Sharing research: Rhode Island Energy and Net Metering.

[Rade]

I live on the East Bay of Rhode Island, and because of the tilt of the Earth's axis going towards Winter solstice (and the shortest day of the year), as of November 5, our home is officially using more power than our solar panels are able to generate. We have accrued a nice credit with Rhode Island Energy. I did not know what the official policy was on the credit usage and made the mental mistake of posing my question on our local social media before, like taking the time to fully research the question through Rhode Island Energy's online resources.

Bottom line from Rhode Island Energy: Any Credits generated on the account during the billing month will be carried forward to be used in subsequent billing months

Quite contrary to what the kind (sarcasm) people on my town's Facebook page thought it was. Though this information more or less still falls on deaf ears to those more inclined to rely solely on unsubstantiated Internet queries, I don't mind sharing it with this enlightened audience.

Rade

[azdave]

My POCO gives me a 1:1 credit for excess generation if I consume it later however, at the end of their fiscal year (April 30th), they zero out all my banked energy at wholesale value (minus some minor admin fees) and give me an account credit. I use that credit to pay the $22 fixed monthly minimum connection fees in the next year. Each May 1st, I can begin building credits again. It is a 20-year agreement and is transferrable for free to any new homeowner if sell. My account credit can be redeemed for cash if I move to a new home in an area they do not serve.

Rade,
Did you really not understand how your excess production would be handled by your POCO until after your install? That was a major decision point for me to know if installing solar was worth the cost and to estimate my ROI point. I needed an ROI of less than 8 years. Anything longer than that and my money was better off invested elsewhere. As luck would have it, I reached ROI at 6.5 years due to my POCO paying me to use my home array to test drive a few new addressable inverters.

[Rade]

My POCO gives me a 1:1 credit for excess generation if I consume it later however, at the end of their fiscal year (April 30th), they zero out all my banked energy at wholesale value (minus some minor admin fees) and give me an account credit. I use that credit to pay the $22 fixed monthly minimum connection fees in the next year. Each May 1st, I can begin building credits again. It is a 20-year agreement and is transferrable for free to any new homeowner if sell. My account credit can be redeemed for cash if I move to a new home in an area they do not serve.

Rade,
Did you really not understand how your excess production would be handled by your POCO until after your install? That was a major decision point for me to know if installing solar was worth the cost and to estimate my ROI point. I needed an ROI of less than 8 years. Anything longer than that and my money was better off invested elsewhere. As luck would have it, I reached ROI at 6.5 years due to my POCO paying me to use my home array to test drive a few new addressable inverters.

My fiscal year runs May to April. We bought our system outright; no leasing the roof, panels or battery. We did initially sign up to sell our stored battery power back to the grid in the "Generac Incentive Program", but that was a miserable experience as they drained our batteries down to minimum 4 nights in a row, two of the nights were during severe storms in the region when we could have lost power (#1 reason we have the batteries). I've elaborated on that experience elsewhere on this forum.

No, I did not entirely understand how the excess power production was going to be used. When we went through the design process, it was... ambiguously... explained how the energy credits are handled. Rhode Island has been extremely late to the game on adopting solar and on creating programs and up to last December, we had National Grid, who sold the state services to Rhode Island Energy. Our state also supplies heating oil to most of Southern New England and Cape Cod. It's big business and there was a LOT of blow back when the state began clean energy initiatives (the off shore wind farms are continually coming under fire). But enough of that BS. When we went through the interconnect process, there has been no rhyme or reason or logic in how the allow home solar production would come on line, and at the time we had our system designed (this past January), no real understanding of how the surplus energy was to be handled. I had to work the ropes to get the approvals done for our system. I saw the ROI possibility; oil and electric charges going up each quarter. Almost $1900 in charges for oil and electric in a one month period. That was it, compounded by the need to replace an oil hot water tank. In March / April, we migrated from fossil fuels to electric heat pumps and had a comprehensive hybrid solar rig installed. Our system went online in May. Our regional rep had some great numbers for us, but... working 36 year in Corporate, I knew the smell of a marketing glossy when I saw one.But it more or less jibed with the research we had done beforehand.

