Utility Co. called me, I'm not using enough power?

[SunEagle]

If you buy a cow the local
Grocery store has to buy your milk

Does it have to be pasteurized or will they take it directly from the utter?

[merc4]

Why are you worried about a $150/year electric bill?

IMO there are so many other companies and services that are charging you an arm and a leg as compared to your POCO.

Look at health insurance costs per month, or how about home owners insurance? Then look at the cost of milk, eggs, and other food staples.

Heck even cable and satellite services are increasing in cost.

A $150 per year is a drop in the bucket for what most people spend on food, insurance and entertainment. IMO your anger is focused in the wrong direction.

$150 per year while overproducing. My point being: they ARE making profit from me now, altho' not enough to suit them, now. And how much will be enough? And for how long? As I said, I'm more worried about the future of solar, when stumbling blocks are being put forth regularly. The problem is: so many, like yourself, aren't capable of comprehending my point. You're in too big of a hurry to simply argue.

[SunEagle]

$150 per year while overproducing. My point being: they ARE making profit from me now, altho' not enough to suit them, now. And how much will be enough? And for how long? As I said, I'm more worried about the future of solar, when stumbling blocks are being put forth regularly. The problem is: so many, like yourself, aren't capable of comprehending my point. You're in too big of a hurry to simply argue.

No I do understand what you are saying. In the beginning the playing field was slanted in the Homeowners side to install solar, but the POCO's are working very hard to slant it back to their side.

I don't like it either but the future of solar will be a balance of small home owned systems and utility size pv systems. The home owner % will be much lower then the utility scale since the big ones are much cheaper to build and will generate electricity for $0.05/kWh which is much less then what the POCO's are paying in the Net-metering contracts. And maybe small home owner systems is not the economical way to generate electricity from the sun.

As a business why wouldn't they push back to keep control of the lower cost generating systems?

[emartin00]

$150 per year while overproducing. My point being: they ARE making profit from me now, altho' not enough to suit them, now. And how much will be enough? And for how long? As I said, I'm more worried about the future of solar, when stumbling blocks are being put forth regularly. The problem is: so many, like yourself, aren't capable of comprehending my point. You're in too big of a hurry to simply argue.

Highly unlikely they are profiting off of $150/year from you. That probably barely covers their administrative cost of sending you a bill. You're using their power at night, so they have a right to make a little money.

[cebury]

We're talking 150/yr but I think we all know the fight is much bigger than that. They called saying "you're over generating, stop" because it's the only "prod" they have right now, until they can make more significant moves at the right political time.

IMO Ca puc is doing the right thing by looking at the whole picture, trying to come up with fair numbers to allow POCOs to be profitable with solar, but keeping existing net metering agreements in place for next 20yrs.

[lkruper]

$150 per year while overproducing. My point being: they ARE making profit from me now, altho' not enough to suit them, now. And how much will be enough? And for how long? As I said, I'm more worried about the future of solar, when stumbling blocks are being put forth regularly. The problem is: so many, like yourself, aren't capable of comprehending my point. You're in too big of a hurry to simply argue.

How do you know they are making a profit from you? If every one of their customers was just like you, they would go out of business. Those without solar are subsidizing you.

[jflorey2]

$150 per year while overproducing. My point being: they ARE making profit from me now

Unlikely. They don't pay much for power from their large generators. Most of their costs are maintenance, upgrades, administrative etc.

As I said, I'm more worried about the future of solar, when stumbling blocks are being put forth regularly.

Well, the way it's working now isn't sustainable. I pay $5 a month for power, period, even though there are times that I use 30 kwhr a day from the utility (cloudy, hot days.) If everyone did that the utility would go bankrupt. So they have to raise prices on someone. Their large commercial users? Those users might (rightly) object to being forced to pay more just to support people like me. The other residential users? Not really fair to them.

In the future I see the minimum monthly charge being raised to cover the bare minimum of their expenses (i.e. maintenance, overhead, upgrades) with power charges above and beyond that. That seems pretty fair - you pay for the benefit you're getting. Some POCO's have already started doing this.

[Sunking]

$150 per year while overproducing. My point being: they ARE making profit from me now,

No they are not. Solar was mandated to them. POCO's have no use for solar, it is a liability to them. No utility or biz is in biz to buy and sell at the same price. If it were fair they would pay you wholesale for excess, and charge you retail for what you buy. You are not entitled to anything else. You gambled on solar and took your chances and lost. That is the game you played and signed up for.

