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MSEE, PE -
PG&E has no frickin choice, it is mandated by California Energy Policy. That is why you idiots living there have to pay so much for energy. Before CA went Green they only imported 10% of their electricity from surrounding states. Today CA imports just over 30% of their electricity.
He is a fact you need to know. Every state that mandates Net Metering and alternative RE power sources, utilities are allowed to jack up rates to make up for the losses. It is an invisible tax levied on every citizen including the poor and working class. It is Welfare for the Rich no matter how you spin it. You do understand there are many states that only charge 6-cents per Kwh, and many of those states lower the rate if you go over 2000 to 2500 Kwh per month. It gets cheaper, not higher.
MSEE, PEComment
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OK, I'll play along. Just remember, use facts and links, not something you might have heard on a network that rhymes with ROX.
PG&E has "5.4 million electric customer accounts" - from the PG&E About page ( link at bottom )
PG&E had "200,000 solar customers" in October of this year. (from PG&E news release - link at bottom) - 70,000 were added this year. 45K were added in 2014.
Here's the math. Follow along. So as of October 2015 PG&E had 200,000 (solar cust.)/5,400,00 (total cust.) = 3.7%
So in October of this year only 3.7% of PG&E's customer were using solar.
More math for you. 200K - 70K = 130K. 130K - 45K = 85K At the beginning of 2014 PG&E has 85,000 solar customers OR just 1.57% of their electrical customers.
Please, Please show me some math proving how it's possible for 1.6% ( Jan. 2014 ) or 3.7% (Oct. 2015 ) solar users to totally screw up the electrical rates for 5.4 million customers.
Rates haven't doubled for PG&E since 2014 when solar users started to pick up. The rates have ALWAYS been high. Solar had NOTHING to do with.
Just so you know PG&E solar net users were paying 14¢ a day minimum fee, and that amount went up to 32.8¢ this past month. So PG&E solar users are paying to be on the grid.
Links as promised.
PG&E about page - http://www.pge.com/en/about/company/profile/index.page?
PG&E news release - http://www.pge.com/en/about/newsroom...olar_customers
Please, if you do respond, dazzle me with some math showing how currently 3.7% of a utilities companies customers are causing great harm and suffering to the other 96.3%.
Sorry, but it's not mathematically possible.
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Your math has nothing to do with Import/Export. All your math shows is CA Energy policy is FAILING. Consumption or Demand exceeds Generation or Supply. Each year CA gets further behind. Has done so for the last 25 years.
In 2014 California Imported 33% of thier electrical energy. Those numbers come from EIA and CA.gov. Not made up by anyone person, just statistical facts . In 2014 CA consumed 296,843 Gwh. CA generated 198,973 Gwh from all sources including Solar. The deficit was made up from IMPORTS from other states. totaling 97,870 Gwh.
Simple 5th Grade math. In 2014 CA Imported 1 - [198,973 / 296,843] = 32.97% of their electricity. 2015 is projected to be 35%. That means your energy policy is FAILING. I showed you where to find the info and how. I only did it for 2014 You can now go find what CA did in 1990 before they decided to go GREEN and quit building power plants. CA imported roughly 10% in 1990. It means you will go dark sooner rather than later from failed energy policy. Surrounding states will cut you off when they run out of excess capacity to sell you. SOCAL power will be coming from BAJA using Coal from the USA taking all those jobs with it and charging whatever they want for the power. I pay 7 cents per Kwh for all I want and gets cheaper if I use more than 2500 Kwh/month
Sorry math does not lie.MSEE, PEComment
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Sunking, thanks for explaining how California is required to import more and more electricity. Who asked?
Let me help you with a SOLAR TIMELINE for this thread.
The OP posts a link to story about NVEnergy and how they want t change the existing rules to screw SOLAR customers.
Nine hours after the original post, you make the first reply to thread by stating "About time."
Using the current rules of the English language and Forum logic, your post and the OP read like this.
NVEnergy is trying to screw SOLAR users. - About time.
Please explain why it's about time for NVEnergy to screw SOLAR users?
As both you and I, and all the SOLAR forum members can tell from my previous post concerning SOLAR POWER in this thread, SOLAR POWER represents a very small portion of the energy used or dealt with both utility companies.
Why the need for a utility company to worry or screw over SOLAR users?
Would you prefer every utility build coal based plants and pollute the Earth until nobody can breath?
It doesn't work so well in other countries.
