CPUC NEM 3.0 discussion

[wwu123]

Huh would you look at who wants more solar in California…

California utility PG&E proposes 1.6GW/6.4GWh of new battery storage across nine projects

Plans to procure energy from nine large-scale battery energy storage system (BESS) projects in California have been announced by Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E), one of the state’s three main investor-owned utilities.

www.energy-storage.news

I’m sure the generation will only cost rate payers $0.03 per kWh amirite???

To be fair, those are mostly storage projects, not solar. Yes, they mitigate the duck curve from existing and new residential solar, so they would be sucking in the $0.03 residential solar export, and pushing it out at night at retail rates. But while I'm sure the ROI is better than consumer Powerwalls, it's still pretty expensive infrastructure. And it's not just getting residential solar export, but also utility-scale solar and wind export as well.

I don't know how its costs get accounted though. Does it count as generation, even though it's just load shifting? Or does it get lumped into PG&E's distribution and transmission costs and covered by those fees, i.e. part of "the grid" cost? In any case, it is a significant cost that I guess is part of what CPUC is trying to determine which ratepayers take the burden of those costs.

 

[Zabe]

Most people have a very difficult time seeing things outside of their own bubble or sphere of influence. When I operated my first power plant "the grid" consisted of the power plant from my perspective. At my second power station "the grid" consisted of the municipal utility that I worked for. When I finally moved into full power system operations I finally saw a much bigger picture of the grid. From the California Oregon border all the way down to Mexico. I was introduced to an even larger grid the WECC. The Western interconnection. It is a massive almost living machine. It now makes me laugh when I look back at my early days at an individual power plant and my perspective, which was of course entirely wrong.

Why do I bring this up. Solar owners have a very small perspective when it comes to the rooftop solar issue. Solar owners can't see past their own roof. Solar owners can't see beyond their own costs. Solar owners incorrectly believe that they have made their contribution to climate change by installing a rooftop solar system. All they have really done is insulated their costs for 15-20 years. Without global efforts the global temperatures will still rise, the polar ice caps will still melt, and the seas will still rise.

What would it take for say just the California grid to become carbon neutral? I would guess it would take 100-150 GW of intermittent renewable capacity and 300 GW of storage capacity, or a large nuclear fleet that is not wanted by most people at this point in time. Who is going to pay for all this? It won't be rooftop solar owners, they have already done their fair share.

 

[Zabe]

Anecdotal evidence that its not the wealthy getting subsidized due to solar. I'm east of Sacramento and if you do not have solar, your summer PG&E bills will be north of $500/mo. There are a bunch of very large homes that I can see from the back of my house on a hill. Its a private gate locked community and the homes are large and expensive. Out of about 40 homes that I can see, only 1 has solar. They are almost all E/W rooflines and their West roof faces me so pretty sure I would see the solar if they had it. Why don't they have solar if they can clearly afford it. I don't think they care. PG&E bill is just not on their radar or they don't like the look of solar on their house. The only house that has solar happens to be the biggest of all of them and the solar panels are ground mounted away from the house.

Now if I walk around my neighborhood, at least 15% have solar and a couple of homes added solar recently. I'm clearly not in low income, but its not the wealthy who are getting solar just from my own observations.

Anecdotal at best. Biased at worst.

 

[ohmman]

Why do I bring this up. Solar owners have a very small perspective when it comes to the rooftop solar issue. Solar owners can't see past your own roof. Solar owners can't see beyond your own costs. Solar owners incorrectly believe that they have made their contribution to climate change by installing a rooftop solar system. All they have really done is insulated their costs for 15-20 years. Without global efforts the global temperatures will still rise, the polar ice caps will still melt, and the seas will still rise.

It's never a good look to say that all people do anything. It's also wrong.

Allow me to fix this for you.

Why do I bring this up. Some solar owners may have a very small perspective when it comes to the rooftop solar issue. Some solar owners may not be able to can't see past your their own roof. Some solar owners may not be able to can't see beyond your their own costs. Some solar owners may incorrectly believe that they have made their only contribution to climate change by installing a rooftop solar system. One thing they have really done is insulated their costs for 15-20 years, but it isn't all that is needed. Without global efforts the global temperatures will still rise, the polar ice caps will still melt, and the seas will still rise.