[cebury]

No they are not. Solar was mandated to them. POCO's have no use for solar, it is a liability to them. No utility or biz is in biz to buy and sell at the same price. If it were fair they would pay you wholesale for excess, and charge you retail for what you buy. You are not entitled to anything else. You gambled on solar and took your chances and lost. That is the game you played and signed up for.

While I agree with you in intent, you are arguing they aren't making a profit on him because it was mandated and because of their billing structure. Neither determine profitability. What if they raise it to $1500 yr but keep net metering intact, is it profitable? 3600 yr?

He hasn't lost the game yet, but yeah he seems a bit worked up since the other team is making a little headway against what seemed to be clearly rigged for solar customers to win.

[Living Large]

$150 per year while overproducing. My point being: they ARE making profit from me now, altho' not enough to suit them, now. And how much will be enough? And for how long? As I said, I'm more worried about the future of solar, when stumbling blocks are being put forth regularly. The problem is: so many, like yourself, aren't capable of comprehending my point. You're in too big of a hurry to simply argue.

$150 a year is doubtfully enough to cover the costs of you to them as a customer. If there is a meager one maybe it ISN'T sufficient. Their investors are looking for a rate of return that is competitive.

I don't know why you are accusing people of wanting to argue. My guess is most the people here watch their pennies more carefully than most. I do. I live off income from my investments, and as an investor I believe that currently you are likely a liability to this company as a customer. I dumped AEP because another utility was doing better.

[Living Large]

In the future I see the minimum monthly charge being raised to cover the bare minimum of their expenses (i.e. maintenance, overhead, upgrades) with power charges above and beyond that. That seems pretty fair - you pay for the benefit you're getting. Some POCO's have already started doing this.

I'm pretty sure that for years I have had a monthly minimum bill of $15 or more, though I use more than that. So right there I am at more than the OP.

Three of us are going in on this power line extension for my new property, and the two others will have "camper" hookups. I think the POCO told me each of those will be about $9 a month when not used. The power company isn't going to string wires to these properties, open accounts, and not expect to get something from us even when we don't use any power.

[lkruper]

While I agree with you in intent, you are arguing they aren't making a profit on him because it was mandated and because of their billing structure. Neither determine profitability. What if they raise it to $1500 yr but keep net metering intact, is it profitable? 3600 yr?

He hasn't lost the game yet, but yeah he seems a bit worked up since the other team is making a little headway against what seemed to be clearly rigged for solar customers to win.

Then there is the salesman that lost money selling widgets at 1% less than he paid for them. He said he would make it up in volume. Ta Da!


Sunking was quite succinct. He said, in part "No utility or biz is in biz to buy and sell at the same price."

You dismissed that by calling it "billing structure"! The fact is that when a utility has expenses that relate to the maintenance and transmission of a product, they cannot buy and sell at the same price, or they will lose money.

That hardly seems necessary to explain in detail, but I did anyway

[cebury]

In a typical suburban community housing development, i.e. Several homes per acre, I'm curious what portion of costs are bourn by the developer vs. utility. Around here it's mostly underground these days. I've heard utility brings in a subdivision connection to one spot and the developer must cover the distribution costs to each home. Is that right? Kind of off topic but it does make one realize somewhere the utility paid some not insignificant infrastructure cost to bring power to your house.

[cebury]

Then there is the salesman that lost money selling widgets at 1% less than he paid for them. He said he would make it up in volume. Ta Da!


Sunking was quite succinct. He said, in part "No utility or biz is in biz to buy and sell at the same price."

You dismissed that by calling it "billing structure"! The fact is that when a utility has expenses that relate to the maintenance and transmission of a product, they cannot buy and sell at the same price, or they will lose money.

That hardly seems necessary to explain in detail, but I did anyway

That ignores flat rate fees, minimum bills, or meter charges whatever it is called.... That was my point. Maybe you missed this line

What if they raise it to $1500 yr but keep net metering intact, is it profitable? 3600 yr?

regarding the flat rate in addition to net metering.

[lkruper]

In a typical suburban community housing development, i.e. Several homes per acre, I'm curious what portion of costs are bourn by the developer vs. utility. Around here it's mostly underground these days. I've heard utility brings in a subdivision connection to one spot and the developer must cover the distribution costs to each home. Is that right? Kind of off topic but it does make one realize somewhere the utility paid some not insignificant infrastructure cost to bring power to your house.

Most of the telephone poles we have in Southern California were put in after WWII. SCE just got 8 billion approved to replace them in the next 8 years. Someone needs to pay for that. It does not matter if the age of your development is 1 year or 50. If the grid fails everyone will be affected.