Solar happenings

[ggies07]

If it's ok, I'd like to start a thread specifically for any solar news so it's easier to look up on here. I don't want these articles getting lost in the 'solar happenings' thread.

Rooftop Solar and Net Metering Win a Big Decision in Colorado : Greentech Media

Roundup: Solar Continues to Attract Financing, MA and VC : Greentech Media

Moderator's Note: the proposed new thread was merged in here.

 

[Takumi]

How does this system compare to what's out there?

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/rawlemon-solar-devices

 

[Robert.Boston]

Solar isn't cheaper everywhere:

Solar power to cost Mass. residents more

 

[ggies07]

I'm confused by this:

Sylvia tells The Boston Globe (Mass. solar rules could cost $1 billion extra - Business - The Boston Globe ) in exchange for higher bills, Massachusetts residents would get cleaner air, a more diverse source of electricity, and more jobs.

I thought solar power being put back into the grid was a helpful thing........why would they make you pay more? Ah, that's right - greedy politicians/corporations.

 

[Lloyd]

I'm confused by this:

I thought solar power being put back into the grid was a helpful thing........why would they make you pay more? Ah, that's right - greedy politicians/corporations.

Kinda sounds like MA is going down the same road as California resulting in exorbitant electricity rates! $1.50 per customer is just the start.

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

I'm confused by this:

I thought solar power being put back into the grid was a helpful thing........why would they make you pay more? Ah, that's right - greedy politicians/corporations.

It's not helpful to working out supply and distribution. Any intermittent, variable, uncontrollable feed that has to be fed into the grid needs a variable, controllable feed to balance it and worse economics on the balancing supply. If they have to accept solar input of all sizes at any location that can mean significant investment in grid infrastructure. On top of that, as Robert has often mentioned, electricity billing is messed up, with too much billing by kWh and not enough by peak power demand. This is particularly exposed by net metering of PV, which values feed-in at the same price as end-use, basically saying that infrastructure and distribution costs are zero.

What actually irritates me about the article is the sentence "The average residential customer would pay $1 to $1.50 more per month." Way to give insufficient information for reasoned consideration.

 

[Tim]

It's not helpful to working out supply and distribution. Any intermittent, variable, uncontrollable feed that has to be fed into the grid needs a variable, controllable feed to balance it and worse economics on the balancing supply. If they have to accept solar input of all sizes at any location that can mean significant investment in grid infrastructure. On top of that, as Robert has often mentioned, electricity billing is messed up, with too much billing by kWh and not enough by peak power demand. This is particularly exposed by net metering of PV, which values feed-in at the same price as end-use, basically saying that infrastructure and distribution costs are zero.

What actually irritates me about the article is the sentence "The average residential customer would pay $1 to $1.50 more per month." Way to give insufficient information for reasoned consideration.

This argument as espoused by Robert and others isn't true. The current grid already has to deal with intermittent, variable and uncontrollable demand. Its not at all true that net metering increases this variance.

In fact looking at germany's generation from this link(admittedly old data, but I just googled and picked one at random) that large amounts of solar have the opposite effect. Power companies have no problem with solar, they just want to kill distributed generation, because they make money by owning power prodcution and not distribution and this is their current tactic.

 

[Robert.Boston]

This argument as espoused by Robert and others isn't true. The current grid already has to deal with intermittent, variable and uncontrollable demand. Its not at all true that net metering increases this variance.

In fact looking at germany's generation from this link(admittedly old data, but I just googled and picked one at random) that large amounts of solar have the opposite effect. Power companies have no problem with solar, they just want to kill distributed generation, because they make money by owning power prodcution and not distribution and this is their current tactic.

I've never claimed that additional resources are needed to balance more intermittent resources (at least not at the current levels of renewable penetration in the US). What I've asserted is that the fixed cost of the system--including transmission, distribution, and the fixed generation charges--are not much reduced by these resources, but because of the way net metering works, there are fewer billed kilowatt-hours to distribute these costs around. This is one reason why customer charges can rise as renewable penetration (with net metering) increases. If net metering weren't allowed (but instead all generators were paid the real-time wholesale price for their power injections), then rooftop PV wouldn't pay in MA.

Secondly, here in MA we are paying a premium for solar power through Solar Renewable Energy Credits (SRECs). Simply put, these subsidize the installation of solar power by increasing power bills. If the SRECs weren't there, then grid-scale PV farms wouldn't pay in MA.

