Florida doesn't like solar - move to roll back net metering

[SMAlset]

Meeting tomorrow on Florida utilities wanting to roll back net metering on solar production from homeowners and commercial entities.

Florida utilities want to gut solar. Here's why - Electrek

 

[SMAlset]

article has link at bottom if you want to watch the live PSC meeting on the issue, 9:15am ET Thurs, 9/17.

 

[getakey]

I posted same link ealier in the California thread

 

[bob_p]

When we planned our system last year (in Texas, that only has a few options for selling electricity back to the grid), we made our estimates based on the savings from a traditional electricity plan (fixed price per KWh). We planned our system to produce around 50% of our annual electricity usage (we're doing better than that).

After operating the system for 5 months, based on actual usage, we switched to a "Free Nights" plan, and are doing even better than we would under a net metering plan, because with solar and PowerWalls, we're able to significantly reduce the amount of grid power used during the day, and by scheduling EV charging overnight, we're able to pull 80% of our electricity from the grid for free.

We're not expecting utilities will eventually exclude homes with solar/energy storage from their Free Nights plans - but until that happens, even if net metering is available in an area, if there are Free Nights plans, homes with solar/energy storage may save more under those plans than relying on net metering.

 

[BrettS]

We're not expecting utilities will eventually exclude homes with solar/energy storage from their Free Nights plans

You’re not expecting that? Or you are expecting that?

 

[jjrandorin]

You’re not expecting that? Or you are expecting that?

When I read that, I read " we are not expecting" as " we are NOW expecting"... based on things @bob_p has posted before, so thats my guess anyway, lol.

 

[Ormond]

The meeting is live now. Sometimes it’s hard to tell who the good guys are!
Undocketed: Customer - Owned Renewable Generation Workshop - Sep 17th, 2020

 

[wwu123]

Meeting tomorrow on Florida utilities wanting to roll back net metering on solar production from homeowners and commercial entities.

Florida utilities want to gut solar. Here's why - Electrek

So hard to figure out the reality from the headlines, or even the article. The first few paragraphs says there are only 60,000 home installations in Florida, so room to grow - yet the state is 3rd in solar. Turns out if you click through 2nd and 3rd level links, there is 6 Gigawatts of solar installed to be 3rd, which would be 100 Kw per home. But since most home solar installs are 4-20 Kw, the reality is 90% of the solar capacity installed is by the Florida utilities themselves.

Completely different situation than CA or HI then, the utilities want to curtail residential solar because they want utility-scale solar for their own profits. Nothing to do with the duck curve or anything like the western states....

 

[cridinger82]

Interesting to see that sunrun is now in south florida "fpl". i tried to get pricing from them just a couple of months ago. Nice to see more competition...

 

[getakey]

difficult to understand the details in this

Duke-solar industry breakthrough settlement aims to end rooftop solar cost shift debates

 

[BrettS]

So I just sat through this 3+ hour workshop and I have a few impressions. First, I think the Electrek article was very alarmist and not really focused on reality. I think the utilities are looking to make some consumer unfriendly changes to the net metering rules. (Particularly FPL... the rep from FPL mostly just seemed to talk about how horrible net metering was while the other utility representatives seemed to be more willing to work on coming up with a solution that benefits everyone).

They also talked about the fact that right now they are only discussing whether they even want to make any changes to the current net metering/interconnect rules. They said that the rules were created in 2008 and there have been quite a lot of changes since then and these discussions are to determine whether it makes sense to make any changes to those rules. The decision here could very well be that no changes are necessary and we move on with life.

However, it also struck me that the PSC commissioners who are the ones who make these decisions are very consumer friendly. They certainly weren’t being hand fed by the utilities and often questioned some of the utility’s statements.

There was also a lot of discussion about the three tiers, the insurance requirements and the manual disconnect switch requirements. The general consensus seemed to be that they agree that the 10kW cutoff between tier 1 and tier 2 was designed 12 years ago and probably isn’t really in line with reality now, however in order to make any changes to that they need to open up the whole net metering/interconnect rules to potential discussion and changes and they aren’t entirely certain that they want to go that far.

So having sat through that whole thing I was left feeling fairly encouraged. I believe that the PSC does have consumer interests at heart and I feel confident that they will make decisions that are consumer focused and not just bend to whatever the utilities want.

