California Utilities Plan All Out War On Solar, Please Read And Help

[Merrill]

I do not buy into the bogus utility marketing on this subject, they just want to make more money and to gut net metering and charge solar customers a monthly fee is ridiculous. How can the CPUC offer major incentive to installing batteries and then penalize you for doing that. If the utilities get there way on this legislation you can say good by to solar in California. So the governor wants net carbon in this state and if you eliminate solar how are you going to achieve that.

 

[RKCRLR]

I've always thought that the solar incentives were unfair to low income people since many of them don't own home and couldn't afford the cost of solar installation even if they did. But that is what the state does in its rush to be green.

And conservation or anything else that reduces consumption drives up the per unit cost because the infrastructure still needs to be maintained. It's like the last drought where people conserved water but were hit with big bills because the utility still had the same fixed costs.

I have no problem paying for connection to the utility and paying for what it costs the utility to "store" my energy. But the connection costs should be the same whether or not you have solar unless it actually costs the utility more to provide a connection to a house with solar.

But all of the above applies once my 20 year NEM agreement expires. The state should stick to the commitment they made for the people with existing solar. I'll loose what little trust I have remaining in the government if they go back on the deal after I made the financial commitment to install solar.

 

[Merrill]

I've always thought that the solar incentives were unfair to low income people since many of them don't own home and couldn't afford the cost of solar installation even if they did. But that is what the state does in its rush to be green.

And conservation or anything else that reduces consumption drives up the per unit cost because the infrastructure still needs to be maintained. It's like the last drought where people conserved water but were hit with big bills because the utility still had the same fixed costs.

I have no problem paying for connection to the utility and paying for what it costs the utility to "store" my energy. But the connection costs should be the same whether or not you have solar unless it actually costs the utility more to provide a connection to a house with solar.

But all of the above applies once my 20 year NEM agreement expires. The state should stick to the commitment they made for the people with existing solar. I'll loose what little trust I have remaining in the government if they go back on the deal after I made the financial commitment to install solar.

When I installed my solar in 2010 there was no incentive, I did it mostly to help the environment. I agree that there should be more incentives for lower income families and some of that could come from the billions in profit that the utilities put in their pockets.

 

[h2ofun]

I've always thought that the solar incentives were unfair to low income people since many of them don't own home and couldn't afford the cost of solar installation even if they did. But that is what the state does in its rush to be green.

And conservation or anything else that reduces consumption drives up the per unit cost because the infrastructure still needs to be maintained. It's like the last drought where people conserved water but were hit with big bills because the utility still had the same fixed costs.

I have no problem paying for connection to the utility and paying for what it costs the utility to "store" my energy. But the connection costs should be the same whether or not you have solar unless it actually costs the utility more to provide a connection to a house with solar.

But all of the above applies once my 20 year NEM agreement expires. The state should stick to the commitment they made for the people with existing solar. I'll loose what little trust I have remaining in the government if they go back on the deal after I made the financial commitment to install solar.

How about the car EV rebates? Do low income get to use that?

 

[RKCRLR]

When I installed my solar in 2010 there was no incentive, I did it mostly to help the environment. I agree that there should be more incentives for lower income families and some of that could come from the billions in profit that the utilities put in their pockets.

By incentives I meant the Federal ITC and the 20 year NEM promise.

 

[RKCRLR]

How about the car EV rebates? Do low income get to use that?

If they can afford a new EV, then yes. However, most can't even with the incentive.

 

[Merrill]

By incentives I meant the Federal ITC and the 20 year NEM promise.

The ITC was of no use to me and the 20 year NEM promise is what they are trying to break.

 

[gene]

Property Brother: The benefits of rooftop solar should be accessible for every Californian​

By Jonathan Scott Special to The Sacramento Bee

Read more here: https://www.fresnobee.com/opinion/a...qW_Q8rbZg10ctTDlXWOJlxna7E5uT20#storylink=cpy

 

[gene]

"California has invested over $1 billion [or one year of PG&E dividends — Editrix] to incentivize low-income solar adoption through 2030, with net metering as a critical driver of the economic success of those programs. At present, 15% of all net metered solar users (150,000) are on income-eligible CARE rates."

"An additional 30,000 rental units serving over 100,000 people at multifamily affordable housing projects are under development via the Solar on Multifamily Affordable Housing (SOMAH) program. According to a recent Lawrence Berkeley National Labs report, solar adoption among low- and moderate-income households is trending upward, covering 42% in 2019, or 60,000 installations. AB 1139 would reverse this positive trend, leaving solar for only the wealthy, save for a relatively small number of fully subsidized systems. This would have a negative effect on efforts to shut down fossil fuel power plants and reduce persistent air pollution."

