a powertrippin' PG&E worker lectured me about how evil solar+ESS was
That is a strange position to take. Do you recall his reasoning?
I believe that solar+ESS is the solution to the problem.
First, NEM was created to handle the seasonal variation of solar production, by using summer seasons' higher demand to consume the excess solar.
The utilities argument now is not about that, but rather about the
daily cycle of solar production vs load imbalance. Solar (non ESS ones, that is) customers still need full power after sundown. So they still contribute to the total peak power which the utility must deliver, and hence must have generation and transmission capacity to supply that peak. This is a huge portion of their total capital investment, according to their study. This is the argument they made in their "Lookback Study": solar customers need that peak power but don't pay for what it costs.
ESS eliminates that. My Powerwall charges during the morning, and then powers my house from 3 pm till midnight. I use no peak time power at all. In fact, I am now exporting during that period.
So, if solar folks all got batteries, and that market grew to 100% of all customers (it won't), utilities would still provide night and winter power, as well as EV charging, industrial uses, etc. But the peak demand would be around half of what it is now, meaning that utility capital and fuel expenses would be half. As a result, everyones cost for electricity would drop.
Consider this, PG&E is just now turning on a huge Tesla battery system at Moss Landing. 183 megawatts, 730 megawatt hours. That is like around 50,000 Powerwalls. SGIP's $600 million equity resiliency budget bought a similar number of Powerwalls. Why did PG&E do that? Because it saves them $$$. It decreases the amount of generation capacity they need. Transmission too, given that the system is close to the SF & Montery Bay Areas, far from Diablo canyon and lake Shasta.
Anyway, I sincerely wonder how a PG&E worker would explain his distaste for solar + ESS. Unless he actually understands that PG&E profits more when they spend more. And, if they can get CPUC to go along with killing solar, they can spend, spend, spend to supply juice for EV. Just think, tapping directly into the oil companies' vehicle fuel cash flow stream.
EOR. (end of rant). SW