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Yeah, that's absolutely right.
是的，完全正确。
What we're seeing is that people who are wealthier, who obviously own their own homes and have higher income usually over around $100,000 a year, these are the people who can afford to lay down tens of thousands of dollars upfront for rooftop solar and then say I'm going to make this money back, but it might take me seven to ten years, and they're fine with that.
我们看到的是，那些比较富的人，他们都有自己的房子，年收入通常在10万美元左右，他们有能力为屋顶太阳能预付几万美元，然后再把这笔钱赚回来，但这可能需要7到10年的时间，对此他们都能接受。
Whereas more middle-class folks, lower-income folks, they just can't afford to do that upfront.
然而，更多的中产阶级和低收入人群，他们无法提前支付这笔费用。
A problem with this is that there are huge benefits in the electricity bills of people who switch to solar and some of those benefits that they get, the costs are going on to people of lower and middle incomes who can't afford solar.
这样做的一个问题是，转用太阳能的人可以省下一大笔电费，而他们获得的这些好处，其成本转移到了负担不起太阳能的中低收入人群身上。
Explain that part for me. How is it that if you're a wealthier person, when you go to your rooftop solar and now you're just making your own energy, and you're paying like five bucks a month in your power bill that all of a sudden this is changing how much people with less money are paying for their power bill?
这个再详细解释一下。如果你是富人，给自己的屋顶安装了太阳能装置，现在你可以自己发电了，每个月的电费只有5美元，这怎么就突然之间改变了穷人支付电费的方式呢？
Yes. Part of it is that if I have this big, beautiful house and I install solar panels on the roof, at a certain point, I'm not using all of my solar power, and so I'll export it to the grid, and the grid will pay me for the solar that I'm giving them. They'll be paying me.
好的。部分原因是，如果我有一栋又大又漂亮的房子，我在屋顶上安装了太阳能板，有时候，我的太阳能用不完，多余的电量会输送到电网里，而电网要为我提供的太阳能付费。他们要给我钱。
But because in certain states where there's so much solar, they're actually paying more for the solar to the homeowner than they're actually benefiting from it.
但是在一些有大量太阳能的州，他们付给房主太阳能的费用比他们实际从中受益的要多。
That difference gets pushed onto every other consumer of electricity on the grid.
而这中间的差额又被转移到了电网的其他电力消费者身上。
There's been some analyses of California which has an issue with this, and researchers have estimated that between $4 billion to $6.5 billion was added to customers' bills who don't have rooftop solar because of this.
有一些对加州的分析表明，加州在这方面存在问题，研究人员估计，因为这个原因，没有安装屋顶太阳能的客户的账单增加了40亿到65亿美元。
Well, when I was thinking about how you were describing this in your story, I came up with a metaphor that I want to try to test out on you and you tell me if you feel like it's an accurate way of- Sure. Describing in very simplistic terms the dynamic that's happening here.
想到你在报道中描述这种现象的时候，我想到了一个比喻，想在你身上测试一下，然后你告诉我-好的-用这个非常简单的术语来描述这种情况是否准确。
It sounds to me that it's sort of like if you lived in a big group house with a bunch of people, and you all were sharing a fridge, and everybody has their stuff that they need to put in the fridge, and they're like, Okay, this is a shared cost.
我觉得这整件事听起来，就像你和一群人住在一个大的集体公寓里，所有人共用一个冰箱，冰箱里有每个人都需要用到的东西，他们会觉得，好的，这是共同的成本。
We power the fridge, we pay for the fridge, we pay repair guy to come fix the fridge when we need to, and we pay for that together.
我们给冰箱供电，为使用冰箱付钱，冰箱需要修理的时候，我们会一起付钱给修理工。
But then some of your richer roommates or housemates, they're like, You know what? I'm actually just going to get my own mini fridge I'm going to put in my room, and I'm not going to worry about this big fridge anymore.
但你那些比较富有的室友会觉得，算了吧，我打算买个迷你冰箱，放在自己房间里，这样就不用再担心这个大冰箱了。
Then if enough people are putting their own mini-fridges in the room and paying for it themselves, then there are just a few people left in the house paying for this big fridge that's now more expensive per person everyone's not pooling their refrigeration needs.
如果有很多人都买了迷你冰箱放在自己房间里，只给自己的迷你冰箱付费，那这个家里就只剩下少数人为大冰箱付费了，这样每个人承担的成本就更高了，大家的制冷需求都分散了。
I think that's an amazing metaphor, and it reminds me of my time as a graduate student in the UK when I lived in a group house and we had a minuscule fridge.
我觉得你这个比喻超级棒，这让我想起了我在英国读研究生的时候，住在一个集体宿舍里，我们有一个很小的冰箱。
But, yes, it's like a common problem. If people start leaving the market, it leaves other people with higher expenses to keep up.
但是，没错，这个问题很常见。如果有人离开了集体市场，其他人就得付出更高的成本才能弥补。
This doesn't mean that rooftop solar is terrible all the time, and I think that people who have installed it, they did it for really good reasons.
这并不是说屋顶太阳能就只有缺点了，我觉得那些安装了屋顶太阳能的人，他们这样做是有充分理由的。
The incentives were there. They were being encouraged to install it. That was a good thing.
他们有安装太阳能的动机。也被鼓励这么做。这是好事。
