Interesting that the powers to be have such short memory of what happened in Nevada, a next door neighbor.
Yes, my parents have been in the Vegas suburbs since 2011, so as I've tried to pencil out solar ROI for them over the years, I followed that whole Nevada NEM cycle as it was happening. Have no doubt same will happen here in California, but unfortunate it will take a few years for the cycle to implement then "fix" NEM3 in some way.
In thinking about ways they might fix it without going back to a completely NEM2 type structure though:
-NEM3 reduces the benefit of off-peak solar generation (which current TOU periods make most of it off-peak) to just a fraction of NEM1/2, but it is still a benefit.
-the big problem is that reduced annual benefit draws out the payback period to 15 years (by CPUC calcs), or longer (by more reasonable calcs), which is both financially risky and possibly negative ROI to make the investment. If the payback period could be reduced to a reasonable period, then it's less risky, and worth it for many people even with a smaller NEM3 annual benefit after the initial payback period is done.
-NEM2 has highly varying payback periods for different people, depending on their home and roof/shade situation. Some people can get a 3-year payback, and outsized annual NEM2 benefit for 17 more years, versus others with a 7+ year payback, and smaller annual NEM benefit for 13 more years, for example. How to make the benefit more moderate, yet consistent, while still being a benefit.
We know part of the answer is to incentivize storage (ESS). The new federal tax rebates help a lot, put perhaps not enough.
So one thought I have is an additional California tax rebate on the first 10 kwh of ESS. Let's start with a unit of one Powerwall, coupled with an appropriate TOU plan for incentivizing load time-shifting - EV2-A is the only one I think, maybe E-ELEC but I haven't look at that tariff closely. If you use one Powerwall to load-shift 10kwh (not 100% of capacity, just to reserve some for backup) during the summer peak period (when it's most valuable to consumers and to the grid overall), that is a very consistent ~$400/year savings. If you load shift say 5kwh daily the rest of the year, when your solar generation is less), that's a smaller but consistent ~$250/year savings. When I say consistent, that's also consistent for everyone, regardless of how good or bad their roof orientation is, as long as they can generate enough to load shift, and regardless of how large a system they put in, as this rebate would only be on the first 10 kwh of ESS,
They can play with the quantity (e.g. 5 kwh instead of 10 kwh) and the size of the rebate (on top of the federal one) to create any reasonable payback period for everyone - whether 3 years, 5 years, 7 years, on both the ESS and an initial modest solar array to go with it, as well as a consistent but positive return for the remaining life ,whether 10 years or 20+ years, all while NEM3 is unchanged. But any larger ESS or solar beyond that is fully the risk of the consumer, which under our current NEM3 calcs, only pencils out for a few who have the means and the right house.
Of course, any California ESS rebate would be borne by all taxpayers, so will go back to the same NEM3 debate of whether the poor are subsidizing the rich. But at least it is in more direct control of the California legislature rather than the hand-picked CPUC appointees, and can be enacted quickly anytime the legislature wants to take a vote...
. But they would land a solar breaker on my main panel upstream of the gateway... sigh.