Read them both. You also left in "your" in two places, which seems to be directed at members of this thread. Those are, by definition, personal attacks or at least putting your opinions of what others think directly onto them.

I see no permanent moderation on your account - but if members do not follow the Forum Rules, they will likely have posts moved away. Moderation would imply that your posts will not be visible until a moderator approves them. That typically happens after repeat personal attacks.

 

[getakey]

@Zabe
In the context of CalISO, is Residential Solar beneficial or not?

 

[Zabe]

@Zabe
In the context of CalISO, is Residential Solar beneficial or not?

Somewhat. At the same time it has limits. Every home cannot put in rooftop solar or the grid will collapse. Every home cannot put in solar/ess or the entire structure of the business will collapse.

 

[Southpasfan]

Somewhat. At the same time it has limits. Every home cannot put in rooftop solar or the grid will collapse. Every home cannot put in solar/ess or the entire structure of the business will collapse.

I really think that everyone on here understands this.

Tesla system with ESS (or probably without) have the ability to curtail. You could imagine a system with 100% of rooftop solar providing all the energy at noon, with other plants on standby for evening.

But if three things is now clear on this thread, its that (a) the cost of the grid is something like 80% of the cost of a kwh, and (b) volumetric pricing places the cost of the grid on to customers who use alot of energy, and (c) peak pricing is nothing more than a business (the IOUs) maximizing profit.

If the cost of "the grid" was like 5% we would not even be having this discussion. The utility would not care as long as they got their 5%.

Its volumetric pricing and the relative percentages.

You have alot of knowledge, its great to have someone who as actually worked in power.

But I don't know if you saw my post - for SoCal edison their total kwh sold has decreased by 15% since 2008.

Normally, that would be a great fact, what could be better than using less power?

But due to the pricing structure the IOUs cannot handle conservation. Its not like they mention this, most businesses would like more business, but you would sort of expect a public utility to be able to handle conservation of energy use.

They can't. Handle it. At all. The cost of maintaining the grid has not gone down by 15% since 2008, I am sure it has gone up. The reason people are arguing is that they were incentivized to spend money to address an issue, and now it appears that the utilities and maybe the CPUC really could care less.

People on here, including me, also don't like this ridiculous cost shift argument, and for good reason.

 

[wwhitney]

Every home cannot put in rooftop solar or the grid will collapse.

Let me amend that to : "every home cannot put in rooftop solar and expect to export at will or the grid will collapse." Presumably with non-export or centrally controlled export, every home could put in rooftop solar.

And is even the amended statement true? What is the current penetration of residential rooftop solar (fraction of roofs) (A), what is the current residential rooftop capacity (B), and what is the carbon neutral grid PV target capacity (C)? If B/A < C, then in the long run every residential rooftop could have PV. Possibly at the expense of displacing current utility scale PV, which is probably not desirable. And if the target (C) depends on close coupling with ESS, and coupling utility scale ESS with behind the meter PV is hard, it may not make sense to allocate all the grid PV capacity to residential rooftops, rather than larger scale installations.

Cheers, Wayne

 

[Southpasfan]

Let me amend that to : "every home cannot put in rooftop solar and expect to export at will or the grid will collapse." Presumably with non-export or centrally controlled export, every home could put in rooftop solar.

And is even the amended statement true? What is the current penetration of residential rooftop solar (fraction of roofs) (A), what is the current residential rooftop capacity (B), and what is the carbon neutral grid PV target capacity (C)? If B/A < C, then in the long run every residential rooftop could have PV. Possibly at the expense of displacing current utility scale PV, which is probably not desirable. And if the target (C) depends on close coupling with ESS, and coupling utility scale ESS with behind the meter PV is hard, it may not make sense to allocate all the grid PV capacity to residential rooftops, rather than larger scale installations.

Cheers, Wayne

Wayne is exactly right, and let me add this after the word "collapse"

"And the costs of maintaining the grid will need to be restructured."

The BS that is drawing ire here is not only the feeling of someone going back on their pledge.

The ire is from the fact that the utilities could have gone to the CPUC and said, "We think rooftop solar is fantastic, but since our pricing structure requires electricity usage to grow, and rooftop solar causes overall electricity usage to decrease, we have to figure something out."

Instead of that, we get "stop the subsidy to the rich" meanwhile nowhere in the proposal is what the IOUs are planning on doing to address their pricing structure as to everyone.

