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

[SageBrush]

They really are screwing solar.

As a guess, the ACC calculator and retail import pricing diverge, meaning that the utilities screw their customers. Perhaps it can be justified by demand charges -- I do not know.

The more I look at NEM 3.0, the more it looks like a bonanza for EVs also used to arbitrage energy. The import/export price difference is $0.3/kWh when time shifted. A 15 kWh daily arbitrage is worth 15*0.3*365 = $1.600 a year. The moral to this drama is that work-place charging is key. It always has been but now the market price signals align.

 

[mspohr]

As a guess, the ACC calculator and retail import pricing diverge, meaning that the utilities screw their customers. Perhaps it can be justified by demand charges -- I do not know.

The more I look at NEM 3.0, the more it looks like a bonanza for EVs also used to arbitrage energy. The import/export price difference is $0.3/kWh when time shifted. A 15 kWh daily arbitrage is worth 15*0.3*365 = $1.600 a year. The moral to this drama is that work-place charging is key. It always has been but now the market price signals align.

As far as demand charges... solar is distributed and places very low demand on the grid so demand charges should not be an issue.

 

[SageBrush]

As far as demand charges... solar is distributed and places very low demand on the grid so demand charges should not be an issue.

You misunderstand. I am saying that the utility may have spread out their peak load associated costs across the TOU hours when load is high.

^^ This is a guess. I would like to know if any reasonable justification exists.

 

[dfwatt]

I hear some Stanford wunderkind said to Fake it till you make it. Wonder how she's doing now...

/s

Still faking it but not making it

 

[iPlug]

Here in Rocklin (PG$E) we live right next door to Roseville which has nearly identical population and zoning density and demographics. Yet Roseville has perhaps the lowest electricity rates in California.

Roseville:
Tier 1- up to 500 kWh/month: $0.0959/kWh
Tier 2- greater than 500 kWh/month: $0.1452/kWh

*Edit: corrected a decimal place

 

[frankvb]

With the new rules, if they go into effect, the thing to do will be to get solar and use it to charge your on-site storage, and then set up your on-site storage to supply your house with electricity during peak times during the summer. For all other times, just hold the energy as a backup. Now what they need to do is dramatically lower retail prices during times when electricity is abundant.

I did a back-of-the-envelope calculation, and even if I would charge 10 kWh per day into the storage on the super off-peak rate, then discharge it in peak hours (never mind the solar panels) it would take more than 10 years to break even with the current battery storage cost. Sending back that energy into the grid might even be illegal under the utility connection rules. And that is with NEM 1, I guess with NEM 3 it will take forever to break even. Not to mention the batteries will likely wear out quickly if you do this.

I don't think there is any scenario where battery storage makes financial sense at the moment (at least for NEM1/2), obviously you can get it for other reasons. NEM 1 basically gives you an unlimited battery inside the grid (though you will run into TOU pricing).

 

[miimura]

Here in Rocklin (PG$E) we live right next door to Roseville which has nearly identical population and zoning density and demographics. Yet Roseville has perhaps the lowest electricity rates in California.

Roseville:
Tier 1- up to 500 kWh/month: $0.959/kWh
Tier 2- greater than 500 kWh/month: $0.1452/kWh

I think you left out a zero in a critical location.

 

[cpa]

My three questions for everyone are the following:

Why are the utilities and the CPUC continuing to follow an anachronistic approach for determining billing rates? The ROI model made sense in 1920. Build it, and customers will follow. All we ask is that we get an X% return on all our capital improvements. Suddenly, large areas have electricity! We are bringing electricity to the masses! FDR signed the Rural Electrification Act of 1930-something in order to bring electricity to large swaths of rural America.

We are well past this stage today. It is the 21st Century. I am sure that there are plenty of super smart people employed by the IOUs and elsewhere (certainly smarter than we) who truly understand the inner workings of public utilities. They know how to make pricing equitable for most--customers, shareholders, and generators. You can't please all the people all the time. But they can create a more realistic business model that will reward and not penalize most of us. Yet the IOUs cling to this outdated business model. Inertia can be a bitch.