 

[ArizonaJon]

Unfortunately in Tucson, AZ, net metering died in 2018. The drive to pay only wholesale for sell back is underway at a drop in rate of 10% per year. In 10 years, there will be almost no incentive to sell excess production.

 

[BrettS]

Unfortunately in Tucson, AZ, net metering died in 2018. The drive to pay only wholesale for sell back is underway at a drop in rate of 10% per year. In 10 years, there will be almost no incentive to sell excess production.

I think net metering and selling excess production are really two different things. For example, here in florida we get 1:1 credit for each kWh that we put into the grid, so we can “bank” extra generation during the days and use that during the nights, or even “bank” production in the summer and then use it during the winter. But at the end of the year if we generated more power than we used during the year then we only get paid at wholesale rates for that extra production.

 

[ArizonaJon]

BretttS, it was the same in AZ until 2018. Now all installations since Sept. of 2018 are sell back only. No net metering and banking of excess power. We can no longer use the grid as our battery.

 

[wjgjr]

Unfortunately in Tucson, AZ, net metering died in 2018. The drive to pay only wholesale for sell back is underway at a drop in rate of 10% per year. In 10 years, there will be almost no incentive to sell excess production.

I would definitely be pissed if I bought solar expecting NEM (which I did, in MD) and they changed it that quickly. At least CA provided a 20-year grandfathering when they first changed the structure (though I know some have pointed out there are loopholes where utilities can reduce some of the benefits of those rules.)

To me, it makes sense over time to see solar being sold to the grid at wholesale rather than full net metering rates. And most states seem to cap the full NEM benefits at around the amount the customer consumes (so you can benefit from NEM as long as you use it during the year, but if you over-produce, you usually get wholesale or some sort of credit you cannot redeem for cash.) However, the changes should be made for future customers and should not punish early adopters who paid more for solar, in part counting on the rules in place to make the economics work.

It should also be acknowledged that there is a public good in promoting solar and that policies - whether making other ratepayers pay, through government support, or by charging more for fossil fuels based on their environmental impact) - supporting solar make sense even where adoption is already high.

 

[ArizonaJon]

We do have a 10 year fixed sell back rate - with some loopholes that are not clear. But at the end of 10 years it will be reset.

 

[SoCal Dave]

Personally, I think the California approach of Net Metering, Time-of-use, Non-bypassable charges, and wholesale credit for yearly overproduction makes sense.

Without Net Metering, solar probably doesn't make as much economic sense so that would reduce the number of solar installs. But TOU and NBCs drive energy saving behavior when solar isn't providing a benefit and helps offset the cost of delivery. The wholesale credit helps people error on the side of a bit of overproduction, but not so much that we have people trying to become their own generating stations for profit.

 

[BrettS]

Not really related, but I grabbed this screenshot during Vote Solar’s presentation at the workshop the other day.

I dunno what’s up with those weird photoshopped triangular panels on the picture of the roof with solar panels. You would think that an organization that was trying to promote solar would use a real picture instead of something photoshopped with panels that don’t actually exist.

 

[wjgjr]

Not really related, but I grabbed this screenshot during Vote Solar’s presentation at the workshop the other day.

View attachment 589578

I dunno what’s up with those weird photoshopped triangular panels on the picture of the roof with solar panels. You would think that an organization that was trying to promote solar would use a real picture instead of something photoshopped with panels that don’t actually exist.

I had to look it up because I have never seen such a thing, but apparently there is at least one company that currently makes (almost) triangular pieces - https://www.trienergia.com/en/

Doesn't look like what is in that image, but I guess it at least exists. And, now that you mention it, I could see where that shape could potentially make sense if the manufacturing costs are not too much higher than rectangular panels since many roofs have a design where triangular pieces could fit nicely. Possibly triangular pieces to fill out a south-facing roof would be more economical than rectangular pieces on a north-facing roof. Though I am guessing in most cases it is easier for installers like Tesla to just deal with one shape.

 

[cridinger82]

i believe sunpower makes triangle looking panels.


on topic of the meeting from yesterday though. It seems that the early adopters will atleast get to stay on the original NEM plan. it seems a nem 2.0 will be coming in the future.... the commission is made up of sensible people it seems and they are not in the pockets of the utility company...