We spent a year talking to different in-state vendors, neighbors who went through the install process, watching YouTube videos and scouring the Internet on each vendor and component. We ultimately went with Generac. They had a good rating in the region for reliability, and for the handful of issues we had as the system got settled in, having just one number to call for service of any and all components was pretty much a no-brainier.

So, here we are at that time of the year when our home is using more power than the system is generating. I was looking to confirm what I suspected about the energy credit, but... given the volume of "oil burners" on the local social media site, it was not a good place to pose the question. My regional rep... nice folks but... not entirely versed in the exacting verbiage from RI Energy. I did some digging and found the chapter and verse to set my mind at ease, and thought I'd share that with other newbies still a bit bewildered by the new technology in the basement.

My biggest fear was that, now that the house is using more power than it generates, all that credit would just vanish at the whim of the POCO (as other folks in other regions have noted), but my research indicates otherwise. We shall see...

[Rade]

HAPPY UPDATE - January 2024.

We have used just about all of our energy credits since our system went online in May of last year. I will expect that we will have a small electric bill for February. It was nice to see that, with the upgrades to our home; migrating from fossil fuel to electric heat-pumps for heat and hot water, we have saved 560kw of power of this year over last, and that includes having several sealed-oil heaters running throughout the house starting in December (we have tropical plants that we winter in various spaces in our home).

I was able to calculate that the last time out system produced more energy than the house used was on November 7. Based on the information of planets axis and position around the sun, we had 10.7 hours of sun on that date. We will have that opportunity again come February 8 when the length of daylight for us will be above that 10.7 hour window. Hopefully we will have sufficient sunny days to begin pushing the energy credits back in our favor.

I obtained the information from timeanddate.com.

All in all, I am pleased! If we start generating credits in March, we will certainly have enough banked to negate all of next winters electric bills.

[Mike 134]

Do you get any money from selling your RECs?

[Rade]

Do you get any money from selling your RECs?

No, we just got the solar-rated energy cash credits applied to my account. By November, I had accumulated $500 in credits that then have been getting drawn against for December and January. The credits began accruing in June (1st full month of solar production) This year, we should start generating more power than the house will consume some time in mid/late February at which point the credits should begin accruing again. Meaning this coming year we should have enough credits to cover the entire winter.

My anxiety is way low now. Depending on who I asked last year, I got a different response on how the POCO handles the credits. Most folks I asked loved to talk smack out of their butts (I mentioned this region has a large heating oil infrastructure that has been driving a lot of the narrative). But a few folks told me that since going solar years ago, they have never seen an electric bill.

As I also mentioned, we replaced our oil burning furnace and hot water tank with electric heat pumps last February. I compared electric utilization for last years January billing cycle (last with an oil burning furnace and HW Tank) to this year, and if I remove the solar generation we got in this recent billing cycle from the statement, this transition off fossil fuels saved us 560kW of power for the month. There is a lot to be said for going carbon neutral.

[peakbagger]

Every state and sometimes utility can have different net metering programs. Now that solar has been around for a while, they may have had multiple rate plans. Usually (but not all the time) the rate plan in effect when the system was commissioned (accepted) by the utility stays with the system the rate plan in effect is "grandfathered" to the customer if a new rate plan comes in. In my case in NH my account is grandfathered for up to 10 KW of installed generation under and an old 1 to 1 plan. New systems get less favorable treatment where they convert the surplus power generated int he summer into a cash credit account and then when the customer needs power in the winter, they have to buy power from the utility at the winter rate out of the cash account, so the utility is buying low and selling hihg. I on the other hand store KWhs with the utility so my summer surplus flows back to me in winter I use a minisplit to supplement my wood heat and charge my plug in hybrid.

It is definitely part of the owner's due diligence to understand the rate plan that will apply to their system before its installed as it can really mess up payback. .