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

[sunwarriors]

Market prices sound great, but when you have a natural disaster, and life/death is on the line, I'm not sure we want that like people in TX with their thousand dollar bills because prices were market based and $9/kWh. If there are long outages and freak weather events, seems just like a jerk move to charge your neighbors "market" priced because you can. Seems like something that will lead to simply violence.

"while the $9,000 per megawatt-hour price for wholesale power was in effect."

Texas utility settles over sky-high energy bills from freeze

The electric utility Griddy Energy has reached a settlement with Texas state officials over crushing electric bills its customers received after the deadly February winter storm and cold wave

abcnews.go.com

 

[bkp_duke]

Market prices sound great, but when you have a natural disaster, and life/death is on the line, I'm not sure we want that like people in TX with their thousand dollar bills because prices were market based and $9/kWh. If there are long outages and freak weather events, seems just like a jerk move to charge your neighbors "market" priced because you can. Seems like something that will lead to simply violence.

"while the $9,000 per megawatt-hour price for wholesale power was in effect."

Texas utility settles over sky-high energy bills from freeze

The electric utility Griddy Energy has reached a settlement with Texas state officials over crushing electric bills its customers received after the deadly February winter storm and cold wave

abcnews.go.com

This doesn't mean you have a completely unregulated market. It's not an all or nothing scenario.

You let market forces dictate prices for the vast majority of circumstances, with certain safeguards in place to protect consumers against price gouging.



The "excessively regulated" utilities in California are no better, and a strong argument can be made that they are worse. They have rates 4-6 times what TX does, but there is no way around them because there is zero competition. You cannot change utility providers, and their collusion with the Utility Commission means that for the past 20 years rates have been going up at a far high pace than inflation. The ONLY competition they have is rooftop solar, and now they are looking to use their power with CPUC to squash that as well.

There are ZERO safeguards in place in "highly regulated" California to protect customers against this price gouging, not when the utilities have the CPUC commissioners in their pockets.

 

[STS-134]

Market prices sound great, but when you have a natural disaster, and life/death is on the line, I'm not sure we want that like people in TX with their thousand dollar bills because prices were market based and $9/kWh. If there are long outages and freak weather events, seems just like a jerk move to charge your neighbors "market" priced because you can. Seems like something that will lead to simply violence.

"while the $9,000 per megawatt-hour price for wholesale power was in effect."

Texas utility settles over sky-high energy bills from freeze

The electric utility Griddy Energy has reached a settlement with Texas state officials over crushing electric bills its customers received after the deadly February winter storm and cold wave

abcnews.go.com

The Texas system is broken. When prices reach $9000/MWh, they should have told people about it in real time! There's no purpose of having market pricing if you're not going to tell people what price they're paying. It's like having a refinery interruption and raising the price of gas to $100/gallon, but just not telling anyone about it. Then gas stations start running out of gas because people are still buying gas like it's $4/gallon, but you've got a refinery down, so they run out of gas, and then at the end of the month, people get hit with $2000 gasoline bills. But wait! Wasn't the purpose of raising the price to $100/gallon to get demand down and avoid a shortage? Except they didn't tell anyone about it, they just gouged people, and ended up with a shortage anyway.

Real time market pricing requires communicating the pricing to customers in real time.

 

[sunwarriors]

This doesn't mean you have a completely unregulated market. It's not an all or nothing scenario.

You let market forces dictate prices for the vast majority of circumstances, with certain safeguards in place to protect consumers against price gouging.



The "excessively regulated" utilities in California are no better, and a strong argument can be made that they are worse. They have rates 4-6 times what TX does, but there is no way around them because there is zero competition. You cannot change utility providers, and their collusion with the Utility Commission means that for the past 20 years rates have been going up at a far high pace than inflation. The ONLY competition they have is rooftop solar, and now they are looking to use their power with CPUC to squash that as well.

There are ZERO safeguards in place in "highly regulated" California to protect customers against this price gouging, not when the utilities have the CPUC commissioners in their pockets.

As I've stated before, I simply think the IOUs are too big, too powerful. Break them all up and make local/regional power companies which are non-profits serving their local communities. Local communities also own their own land I assume and can go hog wild with solar/battery storage in a large scale.

My unregulated market rebuttal above doesn't mean I actually support the IOUs (look at all my posts), but I think simply breaking up the IOUs will fix most of the problems in and of itself first vs. thinking of some complex unregulated half-way market will solve things. At the end of the day, people/companies/IOUs are motivated my profits and no amount of tinkering will fix that I feel.