EXCELLENT READ Wonkette viewpoint: California Democrat: Won't Somebody Think Of Poor PG&E? No, Wait, She Means Poor PEOPLE.

 

[Redhill_qik]

I don't think even the biggest solar proponents can argue that if they are net zero, they really should pay zero dollars for their connection to the utility. It's pretty clear that there should be some cost to connect to the grid and some cost for using the grid as a battery. The real question is what should the cost be, and how should those costs be applied. If there is a fixed cost for the grid connection - then it should apply to all users - not just solar customers.

Even if you are a net generator over the year your bill won't be zero as there the MDC is $0.3254 or $118.77/year and maybe more with NBCs. The NBCs are offset by the MDCs which gets you about 15 kWh/day before you exceed the MDC. I think (no real data) that the vast majority of existing residential solar is undersized and at the annual true-up you have a payment to be made for the electricity that has been used over the year which significantly exceed the MDCs.

If the AB1139 supporters believe that grid needs to have a base level of funding to ensure that it is maintained then this is an amount that should be baked into everyone's bill and this charge should result in lower per kWh charges. Some CA utilities already do this like the Modesto Irrigation District that has a charge of $20/month for the residential tariff and $30/month for the EV tariff with per kWh charges that are about 60% of PG&E.

I'm on board with monthly charge and also not crediting back the NBCs against the charge. I'm not on board for penalizing residential solar customers solely based on the installed panel kW number. Charges should be based on either a uniform connection charge applied to all customers and/or on the import amount from the grid with some allowances for the export benefits that are at least the retail generation number. For PG&E a retail generation credit would be about 1/3 of the current tariff and some of the distribution component was pushed to a monthly connection charge it might be 1/2 of the remaining tariff.

 

[h2ofun]

Even if you are a net generator over the year your bill won't be zero as there the MDC is $0.3254 or $118.77/year and maybe more with NBCs. The NBCs are offset by the MDCs which gets you about 15 kWh/day before you exceed the MDC. I think (no real data) that the vast majority of existing residential solar is undersized and at the annual true-up you have a payment to be made for the electricity that has been used over the year which significantly exceed the MDCs.

If the AB1139 supporters believe that grid needs to have a base level of funding to ensure that it is maintained then this is an amount that should be baked into everyone's bill and this charge should result in lower per kWh charges. Some CA utilities already do this like the Modesto Irrigation District that has a charge of $20/month for the residential tariff and $30/month for the EV tariff with per kWh charges that are about 60% of PG&E.

I'm on board with monthly charge and also not crediting back the NBCs against the charge. I'm not on board for penalizing residential solar customers solely based on the installed panel kW number. Charges should be based on either a uniform connection charge applied to all customers and/or on the import amount from the grid with some allowances for the export benefits that are at least the retail generation number. For PG&E a retail generation credit would be about 1/3 of the current tariff and some of the distribution component was pushed to a monthly connection charge it might be 1/2 of the remaining tariff.

This is what is scaring me! If I have 30KW worth of panels, and it cost me a LOT of money and ONLY did with the assumption I could be under NEM2, to think I could be charged lets say 300 bucks a month just because I spent all that money trying to help reduce my draw from the grid and be a good citizen, well, .....

 

[cali8484]

This is what is scaring me! If I have 30KW worth of panels, and it cost me a LOT of money and ONLY did with the assumption I could be under NEM2, to think I could be charged lets say 300 bucks a month just because I spent all that money trying to help reduce my draw from the grid and be a good citizen, well, .....

Unfortunately, the bill supporters only see you shifting cost to ratepayers without solar. It's similar to the logic used by the people supporting EV tax. No good deed goes unpunished.

 

[mspohr]

Exposing the utility playbook: Ratepayers are stuck paying the bill for utility corruption

Legislators and regulators need to be insulated from undue influence from utilities by limiting political spending and instituting strict anti-revolving door policies, the authors write.

www.utilitydive.com

This threat of competition is understandably scary to many utilities who, for too long, have enjoyed their position as the only show in town. In many ways, they have never had to worry about innovation, efficiency, competition, customer service, etc. The thought of moving to a market structure where they must compete to earn and keep business has driven them to fight back and fight back hard.

Acknowledging the historical bad behavior of utilities, we at the Conservative Energy Network have created utilityplaybook.com, a website aimed at educating policymakers, regulators and the general public of the long history of corruption, manipulation and — in many cases — criminal behavior of monopoly electric utilities across the country.

 

[Redhill_qik]

Unfortunately, the bill supporters only see you shifting cost to ratepayers without solar. It's similar to the logic used by the people supporting EV tax. No good deed goes unpunished.