These are simple facts, not judgments. Our state policymakers have decided that there it's in the public interest to allow net metering and to pay SRECs to foster the development of solar power in the state. That decision has consequences, good and bad. The bad is that electricity rates are going up. The good includes that we have less pollution, local green jobs, and are less exposed to future volatility of fossil-fuel prices.

 

[Tim]

I've never claimed that additional resources are needed to balance more intermittent resources (at least not at the current levels of renewable penetration in the US). What I've asserted is that the fixed cost of the system--including transmission, distribution, and the fixed generation charges--are not much reduced by these resources, but because of the way net metering works, there are fewer billed kilowatt-hours to distribute these costs around. This is one reason why customer charges can rise as renewable penetration (with net metering) increases. If net metering weren't allowed (but instead all generators were paid the real-time wholesale price for their power injections), then rooftop PV wouldn't pay in MA.

Secondly, here in MA we are paying a premium for solar power through Solar Renewable Energy Credits (SRECs). Simply put, these subsidize the installation of solar power by increasing power bills. If the SRECs weren't there, then grid-scale PV farms wouldn't pay in MA.

These are simple facts, not judgments. Our state policymakers have decided that there it's in the public interest to allow net metering and to pay SRECs to foster the development of solar power in the state. That decision has consequences, good and bad. The bad is that electricity rates are going up. The good includes that we have less pollution, local green jobs, and are less exposed to future volatility of fossil-fuel prices.

Saying something is a fact doesn't make it a fact. Its your judgment. With regard to the original article, the SREC2 program has an estimated cost increase of 500-933 million over the total life of the program(until 2045). That's less than was quoted in your piece of yellow journalism. The study says that in an expanded scenario that includes avoidance of transmission and distribution costs and factoring carbon cost results in a net savings of between 100 and 500 million over the same period. Those are DOERs facts(or judgments). Clearly you're cherry picking articles and using secondary sources to further your agenda. Its not a surprise to anyone that Northeast Utilities prefers not having to purchase distributed generation and uses specious arguments against it.

Additionally your arguments against net-metering are equally invalid. They are based off of faulty slippery slope reasoning. The actual amount of displaced power due to net-metering is almost nil. Your argument(and really the argument of all the utilities fighting against it) supposes the massive displacement of electricity generation and the resultant burden on remaining users of the total costs of maintaining the grid. This is ridiculous. You could argue the same about how replacing incandescents cause electricity prices to go up. Its ridiculous. Or that people who switch to electric cars should have to pay extra taxes, because they're not buying gasoline(and they might sometime in the future!) Who's gonna pay for all the refineries!!!

Solar almost always displaces low fixed cost high marginal cost peaking units and the sum total of generation through net-metering both now and in the foreseeable future does not have a meaningful impact on grid costs.

Your last argument is that subsidizing solar by providing solar mandates, feed in tariffs or power purchase requirements increases short term electricity costs. Clearly this is a separate issue that is definitely arguable, but conflating it with net-metering costs and distributed generation is simply wrong.

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

Additionally your arguments against net-metering are equally invalid. They are based off of faulty slippery slope reasoning. The actual amount of displaced power due to net-metering is almost nil. Your argument(and really the argument of all the utilities fighting against it) supposes the massive displacement of electricity generation and the resultant burden on remaining users of the total costs of maintaining the grid. This is ridiculous.

No it isn't.

Solar reduces the customer's draw of electricity. Reduced consumption is a reason for celebration. But, the problem for cost of electricity is the pricing problem that Robert writes about. Distribution costs, essentially fixed overheads, are paid for as a per-kWh consumption fee. Solar PV reduces kWh drawn, reducing the net income of the utility, even though the utility is doing the same amount of work or more (because PV at the very least necessitates additional monitoring due to the increased variability of supply and demand). To see how it doesn't scale, imagine if everybody except one customer had net-metered solar PV. Adding home grid-tied solar PV raises the per-kWh cost of the distribution infrastructure. It's really that simple.

Net metering's effect is to encourages the adoption of PV by allowing customers to take advantage of the weakness of the current pricing model. It's a subsidy, and it's a bad one because the more PV there is, the bigger the subsidy and incentive will become. It's also bad because the people least able to take advantage would be living in apartments, which are otherwise an efficient living space.

