TheTalkingMule
Distributed Energy Enthusiast
Half the equation is going to be storage in about 5 seconds. Ranting about the merits of de-optimizing your angle will seem quite foolish very soon.
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California Renewable Energy Legislation / Progress
- Thread starter RubberToe
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- Energy Environment Policy
SageBrush
REJECT Fascism
There is a market based opportunity that emerged in Hawaii when the local utilities tried to delay solar application in an attempt to de facto eliminate solar. The utilities created an opportunity for consumers to purchase and install battery systems that would not require permission from the utility. The result was load departure and a potential death spiral for those utilities.
Another market based trend is the growth in Community Choice Aggregation in California. Those CCAs have the ability to design new and different rate structures. I should also not that Net Energy Metering for existing customers is grandfathered for a period of time.
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Yup, the technology is moving so fast the regulators are having a hard time keeping up. Therefor the regulated monopolies are scrambling to make sense of this emerging marketplace.
SageBrush
REJECT Fascism
Is that so different than keeping the customer on a net metered account ?
Ignoring the spin, FUD and lies of the utilities for a moment, the bottom line is they are dealing with a drop in demand either way.
There are arguments that NEM has benefits for both the grid and the customer. At least in California under NEM2.0 the utilities are getting some small increment of revenue for customer consumption. The battery model reduces that increment and I would guess that might be enough to incentivize battery installations. I agree from their traditional perspective of the revenue model that they have been working with for the past 100 years that it all represents a decrease in revenue. They seem to be stuck in that mode instead of strategizing how they can capitalize on the network that they still own and how they could provide other valuable services.
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Those rate structures are some of the most impenetrable tomes in existence. Utilities could take advantage of massive customer installed solar by putting smart meters on every home, paying their customers more for excess power generated, selling that power to the utilities other customers at a rate less than their current retail cost, and then taking a cut of the difference.
In Pasadena my power costs $0.26 per kWh on my bill with all charges included. I don't have solar here, but my other property that has SCE service, they pay me about $0.014 for every kWh I over generate. They are making out like bandits, so I guess there really is no incentive for them to do what I suggested.
The CCAs will certainly end up curtailing the utilities power generation business. Anyone know of a study or even anecdotal info showing what effect any given CCA has on the resident utilities generating assets?
Something to occupy my time till the Model 3 delivery ceremony next week.
RT
SageBrush
REJECT Fascism
Yes, but not only. They also do not get to play the capitalization game that the regulatory authorities have always gifted back with a generous guaranteed profit.
I'm not here to defend the utilities, trust me. I'm only saying that net metering is a death knell for them as well.
Most of the California IOUs divested their generating assets except for hydro and Nuclear in the late 1990 with deregulation. They were allowed to build some peaker plants after the Enron fiasco. I have heard estimates that 80% of the load in California could be in CCAs by 2025. It is the quickest ways for cities and counties to meet state RPS goals.
I haven't posted my SPV graph since the June high, and June did turn out to be the high month for the year. It's all downhill from there:
The YOY percentage gains in total SPV power for the last several months look like this:
June: 40%
July: 20%
August: 16%
September: 16%
October: 25%
The YOY percentage gain in total power really doesn't tell the whole story. What really matters is the YOY increase in the amount of SPV generated. Because as the total gets larger, any additional power generated becomes a declining percentage of the total (see Mrs. Sark, I did pay attention in my Calculus 414 class
). So here is a graph showing the YOY total increase in SPV power generated:
This guy bounces around for a variety of reasons: Additional installed capacity, weather (see February), incentives. But when you ignore the outliers, the trend looks like yearly installed capacity over time is slowly increasing. Even a level line would show additional capacity being added every year.
To put some perspective on what the numbers mean, I looked up the average power consumption for homes in California. This page shows the average monthly electricity consumption of homes in all 50 states:
How Much Electricity Do Homes in Your State Use?
California shows 557kWh average per month, or 6,684 kWh per year. From my chart above, October YOY increase was 425,563 MWh, or 425,563,000 kWh. If my interpretation is correct then the following seems to summarize this:
In the last 12 months, California added additional SPV generation to enable the powering of 63,668 homes.
So California has 13 million households. The 63,668 is 0.49% of all households. The SPV added in the last 12 months will be able to power 1 in every 200 homes in the state, for the foreseeable future.
