CPUC NEM 3.0 discussion

[Southpasfan]

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

If its either 900,000 large installs or 1.8m medium systems the reckoning is coming fast.

Again, if the IOUs had just said, "you know, for a lot of technical reasons and we understand the subsidy, but out of 30 million households we can only do another million or so" -- well, that would have been the correct discussion.

 

[Zabe]

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

Under current NEM 2 rules my original statement is correct.

 

[holeydonut]

If its either 900,000 large installs or 1.8m medium systems the reckoning is coming fast.

Again, if the IOUs had just said, "you know, for a lot of technical reasons and we understand the subsidy, but out of 30 million households we can only do another million or so" -- well, that would have been the correct discussion.

If the whole noon-time-residential-solar-generation was such a huge problem under NEM 1.0 and NEM 2.0... there were two major ways they could try to address it.

1) Provide incentives so NEM 1.0 and 2.0 households could TOU-shift with a subsequent ESS investment (eg small-scale residential SGIP with partial subsidies... not the 100% reimbursement that some folks got with resiliency SGIP)

2) Accuse solar customers of robbing from poor people; and use that strawman to add so many fees that NEM 1.0 and NEM 2.0 customers would feel removing the panels from their roof (or entering into a non-export PTO) was the best idea.

Sad they went with option #2, and the CPUC was on board.

 

[RKCRLR]

Under current NEM 2 rules my original statement is correct.

I don't think anyone here is suggesting NEM2 should continue indefinitely. Most realize that NEM1 and NEM2 was too beneficial for the people that installed solar compared to the people that couldn't. But that doesn't mean California should go back on what it already committed to. NEM3 needs to have a viable path forward. And charging an additional connection fee for solar customers over what other customers that use other means to reduce their consumption is not the way to do it. The charge for consumption reduction should be equal for all customers. And the compensation for providing electricity back to the grid should stand on its own.

 

[Zabe]

If the whole noon-time-residential-solar-generation was such a huge problem under NEM 1.0 and NEM 2.0... there were two major ways they could try to address it.

1) Provide incentives so NEM 1.0 and 2.0 households could TOU-shift with a subsequent ESS investment (eg small-scale residential SGIP with partial subsidies... not the 100% reimbursement that some folks got with resiliency SGIP)

2) Accuse solar customers of robbing from poor people; and use that strawman to add so many fees that NEM 1.0 and NEM 2.0 customers would feel removing the panels from their roof (or entering into a non-export PTO) was the best idea.

Sad they went with option #2, and the CPUC was on board.

Under NEM 2.0 I thought solar installations could already add small scale residential SGIP ESS and get a rebate if there was still funding? Is that not the case?

 

[holeydonut]

Under NEM 2.0 I thought solar installations could already add small scale residential SGIP ESS and get a rebate if there was still funding? Is that not the case?

The previous small scale residential SGIP was not focused directly on existing NEM 1.0 or new concurrent new NEM 2.0 installs. While some astute people jumped on board, the benefits of ESS were poorly communicated in the sales proposals I saw in 2019.

Also, The SGIP program had rather low installer maximums, and Tesla/Sunrun/etc maxed out in a matter of months. Folks were quickly put on long waitlists; and the experiences shared here on TMC indicated many never saw any money under the small-scale residential program because they couldn't get in line fast enough.

Last, keep in mind the CPUC authorized in 2020 that the remaining small-scale-residential SGIP money and the large-scale-residential SGIP money be deployed to Resiliency/Equity budgets. So, there were some steps that had allocation, but those funds did not really get used for their intended purpose as a load-shifting ESS.

 

[getakey]

The previous small scale residential SGIP was not focused directly on existing NEM 1.0 or new concurrent new NEM 2.0 installs. While some astute people jumped on board, the benefits of ESS were poorly communicated in the sales proposals I saw in 2019.

Also, The SGIP program had rather low installer maximums, and Tesla/Sunrun/etc maxed out in a matter of months. Folks were quickly put on long waitlists; and the experiences shared here on TMC indicated many never saw any money under the small-scale residential program because they couldn't get in line fast enough.

Last, keep in mind the CPUC authorized in 2020 that the remaining small-scale-residential SGIP money and the large-scale-residential SGIP money be deployed to Resiliency/Equity budgets. So, there were some steps that had allocation, but those funds did not really get used for their intended purpose as a load-shifting ESS.