My second question is hypothetical in nature, so bear with me. What would happen if electricity demand and usage dropped by a non-trivial amount, say 35%?

Finally, I have never seen how much privately-owned rooftop, ground mount, or canopy mounted solar panels feed the grid on average. Our installation pushes about 4-5 kWh onto the grid from 11 to about 2:30 during the longer cloudless days. Our neighbors have larger installations, so they must be pushing more. I have a couple of clients who installed about 60 kW worth of panels on their commercial buildings that exceeds their needs on weekends and holidays. There is a business near us that has solar panels on all the parking canopies--guessing there are about 250 total panels at an unknown kW per panel. It is an office, so they likely generate a surplus most days (assuming that they are all operational.) Is there a report that reflects what we citizens push onto the grid? This data has to be tracked somewhere.

 

[Merrill]

My three questions for everyone are the following:

Why are the utilities and the CPUC continuing to follow an anachronistic approach for determining billing rates? The ROI model made sense in 1920. Build it, and customers will follow. All we ask is that we get an X% return on all our capital improvements. Suddenly, large areas have electricity! We are bringing electricity to the masses! FDR signed the Rural Electrification Act of 1930-something in order to bring electricity to large swaths of rural America.

We are well past this stage today. It is the 21st Century. I am sure that there are plenty of super smart people employed by the IOUs and elsewhere (certainly smarter than we) who truly understand the inner workings of public utilities. They know how to make pricing equitable for most--customers, shareholders, and generators. You can't please all the people all the time. But they can create a more realistic business model that will reward and not penalize most of us. Yet the IOUs cling to this outdated business model. Inertia can be a bitch.

My second question is hypothetical in nature, so bear with me. What would happen if electricity demand and usage dropped by a non-trivial amount, say 35%?

Finally, I have never seen how much privately-owned rooftop, ground mount, or canopy mounted solar panels feed the grid on average. Our installation pushes about 4-5 kWh onto the grid from 11 to about 2:30 duringu the longer cloudless days. Our neighbors have larger installations, so they must be pushing more. I have a couple of clients who installed about 60 kW worth of panels on their commercial buildings that exceeds their needs on weekends and holidays. There is a business near us that has solar panels on all the parking canopies--guessing there are about 250 total panels at an unknown kW per panel. It is an office, so they likely generate a surplus most days (assuming that they are all operational.) Is there a report that reflects what we citizens push onto the grid? This data has to be tracked somewhere.

Because they have no reason to think about the future and use the latest technology or spend any money on their infrastructure when you are a monopoly out of control it all comes down to how much money they can make.

 

[OldPro]

Looks like it.

Even Ron DeSantis veto'd this in Florida. I really hope Gavin can come to his senses.

I hope we Californians get the opportunity to share Gavin with the rest of the country

 

[iPlug]

Substantially better NEM 3 news if true:

Tesla (Energy) sent out an email today re: NEM 3, seems to contradict some earlier information reported from the CPUC. Seemed prior reports said everything exported to grid would be compensated below the retail rate customers would be charged to import at the same time. But Tesla claims summer evening exports will be just the opposite:

...during spring afternoons when energy from the grid comes mostly from inexpensive, GHG-free renewables, NEM credits will be very low, in order to encourage customers to store their solar energy for later use. On summer evenings when grid energy is generated by dirty fossil plants, NEM 3 customers will be compensated at nearly $3/kWh (about 10 times the retail rate) to encourage reducing emissions by sending clean energy back to the grid...​

 

[sunwarriors]

Substantially better NEM 3 news if true:

Tesla (Energy) sent out an email today re: NEM 3, seems to contradict some earlier information reported from the CPUC. Seemed prior reports said everything exported to grid would be compensated below the retail rate customers would be charged to import at the same time. But Tesla claims summer evening exports will be just the opposite:

