyer takes over the contracts
• liquidation: normally assets go to the creditors. But every homeowner is a creditor for the property in the future. So I think a reasonable court would just turn ownership over to the homeowner. OTOH, the energy company is also a party to the deal because the energy supplier gets the unused power. Perhaps the panels would be taken over by the energy supplier until the 30 year mark.

The cost of installation, wiring and transformers is more than the cost of panels.

They likely factor all those costs into the panel costs. But would labor and parts overhead represent 9/10ths of €8500, for example? Looks like they install 3 boxes in the basement plus panels for around €7500.

That may be where the fat is. So I’m tempted to say this is only a good deal for someone who really wants hands-off on-grid solar power for 30 yrs. And perhaps a bad deal if someone foresees going off grid and doing their own labor.

After the 30 years of “borrowing” the panels, who pays for their removal and recycling?

I assume that’s the homeowner because the supplier simply makes it all the homeowner’s property after 30 years… likely so they don’t have to deal with it.

I just get a white screen, even after enabling JS. I have images disabled. Is the whole page just an image?

They’re slow

Okay but that’s not the real deterrant. It’s the cost you mention. I would like to take a transatlantic cargo ship despite the extra long journey, but the cost blows it.

I don’t think cargo ships do much better on GHG than jets. But an airship would be vastly more eco responsible than ships or jets. Cost is really the issue though and that can be solved. People taking jets could be forced to subsidize those traveling more responsibly.

Today human hibernation is widely thought to be crazy talk but it’s not far off. We will see it in our lifetime. People in hibernation eat less, need less space, and need less customer service.

You’re basically complaining that Roth 409s/IRAs exist

You’re basically saying “fuck Europe” (to use your technique of building a man made of straw). This is not a US-only forum. Roths are a US invention and they are US-specific. Canada has something somewhat like it but not quite (no conversion option IIRC, which blows it), and at least parts of Europe (if not all of Europe) have nothing at all like it.

Apart from that, it’s bizarre that you think I would have any problem with Roths. Where do you think you read that? Roths are a great tool that actually supports my goals – though in one country only. And only for as long as conversions are allowed, to the extent they are allowed, and to the extent of 401k limits and conversion limits.

I might have ignored this post without all the anti-NEET, anti … landlords? company owners? contractors? … all the tears of people who seem to me to be in the wrong place, in the comments.

Ah, so anti-work is an elitist movement that excludes some demographics of people you hate? Nonsense. Middle class people can (and should) practice anti-work philosophies. Please fuck off with the: this is for poor people only exclusivity. The geocentrism can fuck off too, particularly when simultaneously coupled with pretentious ass-hattery. Uber Eats contractors would be appalled with the prejudiced grouping you have stuffed them into. The poor people you want to restrict the anti-work movement to don’t have the 401ks needed for the Roth conversion approach to work for them.

There are some models for sabaticals, like lower pay and then basically a year of paid vacation. It also includes insurance policies, as there is an obvious incentive to just fire you before you take the time off.

None of my employers have offered that. Colleagues would take a sabatical but I think it must have been uncompensated – just an understanding that the gig was held for them. Is there a particular region where this arrangement is common? If it’s just 1 year off every 7 years, that’d be useful but doesn’t match up to my pattern of working about ½ time on avg (1yr on, 1yr off, 1yr on, 1yr off, 6 on, 6 off, etc).

That paying a little extra when you made more money is how a progressive tax system is meant to work.

You think the progressive tax system deliberately punishes people with unstable or fluxuating income? That’s foolish.

Whether that’s by design or not, no self-respecting anti-work proponent endorses it.

BTW, different countries have different tax tables, but 5% is ~100 hours. Would you like to work an extra ~1—2½ weeks per year for free? If yes, what are you doing in the anti-work community?

by coming up with a sophisticated tax avoidance scheme

The intellectual dishonesty here is atrocious. We’re talking about working less/minimally by leveling income across fiscal years (or achieving that effect) to avoid penalties for anti-work practices.