I got in under that program right at the end of 2019. Had to go with a 3rd party installer that jacked the price. I basically got 3 PWs for the normal price of 3 PWs because the SGIP took care of their markup

 

[Southpasfan]

If the whole noon-time-residential-solar-generation was such a huge problem under NEM 1.0 and NEM 2.0... there were two major ways they could try to address it.

1) Provide incentives so NEM 1.0 and 2.0 households could TOU-shift with a subsequent ESS investment (eg small-scale residential SGIP with partial subsidies... not the 100% reimbursement that some folks got with resiliency SGIP)

2) Accuse solar customers of robbing from poor people; and use that strawman to add so many fees that NEM 1.0 and NEM 2.0 customers would feel removing the panels from their roof (or entering into a non-export PTO) was the best idea.

Sad they went with option #2, and the CPUC was on board

The elephant in the room is that if Solar and NEM 1 or NEM 2 is, lets call it "significant" reduction in energy use.

Solar and ESS is, by comparison, a "massive" reduction.

I think in one year our house went from consuming 28,000 kwh a year to something like 2,000 with the large solar and three PWs. It did not go to zero. And the grid was still needed.

If the utilities cannot exist if customers reduce energy by 90% (lets just not bother with whether its rich customers, poor customers, or regular old customers), then they should hurry up and say so and not rely on Zabe to point this out on a message board.

Using a BS argument to try to slow down or kill residential solar is a bit disingenuous for me.

 

[holeydonut]

I got in under that program right at the end of 2019. Had to go with a 3rd party installer that jacked the price. I basically got 3 PWs for the normal price of 3 PWs because the SGIP took care of their markup

Lol yeah what you're indicating is the unfortunate outcome when they do these ridiculously complicated programs through sellers instead of going to the homeowner directly. They sent people to my house 2 times to take pictures to prove I actually had batteries installed and weren't trying to con the system. Because first they didn't trust me; and again because they didn't trust Sunrun.

So maybe that's why they went with option #2 and now we're researching if a non-exporting solar system would be exempt from the wacky fixed cost.

BTW, don't forget that the CPUC believes a Tesla Powerwall 2 with 13.5 kWh capacity is only going to cost you ~$7,800 (before any incentives are applied). Hahahaha

skepticcyclist was being quoted $14k to $18k. Imagine what that'd be if NEM 3.0 goes through as proposed.

 

[getakey]

The elephant in the room is that if Solar and NEM 1 or NEM 2 is, lets call it "significant" reduction in energy use.

Solar and ESS is, by comparison, a "massive" reduction.

I think in one year our house went from consuming 28,000 kwh a year to something like 2,000 with the large solar and three PWs. It did not go to zero. And the grid was still needed.

If the utilities cannot exist if customers reduce energy by 90% (lets just not bother with whether its rich customers, poor customers, or regular old customers), then they should hurry up and say so and not rely on Zabe to point this out on a message board.

Using a BS argument to try to slow down or kill residential solar is a bit disingenuous for me.

Solar + ESS does not reduce energy consumption compare to just Solar, it time shifts it

 

[Incredulocious]

Solar + ESS does not reduce energy consumption compare to just Solar, it time shifts it

It does reduce my energy consumption from the grid. Instead of my solar production being exported to the grid when I’m not using it, I’m recharging my two Powerwalls and then running off that captured energy after dark, instead of pulling from the grid.

 

[holeydonut]

Solar + ESS does not reduce energy consumption compare to just Solar, it time shifts it

I partially disagree; the energy Southpas exported when the sun was up that didn't fit into his Powerwalls was simply absorbed by his neighbors at his local transformer. Overall, whatever we think of as the "huge grid spanning from Oregon to Mexico" saw a reduction of daytime demand.

I where I do agree is that at night time when his batteries hit their reserve and in the Winter... Southpas time shifted his use and sucked energy from the likes of wind farms, Diablo Canyon, salmon killing dams, and probably some dino-fart burning plant in Nevada.

Residential solar proponents believe that Southpas has provided a clean source of energy that does reduce overall peak draw in the afternoon and evening due to his batteries. Which is a benefit to homes connected to the Grid.