...during spring afternoons when energy from the grid comes mostly from inexpensive, GHG-free renewables, NEM credits will be very low, in order to encourage customers to store their solar energy for later use. On summer evenings when grid energy is generated by dirty fossil plants, NEM 3 customers will be compensated at nearly $3/kWh (about 10 times the retail rate) to encourage reducing emissions by sending clean energy back to the grid...​

This is during the evenings (there is no solar already) so it's assumed you're sending energy from Powerwalls during that window. I think it was $2/kWh this past fall. Generally, the idea is still you'll be paid nothing when there is sun (noon/afternoon), but if you choose, you can send the power to the grid for $3/kWh. Some folks here have done it and you can track down the VPP threads.

 

[STS-134]

This is during the evenings (there is no solar already) so it's assumed you're sending energy from Powerwalls during that window. I think it was $2/kWh this past fall. Generally, the idea is still you'll be paid nothing when there is sun (noon/afternoon), but if you choose, you can send the power to the grid for $3/kWh. Some folks here have done it and you can track down the VPP threads.

And it's only on event days, not every day.

 

[iPlug]

This is during the evenings (there is no solar already) so it's assumed you're sending energy from Powerwalls during that window….

Exactly. PV only systems “need not apply.”

Would like to see CPUC explain and detail if this is every summer evening (eg, currently ~4 month season in PG&E rate plans) or just event days, VPP only stuff or applies across a new TOU structure, etc.

 

[sunwarriors]

Exactly. PV only systems “need not apply.”

Would like to see CPUC explain and detail if this is every summer evening or just event days, VPP only stuff or applies across a new TOU structure, etc.

I think the spot rate is so much worst. Maybe someone can post it from the heat wave.

Usually, when it's one of these days, it's crazy hot so I don't have the storage. That and I don't have PWs nor want anyone to be able to change stuff in my system, but that's me and seems a lot of folks here have signed up for it.

I'd guess it's only event days, but we'll see and can't wait to hear when people get their checks next March.

 

[SageBrush]

Would like to see CPUC explain and detail if this is every summer evening (eg, currently ~4 month season in PG&E rate plans) or just event days, VPP only stuff or applies across a new TOU structure, etc.

I'm willing to wager it is event days. Even then, the setup is more than a little ridiculous. Buy energy at retail rates, sell at event rates. Download for 15 minutes, upload for 45 minutes.

By the way, I'm reasonably sure that the high rates have nothing to do with pollution; they occur during episodes of looming brown-outs

 

[dfwatt]

It is disingenuous to first maintain that customers will choose dirty energy over equal cost clean energy, and then rant about utilities choosing what seems to serve their self-interest. People in glass houses, and all that. Moreover, you are not mentioning that every public monopoly utility is obligated to public oversight. The PUCs and PRCs all over the country are either elected directing by the people, or by executives voted in by the people. In CA, the governor can nix any PUC decision not to his liking.

Sorry, but going after the utility bogeyman is too easy. The public majority at large view net metering as an unfair subsidy of the rich. That you and I think that argument is BS is besides the point that we are a very small minority.

Here is the bottom line: Anything near 1:1 net metering is a huge revenue shortfall for utilities, and can only be justified to the extent that it carries social cost of carbon value, meaning less fossil combustion. Now you tell me -- what fraction of the voting populace view climate change as a looming material catastrophe that affects them directly, let alone have a clue about the social cost of carbon ?