You can try to deregulate to a limited degree, but until the IOUs are simply gone, I don't think anything proposed will work because you have a massively powerful company always cooking up ways to generate more profits and since it's their job, they have 24x7 to think about that while consumers have their own jobs to worry about.

 

[sunwarriors]

The Texas system is broken. When prices reach $9000/MWh, they should have told people about it in real time! There's no purpose of having market pricing if you're not going to tell people what price they're paying. It's like having a refinery interruption and raising the price of gas to $100/gallon, but just not telling anyone about it. Then gas stations start running out of gas because people are still buying gas like it's $4/gallon, but you've got a refinery down, so they run out of gas, and then at the end of the month, people get hit with $2000 gasoline bills. But wait! Wasn't the purpose of raising the price to $100/gallon to get demand down and avoid a shortage? Except they didn't tell anyone about it, they just gouged people, and ended up with a shortage anyway.

Real time market pricing requires communicating the pricing to customers in real time.

In a life/death situation or disaster, people will still take advantage and even if they posted that power was $9/kWh in real time (I think it's actually $9 vs. $9000 since it's MWh in the article vs. kWh), people will still be price gouged since people are stupid in general (look at payday loans, credit card rates, etc...desperate, elder people with limited means are the most vulnerable as well).

I suppose I'm simply more in favor of looking at power as a basic need vs. whatever the market prices are and everyone should just share in the cost of that basic need, but in a more local scale (we take care of our own) vs. folks in Sacramento deciding for the whole state.

I could be wrong, but it sounds like any place not the IOUs (like Santa Clara power, that Sacramento utility) have more reasonable rates right off the bat so the issue is less completely open unregulated pricing, but the IOUs itself. Remove the IOUs and the problem will mostly fix itself without having to assume free markets are the best for everyone for something like a basic need.

 

[bkp_duke]

As I've stated before, I simply think the IOUs are too big, too powerful. Break them all up and make local/regional power companies which are non-profits serving their local communities. Local communities also own their own land I assume and can go hog wild with solar/battery storage in a large scale.

My unregulated market rebuttal above doesn't mean I actually support the IOUs (look at all my posts), but I think simply breaking up the IOUs will fix most of the problems in and of itself first vs. thinking of some complex unregulated half-way market will solve things. At the end of the day, people/companies/IOUs are motivated my profits and no amount of tinkering will fix that I feel.

You can try to deregulate to a limited degree, but until the IOUs are simply gone, I don't think anything proposed will work because you have a massively powerful company always cooking up ways to generate more profits and since it's their job, they have 24x7 to think about that while consumers have their own jobs to worry about.

Problem is if you look at how the IOUs are built, there are really no "clean" ways to break them up. You can't do it geographically, because their power production facilities are not built out evenly enough for something like that. And then who services the poles+wires.

San Diego has tried this, and is currently trying it, with a municipal-owned alternative. The cost to rate-payers is a big fat . . . 3-4c/kwh cheaper than SDG&E. When you are talking about rates from 30-60c/kwh as a comparison, that's not a substantial savings.

TX's system is not perfect, but there are parts of it that made things REALLY competitive really quickly.
1) the companies that maintain the poles+wires are generally not the power producers. Their chargers are added on to rate-payer's bills, but they are small and reasonable (like 3-5c/kwh)
2) nearly any company can sign up to "plug in" to the grid and be a power producer. When I lived in TX, if you wanted as a customer to buy 100% wind power, you had that option. You were not stuck buying power from the power producer geographically located nearest to you.

Did you know that in TX you soon can buy power from Tesla themselves? They have signed up to be a power producer.

Gov should be involved to maintain certain standards that all the power producers and maintainers of poles+wires adhere to. I'm not advocating government "hands off" completely. But I have yet to see in the utility industry mechanism that works as well as the free market (again, with some price-gouging restrictions and quality of service standards enforced).


And I've lived in both states a significant amount of time (10 yrs in TX, 6 in CA) and experienced first hand both systems.

