State Solar Would Loser Savings If Proposed Ok'd.

[newe70]

I just read this article fr LA Times, what is your thought?

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-solar-net-metering-20150927-story.html

[ulrich]

Typical attention-grabbing hyperbole.

Solar users (which will hopefully include me soon) use the grid for the extremely useful feature of using electricity at night that was generated during the day (and to a lesser degree using electricity generated in the summer during the winter).

Now that solar is getting plentiful, some of the extraordinary incentives need to be dialed back.

Sure, some utilities may be trying to dial things back more than they should, but on the whole it's pretty clear that today's rate plans cannot be sustained.

It makes sense to ask all grid users, including net zero consumers to pay for the grid. It also makes sense that the utility shouldn't have to pay more for home solar power than for energy they could source elsewhere.

Perhaps the one area I would question is whether the utilities should be able to charge full retail for solar users' electricity consumption, since the retail price includes grid fees, to the best of my knowledge. This would mean solar users potentially would be double charged for grid use - once for the electricity they use, and once through the explicit fee. I need to educate myself more to see if this is a real issue - perhaps it has been accounted for.

It's not surprising that the solar industry is protesting - their gravy train is drying up - but I see this all as a great sign: the incentives have served their purpose, now it's time for solar to become mainstream.

[maximizese]

Typical attention-grabbing hyperbole.

Solar users (which will hopefully include me soon) use the grid for the extremely useful feature of using electricity at night that was generated during the day (and to a lesser degree using electricity generated in the summer during the winter).

Now that solar is getting plentiful, some of the extraordinary incentives need to be dialed back.

Sure, some utilities may be trying to dial things back more than they should, but on the whole it's pretty clear that today's rate plans cannot be sustained.

It makes sense to ask all grid users, including net zero consumers to pay for the grid. It also makes sense that the utility shouldn't have to pay more for home solar power than for energy they could source elsewhere.

Perhaps the one area I would question is whether the utilities should be able to charge full retail for solar users' electricity consumption, since the retail price includes grid fees, to the best of my knowledge. This would mean solar users potentially would be double charged for grid use - once for the electricity they use, and once through the explicit fee. I need to educate myself more to see if this is a real issue - perhaps it has been accounted for.

It's not surprising that the solar industry is protesting - their gravy train is drying up - but I see this all as a great sign: the incentives have served their purpose, now it's time for solar to become mainstream.

I read the same article the other day and came to similar conclusions. The tax incentives were in place to subsidize the cost for early adopters while the technology improved, production costs decreased, and to give some market visibility for the industry. Now that the production costs have decreased so much over the last 8 years, the incentives fairly be scaled back. I think too often times, we want to get as much as we can for a little net cost without thinking what is fair and what was the spirit of the initial incentive.

As for net metering changes, it is clear that utility providers, customers, and small scale alternative energy users have different interests. Some see roof-top solar as disruptive, others compare it to "Lexus lanes", charter schools, flat or regressive taxes, etc, and others believe it to be the solution for localized power generation and distribution. The article illustrated the chasm between solar marketing, the motivation of the customer, and the utility companies. One man who is not well-off, but shares a single-family-residence with another family in urban Los Angeles bought into the solar concept to mitigate their electricity bill; an idea that is widely marketed by the solar industry. Now he finds that the utility companies view roof-top solar as a benefit for the well-off and that the middle-class and poor are bearing the brunt of the infrastructure. They want to charge more for per month based on system capacity and lower the net credit for energy production. Their argument is that the utility companies are storing excess energy produced during the day and they are then forced to produce more serviceable energy when the sun goes down. Storage capacity (infrastructure) is the new issue. The Telsa Powerwall could be a solution, but I'm sure the utility companies will appreciate folks going off the grid en masse.

We'll see where this goes. It won't play into my decision to go solar, but it will likely change the design, scale, and capacity of my future system.

[skipro3]

Electricity is considered a 'critical infrastructure' and can not be managed in an open market for pricing. That's why it's regulated. Think of how drug prices are now being manipulated. Would you want that for your electric use too? It's not like a sick person has a lot of choice; he either gets his meds or he dies, or at least his quality of life is severely affected. And yet, a recent routine medication was increased from $65 a pill to over $5,000 per pill. Why? Because they can. They rationalize it all the heck and back, but the bottom line is share value in the company.

I love the arguement they gave; Utilities contend that rooftop solar owners — often wealthier homeowners, who can afford the high upfront installation costs — haven't been paying their fair share. And that 'fair share' is... what?? Share value in their company to the investors.

If private utility companies can not find it profitable to go forward with providing residential users the product they are needing to sustain a quality of life, then they should just say so and allow the residents to create a municipality that doesn't answer to shareholders.