 

[Vines]

Let me amend that to : "every home cannot put in rooftop solar and expect to export at will or the grid will collapse." Presumably with non-export or centrally controlled export, every home could put in rooftop solar.

And is even the amended statement true? What is the current penetration of residential rooftop solar (fraction of roofs) (A), what is the current residential rooftop capacity (B), and what is the carbon neutral grid PV target capacity (C)? If B/A < C, then in the long run every residential rooftop could have PV. Possibly at the expense of displacing current utility scale PV, which is probably not desirable. And if the target (C) depends on close coupling with ESS, and coupling utility scale ESS with behind the meter PV is hard, it may not make sense to allocate all the grid PV capacity to residential rooftops, rather than larger scale installations.

Cheers, Wayne

The utilities a few years ago required inverters that are installed going forward to be able to respond to grid signals and curtail or shutdown production entirely.

@Zabe statement is inaccurate regarding uncontrolled backfeed, as you point out, since the utilities can control those inverters if they chose to.

Despite working in the PV industry I do not agree that everyone with PV on the roof is looking out for themselves at the exclusion of others. Many of these PV owners could have made much more money by investing in the stock market or in real estate.

What we are objecting to is the IOU running the show WITH PURPOSEFUL INEFFICENCY. This results in skyrocketing power prices that you simply do not see with other Utilities like CPAU, SVP and AMP.

 

[getakey]

Someone needs to explain why PG&E costs are out of control. Why do we (both solar and non-solar) pay >$.50/kWh during Peak. Most other US utilities are <$.20/kWh. PG&E costs are double per kWh compared to other utilities. It isn't due to Residential Solar

 

[Zabe]

I really think that everyone on here understands this.

Tesla system with ESS (or probably without) have the ability to curtail. You could imagine a system with 100% of rooftop solar providing all the energy at noon, with other plants on standby for evening.

But if three things is now clear on this thread, its that (a) the cost of the grid is something like 80% of the cost of a kwh, and (b) volumetric pricing places the cost of the grid on to customers who use alot of energy, and (c) peak pricing is nothing more than a business (the IOUs) maximizing profit.

If the cost of "the grid" was like 5% we would not even be having this discussion. The utility would not care as long as they got their 5%.

Its volumetric pricing and the relative percentages.

You have alot of knowledge, its great to have someone who as actually worked in power.

But I don't know if you saw my post - for SoCal edison their total kwh sold has decreased by 15% since 2008.

Normally, that would be a great fact, what could be better than using less power?

But due to the pricing structure the IOUs cannot handle conservation. Its not like they mention this, most businesses would like more business, but you would sort of expect a public utility to be able to handle conservation of energy use.

They can't. Handle it. At all. The cost of maintaining the grid has not gone down by 15% since 2008, I am sure it has gone up. The reason people are arguing is that they were incentivized to spend money to address an issue, and now it appears that the utilities and maybe the CPUC really could care less.

People on here, including me, also don't like this ridiculous cost shift argument, and for good reason.

I saw the same thing happening with EID water district. People conserved and they had to increase per unit costs. Utilities are capital intensive industries.

 

[Southpasfan]

The utilities a few years ago required inverters that are installed going forward to be able to respond to grid signals and curtail or shutdown production entirely.

@Zabe statement is inaccurate regarding uncontrolled backfeed, as you point out, since the utilities can control those inverters if they chose to.

Despite working in the PV industry I do not agree that everyone with PV on the roof is looking out for themselves at the exclusion of others. Many of these PV owners could have made much more money by investing in the stock market or in real estate.

What we are objecting to is the IOU running the show WITH PURPOSEFUL INEFFICENCY. This results in skyrocketing power prices that you simply do not see with other Utilities like CPAU, SVP and AMP.

Correct.

And I will go one further, I will speculate that many rooftop solar customers fall into one of two categories.

A. They never even bothered to ask the question "wait a second, how is it possible my own private power plant can somehow be cheaper than the electric company?"

or,

B. If they did ask that question, they figured the answer was "..... because I will be getting power, for free, from the Sun."

Only on this board, and if someone knew or truly geeked out, would they have known that the reason rooftop solar works is that current NEM pricing and the vast decrease in usage for those who put in solar is mostly savings from "grid costs."