 

[Reykjavik]

Utilities are going to need to separate the fee for being connected to the grid from the price of the electricity. If they don't allow customers to sell power back to the grid, then people will disconnect as batteries and solar become cost effective for independent operation. If they just charge per kWh, then the cost of maintaining the grid will gradually be focused on fewer and fewer customers who are either unable or unwilling to install solar arrays, and while at first this is a good thing as it encourages people to install solar power, as time passes eventually the people without solar won't be able to afford to sustain the entire grid, and it will be a problem.

But if they charge separately, one fee to maintain and upgrade the distribution network, and then one for actual electricity (which can include net metering), it will work regardless of how many people generate their own power.

 

[VolkerP]

Residential buffering batteries are not economical per household nor desirable on the overall economic scale. One house could be charging while its neighbor is discharging its batteries. That's what the grid is for, to distribute electric energy between generation and consumption. The cost for the batteries in each house and for the additional cycle wear is a waste IMHO.

The UCs should push for legislation that transforms this scenario in a win-win for all involved parties at the lowest possible prices. And no, I don't have a complete solution at my hands but I am convinced that distribute storage facilities run by the grid operator will be part of the solution, plus incentive to manage the electric load formed by EV charging.

 

[Robert.Boston]

Saying something is a fact doesn't make it a fact. Its your judgment.

Fair enough, but since I regularly testify at FERC, state legislatures and utility commissions as an expert in power markets, my judgment is often accepted by these bodies as the basis for their decisions, such as the award of long-term power contracts to my client, Cape Wind. But you're right, I still need a basis for my judgement.

With regard to the original article, the SREC2 program has an estimated cost increase of 500-933 million over the total life of the program(until 2045). That's less than was quoted in your piece of yellow journalism. The study says that in an expanded scenario that includes avoidance of transmission and distribution costs and factoring carbon cost results in a net savings of between 100 and 500 million over the same period. Those are DOERs facts(or judgments). Clearly you're cherry picking articles and using secondary sources to further your agenda. Its not a surprise to anyone that Northeast Utilities prefers not having to purchase distributed generation and uses specious arguments against it.

The article I referenced was from the Boston Globe, which is the paper of record for New England. I heard the estimate first on WGBH. Neither of these entities are usually accused of being anti-green or "yellow." The cost from LaCapra that you site is for the program as it was in mid-2013. The news is that the program might be expanded, so it's hardly surprising that an expanded program will have a higher cost. I'd also note that even your source indicates that the program has a cost -- which was my primary point. People talk about solar as being "cheaper than the grid". Both your source and mine show that, in Massachusetts, that isn't true. If it were true, the cost would be $0 or negative.

Additionally your arguments against net-metering are equally invalid. They are based off of faulty slippery slope reasoning. The actual amount of displaced power due to net-metering is almost nil. Your argument(and really the argument of all the utilities fighting against it) supposes the massive displacement of electricity generation and the resultant burden on remaining users of the total costs of maintaining the grid. This is ridiculous. You could argue the same about how replacing incandescents cause electricity prices to go up. Its ridiculous.

No, it's a serious issue, certainly in places like AZ and CA. Less so in MA at present. The problem is small but real, and it creates a distortion of prices that leads people to make inefficient investments.

Or that people who switch to electric cars should have to pay extra taxes, because they're not buying gasoline(and they might sometime in the future!) Who's gonna pay for all the refineries!!!

No; the oil refining business isn't a regulated monopoly with a duty to serve; the electric transmission and distribution business is.

 

[JRP3]

Utilities are going to need to separate the fee for being connected to the grid from the price of the electricity.

They do, at least NYSEG does. I have a property that I shut off the main breaker for months and use no power but I still get a bill for $20 a month, plus when I do use power the bill shows "Delivery" charges per kWh separate from "Electricity" charges.

 

[Tim]

No it isn't.

Solar reduces the customer's draw of electricity. Reduced consumption is a reason for celebration. But, the problem for cost of electricity is the pricing problem that Robert writes about. Distribution costs, essentially fixed overheads, are paid for as a per-kWh consumption fee. Solar PV reduces kWh drawn, reducing the net income of the utility, even though the utility is doing the same amount of work or more (because PV at the very least necessitates additional monitoring due to the increased variability of supply and demand). To see how it doesn't scale, imagine if everybody except one customer had net-metered solar PV. Adding home grid-tied solar PV raises the per-kWh cost of the distribution infrastructure. It's really that simple.