The interpretation of that depends on whether you are a glass half full or glass half empty kind of person...
RT
The YOY percentage gains in total SPV power for the last several months look like this:
June: 40%
July: 20%
August: 16%
September: 16%
October: 25%
The YOY percentage gain in total power really doesn't tell the whole story. What really matters is the YOY increase in the amount of SPV generated. Because as the total gets larger, any additional power generated becomes a declining percentage of the total (see Mrs. Sark, I did pay attention in my Calculus 414 class
). So here is a graph showing the YOY total increase in SPV power generated:
This guy bounces around for a variety of reasons: Additional installed capacity, weather (see February), incentives. But when you ignore the outliers, the trend looks like yearly installed capacity over time is slowly increasing. Even a level line would show additional capacity being added every year.
To put some perspective on what the numbers mean, I looked up the average power consumption for homes in California. This page shows the average monthly electricity consumption of homes in all 50 states:
How Much Electricity Do Homes in Your State Use?
California shows 557kWh average per month, or 6,684 kWh per year. From my chart above, October YOY increase was 425,563 MWh, or 425,563,000 kWh. If my interpretation is correct then the following seems to summarize this:
In the last 12 months, California added additional SPV generation to enable the powering of 63,668 homes.
So California has 13 million households. The 63,668 is 0.49% of all households. The SPV added in the last 12 months will be able to power 1 in every 200 homes in the state, for the foreseeable future.
The interpretation of that depends on whether you are a glass half full or glass half empty kind of person...
RT
Some good news today WRT the just completed Cap and Trade auction. November auction proceeds were about $862 million. Note that part of these funds are used for EV rebates in the state. And this auction produced better results than the August auction, shown below, including the prior years funds raised too:
Here is an L.A. Times link to the story, the website itself is pretty arcane and doesn't spell out actual $ values untril about a month later, when the table you see above for August is released.
California's most recent cap-and-trade permit auction raises more than $800 million
The extension of the CnT program until 2030 has added some much needed clarity to businesses going forward. The previous 2020 program end date left some questions whether the program would continue, which led to the FY16-17 "softness" in funds raised.
The total proceeds raised in this FY are:
February: $8 million
May: $511 million
August: $642 million
November: $862 million
FY 17-18 total: $2,023 million
RT
Here is an L.A. Times link to the story, the website itself is pretty arcane and doesn't spell out actual $ values untril about a month later, when the table you see above for August is released.
California's most recent cap-and-trade permit auction raises more than $800 million
The extension of the CnT program until 2030 has added some much needed clarity to businesses going forward. The previous 2020 program end date left some questions whether the program would continue, which led to the FY16-17 "softness" in funds raised.
The total proceeds raised in this FY are:
February: $8 million
May: $511 million
August: $642 million
November: $862 million
FY 17-18 total: $2,023 million
RT
New rules mandate solar panels on all new homes in California starting in 2020:
California Will Require Solar Power for New Homes
"For residential homeowners, based on a 30-year mortgage, the Energy Commission estimates that the standards will add about $40 to an average monthly payment, but save consumers $80 on monthly heating, cooling and lighting bills."
“There’s also this real American sense of freedom of producing electricity on my rooftop,” Ms. Jurich said. “And it’s another example of California leading the way.”
Seems like a win-win here, unless my good friend @McRat can explain why this will lead to droves and droves of people leaving the state?
RT
California Will Require Solar Power for New Homes
"For residential homeowners, based on a 30-year mortgage, the Energy Commission estimates that the standards will add about $40 to an average monthly payment, but save consumers $80 on monthly heating, cooling and lighting bills."
“There’s also this real American sense of freedom of producing electricity on my rooftop,” Ms. Jurich said. “And it’s another example of California leading the way.”
Seems like a win-win here, unless my good friend @McRat can explain why this will lead to droves and droves of people leaving the state?
RT
1 acre of solar requires ~$600,000 capital, and is 600kW. This is cheaper than putting 3kW on 200 homes. And is less likely to have shading or directional issues. The trees around new houses grow.
It's a great idea if money is not a consideration. 1/200th of a acre per lot per large track development, which can be unusable to begin with (flood, power lines, slope, etc).
Then they mandate the utility must pay a fair price for the power, not the 0.025 per kWh paid to excess production at a home.