But its the utilities which set up the pricing structure. Not the customers.

As I have said before, rooftop solar is exactly the same as extreme conservation of energy, from an economic perspective.

The fact that the IOUs are now arguing extreme conservation is unfair to the poor is what is outrageous.

Any time I save money in any way from decreasing my own consumption I do not save money for someone else.

I mean, come on!!!!!! But If I buy less red meat I shouldn't be surcharged so that meat eaters don't have to pay for the meat they eat.

Ugggh.. I have to get off this. Why should I let the stupid IOUs argument bother me so much.

 

[getakey]

I saw the same thing happening with EID water district. People conserved and they had to increase per unit costs. Utilities are capital intensive industries.

Utilities are bloated monopolies with guaranteed profit and no incentive to manage costs

 

[Merrill]

Someone needs to explain why PG&E costs are out of control. Why do we (both solar and non-solar) pay >$.50/kWh during Peak. Most other US utilities are <$.20/kWh. PG&E costs are double per kWh compared to other utilities. It isn't due to Residential Solar

The reason is mismanagement and greed, solar is not the problem the problem is uncontrolled monopolies.

 

[Zabe]

The utilities a few years ago required inverters that are installed going forward to be able to respond to grid signals and curtail or shutdown production entirely.

@Zabe statement is inaccurate regarding uncontrolled backfeed, as you point out, since the utilities can control those inverters if they chose to.

Despite working in the PV industry I do not agree that everyone with PV on the roof is looking out for themselves at the exclusion of others. Many of these PV owners could have made much more money by investing in the stock market or in real estate.

What we are objecting to is the IOU running the show WITH PURPOSEFUL INEFFICENCY. This results in skyrocketing power prices that you simply do not see with other Utilities like CPAU, SVP and AMP.

I believe you are talking about rule 21. This does not give the utilities control of rooftop solar. Rooftop solar in fact has uncontrolled backfeed unless the grid has a sustained duration frequency excursion.

 

[holeydonut]

The utilities a few years ago required inverters that are installed going forward to be able to respond to grid signals and curtail or shutdown production entirely.

@Zabe statement is inaccurate regarding uncontrolled backfeed, as you point out, since the utilities can control those inverters if they chose to.

Despite working in the PV industry I do not agree that everyone with PV on the roof is looking out for themselves at the exclusion of others. Many of these PV owners could have made much more money by investing in the stock market or in real estate.

What we are objecting to is the IOU running the show WITH PURPOSEFUL INEFFICENCY. This results in skyrocketing power prices that you simply do not see with other Utilities like CPAU, SVP and AMP.

Yes, this 100%. There is a common sentiment from the IOUs, their employees, and those that support the current NEM 3.0 PD. They hold their perception of "the grid" to be a sacrosanct monolith worth protecting at all costs. I think Zabe's analogy is spot on... the interconnection of all the IOUs and the Western energy market is an "almost living machine".

This living beast allows countless interests to suckle, gain wealth, and richly retire. Over a century of evolution has lead to this abomination that is wonderous to those who benefit from it, and simultaneously a bane for those who must pay for it.

What is most annoying about those that defend this monstrosity is that they think it's something we all have to live with (and subsidize). In their view, if the "beast dies", it will take everyone down with it. Any time policy arises that attempts to improve the grid over time for future generations, the IOU defenders will use the illogical fallacy that "if everybody did X reform, it will not work. so don't even try." And by association, any ideology that harms the "machine" is harming us all and must be reformed instead.

The California grid didn't become a wildly inefficient and murderous "almost living machine" overnight. And it won't be improved overnight either. Residential solar, regional DER investment, and other novel concepts to decentralize energy have come into play to attempt to improve the grid for all of us. But, instead of embracing change (and presumably profiting from that change), the IOUs are fighting residential solar.

It makes sense for the IOUs to fight change; change is scary. What is disappointing is how the CPUC seems to have agreed that residential solar is the enemy; rather than the CPUC attempting to change and improve the "almost living machine."

 

[BGbreeder]

Ok, so here is the actual problem. I wasted yet another ten minutes of my life looking at SCE's financials all the way back to 2008.

I noted something big, not mentioned either by us or in the "pro IOU crowd" -- incredibly, SCE's total megawatts sold has decreased by about 15% since 2008.

