http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSL1N14R33920160107
Another legal victory. Mark this one off the 10k risks section.
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http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSL1N14R33920160107
Another legal victory. Mark this one off the 10k risks section.
jhm
Well-Known Member
Nice. Pretty much every management in every public company that has ever existed has had both motive and opportunity.
Wasn't Nevada's ratepayer advocate supposed to submit a motion to stay the rate increases today?
Nevada regulators to consider solar rate-hike pause Thursday
Nevada regulators to consider solar rate-hike pause Thursday
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TheTalkingMule
Distributed Energy Enthusiast
Anyone have actual average wholesale rate information for Nevada? If I'm not mistaken, the peak is handled by out-of-state natural gas plants? How much are they getting at midday, 8 cents? And solar customers are going to eventually be compensated at 2.6 cents?
No one knows. That's the crazy thing. The commissioners say that the rates go in effect Jan 1st, but yet NV Energy doesn't have the rate information available for solar customers to review! It is hilarious that the same commissioner saying solar customers have to follow the new rates urging the NV Energy to get the rate plan up on the website in the meeting today. I guess they forgot today is not the 1st of January, but the 7th. This entire thing is back assward.
Governor weighs in on solar flare-up - Story
Nevada governor Sandavol says it's a cost shift, yet he has no clue what the actual math of that cost is! He says he doesn't take sides, but yet it appears he takes NV Energy's word on the math. Unbelievable.
TheTalkingMule
Distributed Energy Enthusiast
Wow. I would say that guy is an embarrassment to governance, but we the wise people of Pennsylvania put a very similar character in office for the last 4 years. At least the look on his face says he knows this is all gonna backfire.
Wake up Nevada! You're getting hosed.
Governor Sandovol stated that on one side of the issue there were 17,000 solar customers. On the other side side were 700,000 non-solar customers. 17,000 is less than 2 and half percent of 700,000. The math is actually quite simple.
He and the Nevada PUC are claiming that 2.43 percent of the customers are placing an unfair burden on the other 97 percent.
Are there any Nevada residents monitoring this thread? If so, what do you think of recent changes?
Sorry if I've missed that contributors are Nevada residents.
TheTalkingMule
Distributed Energy Enthusiast
I'd just like to know the numbers. Pretty sure once those come to light and there's more clarity to the situation we'll hear a hell of a lot less about solar customers being subsidized.
From my halfhearted reading:
Retail rate avg - 11.8 cents
Wholesale baseload - 2.6 cents
Wholesale peak avg - 8 to 12 cents
Solar customers currently get the retail rate and will gradually shift all the way down to the baseload wholesale of 2.6 cents. Is that about the story? Why not tie the solar net metering rate to the wholesale peak with maybe a rate floor of some sort. Even a ceiling would be doable. Much closer to an open market price.
From my halfhearted reading:
Retail rate avg - 11.8 cents
Wholesale baseload - 2.6 cents
Wholesale peak avg - 8 to 12 cents
Solar customers currently get the retail rate and will gradually shift all the way down to the baseload wholesale of 2.6 cents. Is that about the story? Why not tie the solar net metering rate to the wholesale peak with maybe a rate floor of some sort. Even a ceiling would be doable. Much closer to an open market price.
doggusfluffy
Closed
I hope shining the light on the actual costs involved will make this backfire on NV energy and their spur some locals into action or at least Powerwall reservations. How much do the coal and natural gas energy providers pay for the grid maintenance I wonder? :wink:
Utilities and enviros agree on radical shift in Oregon's energy supply | OregonLive.com
Utilities and enviros agree on radical shift in Oregon's energy supply | OregonLive.com
Solar energy poll results called warning for Nevada legislators | Las Vegas Review-Journal
CARSON CITY — A poll of 300 likely Nevada voters suggests that state lawmakers could suffer at the polls come election time next year if they do not support expanding rooftop solar efforts through a net metering program.
The poll, conducted by WPA Opinion Research by telephone on April 20-21, was paid for by the Alliance for Solar Choice, a coalition of rooftop solar companies operating in Nevada that wants the state’s 3 percent net metering cap raised by the Nevada Legislature.
The poll also shows strong support for solar energy efforts and net metering, where rooftop solar customers get a credit from the power company for excess energy they produce.
NV Energy, which operates as Nevada Power in Southern Nevada, is fighting the effort by rooftop solar companies to raise the cap, said Bryan Miller, vice president of public policy and power markets for the rooftop solar company Sunrun Inc.
“As much as NV Energy is asking for a political favor, this is not a political favor for politicians,” he said.
“This is political suicide for politicians.”
The strong support for net metering among voters is because Nevada is blessed with an enormous solar resource and they view rooftop solar as a positive, Miller said.
http://pucweb1.state.nv.us/PDF/AxImages/DOCKETS_2010_THRU_PRESENT/2013-7/39428.pdf
All, here is the independent study commissioned by the Nevada PUC. Everyone signed off on his, all stake holders. It's funny how it says in 2016, all rate payers will benefit from NEM, net metering... I guess the current commission completely disregarded everything their own report revealed.
