Yep, and boy is the wife happyl House at 74 degrees. And they can keep jacking the rates up, makes my ROI getting better and better
I think your house is 74F inside due to global warming… not because of your mini splits.
Either way, powered by
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CPUC NEM 3.0 discussion
- Thread starter jjrandorin
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I think your house is 74F inside due to global warming… not because of your mini splits.
Either way, powered by
I agree with His conclusion that everyone should pay a connection fee, but not the way he gets there. Residential solar may be the most expensive solar, but the homeowner is paying for it - no one else is
energyathaas.wordpress.com
Everyone Should Pay a “Solar Tax”
Monthly connection fees are good for the climate. Regular readers of this blog are well aware that the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) published a proposed decision on reforming net …
energyathaas.wordpress.com
I received the following today.
Looks like the CPUC is considering battery installation incentives, but they don't want to go for 100% of the house load.
Questions were mostly around how I learned and decided to install ESS, did the vendor mention or require it, has it been used for any power outages, did I know about SGIP and use it, ranked choices for reasons why I installed the battery and then there were a few with costs comparisons between whole house versus 30% of the house and which would I choose.
Looks like the CPUC is considering battery installation incentives, but they don't want to go for 100% of the house load.
I got a call for a similar but more general survey about PG&E's customer service, pricing, reliability and trustworthiness. It took half an hour(!). PG&E did not score well...
"Is the service reliable?" Well, I know of a few electrical utilities in other countries that are less reliable, but not many. For a US utility, bottom of the list.
"Are they trustworthy?" Well San Bruno and Dixie leap to mind.
"How do you rate the reliability of service?" Gee, is an outage a month unreliable? The latest was 13 hours due to "failed service equipment".
"Do you think PG&E is supportive of green energy?" Gosh what was that solar attack ad that I just heard on the radio?
"Did I think that news coverage of PG&E was favorable/neutral/unfavorable?" And how many people have died or been displaced through PG&E's actions over the last decade or so? San Bruno, Paradise, Dixie...
The survey was poorly designed on a number of dimensions. I wonder how valid the report will be.
"Is the service reliable?" Well, I know of a few electrical utilities in other countries that are less reliable, but not many. For a US utility, bottom of the list.
"Are they trustworthy?" Well San Bruno and Dixie leap to mind.
"How do you rate the reliability of service?" Gee, is an outage a month unreliable? The latest was 13 hours due to "failed service equipment".
"Do you think PG&E is supportive of green energy?" Gosh what was that solar attack ad that I just heard on the radio?
"Did I think that news coverage of PG&E was favorable/neutral/unfavorable?" And how many people have died or been displaced through PG&E's actions over the last decade or so? San Bruno, Paradise, Dixie...
The survey was poorly designed on a number of dimensions. I wonder how valid the report will be.
Q "Is the service reliable?"
Your Response: Well, I know of a few electrical utilities in other countries that are less reliable, but not many. For a US utility, bottom of the list.
How PG&E will Spin it: Survey respondent thinks PG&E is better than Ethiopia.
Q "Are they trustworthy?"
R: Well San Bruno and Dixie leap to mind.
S: Respondent is upset that some people died and are not paying their fixed costs for the grid.
Q "How do you rate the reliability of service?"
R: Gee, is an outage a month unreliable? The latest was 13 hours due to "failed service equipment".
S: Respondent had power at the time of the survey. SLA met.
Q "Do you think PG&E is supportive of green energy?"
R: Gosh what was that solar attack ad that I just heard on the radio?
S: Respondent is wasting electricity during peak-time 4-9pm by listening to the radio and causing higher natural gas usage at peaker plants. Please send respondent time of use power saving tips.
Q "Did I think that news coverage of PG&E was favorable/neutral/unfavorable?"
R: And how many people have died or been displaced through PG&E's actions over the last decade or so? San Bruno, Paradise, Dixie...
S: Respondent doesn't actually know how many people PG&E has killed; information modification campaign successful.
Oh, I forgot @holeydonut, yes, they asked whether the PG&E energy saving tips were useful and frequent enough. Useful: never. Often enough? Well, as they are useless, yes.... You have complained about the household use ones, but the commercial ones are, if anything worse.