Better light bulbs? More efficient appliances? Better insulation? Oh yeah, ------ those things plus solar adoption which, putting aside NEM, is, regardless of solar or solar plus ESS, a way of not only shifting to greener energy but a way of reducing energy consumption.

Since we now know that most of the cost of the grid is covered through volumetric pricing, a decrease in consumption is an existential disaster for a utility.

Since they can't get more revenue out of light bulbs or insulation, going after their forced solar subsidies is the choice.

This does, of course, lead to the next question, and that is that even if this battle is won, the utilities cannot alllow endless expansion of rooftop solar.

At some point, another 14,000 megawatts of solar, either rooftop or otherwise, and at the high point of the day the California grid would be 100% solar. Before that would happen, given the nature of electricity, I see a need for curtailment for sure.

Or, a shift to battery storage at utility scale to store, for themselves, all that excess solar.

Or, a shift to ESS only on a residential scale, to allow individual households to store.

Or, a shift to new installs being solar and ESS only.

Of course, before any of those shifts there would have to be some sort of fundamental adjustment to how to pay for the grid, but that begs the question, which is not even being asked, which is what we want the grid to look like in 20 to 50 years.

This current kabuki show is all the more depressing because we could be talking about rolling out the technology as it is, instead, its all about IOUs trying to increase profits and con the public (and a college professor or three) as to why.

PS: Is 14,000 megawatts only 8,700,000 16.32 kw rooftop installations? Or did I lose a zero somewhere. I we already have like a million rooftop installations, its hard to get the data quickly but I think one industry group estimated reaching curtailment in the next five years.

I think you lost a zero; 14,000MW is 14GW(I.e. 14billion), so 14x10^9/16320=857,843, I.e. fewer than 900,000 homes.

Great points.

BG

 

[sunwarriors]

Someone needs to explain why PG&E costs are out of control. Why do we (both solar and non-solar) pay >$.50/kWh during Peak. Most other US utilities are <$.20/kWh. PG&E costs are double per kWh compared to other utilities. It isn't due to Residential Solar

I feel it's due to poor management and clawbacks (raise rates) needed to cover all those penalties/liability they had for killing people in past fires. Like an insurance company that just had a big payout/penalty, they raise rates.

I honestly hope some of these large utilities are broken up. They're too big, too powerful and since they're a large monopoly and consumers have no choice, there is little incentive for them to clean up their act.

The whole economics of power has always been poorly structured. Use less, they have to raise rates to survive, etc...Get solar, raise rates again. It still feels like to me the best utopian setup is power locally generated, locally stored, locally owned, locally used. Almost like a community that has their interest in keeping rates low, keeping environment clean, people with storage helping out to export from their batteries if they can, etc.

It IS very strange that all the other power generators not the big IOUs have massively lower rates, fires, cause of damage, etc...

If people want to be more fair, maybe the folks in fire danger areas should 'pay their share' and be charged a ton more, or get their own power since why should a city dweller have to constantly support some random yahoo out in some town that has a higher risk of fire?

 

[getakey]

I feel it's due to poor management and clawbacks (raise rates) needed to cover all those penalties/liability they had for killing people in past fires. Like an insurance company that just had a big payout/penalty, they raise rates.

I honestly hope some of these large utilities are broken up. They're too big, too powerful and since they're a large monopoly and consumers have no choice, there is little incentive for them to clean up their act.

The whole economics of power has always been poorly structured. Use less, they have to raise rates to survive, etc...Get solar, raise rates again. It still feels like to me the best utopian setup is power locally generated, locally stored, locally owned, locally used. Almost like a community that has their interest in keeping rates low, keeping environment clean, people with storage helping out to export from their batteries if they can, etc.

It IS very strange that all the other power generators not the big IOUs have massively lower rates, fires, cause of damage, etc...

If people want to be more fair, maybe the folks in fire danger areas should 'pay their share' and be charged a ton more, or get their own power since why should a city dweller have to constantly support some random yahoo out in some town that has a higher risk of fire?

PG&E Operating Costs do not include the penalties/liability from the fires. Those costs are listed in their financials as unexpected items. Residential Solar does not increase their costs either. Zabe can argue that the costs are not fairly distributed in the rates due to residential solar, but it does nothing to increase their costs.