Net metering's effect is to encourages the adoption of PV by allowing customers to take advantage of the weakness of the current pricing model. It's a subsidy, and it's a bad one because the more PV there is, the bigger the subsidy and incentive will become. It's also bad because the people least able to take advantage would be living in apartments, which are otherwise an efficient living space.

Perhaps a little math would help with this. As you say residential pricing in the U.S. typically consists of two components that aren't billed separately - the demand and the consumption charge. Your argument is that net-metering doesn't scale, because this demand component is fixed and would need to supported by other conventional(non net-metered solar) customers. Your boundary case is that everyone is on solar, but one poor soul. That would suck to be that guy. Fortunately your example isn't really realistic. Residential use makes up approximately 1/3 of total electricity demand in the U.S. Demand charges vary depending on the grid and rate schedule, but they are typically less than 50% of total charges. I'll use 50% as my number, but plugging in your values really doesn't make much difference. So then what if ALL Residential demand was met by net-metered solar(ie 1/3 of total demand)? How much would this increase the bills of the remaining conventional consumers? It would increase the demand charge for those customers by 50% or their total bill by 25%.

So that's the boundary case. If 1/3 of all electricity consumed in the U.S. was produced via net-metered residential solar it would increase the electric bills of the remaining customers by 25%. That's significant, but not crazy high given that it assumes no benefit at all for having distributed generation on the grid.

Still let's try a more reasonable guess at how much net-metered solar increases the rates of the remaining customers. Let's assume 25% of residential is met by net-metered solar. That would increase the bill by 4.5%. Wow, that's a lot less.

So where are we at right now with regards to net-metered solar? According to the EIA its less than one quarter of 1 percent of total or less than 1% of residential which means that net-metering has increased the demand charges by wait for it...


one tenth of one percent.


The math to get this is

d = demand charge as fraction of total
r = residential fraction of total
n = net-metered share of total residential
x = rate increase for remaining customers

x = ((1/ (1-n*r)) -1) * d
x = ((1/(1-1*.333)) -1) *.5 = .25
x = ((1/(1-.25*.333)) -1) *.5 = .045
x = ((1/(1-.0075*.333)) -1) *.5 =.0012

Feel free to check my math.

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

No; the oil refining business isn't a regulated monopoly with a duty to serve; the electric transmission and distribution business is.

Not to mention that the relatively low cost of storage for petroleum and petroleum products allows refinery capacity be matched more closely to total demand, while electricity generating capacity has to match peak demand. If there'd be negative cost impact from PEV it would surely be on the economics of fuel distribution.

 

[RubberToe]

Ivanpah is officially online as of today!!!

DOE Secretary will be giving a speech later. Will be interesting to see how the news covers it. The WSJ article has "bird scorcher" in the title:
The $2.2 Billion Bird-Scorching Solar Project - WSJ.com

Nice to see them getting concerned over the environment all of a sudden.

And here is the Wikipedia article:
Ivanpah Solar Power Facility - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I'll be driving by there Monday on my way to Vegas. Haven't ever seen all 3 towers lit up at once, so maybe this is the first time. Looking forward to seeing it finally in operation after all these years...

RT

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

Perhaps a little math would help with this. As you say residential pricing in the U.S. typically consists of two components that aren't billed separately - the demand and the consumption charge. Your argument is that net-metering doesn't scale, because this demand component is fixed and would need to supported by other conventional(non net-metered solar) customers. Your boundary case is that everyone is on solar, but one poor soul. That would suck to be that guy. Fortunately your example isn't really realistic. Residential use makes up approximately 1/3 of total electricity demand in the U.S. Demand charges vary depending on the grid and rate schedule, but they are typically less than 50% of total charges. I'll use 50% as my number, but plugging in your values really doesn't make much difference. So then what if ALL Residential demand was met by net-metered solar(ie 1/3 of total demand)? How much would this increase the bills of the remaining conventional consumers? It would increase the demand charge for those customers by 50% or their total bill by 25%.

So that's the boundary case. If 1/3 of all electricity consumed in the U.S. was produced via net-metered residential solar it would increase the electric bills of the remaining customers by 25%. That's significant, but not crazy high given that it assumes no benefit at all for having distributed generation on the grid.

Still let's try a more reasonable guess at how much net-metered solar increases the rates of the remaining customers. Let's assume 25% of residential is met by net-metered solar. That would increase the bill by 4.5%. Wow, that's a lot less.

So where are we at right now with regards to net-metered solar? According to the EIA its less than one quarter of 1 percent of total or less than 1% of residential which means that net-metering has increased the demand charges by wait for it...


one tenth of one percent.