 

[mspohr]

State’s wimpy plan to cut pollution needs muscle

The governor must demand that the California Air Resources Board strengthen its proposed air pollution-reduction rule, speeding the transition to all-electric vehicles.

calmatters.org

Deadly fires, persistent drought, extreme floods and lost homes are part of the California Legislature’s stark forecast for the effects of climate change. And the U.S. Supreme Court has just hobbled the federal government’s ability to tackle climate pollution. That’s why it’s so frustrating that the California Air Resources Board is knuckling under to the auto industry with its weak plan for cutting tailpipe pollution, the state’s largest source of climate-heating greenhouse gases.



The board proposes no greenhouse-gas standards for gas-powered cars, millions of which will be sold in the coming years. Newsom must put strict pollution limits on them, which will deliver not only climate and health protections but also millions of dollars in consumer savings at the pumps as cars and trucks guzzle less gas.

 

[Big Dog]

State’s wimpy plan to cut pollution needs muscle

The governor must demand that the California Air Resources Board strengthen its proposed air pollution-reduction rule, speeding the transition to all-electric vehicles.

calmatters.org

Deadly fires, persistent drought, extreme floods and lost homes are part of the California Legislature’s stark forecast for the effects of climate change. And the U.S. Supreme Court has just hobbled the federal government’s ability to tackle climate pollution. That’s why it’s so frustrating that the California Air Resources Board is knuckling under to the auto industry with its weak plan for cutting tailpipe pollution, the state’s largest source of climate-heating greenhouse gases.



The board proposes no greenhouse-gas standards for gas-powered cars, millions of which will be sold in the coming years. Newsom must put strict pollution limits on them, which will deliver not only climate and health protections but also millions of dollars in consumer savings at the pumps as cars and trucks guzzle less gas.

Why do the authors of the article not chastise the State Legislature who can easily pass a law for greenhouse-gas standards? Also, why not call out Congress who can easily pass a law to give the federal government (aka EPA) legal authority "to tackle climate pollution"?

 

[mspohr]

Why do the authors of the article not chastise the State Legislature who can easily pass a law for greenhouse-gas standards? Also, why not call out Congress who can easily pass a law to give the federal government (aka EPA) legal authority "to tackle climate pollution"?

Politicians are all bought off by fossils

 

[holeydonut]

Politicians are all bought off by fossils

FTFY

 

[Big Dog]

Politicians are all bought off by fossils

Perhaps true, but all the more reason to call them out. If the press would put the blame where it belongs -- the politicians -- we could hold them accountable and/or replace them at the next election. But instead, the press and interest groups like to pin it on the faceless bureaucracy.

 

[gene]

DeSantis Saved Florida’s Solar Industry. In California, Newsom Prepares To Kick It To The Curb — Golden State Grid

Pacific Gas and Electric—you know, PG&E, the people whose equipment failures continue to light California on fire—have a proposal in front of state lawmakers that would kneecap the state’s rooftop solar industry. And Californians are very unhappy about it.

www.goldenstategrid.com

Over the past two decades Newsom and his wife have accepted over $700,000 from PG&E, its foundation and its employees, The Washington Post recently reported. Newsom received over $200,000 from PG&E during his most recent campaign for governor; and that same year, a political consultancy group that helped run Newsom’s campaign, received more than $1.1 million from PG&E, The New York Times has reported.

 

[cpa]

DeSantis Saved Florida’s Solar Industry. In California, Newsom Prepares To Kick It To The Curb — Golden State Grid

Pacific Gas and Electric—you know, PG&E, the people whose equipment failures continue to light California on fire—have a proposal in front of state lawmakers that would kneecap the state’s rooftop solar industry. And Californians are very unhappy about it.

www.goldenstategrid.com

Over the past two decades Newsom and his wife have accepted over $700,000 from PG&E, its foundation and its employees, The Washington Post recently reported. Newsom received over $200,000 from PG&E during his most recent campaign for governor; and that same year, a political consultancy group that helped run Newsom’s campaign, received more than $1.1 million from PG&E, The New York Times has reported.

Well, DeSantis is no progressive regarding climate change or other matters to be frank.

DeSantis is fully aware that NextEra is headquarted in Florida. NextEra employs about 9,000 in its Florida Power and Light subsidiary. Probably over 10,000 if you add in all its subsidiaries. About 60% of NextEra's subsidiary, NextEra Energy Resources, come from renewables, primarily wind and solar. (Likely sourced throughout North America, not in Florida.)

So, DeSantis would be committing political suicide if he were to kick solar to the curb in Florida.

Gotta keep things in perspective.