Well I think that analysis leaves out a couple of really striking facts about so-called net metering. I think you're describing something that exists only in the abstract but in its actual instantiation is far less generous to the solar user than what you're describing at least here in Florida. First of all there is a base connection charge and for us it is now $30 a month. This takes place in the context of an initial house connection charge of a thousand dollars when we built the house, and then on top of that there's the two megawatt hours that we donate to the grid every year for which we get nothing which costed out at an Uber cheap 10 cents a kilowatt hour (less than FPL can actually generate electricity for) still works out to another $200 a year (on top of the $330 a year connection charge). So the notion that net metering really just has a subsidy for the rich solar owner is really mythological. Between the initial connection fee and then the monthly connection and the donated two megawatts per year, we estimate that in our 3 years of using basically none of the grid that we have contributed ~$4,000. And that's the economic context in which we are a net energy producer for the local grid. Looks like a pretty good deal for FPL. And yet they are whining and complaining bitterly about being screwed. It's all obfuscation.

So it is purely mythological when power companies whine and complain about being screwed by rooftop solar. And they came very close in Florida to passing a punitive bill that would tax rooftop solar to the point where there is no payback. More to the point, the effort in taxing rooftop solar is not to recapture some sort of free infrastructure benefit that the rooftop solar folks are getting it's to bury the economics of rooftop solar so that it is no longer a threat to their monopoly.

So please let's not have transparently cooked and jacked up numbers presented to support plutocrats in a monopoly. Let's get real numbers and consider a realistic infrastructure charge for being connected. It sure as hell is not $80-100 a month. The other contradiction which you don't seem to be considering is that in Florida we are not legally allowed to be off the grid. I would opt for that because it would save me a lot of money and I don't need FPL. But that of course means you'd be allowing people to opt out of this punitive cost structure where they're being charged much more for electricity than it actually costs them to generate themselves given the current economics of a good solar system with power walls or the equivalent. Allowing people to go off grid would eventually kill the goose that's laying all the golden eggs. Bottom line- utilities whining about net metering as being a giveaway are just projecting their own entitlement and economic predation. So please let's have less BS about the real story behind net metering opposition from utilities.

 

[SageBrush]

So please let's not have transparently cooked and jacked up numbers presented to support plutocrats in a monopoly. Let's get real numbers and consider a realistic infrastructure charge for being connected.

It varies a lot by locale.
For PNM in New Mexico, a grid connection is a $50 permit fee. Monthly connection is $6 a month, the same as everybody else. Net metering is 1:1 with no TOU.

In SW Colorado (Empire co-op, circa 2019), the connection was a $35 permit fee, and net metering was 1:1 with no TOU. The monthly fee was ~ $45, the same as every household. I think Empire electric is the better example because close to 100% of their energy supplies were bought. They were not against net metering or PV because the monthly fee covered their non-electricity expenses.

 

[dfwatt]

It varies a lot by locale.
For PNM in New Mexico, a grid connection is a $50 permit fee. Monthly connection is $6 a month, the same as everybody else. Net metering is 1:1 with no TOU.

In SW Colorado (Empire co-op, circa 2019), the connection was a $35 permit fee, and net metering was 1:1 with no TOU. The monthly fee was ~ $45, the same as every household. I think Empire electric is the better example because close to 100% of their supplies were bought. They were not against net metering or PV because the monthly fee covered their non-electricity expenses.

Wish I lived in one of those other areas, especially New Mexico! Unfortunately the southwest looks like they're going to run out of water sometime in the not too distant future.

 

[mspohr]

It varies a lot by locale.
For PNM in New Mexico, a grid connection is a $50 permit fee. Monthly connection is $6 a month, the same as everybody else. Net metering is 1:1 with no TOU.

In SW Colorado (Empire co-op, circa 2019), the connection was a $35 permit fee, and net metering was 1:1 with no TOU. The monthly fee was ~ $45, the same as every household. I think Empire electric is the better example because close to 100% of their energy supplies were bought. They were not against net metering or PV because the monthly fee covered their non-electricity expenses.

We have a small local utility in California. Liberty Utilities. We pay $9.00/mo connection fee (everybody) and have 1:1 net metering. Electricity rates have been consistently lower than the rest of the state. Was $0.15/kWh until recently but now up to $0.20