The math to get this is

d = demand charge as fraction of total
r = residential fraction of total
n = net-metered share of total residential
x = rate increase for remaining customers

x = ((1/ (1-n*r)) -1) * d
x = ((1/(1-1*.333)) -1) *.5 = .25
x = ((1/(1-.25*.333)) -1) *.5 = .045
x = ((1/(1-.0075*.333)) -1) *.5 =.0012

Feel free to check my math.

- Residential customers pay for residential distribution costs, which are an expensive part of the distribution system. You can't take a simple 1/3.
- You can't assume that the total kWh use of net metered houses matches the average use, especially given that the subsidy is of greatest benefit to high consumers and that people in the best position to take advantage are those who are capital rich.
- What is that 1% of total? Is that feed-in or use? As I wrote, it's not the amount fed in that matters, it's the total unpaid/subsidy kWh of the households with PV.
- The current distribution fees are also paying for past capital investments. The introduction of residential PV messes with those assumptions, which adds to the cost of capital.
- I wasn't suggesting that net metering costs would be responsible for the all of the projected cost increases. It's just one piece of the puzzle but it's important because it's a such a sizable subsidy to the customer (my per-kWh distribution price here in Maine is 6.9c/kWh) without which solar PV would definitely not be an economic installation. There are other subsidies and the projected increase is for a significant percentage increase in solar's RPS.
- Massachusetts aim is to have 1.6GW of solar capacity, up from .025GW now. The 2012 MA total summer capacity was 14.3GW.

It's not like anybody here's suggesting "Boo solar, no subsidies for you." It's that Robert, I and others would really like to see a correction in the pricing systems so that they don't create unnecessary antagonism and the market can work properly. Just as successful PEV means that the current road-funding system will have to be changed, so residential solar requires a change in the payment system. At this point, if you want more solar in the grid, either the PV owner pays more, or everybody pays more. The excessive subsidies are helping to sustain the USA's excessive soft costs and also encourage purchase of capacity over efficiency.

PS Germany's renewable energy surcharge currently stands at 8.4c/kWh.

 

[Robert.Boston]

Fortunately I'm moving to Maine shortly and can leave behind the tangled renewables subsidies of Massachusetts. Also, Boston-area customers are going to get hit hard starting in 2017 with big increases in capacity charges (paid to generators to keep them around). Ouch.

 

[Dave EV]

Residential buffering batteries are not economical per household nor desirable on the overall economic scale. One house could be charging while its neighbor is discharging its batteries. That's what the grid is for, to distribute electric energy between generation and consumption. The cost for the batteries in each house and for the additional cycle wear is a waste IMHO.

Good point - ideally the storage would be added at the circuit level and controlled by the utility so they are able to control when the bank charges/discharges - that would avoid the extra inefficiency of charging/discharging batteries (around 80-90% round-trip efficiency), when the power could be used by your neighbors. Still, since the market seems to be shifting everyone towards demand charges (basing part of your bill on your peak 15 min demand each month as is typically done with business/commercial accounts), it does seem likely that on-site storage will become at least somewhat prevalent simply for the ability to curtail demand charges.

They do, at least NYSEG does. I have a property that I shut off the main breaker for months and use no power but I still get a bill for $20 a month, plus when I do use power the bill shows "Delivery" charges per kWh separate from "Electricity" charges.

The Delivery/Electricity charges for a typical residential account are average charges. As mentioned above, the utilities generally regard demand charges as the most equitable way to charge for delivery charges with electricity charged per kWh. Add in TOU pricing for both, in as well.

Ivanpah is officially online as of today!!!

I thought the official announcement was going to be tomorrow?

Anyway, good news. Will be interesting to see if California hits a new solar generation record today, yesterday peaked at 3,392MW and it does not look like all 3 towers at Ivanpah were going. http://www.caiso.com/Pages/TodaysOutlook.aspx
It's pretty interesting to look at the Total Load - Wind/Solar charts in the Renewable Energy Watch - because of all the solar hitting the grid, thermal generation from 10AM-3PM is being reduced significantly. Companies running thermal plants have got to be hating that as it has to be killing spot prices during that time.

The WSJ article has "bird scorcher" in the title

Love the way they spin the costs and land-use of the plant in comparison to thermal plants by comparing construction costs of the plant and ignoring fuel costs and the amount of land disturbed to harvest said fuel.