The IOUs say that when SouthPas actually sent energy to his neighbors and used the grid to import; he didn't pay his fair share to keep the mammoth grid-machine alive.

Unfortunately I haven't seen CALSSA and the IOUs deliberating these perspectives. They've been too busy mired in a class warfare conversation.

 

[Southpasfan]

Solar + ESS does not reduce energy consumption compare to just Solar, it time shifts it

Solar plus ESS does not reduce the homeowners consumption, but it reduces consumption from the grid quite a bit.

The whole point Zabe was making, I think, is that if, say, a person with solar alone who is not home much exports like crazy from their solar system during peak time at work, and then draws on those exported credits when they get home and fire up the house, from the utility perspective that customer does not reduce consumption much.

Only to the extent the home is self powered while the sun is up, and under my example that's when usage is low for this person.

In my case with solar and ESS MY CONSUMPTION did not really change. From LADWP's view, a home that in 2020 consumed 28,000 kwh consumed 2,000 in 2021. For LADWP it was over 90% reduction. For me, no change in use at all.

And, since I exported 3,000 I will have some in the bank. But that's not the point, at this juncture even though I am not a "net consumer" I still needed the grid to get me 2,000 kwh, mostly during winter nights of course.

 

[Vines]

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.

Yes, this frequency shifting or other methods of inverter curtailment are available to the utilities. This is the point of the Rule 21 SA protocols from my understanding. So the issue becomes: the utilities DONT control the PV output when needed is a reason why they complain about the effects of PV on the grid. Cause, meet effect.

Utilities would rather complain about the PV, than use the new inverter hardware they pushed us into using.

The PD would impede Californias renewable goals. 80-90% of residential installations would not happen. NEM 3.0 should be something that keeps PV growing, but blaming the lions share of rising rates on PV customers is misleading, and doesn't expose why our power prices rise so steeply.

The lions share of rate increases are because of the guaranteed monopoly, which allows a for profit company to make a 10% profit no matter how wasteful. Imagine all of California was controlled by CPAU. Their rate structure= $0.11 per kWh backfed, Tier 1 price at $0.14, over tier 1 it is about $0.19

The numbers were posted elsewhere: it takes PGE about 3 times more overhead expenditures to deliver power compared to other utilities with similar overhead delivery systems and wholesale power prices. Cities right next to PGE territory somehow manage to have decent PV rules, and overall power rates.

 

[Southpasfan]

The IOUs say that when SouthPas actually sent energy to his neighbors and used the grid to import; he didn't pay his fair share to keep the mammoth grid-machine alive.

Says holydonut.

And that's their argument. But as my example above showed, my "fair share" is only based on prior consumption. As a matter of fact, I spent decades as a high end user of SCE. I got solar the second year as a customer of LADWP, which has a pricing structure so fair its not worth mentioning.

Anyway, the fair share argument is bogus. All I did was reduce my consumption. By doing that, yes, I went from paying quite a bit in to the mammoth grid to not much, but its not like in 2020 I paid $7,000 for the grid, and then in 2021 sent a bill for $7,000 to some poor person or persons.

All that happened was conservation.


And as I posted above, the utilities cannot exist if everyone, or even anyone, engages in serious conservation. I mean, they can exist, but not without restructuring how they charge.

 

[getakey]

It does reduce my energy consumption from the grid. Instead of my solar production being exported to the grid when I’m not using it, I’m recharging my two Powerwalls and then running off that captured energy after dark, instead of pulling from the grid.

How?
Lets say you consumed 20,000 MWh annually before you got Solar
You add solar, produce 18,000 MWh and do not change your consumption habits. You now consume a net 2,000 MWh from the grid.
Now you add powerwalls and time shift when you consume, but you have not changed your solar production nor your home consumption. You will still consume a net 2,000 MWh from the grid. Actually, you will consume a bit more because of the 10% loss through the PWs

 

[holeydonut]

In my case with solar and ESS MY CONSUMPTION did not really change. From LADWP's view, a home that in 2020 consumed 28,000 kwh consumed 2,000 in 2021. For LADWP it was over 90% reduction. For me, no change in use at all.

How did you pull that off with so much coming from "self-gen"? I also have 3 PW's... and during all of 2021 they only exported 5,680 kWh. I was cycling them pretty hard too. My take from the grid was basically equal to what I exported in those 12 months.