If supporting an EV tax means a specific tax applied to EVs that supports road construction and maintenance in lieu of paying through gasoline tax then you can count me as a member of that group. This is a vary different analogy as the EVs are continuing to use the same roads as ICEVs (?) and should be contributing their fair share. Ideally this would be based on miles driven and not a flat tax or a tax based on the value of the EV. Residential solar households on the other hand are significantly reducing their demand on grid generation distribution and supporting the grid by exporting energy that other customers on the grid are using.

I don't have an EV yet, but likely will in the next 2-4 years and would have no problem paying to support the infrastructure that my EV uses based on my usage of the infrastructure.

 

[RKCRLR]

If supporting an EV tax means a specific tax applied to EVs that supports road construction and maintenance in lieu of paying through gasoline tax then you can count me as a member of that group. This is a vary different analogy as the EVs are continuing to use the same roads as ICEVs (?) and should be contributing their fair share. Ideally this would be based on miles driven and not a flat tax or a tax based on the value of the EV. Residential solar households on the other hand are significantly reducing their demand on grid generation distribution and supporting the grid by exporting energy that other customers on the grid are using.

I don't have an EV yet, but likely will in the next 2-4 years and would have no problem paying to support the infrastructure that my EV uses based on my usage of the infrastructure.

I agree with you. I think all vehicles should have a road tax based on miles driven and the weight of the vehicle (or some method that makes the tax proportional to the amount of road wear contributed by the vehicle) and remove the road tax from gasoline.

 

[miimura]

If supporting an EV tax means a specific tax applied to EVs that supports road construction and maintenance in lieu of paying through gasoline tax then you can count me as a member of that group. This is a vary different analogy as the EVs are continuing to use the same roads as ICEVs (?) and should be contributing their fair share. Ideally this would be based on miles driven and not a flat tax or a tax based on the value of the EV. Residential solar households on the other hand are significantly reducing their demand on grid generation distribution and supporting the grid by exporting energy that other customers on the grid are using.

I don't have an EV yet, but likely will in the next 2-4 years and would have no problem paying to support the infrastructure that my EV uses based on my usage of the infrastructure.

The problem with all the new EV fees implemented lately is that they have overshot the mark. When you calculate the mile equivalents of the EV fees, you could drive an equivalent ICE vehicle 50,000-100,000 miles per year on the gas taxes that they actually pay. Fair share it is not. If we need to pay road taxes, they should be uniform across all vehicle types and taxes on gas should be a carbon tax, not a road tax.

 

[Redhill_qik]

The problem with all the new EV fees implemented lately is that they have overshot the mark. When you calculate the mile equivalents of the EV fees, you could drive an equivalent ICE vehicle 50,000-100,000 miles per year on the gas taxes that they actually pay. Fair share it is not. If we need to pay road taxes, they should be uniform across all vehicle types and taxes on gas should be a carbon tax, not a road tax.

Is there a resource that I can read on the EV fees have been implemented in CA? I haven't heard of anything being passed, talked about but not passed. As I consider an EV purchase I would like to be informed.

IMHO, all vehicles should pay per mile on top registration fees to fund some portion of the roadway infrastructure. Paying 100% is likely a burden to far as there is an economic benefit to all from the infrastructure and large highway construction is tens of billions.

The big obstacle to this is the reporting and monitoring of the number. Finding an acceptable solution that minimizes cheating while taking privacy into account is difficult. And then it becomes the pass through vehicles both commercial and private.

Sometimes I just want to start civilization over again.

 

[nwdiver]

IMHO, all vehicles should pay per mile on top registration fees to fund some portion of the roadway infrastructure. Paying 100% is likely a burden to far as there is an economic benefit to all from the infrastructure and large highway construction is tens of billions.

I agree. But if we're going to internalize external costs we shouldn't cherrypick external costs. We also need a carbon tax on ICE. Without a carbon tax ICE is still FAR more heavily subsidized than EVs even if EVs don't pay for road wear. Maybe that can be the compromise. EVs pay ~$0.005/mile road tax and ICE pays ~$0.50/gallon carbon tax.

The same goes for solar fees. I'm not unsympathetic to the fact NEM is economically unsustainable at some point. But we need to stop cherrypicking cost shifts. Solar costs shifts to non-solar? Fine. But there's an even more substantial cost shift with carbon emissions. Any fee on solar needs to be coupled with a carbon tax.

 

[h2ofun]

I agree. But if we're going to internalize external costs we shouldn't cherrypick external costs. We also need a carbon tax on ICE.

Leave my ICE cars alone

 

[nwdiver]

Leave my ICE cars alone

I am. It's the fuel I'm after