"Get an energy audit, and we will tell you that you have old lights!"
"Upgrading a motor? Here is $15 off a $1,000 motor to install a model on our list of 'approved' motors." Not on ____'s green earth would I let PG&E decide the motor that I have to live with for a decade for 1.5% "savings".
A program to support heat pumps, or HPWH? Nope. Improved efficiency pumps? Nope. Timers to load shift major loads? Nope. Ice units to shift AC demand? Nope. Insulation programs? Nope. Gets old real fast...
All the best,
Peter
"Get an energy audit, and we will tell you that you have old lights!"
"Upgrading a motor? Here is $15 off a $1,000 motor to install a model on our list of 'approved' motors." Not on ____'s green earth would I let PG&E decide the motor that I have to live with for a decade for 1.5% "savings".
A program to support heat pumps, or HPWH? Nope. Improved efficiency pumps? Nope. Timers to load shift major loads? Nope. Ice units to shift AC demand? Nope. Insulation programs? Nope. Gets old real fast...
All the best,
Peter
I'm still wondering how you all don't get upset about these stupid residential homeowner recommendations. But maybe it's because you all have solar and it doesn't matter any more because of NEM 2.0? hah.
I don't know if you use the app/site Nextdoor, but there are some hilarious (in a schadenfreude sort of way) threads of people complaining about their recent electricity and gas bills. Some people are seeing bills go from $300 in 2020 to $1,200 in 2021. And when they call PG&E to complain, PG&E tells them it's because of natural gas prices (affecting both at home and at the peaker plants) and maybe the homeowners need to conserve home energy by eating out more often and closing vents in unused rooms.
Who the hell in California has "unused rooms" in their house? How are people not more upset about these stupid recommendations?
RKCRLR
Active Member
Closing vents in unused rooms? Really? That is a known bad practice. Here is just one article:
Should You Close HVAC Vents in Unused Rooms? | Save On Energy®
It may seem like closing vents in unused rooms would save energy, but it actually does nothing but harm to your cooling system.
www.saveonenergy.com
About the only time it might work correctly is if you have a continuously variable stage HVAC system.
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Closing vents in unused rooms? Really? That is a known bad practice. Here is just one article:
Should You Close HVAC Vents in Unused Rooms? | Save On Energy®
It may seem like closing vents in unused rooms would save energy, but it actually does nothing but harm to your cooling system.www.saveonenergy.com
About the only time it might work correctly is if you have a continuously variable stage HVAC system.
I don't think PG&E's recommendations are actually any good... they're just the stupid recommendations they push out to blame homeowners for failing to manage their own energy costs effectively.
The recommendation to watch TV on lower brightness is the most obvious one. When you're on the phone with them they'll say "so is your TV brightness set on high?" And if you respond "yeah, it's bright enough so I can see it..." they'll respond "... so that's the problem. TV's use a lot of electricity."
No joke, call PG&E up and ask about your energy bill and what is going on. Once they get past the commodity prices thing, they will ask you these stupid azz questions about if you're cooking food or watching TV. You know, the "luxuries" that lead to high energy usesage.
aesculus
Still Trying to Figure This All Out
Got the same survey. My take away was more about if they thought whoever sold me the system was providing all the information about how it could be utilized/paid for and if I knew what I was doing when I bought it and after running it for awhile. Heavy emphasis on SGIP which I think is odd since my understanding is those programs are pretty much dried up.
Overall I thought it was a better survey than most.
PS: It was also a bit odd in that you did not really understand if if was PG&E requesting the survey or the CAPUC. It was a 3rd party doing the survey but there were times there were PG&E like questions and other times PUC like questions.
IMO, this whole discussion about whole house vs partial is a joke. Meaning, this implies that if power goes out, they are telling folks they can go on using power the same way!!! Even though I Have lots of batteries, when the power went the other day, and I am 100% whole house, I started to turn things off, like all of my minisplit heads but one, since depending on how long power is out, the weather, etc., batteries can quickly go to zero and provide no value.
I agree, the way SGIP looks at "battery sizing" is very weird. But it's not just this survey, it goes all the way back to how the SGIP application form "sizes" the systems.
