Good for Germany, bad for America

The New Yorker recently published an interesting article about the history of the health care debate in the US. Germany, of course, was one of the very first countries to have something that could be called "universal health care" way back in the late 19th century. The objections to this "German idea" starting in 1917, when all things the German suddenly became bad, sound a lot like the opposition I sometimes face when trying to peddle German renewables policy to Americans:

“Born in Germany. Do you want it in California?” (“If you are opposed to a thing these days,” one frustrated health-care advocate wrote, “the cheapest way to attack it is to call it ‘German.’ ”)

Opponents of feed-in rates in the US often admit that the policy is working in Germany, but then turn around and ask questions like "Are they right for Michigan?" and "right for Germany, wrong for California?"

And then there are all of the complete misunderstandings, such as this guy, who seems to believe that "Germany is building in year over year reductions in their feed-in-tariff system," when in fact that reduction -- called "degression" in financial jargon -- has always been there and, indeed, is the point of the policy to begin with (we want to prevent windfall profits, even as we foster a fledgling industry).

And then there is this wonderful exchange, including the following from California's Vote Solar:

In general, we think a suite of policies are necessary to support solar markets at different stages of development.... Feed-in tariffs, when well-designed, are an important policy tool for setting up sales of wholesale power to a utility.

Vote Solar has probably never really understood FITs, and they get two things wrong here. First, we most certainly do not need a "suite of policies"; in fact, the confusion is part of the problem. What we need is a single national policy that provides a moderate profit margin for different types of projects involving renewables. Second, FITs are not at all for sales of "wholesale power." FITs are designed to provide roughly the same return on all projects, from small rooftop systems to wholesale generators.

With so many solar proponents in the US getting FITs completely wrong, it's no wonder we don't have the policy.