Per Tesla's data for my house in 2021... Solar generated 13,100 kWh of which...
2,500 kWh was used contemporaneously in the home.
6,400 kWh was pushed into Powerwalls
4,200 kWh was pushed to the Grid.

About 10% of the 6,400 (640 kWh) that went into the Powerwalls was lost (but I did get a lot of wummm wummm wummm sounds).
So, I had 12,380 kWh of usable solar generation to divvy up.


My annual home consumption was about 12,380 kWh
2,500 kWh was used contemporaneously
5,680 kWh the aforementioned came out of the PWs after wummm wummm wummm
4,200 kWh came back from the grid

 

[sunwarriors]

The previous small scale residential SGIP was not focused directly on existing NEM 1.0 or new concurrent new NEM 2.0 installs. While some astute people jumped on board, the benefits of ESS were poorly communicated in the sales proposals I saw in 2019.

Also, The SGIP program had rather low installer maximums, and Tesla/Sunrun/etc maxed out in a matter of months. Folks were quickly put on long waitlists; and the experiences shared here on TMC indicated many never saw any money under the small-scale residential program because they couldn't get in line fast enough.

Last, keep in mind the CPUC authorized in 2020 that the remaining small-scale-residential SGIP money and the large-scale-residential SGIP money be deployed to Resiliency/Equity budgets. So, there were some steps that had allocation, but those funds did not really get used for their intended purpose as a load-shifting ESS.

I would not want any government entity to manage any future energy storage rebate. Dealing with SGIP is a nightmare and most go in expecting nothing. Even installers stress that it's not guaranteed and having talked to a lot of installers, I'd say 90% have no clue about the program and some say the wrong things completely. Also, since most people are dealing with salesmen/women on a solar install, there is usually only 1 person at a lot of these places who has a slight clue of SGIP and those aren't the salespeople.

There's no beating a simple, I file my taxes, I get a rebate situation. Depending on some long drawn out process that assumes you're trying to cheat the system is not a good system and very painful to go through. Some of us aren't even getting FREE batteries and have to fight tooth/nail to get some crumbs after dumping 25k+ or more on storage. With batteries, there is no ROI that pencils out so energy storage is actually a hard sell for tons of people.

 

[BGbreeder]

I think that @Southpasfan makes a point that goes to the crux of the problem for IOU and grid management; if a consumer takes 90% of their demand offline, and needs grid support for the remaining 10% only in, say December, January, and February, then the pricing structure of a grid connection needs to reflect the fact that the grid is present, and being maintained, for the other nine months of the year. The current volumetric weighted pricing doesn't distribute the fixed costs uniformly (I am not getting into what constitutes "fair").

Whether a uniform (per meter per month) pricing scheme that had the costs for the grid in all senses bundled makes "sense", I don't know, but it strikes me that for low income consumers, the monthly charge would be unaffordable.

As other have alluded to, pre-solar, high energy consumers paid more for the presence of the grid than small users, roughly putting C&I, and large home users in one bin, and small home users in another, making the pricing somewhat "progressive" in the economists' definition.

It will be interesting to see this play out. There is a negotiation tactic that stakes out an outrageous starting position in the knowledge that what is achievable is lower, and so one can be seen as having "given up substantial considerations", even if all of the concessions were entirely hypothetical. It strikes me that NEM3 sure looks like that strategy. The $64 question is what is the appropriate answer, and what is the achievable solution.

All the best,

BG

 

[Incredulocious]

How?
Lets say you consumed 20,000 MWh annually before you got Solar
You add solar, produce 18,000 MWh and do not change your consumption habits. You now consume a net 2,000 MWh from the grid.
Now you add powerwalls and time shift when you consume, but you have not changed your solar production nor your home consumption. You will still consume a net 2,000 MWh from the grid. Actually, you will consume a bit more because of the 10% loss through the PWs

I just explained how. Most days most of my solar production is exported and not consumed. Before Powerwalls, all of my consumption after dark would have to be supplied from the grid. With Powerwalls now, some of that solar production goes to recharging the batteries (instead of being exported) which is then used to power the house after dark – instead of pulling from the grid. In the summer, this can even be the entire night’s power usage if I don’t need to recharge my car.

So, my consumption habits haven’t changed but I’m using much less power from the grid. And of course I’m also exporting less power to the grid.