New monthly fee for Arizona solar customers

[nwdiver]

I own 90 panels at my office and 28 at home. I don't gave a problem with a $5 fee per month to pay for the grid that I use every night when my panels cease to produce anything, but I want to run the heater or watch TV. It just seems fair.

Well... $5 is an average. It's $0.70/kWp so if those are 250w panels you're going to be paying ~$20/mo for your house and office. I actually see what happened in AZ as a minor victory for solar. I agree that solar customer can't pay $0 even if net use is 0 kWh. We use the grid, we should help pay for it BUT what we pay must correlate to how much we use it. If there are two customers each with a 10kw system but one takes measures to increase self-consumption and minimize stress on the grid they should be rewarded for that behavior. Charging $0.10/kWh for imports and crediting $0.075 for exports would be one way to do that.

 

[rolosrevenge]

A 10kw generator that runs on nat gas is <$3k... that can b/u a PV system during times of low insolation.

I wonder what the heat rate and cost curve of such a generator is. The reason the grid ended up with very large and centralized plants is that economies of scale with plant efficiencies and heat rates. Something that small is bound to cost a ton to run for more than a few hours.

 

[nwdiver]

I wonder what the heat rate and cost curve of such a generator is. The reason the grid ended up with very large and centralized plants is that economies of scale with plant efficiencies and heat rates. Something that small is bound to cost a ton to run for more than a few hours.

My guess would be ~$0.40/kWh to run that generator based on nat gas at ~$0.02/kWh and ~5% thermal efficiency. Another great reason to NOT go off-grid; The decision would no doubt be as emotional as financial. There are months where I get paid <$0.02/kWh for my EXCESS and charged $0.023 for my PRODUCTION. Yes, some months it would be CHEAPER to PRODUCE less. I'm sure you can see how that could motivate someone to cut their power lines if not for money, for spite. Without the temporary production credit, if I go on vacation, my power bill goes down if I add "solar array" to my list of things to turn off before I leave. :cursing:

 

[rolosrevenge]

My guess would be ~$0.40/kWh to run that generator based on nat gas at ~$0.02/kWh and ~5% thermal efficiency. Another great reason to NOT go off-grid; The decision would no doubt be as emotional as financial. There are months where I get paid <$0.02/kWh for my EXCESS and charged $0.023 for my PRODUCTION. Yes, some months it would be CHEAPER to PRODUCE less. I'm sure you can see how that could motivate someone to cut their power lines if not for money, for spite. Without the temporary production credit, if I go on vacation, my power bill goes down if I add "solar array" to my list of things to turn off before I leave. :cursing:

The irony would be, around here at least, that the same utility owns the electricity and the gas. :tongue:

 

[neroden]

Did you do the math? Specifically, I'd like to see the simulations, for two full years of your energy use, using historical data of actual use, solar irradiance, and the smallest system solar and battery system required to ensure that all of your power and energy needs are met 99.9% of the time (utility level reliability).

This is not the level of reliability of the utility companies I've dealt with. 99.5%, maybe.

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I'll bet you can't get off the grid for less than $10k.

Of course, I don't live in Arizona. It is *way* easier there.

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Well... $5 is an average. It's $0.70/kWp

70 cents per installed kilowatt.
And the vicious utility company jackasses proposed 14 DOLLARS (correction: 8 dollars) per installed kilowatt.

This is even less acceptable. There is no justification for this whatsoever.

I can see a flat fee to charge for grid maintenance.
I can see a "peaking" charge for fluctuations in voltage.
I can see paying less for "excess solar" than the customer pays for grid power.

But THIS? This means that anyone considering installing a *large* solar array has a pretty strong incentive to go off-grid.

I don't think that's good, on the whole; it means people will oversize their systems and buy unnecessary batteries. Nobody wants to screw around with a rapacious utility company.

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For reference, the last house I spent time in in Arizona left all the lights off at night. The water heater had a huge insulated tank which meant that it didn't run at night and merely saved hot water until morning.

If the house had been insulated appropriately, it would have used next to no energy at night.

It was designed to not heat up too much during the day by careful placement of windows.

*And the electric power company was unreliable*.

This was before the really high-efficiency solar panels were available. But going off-grid in a house like that now? Boy would it be tempting.

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To be clear here, I'm looking at this from a particular perspective: that of the low-volume user who has capital. Once all the flat monthly fees start piling up, it stops making sense to pay for the grid *if you aren't using it very much anyway*. If you actually need more than trivial amounts of electricity at night, then you will certainly want to stay on the grid.

 

[MarkR]

To be clear here, I'm looking at this from a particular perspective: that of the low-volume user who has capital. Once all the flat monthly fees start piling up, it stops making sense to pay for the grid *if you aren't using it very much anyway*. If you actually need more than trivial amounts of electricity at night, then you will certainly want to stay on the grid.

We have an extremely efficient Arizona home with solar PV, solar hot water, solar-assisted a/c, dual-pane windows, lots of insulation, huge covered patios on three sides of the home, and programmable timers for hot water & a/c. BUT, there is no way that I'd consider going off-grid. Batteries for storage cost too much to purchase and maintain. Even in Arizona, it can be cloudy for a week at a time and consideration of a generator is both cost prohibitive and environmentally dumb.

 

[Robert.Boston]

70 cents per installed kilowatt.
And the vicious utility company jackasses proposed 14 DOLLARS (correction: 8 dollars) per installed kilowatt.

This is even less acceptable. There is no justification for this whatsoever.

I can see a flat fee to charge for grid maintenance.
I can see a "peaking" charge for fluctuations in voltage.
I can see paying less for "excess solar" than the customer pays for grid power.

But THIS? This means that anyone considering installing a *large* solar array has a pretty strong incentive to go off-grid.

There's a reason that investor-owned utilities don't get to set their own rates! The Arizona commission agreed with you that $8/kW-installed was excessive, and so required it lowered by an order of magnitude. It would be interesting (in a geeky way) to go through the workpapers used by APS to support its charge. Presumably the commission threw out most of the line items and let APS charge only a few of the many layers of fees.

@neroden, I agree with your general outline for a rate structure. One of the guiding principles of retail rate design, however, is simplicity. There's a "rough justice" in setting a flat charge per kW-installed, and it's very easy to measure and verify.

I agree with MarkR's earlier comment: paying $5-$10/month as a homeowner to ensure that I can turn on lights whenever I want to seems like a reasonable level of charge. Conversely, $50-100/month seems unreasonably high.

 

[omgwtfbyobbq]

I wonder what the heat rate and cost curve of such a generator is. The reason the grid ended up with very large and centralized plants is that economies of scale with plant efficiencies and heat rates. Something that small is bound to cost a ton to run for more than a few hours.

A really cheap HF generator is ~22% efficient at half load (4kW). A better small generator will be at something like ~30%, and a utility scale combined cycle as plant is at something like 55+%.

If cost is a concern, I think a diesel genset run off a mix of WVO and off-road diesel would be the most cost effective option. At the same time, biasing demand during the day (running the a/c/fridge/washing machine/etc...) can substantially reduce someone's cost to go off-grid by allowing them to reduce the pack size. With that said, a high load at night like a car pretty makes it more expensive to go off-grid.

 

[neroden]

With that said, a high load at night like a car pretty makes it more expensive to go off-grid.

Yeah -- unfortunately the Tesla Model S, with its vampire load (even the new reduced vampire load), its desire to be plugged in all the time, the tendency of most owners to plug it in at night, is kind of a deal-breaker for off-the-grid living!

Unless, I suppose, you work the night shift.

 

[omgwtfbyobbq]

Or have access to another pack and a battery swap doohickey.