CPUC NEM 3.0 discussion

[ohmman]

My electric bill was 450 net. I have no gas. But since I had 3000 worth of credits, I still have 2500 worth of credits. True up in April. Love the house at 74 degrees upstairs. Guess I will be getting back the .03kw. I LOVE have my house super warm in the winter, and super cool in the summer, and ZERO PGE bill. Now, if I can just get EV charging in, I can give my friends FREE charging.

I was right at net zero on credit when December began, so that and the rest of the winter will chew into my true-up, which closes at the end of March. Time to pay the piper. December was a rough month, to be fair. Super cold and very cloudy.

 

[tomuo]

We haven't talked much about the true-up part of NEM3.
Yearly true up clearly benefits us; but even if nothing else changes, if it changed to monthly true-up, what does that incentivize, just more storage?

 

[h2ofun]

We haven't talked much about the true-up part of NEM3.
Yearly true up clearly benefits us; but even if nothing else changes, if it changed to monthly true-up, what does that incentivize, just more storage?

Dump the storage, just get a generator

 

[holeydonut]

Dump the storage, just get a generator

Maybe they'll charge a fixed cost per kW for a generator too. Your signature has like 45 kW of on-site generation.

 

[RKCRLR]

We haven't talked much about the true-up part of NEM3.
Yearly true up clearly benefits us; but even if nothing else changes, if it changed to monthly true-up, what does that incentivize, just more storage?

I don't see how more storage would help much with monthly true-up. In my situation I'd have to get enough storage to carry me through the winter.

 

[Merrill]

Dump the storage, just get a generator

I purposely did battery backup because I do not want to use gas or propane for a generator.

 

[wwu123]

We haven't talked much about the true-up part of NEM3.
Yearly true up clearly benefits us; but even if nothing else changes, if it changed to monthly true-up, what does that incentivize, just more storage?

I think someone brought up on this thread about a week back that monthly true-up means no banking summer credits for use in Wintertime. What I haven't seen discussed is how that interacts with the lowered NEM3 export credit rate. But if I think about it, if the NEM3 credit is about $0.03 wholesale rate, and the true-up rate is about the same $0.03, then there's no point to banking annual true-ups vs monthly true-ups vs weekly true-ups, right?

Because you're no longer banking credits at a potentially higher rate, say summer rate, than you use it, you're just banking $0.03/kwh. And if they cash you out at the end of the month at $0.03, you're just banking $0.03 in your own real bank account, versus them holding $0.03 in your credit bank til the end of the year.

Storage is the only answer, because it avoids export and banking credits at $0.03, and instead "banks" it at the rate at the time you draw it down. But aside from load-shifting the morning excess to the same evening, any additional unused will quickly fill up your storage within a few days. Unless you plan to consume it somewhere within a few more days, your storage will get full, and then you'll be exporting at $0.03 again. So it seems like with any sane amount of storage, even a weekly true-up wouldn't be any better or worse than a monthly or annual true-up, because of the NEM3 export rate? And thus for load-shifting you only need as much storage as to cover your nighttime loads from panel sunset to sunrise?

 

[tomuo]

I think with monthly true-up, it would also incentivize home EV charging, as you could charge over night or over the weekend to use up your previous week's solar excess.
Without EVs, there really is nowhere else to send the excess to except for back to the grid at $0.03

 

[holeydonut]

I think with monthly true-up, it would also incentivize home EV charging, as you could charge over night or over the weekend to use up your previous week's solar excess.
Without EVs, there really is nowhere else to send the excess to except for back to the grid at $0.03

It's more like nowhere else to send the excess except for the grid at negative ($0.10) per kWh. Since that stupid $8 per kW + $12 monthly grid benefits charge is effectively punishing people for exporting solar at all.

In Hawaii, new solar customers can opt into a program where they get $0.00 per kWh for solar exports; but have no "grid benefits charge" (GBC). CALSSA, Aurora, and others have commented on the NEM 3.0 PD. They both determined that Hawaii's $0.00 for exports (with no GBC) is actually better for an average residential solar customer than the NEM 3.0 PD with the ACC rate on reimbursements + the GBC.

 

[RKCRLR]

I think with monthly true-up, it would also incentivize home EV charging, as you could charge over night or over the weekend to use up your previous week's solar excess.
Without EVs, there really is nowhere else to send the excess to except for back to the grid at $0.03

Monthly true-up would cost me a lot more money. I'm on a heat pump and use as much power in the winter as I do in the summer but my solar only produces about 25% of what it does in the summer. So I rely on banking my excess summer production to get through the winter.

 

[getakey]

Monthly true-up would cost me a lot more money. I'm on a heat pump and use as much power in the winter as I do in the summer but my solar only produces about 25% of what it does in the summer. So I rely on banking my excess summer production to get through the winter.

I don't even think you could bank any under NEM3 as the export credit is so low. I bet your monthly NEM charge would always be positive

 

[wwu123]

Monthly true-up would cost me a lot more money. I'm on a heat pump and use as much power in the winter as I do in the summer but my solar only produces about 25% of what it does in the summer. So I rely on banking my excess summer production to get through the winter.

Yes, monthly true-up ALONE could cost many of us a lot more than the our current annual true-up. NEM3 export credits ALONE will also cost us a lot more than NEM1/2 credits. But the two together don't do any worse than one, because the 2nd one already wipes out any benefit from the first one.

 

[Redhill_qik]

It's more like nowhere else to send the excess except for the grid at negative ($0.10) per kWh. Since that stupid $8 per kW + $12 monthly grid benefits charge is effectively punishing people for exporting solar at all.