Great article. I think there are some flaws but it gives lots of good ideas.

Possible flaws:

• Insulating the underside of the work surface would prevent the work surface itself from getting warm. Hands have the most need for warmth. So I would be tempted to insulate the underside of the work surface as suggested but cut out a deliberate thermal bridge around the keyboard and mouse area – or maybe supplement a heating pad on top of the desk. But taking care not to add heat to the laptop.
• Space heaters are discouraged by the article because they output too much power (as they are intended for heating a small room). But space heaters often have thermostats. I have an a/c powered oil radiator on wheels. It may be high wattage but I think it will know when to quit. And it would save me the effort of rigging up a thermostat.
• IIUC, they rely on the blanket to mitigate heat loss around the sides of the desk. That’s where I would be tempted to use insulating radiator foil, perhaps in addition to a blanket.

Thick insulation foam for roofing is often thrown out, like when a neighbor re-roofs and buys too much. I will be on the look out for scrap pieces to use under the desk.

Some of the windows are leaky. The frames and window sills are old and irregular. Some window frames are painted unsmooth wood and the sills are ceramic tile (some textured) which would also be quite difficult to seal off. So I think attempting that would be in vain.

I stay mainly in a windowless room with the doors shut.

Yeah I do the hand sitting and some other tricks… but was looking for a slightly more productive level of comfort without heating the room or house.

It’s not insulated. The thermostat it has a floor of 5°C/40°F, at which point it heats even in the off state to protect the pipes.

That would help when my wrists rest on the cold desk (which is ergonomically bad anyway). It doesn’t seem like a solution for typing, though if I take frequent rests for hand warming maybe that’d be viable (which I do now by via many cups of hot tea).

About the eyes, I would not want to wear goggles. But I wonder if a good lamp shade could be sufficient. Or is the reflected light also retina deteriorating?

Thanks for the insight!

Have you encountered any merchants charging a fee for cash back?

I’m astonished to hear of that degree of nannying. But then it occurs to me that’s probably not an ATM limit; it’s probably a limit of the bank that issued your card. I would check your bank’s contract.

Since ATM fees don’t apply in your case, the fix is perhaps to open a few accounts so you can use one card after another. I guess assuming these are gratis accounts (not sure if that’s a thing in NL).

Another trick: buy something at SPAR and ask for €150 in cash back. I’ve heard SPAR has a 150 limit but not tested it. I would like to hear if any shops have a higher cash back limit than 150 as well.

Perhaps that was the case a year ago when you posted this, but now the free accounts allow zero outbound msgs.

It’s interesting that their highest tier plan is capped at 150 msg/day. In any case, I think @jet@hackertalks.com has no cause for concern.

My problem is that they delete trial accounts without reason & without warning. So I distributed my email address to people and just a few months later the address is dead. They don’t say the free accounts have a time limit. I thought the only limit was lack of sending feature.

Yes, and in fact it’s worse than your linked page suggests. I was happy to receive email and not send. So that free trial would have been forever perfect for me. But after a few months my login creds mysteriously quit working. No warning and no msg after the fact to tell me why my #onionmail.org account was deleted.

It’s a dick move because people rely on email for important tasks. It’s fair enough to have limitations, but concealing the limitations is off.

Indeed universal standards can’t be expected to exist or relied on and my comment doesn’t assume that.

What I would envision is a company that needs to deploy a battery swapping infrastructure for a car like this one (which I hear is common in Spain). People and businesses with extra solar power could have a 3rd-party drop off a vending machine which could be brand-specific.

Or it could be scooter batteries. I heard about battery swapping station for scooters in the UK. I don’t recall the brand though.

(update) It’s worth noting that a sustainable user-repairable battery is being planned, called the “Infinite Battery”:

https://www.ifixit.com/News/101675/bike-manufacturers-are-making-bikes-less-repairable