It can't get any more bizarre then that folks.
jhm
Well-Known Member
Actually from these numbers you can make a good argument for keeping net metering. Consider this.
Under net metering, solar customers tend to export power at peak hours when the wholesale is about 9c/kWh. During these hours the spread between retail and wholesale is so thin that power sold at this time does not cover the full cost of the grid.
Next, solar customer tend to redeem these exports at at off peak hour when wholesale price is near 3c/kWh. So power sold to solar owes tends to have a very high spread retail to wholesale, which provides lots of revenue to cover the cost of the grid and profit for the utility. Essentially, those who conure off peak power are paying the full cost of the grid and subsidizing those who consume peak power.
So net metering creates an advantageous situation where the utility buys power from solar customers when wholesale price is at 9 c/kWh and sells back when wholesale is at 3 c/kWh. Thus, the utility nets 6 c/kWh on this trade. That trading gain goes richly to cover grid costs and the utility's own profit margin. It also minimizes the required capacity of the grid since that capacity requirement is driven by peak load demand, not off peak consumption. Under net metering, one can argue that solar consumer are actually paying more than their share of grid cost. Again those who consume in off peak hours are in fact subsidizing those who consume grid power in peak hours. So by in large, solar owners under net metering are subsiding non-solar owners who run AC at peak hours.
But now let's see how removing net metering changes the situation. Some 17,000 have solar. As the feed-in tariff d3clines, those customers will be incented to install batteries rather than accept a pitance for their surplus power. Thus, they will charge their batteries during peak hours. This will increase net demand during peak hours which will drive up wholesale prices and increase the capacity requirements for the grid. These incremental costs will be pushed out to all ratepayers. Next, the solar customers will tend to discharge their batteries at off peak hour. This will minimize the contribution to covering the cost of the grid and the utilities profit margin. So the net result of killing net metering is to increase total costs to all ratepayers will minimizing the contribution of solar owners to supporting the grid.
This I think is the essential economic argument for grandfathering existing solar owners. The utility cannot make a coherent economic argument to show how pushing existing solar owners to charge batteries at peak hours is any kind of benefit to non-solar owners. Indeed, it will only raise rates on non-solar owners to impose this punitive scheme on solar owners.
As behind-the-meter batteries come into play, the utilities will need to be challenged on any policy that induces charging at times of peak demand. I would recommend that SolarCity begin pushing this line of critique now. NV Energy is pushing a policy that has the unintended consequence of raising the cost of electricity for all ratepayers. So while it is good to challenge NV Energy on fairness issues, we cannot afford to let them off on unintended negative economic impact.
jhm
Well-Known Member
Another thing that gets overlooked considering the wholesale price of peak power is that peak power plants also collect capacity payments regardless of utilization to cover the fixed cost. In 2014 in California, these capacity payments where $190/kW for the year. So NV Energy customers are paying the rent on these same plants. If you levelize the capacity payment of $190/kW assuming say 5% capacity factor (438 produced kWh in the year), that works out to 43.4 c/kWh and this cost is strictly in addition to whatever the wholesale price is. Essentially, capacity payments are public assistance for a fleet that is at least two times larger than it needs to be. That is, if the peaker fleet were just half its size it would have a 10 capacity factor which would greatly improve the levelized costs of the remaining plants. There is a glut of standby capacity for which ratepayers are being overcharged.
Solar companies should bite the bullet, let people in Nevada out of their contracts if they so desire and uninstall their systems. That should cause a major black eye & PR disaster for the state and the governor in today's times.
"85 MW of solar leaves one of the sunniest states thanks to corrupt govt."
"85 MW of solar leaves one of the sunniest states thanks to corrupt govt."
JRP3
Hyperactive Member
That's an expensive way to go. I think the state is getting a pretty good black eye just the way things are.
jhm
Well-Known Member
I would not want to give up solar panels in this situation. NV Energy is making a policy error that will force them to raise rates even faster. A big part of what makes the current economics of solar tenuous is that the retail rate is under 12 c/kW. But once this monopoly is able to bully out solar, they will raise rates. So in spite of all the trickery, your best protection against monopolistic pricing is to hold onto your panels. Once retail rates have been driven up to 16c/kWh, solar installers armed with batteries will be back in business, maybe sooner. NV Energy may have won this battle, but they have lost the war. So solar owners need to take a long view, and I believe many of them do.
I think if SCTY offers this option if the new rule sticks, the decision will be quickly reversed. Maybe free batteries to existing users is a better option. How many of the 17000 solar users in nevada is an SCTY customer? Not sure how fast rates are rising in NV but 12c -> 16c might be another 4 years. And to make it compelling, the system needs to cost at least a little less than the grid, let's say 10%, so rates need to get to 18c before adoption starts really going. This might push it into the next decade. Also not grandfathering existing users is a dangerous precedent. It will hamper solar adoption everywhere else.
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