In Hawaii, new solar customers can opt into a program where they get $0.00 per kWh for solar exports; but have no "grid benefits charge" (GBC). CALSSA, Aurora, and others have commented on the NEM 3.0 PD. They both determined that Hawaii's $0.00 for exports (with no GBC) is actually better for an average residential solar customer than the NEM 3.0 PD with the ACC rate on reimbursements + the GBC.

I was looking at the CPUC 12/13 press release and saw this bullet point

• Allows Net Billing customers to “oversize” their systems by up to 150 percent of the customer’s historical load to allow for future vehicle and appliance electrification.

How in the world do they reconcile the contradiction of the "grid participation charge" of $8/kw because solar residential customers aren't using enough electricity and paying their fair share with install more solar (that we can charge you for) to meet your energy needs of the future so that the IOU doesn't have to build the infrastructure or generation facilities?

 

[getakey]

I was looking at the CPUC 12/13 press release and saw this bullet point

How in the world do they reconcile the contradiction of the "grid participation charge" of $8/kw because solar residential customers aren't using enough electricity and paying their fair share with install more solar (that we can charge you for) to meet your energy needs of the future so that the IOU doesn't have to build the infrastructure or generation facilities?

A Consultant was paid a lot of $$$ to come up with that!

 

[yblaser]

The proposed decision kept yearly true ups or at least I read it that way.

 

[stopcrazypp]

The proposed decision kept yearly true ups or at least I read it that way.

There's this line, which I take to mean monthly true-ups:
"Moves residential customers from annual billing to monthly billing to help customers avoid unexpectedly large annual electric bills at the end of their 12-month billing period."
CPUC Proposal Aims To Modernize State’s Decarbonization Incentive Efforts

Although page 109 of proposed decision, seems to say they maintain annual true-ups (in opposition to utility proposals) by way of carrying over credits to future months, but you have to pay off the given month's bill (so kind of a hybrid).
"We maintain annual true-ups for both residential and nonresidential customers, meaning credits can be carried forward to future months within a 12-month billing period. Further, we require residential customers and nonresidential customers to pay their bills monthly, meaning customers must pay all incurred charges every month."
https://docs.cpuc.ca.gov/PublishedDocs/Efile/G000/M430/K903/430903088.PDF

I don't think it matters much anyways as they give you only on average 5 cents per kWh for your exports (instead of currently being a direct offset), so whether they count it annually or monthly doesn't really matter, as you are unlikely to bank anything.

 

[getakey]

There's this line, which I take to mean monthly true-ups:
"Moves residential customers from annual billing to monthly billing to help customers avoid unexpectedly large annual electric bills at the end of their 12-month billing period."
CPUC Proposal Aims To Modernize State’s Decarbonization Incentive Efforts

I don't think it matters much anyways as they give you only on average 5 cents per kWh for your exports (instead of currently being a direct offset), so whether they count it annually or monthly doesn't really matter, as you are unlikely to bank anything.

I agree. There is nor more Banking as we know it. Monthly will avoid the multi thousand dollar true up

 

[holeydonut]

There's this line, which I take to mean monthly true-ups:
"Moves residential customers from annual billing to monthly billing to help customers avoid unexpectedly large annual electric bills at the end of their 12-month billing period."
CPUC Proposal Aims To Modernize State’s Decarbonization Incentive Efforts

Although page 109 of proposed decision, seems to say they maintain annual true-ups (in opposition to utility proposals) by way of carrying over credits to future months, but you have to pay off the given month's bill (so kind of a hybrid).
"We maintain annual true-ups for both residential and nonresidential customers, meaning credits can be carried forward to future months within a 12-month billing period. Further, we require residential customers and nonresidential customers to pay their bills monthly, meaning customers must pay all incurred charges every month."
https://docs.cpuc.ca.gov/PublishedDocs/Efile/G000/M430/K903/430903088.PDF

I don't think it matters much anyways as they give you only on average 5 cents per kWh for your exports (instead of currently being a direct offset), so whether they count it annually or monthly doesn't really matter, as you are unlikely to bank anything.

Maybe it's a hybrid of the two. If you're at a NEM deficit, they do monthly billing to collect your deficit energy use (and of course their fixed cost GBC).

If you have a monthly credit, they'll just carry the balance forward and bill you for the fixed cost GBC. If you have a net credit at the end of your anniversary date (probably impossible under the rules and the paltry export value), they'll send a PG&E lineman to your house and they'll throw a roll of nickels through your window.

 

[tomuo]

Ah, that makes more sense. monthly billing of NBC, minimum and overage amount, balance forward of generation credit (which can only be used to offset usage, not NBC or minimum.
So there is still a dead spot for people whose yearly NEM anniversary is at the end of the summer / beginning of winter. They pull from the grid all winter, paying every month, then finally in spring and summer they build up a credit, only to have it true-up-obliterated at the end of summer.

 

[getakey]

Maybe it's a hybrid of the two. If you're at a NEM deficit, they do monthly billing to collect your deficit energy use (and of course their fixed cost GBC).

If you have a monthly credit, they'll just carry the balance forward and bill you for the fixed cost GBC. If you have a net credit at the end of your anniversary date (probably impossible under the rules and the paltry export value), they'll send a PG&E lineman to your house and they'll throw a roll of nickels through your window.

I think its impossible to have a monthly credit under NEM3. Perhaps with PWs - maybe