They do this with streets, sidewalks, schools, parks, etc. Put the fee on the developer, but at a lower cost and higher utility potential.
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From a strict environmentalist perspective, this is good.
But, as others have said, it would be more cost effective to build utility-scale solar.
I am concerned that this mandate will increase the price of homes in the middle of a housing crisis. Instead of figuring out how to build cheap housing, the state has foolishly increased the price of new homes by several tens of thousands of dollars.
Not necessarily, your math is missing transmission losses, real estate expense, and eco system costs. With your one acre scenario, now you need to find that one acre in very expensive California. Sure, you can find cheap property in the deserts but then you need over a hundred miles of towers and transmission lines which loses 10% of the energy right there. Another problem, that land in the desert is home to very intricate ecosystems. So.....putting the solar where it is needed, in cities, on people's homes makes by far the better sense.
I find this law not foolish at all but rather intelligent. I have solar on some of my rental properties. Even paying retail to a local installer and putting in Sun Power panels which are some of the very best, I just had a 4.4 kw system installed at $12,000 after ITC. It is not "tens of thousands" but barely over $10,000. A PV system installed at the time a new home is built is even less expensive. A PV system saves people money, it makes your "cheap housing" even cheaper.
Disagree. It makes it more expensive. The state and local governments have to do everything in their power to bring down the cost of housing. Not mandating that every brand new home have some shiny solar panels.
When I talk about cheap housing, I mean housing meant for Section 8 voucher programs.
EDIT: Passage from the OC Register regarding this development and its implication for the prices of new homes.
The new energy standards add about $25,000 to $30,000 to the construction costs compared with homes built to the 2006 code, said C.R. Herro, Meritage’s vice president of environmental affairs. Solar accounts for about $14,000 to $16,000 of that cost, with increased insulation and more efficient windows, appliances, lighting and heating accounting for another $10,000 to $15,000.
But that $25,000 to $30,000 will result in $50,000 to $60,000 in the owner’s reduced operating costs over the 25-year life of the home’s solar system, Herro said.
Bill Watt, a homebuilder and design consultant, said those added costs – on top of other building mandates like fire sprinklers – are pushing home prices further out of reach for many buyers.
“We’re not building enough housing already,” said Watt, former president of the Orange County Building Industry Association. “Why not just pause for a little while, focus on the affordability and housing issues, then circle back?”
Only if it's not your money.
My math was conservative. I could hit 700kW/acre with cheap industrial panels.
There is always waste land in a housing tract. If there is not (building on a dry lake bed), you are talking 1/200th an acre per home.
The county took 15% of our land for 10% of market value for a park. 10 acres. They can do the same with solar.
ie- if the City/County/State wants an acre that is worth $1 million, it only costs them $100,000. The courts tend to side with the gov't if the land is only a portion of the sale.
It is geometrically and pragmatically wiser to use ground mount solar. More bang for your buck. Less fire risk and less chance of worker injuries and lower maintenance costs. When it's time to fix a leak in your roof, you'll wish it was on the lot shading of the park and/or flat roof of the school, or better yet, under your powerline easement area.. You even get some leeway on how your house can be designed. The roof on my 3600sqft home is useless for solar. No southern facing slopes, mandatory tile, 3 levels with many ridges, hips, and gables. It's pretty, but not a wise solar candidate. There is a perfect surface for solar that points north though, but it's far too expensive to move the house to Australia. Shipping is brutal. And if I rotate the house, it will make it impossible park in the garage.
BTW - How big do you THINK a 200 house tract is?. Hint. It's not hundreds of miles. There is an 11 acre solar farm about 1 mile from our home and 1/4 mile from the housing tract border. It shares land in a flood basin with the water treatment plant. That's 2,200 homes worth of solar on waste land. And? If the homeowners want to add more solar, they can put it on their roofs.
I wonder how they are going handle homes that are normally shaded (north facing, near mountains, in valleys, forests areas, etc)? Just make them put pointless panels up to give Jerry and Friends an eco-erection? Us Californians are all about makeup and jewelry. We are not so good with checkbooks and tape measures.
A little reading comprehension goes a long way, no eco-erection required
:"Under the new requirements, builders must take one of two steps: make individual homes available with solar panels, or build a shared solar-power system serving a group of homes."
RT
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