For example, Tesla Powerwall 2 systems are deemed to be a 2.64 hour duration battery system. It is a 2.64 hour system no matter how many batteries you have. The SGIP "sized" the Powerwall 2 as a 13.2 kWh per battery / 5 kW peak discharge = 2.64 hours.
But the 2.64 is important to me because if it were less than 2 hours, it wouldn't qualify for the large scale incentive which is available after you stack 3 Powerwalls together to get over (but not equal to) the 10 kW threshold. This 2.64 is nowhere near what a normal person would consider to be a backup duration lol.
Here's the form for 3x Powerwalls.
Right the email subject was "PG&E Customer Survey", but the sender was the survey company that said they were doing it on the behalf of the CPUC. I do think that that this was being done at the CPUC's request.
I do not think that this is the case (telling folks they can go on using power the same way) as there were questions about what your ESS was backing up. I have a partial backup system as my AC compressors are not powered (plus two other minor circuits that I kick myself about that I didn't insist were backed up). In the case of the 30% of the house would mean your must have critical circuits, like the fridge, some lights and some outlets. There were some questions around work-from-home equipment in the survey and I think that the intent would be for those as well (cable modem, router, PC, monitor, etc).
That 2.64 hours is definitely just a worst case scenario of (13.5kWh-0.3kWh)/5.0 = 2.64 hours, the 0.3kWh is the buffer for it be able to stay alive and restart when the sun comes back up.
I think that most non-holeydont, non-h2ofun households will get a lot more hours out of the Powerwalls. My two Powerwalls got me through the 5 peak hours even with AC usage (not backed up off-grid, but powered by Powerwalls when on grid) still with at least 30% left and on most days 80% left.
I wanted the Powerwalls primarily to stay powered in the aftermath of the next large earthquake. From sunset to sunrise I would cut back usage and then let them recharge the next day. Now if it happens in Dec/Jan then maybe that plan doesn't work very well, but the rest of the year I should be ok with moderate reduction in usage.
I originally wanted a partial home backup, but PG&E refused to approve Sunrun's design citing a partial home backup (where my ACs were not backed up) as dangerous and in violation of the PG&E Greenbook.
What was annoying was PG&E refused to tell Sunrun why exactly the proposal was in violation of this Greenbook ... other than to say the partial home backup solution was no good and to disallow my PV+ESS project.
Then of course when I tried to get a whole home backup, PG&E tried to stop me yet again because of the like-for-like provision and the gas meter proximity thing. This book isn't "green" ... it's sh!t brown.
And now I have the IOUs telling me I'm robbing from poor people.
The only guarantees in life are death, taxes, and PG&E sucks.
There is, the consumer advocate is PG&E.
When I contacted the CPUC directly that PG&E was doing this, they said PG&E has mechanisms to address misgivings caused by PG&E and to contact PG&E for a resolution.
The CPUC should have just told me that PG&E was self-regulated and self-oversighted. PG&E gets every rate increase it wants and the CPUC was prepared to just publish the joint IOU NEM 3.0 proposal with almost zero modifications.
Yes, they are stupid recommendations. Feel better?
The TV brightness makes me smile every time I see it. Plasma, sure, CRT, sure, modern LED TVs, um... not enough to notice. Or the recommendation to
- "Challenge everyone in the household to gather around one television a few days each week, and turn off the others." (Daily savings tip)
You really couldn't make this stuff up. Plus the wonderful advice for us to eat by dim candlelight. (Great advice for fire zone residents, truly outstanding! Brought to you by the same folks who overpressurized the San Bruno gas pipeline, and started forest fires, plural. And these days "fire zone" includes many suburban areas, e.g. San Ramon, Superior, CO...)
The commercial advice isn't any better; installing LED lighting and ECM fans is about the only advice that isn't at least 40 years old, and air handling is rarely in the top ten energy uses in most businesses.
Yes, room for improvement, on multiple dimensions. Did I mention that power was out for more than 12 hours last week for us and three hundred odd neighbors? Due to "equipment failure"? On a calm, warm, sunny morning?
Don't get me wrong changing organizational cultures is hard, and changing corporate direction hard as well, but there is a ton of low hanging fruit.
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