In my area, covered under PG&E, electric flat rate is 16 cents a kilowatt hour. The next county from me over, Sacramento, has a municipal utility company. Flat rate is 11 cents a kilowatt hour. So, you tell me; would I even NEED solar if I were getting my electric at 11 cents versus 16 cents; almost a 50% mark-up??!! I would think not.

Greed is bad enough, but claiming that resident rate payers trying to shield themselves from the private utility company's greed by installing solar is outrageous.

[maximizese]

I believe you have some of your facts mixed up. It was a 32 year old hedge fund manager of a shell company acting as a pharmaceutical company that bought the rights to Daraprim and increased the price of the pill 5,000% from $13.50 per pill to $750. He justified it by saying that the increased revenue stream would be used to fund R&D for new drugs. I personally don't find him at all credible.

Utility companies are a lot more complex given their history of regulation/deregulation, tax structure, and monopolistic nature of regional districting.

[inetdog]

I believe you have some of your facts mixed up. It was a 32 year old hedge fund manager of a shell company acting as a pharmaceutical company that bought the rights to Daraprim and increased the price of the pill 5,000% from $13.50 per pill to $750. He justified it by saying that the increased revenue stream would be used to fund R&D for new drugs. I personally don't find him at all credible.

Utility companies are a lot more complex given their history of regulation/deregulation, tax structure, and monopolistic nature of regional districting.

The loophole (?) that he exploited has to do with the "cleaning up" of old generic drugs.
The medicine in question has been in the public domain for awhile as its original patents had long since expired. The 13.50 (or whatever) price only reflected production (and product entry) costs and competition would have kept it from rising much above that.
But the FDA has a special program authorized by Congress which aims to get the expensive testing done and submitted for generic drugs that are so old that they faced less strict testing and labeling rules than are currently in place. In exchange for bringing the testing and paperwork up to date a company can get a period of "exclusive marketing and distribution rights" which functions, within the US, much the same way as a new patent.
The drug in question was entered into that program, otherwise the $ 5000 price would soon have been battered down by free competition.
There is a large amount of dissatisfaction with the way this FDA program has been used (abused?) and Congress will probably take another look at the legislation.

[ulrich]

I love the arguement they gave; Utilities contend that rooftop solar owners — often wealthier homeowners, who can afford the high upfront installation costs — haven't been paying their fair share. And that 'fair share' is... what?? Share value in their company to the investors.

I think this is a little disingenuous. At the very least, you could try to restate the arguments they give on what the fair share is and point out the flaws in them.

The fact is, any rooftop solar owner that's not off-grid makes use of the grid to substitute for local storage. If you look at the cost of battery backup, there is clearly a very large value provided to the owner from the grid.

Looking at it from the other side, see the attached chart of energy usage on Sep. 21 (one of the hot days this month). Already, solar is prevalent enough that peak usage has shifted from 4 pm to 7-8pm, when solar generation has dropped off. This means that the utilities now will have to scale their generation capacity to the needs of rooftop solar owners (among others, of course) who are cooking their meals, lighting their houses, and possibly heating their homes at a time when their solar panels are contributing nothing to the grid.

Additional solar installations are no longer helping the grid (since they are no longer reducing peak utilization) - it makes perfect sense to me that the utilities would want to make sure that their costs get covered.

[DanKegel]

I'm concerned about that per-kw-solar monthly fee.
How well grounded is it? Is there really no way to avoid penalizing people who try to do the right thing?

[skipro3]

The fact is, any rooftop solar owner that's not off-grid makes use of the grid to substitute for local storage.

O.K., that's one point for the consumer. But just one point. The utility gets lots of 'free' stuff from us taxpayers. Easements and right-of-ways for example. What gives a utility the right to put a pole on property I'm paying the taxes on and not have to compensate me? I've got several acres where the utility company crosses my land and has the right to drive in order to service these poles, but I get nothing for it. The reason; to encourage the expansion of electricity to rural areas. But now that the area is built out, those reasons are outdated, just like the incentives for solar are being made claim of being outdated. So, if solar is going to be reexamined, then everything should also be reexamined.
Another example; the utility company has all sorts of substations and switchyards. None pay property tax. Privately held land and no taxes? I don't know if this is nationwide or not, but I would bet that in areas where they are taxed, it's at a rate lower than my house property tax. Again the reason why is understandable; to encourage the growth of a grid. But forever? Some places even allow the utility company vehicles to be exempt from DMV fees. Look at the next electric company truck and see if yours pays DMV fees or not. It will say exempt right on the plate. Certainly they pay less if they do pay.

I don't know. I think the utility company is just getting a little too greedy. They not only want the whole cake, they want to charge you for the crumbs that fall from their table as well. j