 

[mspohr]

California Plans Delay to Solar-Subsidy Reform, ClearView Says

A California agency is seeking more time to determine how to reform a solar-incentive program that’s helped rooftop solar flourish in the state.

www.bloomberg.com

California Seeks More Time to Overhaul Rooftop-Solar Subsidy Plan would give utilities commission another year to decide State’s net-metering program has helped rooftop solar flourish
The commission is attempting to overhaul an incentive program -- known as net-metering -- that helped make rooftop systems mainstream but has drawn criticism for raising power bills for poor and middle-class Californians. The commission’s initial proposal sparked a fierce debate over how to balance the fight against climate change with a push to bolster social and economic equity.

 

[mspohr]

Ohm sees a 90% disconnect in California’s emergency electricity policy

The demand response leader Ohm believes that their customers should have access to the same program that Tesla’s VPP customers are in - which pays nine times more.

pv-magazine-usa.com

The demand response leader Ohm believes that their customers should have access to the same program that Tesla’s VPP customers are in – which pays nine times more.

In a Twitter thread and in a blog post, OhmConnect points out that the company had over 200 MW of available capacity, capable of delivering over 1 GWh of demand response during the 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. PST. However, the state requested only 27 MWh of this available power – for which it paid 21.9¢/kWh.

 

[mspohr]

They aren't giving up. Snuck a solar tax into Diablo nuclear bill

Update: Solar Tax defeated, again!

We are happy to report that the authors of SB 846 have agreed to clarify in writing that the bill will not impose a Solar Tax on the solar energy you

solarrights.org

 

[Redhill_qik]

They aren't giving up. Snuck a solar tax into Diablo nuclear bill

Update: Solar Tax defeated, again!

We are happy to report that the authors of SB 846 have agreed to clarify in writing that the bill will not impose a Solar Tax on the solar energy you

solarrights.org

I went to go see what is in the bill and here is relevant section. Note: bolding was done by me for emphasis

(l) (1) Any costs the commission authorizes the operator to recover in rates under this section shall be recovered on a fully nonbypassable basis from customers of all load-serving entities subject to the commissions’s jurisdiction, as determined by the commission, except as otherwise provided in this section. The recovery of these nonbypassable costs by the load-serving entities shall be based on each customer’s gross consumption of electricity regardless of a customer’s net metering status or purchase of electric energy and service from an electric service provider, community choice aggregator, or other third-party source of electric energy or electricity service.
(2) The commission shall establish mechanisms, including authorizing balancing and memorandum accounts and, as needed, agreements with, or orders with respect to, electrical corporations, community choice aggregators, and electric service providers, to ensure that the revenues received to pay a charge or cost payable pursuant to this section are recovered in rates from those entities and promptly remitted to the entity entitled to those revenues.

I can't tell if this language is adding another component to the NBCs for all imports or if this is an attempt to charge for solar used by the house load.

 

[h2ofun]

I went to go see what is in the bill and here is relevant section. Note: bolding was done by me for emphasis

I can't tell if this language is adding another component to the NBCs for all imports or if this is an attempt to charge for solar used by the house load.

And how do they know what my gross consumption is? If I do not send back, or pull from them, they have no idea what I am using or generating it seems?

 

[mspohr]

And how do they know what my gross consumption is? If I do not send back, or pull from them, they have no idea what I am using or generating it seems?

Most people are connected so they know.

 

[roblab]

The Texas system is broken. When prices reach $9000/MWh, they should have told people about it in real time! There's no purpose of having market pricing if you're not going to tell people what price they're paying. It's like having a refinery interruption and raising the price of gas to $100/gallon, but just not telling anyone about it. Then gas stations start running out of gas because people are still buying gas like it's $4/gallon, but you've got a refinery down, so they run out of gas, and then at the end of the month, people get hit with $2000 gasoline bills. But wait! Wasn't the purpose of raising the price to $100/gallon to get demand down and avoid a shortage? Except they didn't tell anyone about it, they just gouged people, and ended up with a shortage anyway.

Real time market pricing requires communicating the pricing to customers in real time.

Here in California, the gas stations that I regularly pass have a huge sign board posted at each entrance, listing the cost of regular, super, etc. You know the prices "in real time." No one I know fills their car and then puts it on a tab until the end of the month while not even knowing the price. Same with my home service. I have 66 solar panels, and PG&E tells me the price I get when I sell them some, and the price I pay when I buy some. There are no secrets. Maybe Texas is different... but I think we already knew that.