Here's part of the caption for the photo - "The Beijing government issued a 'red alert' Sunday for the first time since new standards were introduced earlier this year as the city and many parts of northern China were shrouded in heavy pollution. Levels of PM 2.5, considered the most hazardous, crossed 400 units in Beijing, lower then last week, but still nearly 20 times the acceptable standard set by the World Health Organization."
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This gallery has 1 photos.Comment
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Maybe you need to just chill out and think about the reality of why no country can generate all of their power from RE 24/7. It is scientifically impossible with today's technology. You will always need to have some type of base generation power source or the lights will go out.
And if you think that a POCO is out to screw someone then I think you are looking at the small picture.
What about Medical costs or insurance? How about food costs? For most US citizens the percentage they spend on electric is small compared to the rest of their monthly costs. Why are you so hung up about how much power costs?
I want to see more solar installed and I would like to see less pollution in our air. But because I do not think that shutting down all of the fossil fuel power generating plants is the right action does not mean I am against solar. I am just an electrical engineer with 40 years experience in the field and understands what it takes to keep the lights on for everyone 24/7.Comment
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SunEagle,
My communication skills must really suck.
I don't know where I mentioned, implied, or stated that somehow magically renewable energy was going to suddenly replace burning something to create a 24/7 source of energy. IT IS NOT. Please help me improve my communication skills and point out where I did that.
Ready your post my impression is that we both want more clean energy, but realize it will be a long slow process that certainly won't replace the current system of generating reliable power in our lifetimes. Maybe never.
Let me point out again something I have said, the POWER COMPANY is running an allowed MONOPOLY. The customers get reliable and safe energy at a price that allows said POCO to make an allowed profit. The POCO is allowed to make a profit. The POCO is not allowed to find any way possible to make the last nickel by screwing its customers so the guy at the top can make his bonus.
What I thought I did say was "why does NVEnergy get to change the rules and screw it's current and future solar customers?"
I did ask Sunking why he thought it "was about time" they did that. I have no reply from him as to his thinking about that.
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Varyman: Reads to me you're tilting at windmills a bit in the sense that you seem to be of the common but egocentric and IMO myopic notion that the POCO's have some personal vendetta against their customers. You are certainly allowed your opinion.
You're also allowed to exercise you options and use less of their product. Or, a more expensive but still often viable option, generate your own power and become a POCO supplier. However, if you do, know that you'll then be playing on their field with their ball and their rules.
Another, perhaps more useful opinion is that it's just business and quite a bit more complicated than some robber utilities boning their sources of revenue.
Example: Most, but I'm pretty sure not all of the reason T.O.U. peak times shift around (to later in the day) is to get users to cut back during peak load times (as those times change/evolve) for load leveling purposes and avoid excess charges from peaker plants, or avoid brownouts/rolling blackouts/service interruptions etc. Some of the reason, I'm just as sure (perhaps like icing on the cake), may be to reduce solar NEM payments to solar users. But, as I've pointed out in the past, and you've also noticed, that NEM consideration is somewhat small in the bigger scheme of things. To the extent it is small, the POCO's have bigger fish to fry.
So, while I'm pretty certain POCO's do not particularly like relatively small, distributed energy sources such as residential solar, I am also about as certain there is no nefarious plot on the part of the POCO's and power industry to screw their customers.
Net metering, as a business model, is senseless. In a capitalistic society, to expect an entity that is for profit by its very nature, and has owners (stockholders) who expect a maximum return on investment with a fiduciary responsibility to protect their interests and do everything to minimize the impact of a senseless business model is common sense.
As Michael Coreleone said: "it's not personal. It's just business."Comment
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Customers are gettingg screwed by the SLOAR USERS. You are correct, POCO are a monopoly except in TX, but that is another story as TX has no NET Metering Law Mandate. The dirty little secret is POCO are allowed to artificially raise electric rates on rate payers to make up for the losses they incur on Solar mandated and forced upon them by the PUC's. Peopple are starting to learn that dirty little sectet and pushing back. The poor and working class are paying for Solar User Luxury and it has to stop.
You want Solar? Fine pay for it, all of it without subsidies from your neighbors. Receive wholesale for excess you generate, and pay retail for what you buy back. POCO do no tneed or want your solar power. They can buy all the want dirt cheap on the wholesale MARKET from competitive bids.MSEE, PEComment
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A POCO is only allowed to change it's rate structure is by first, submitting data to the state Publice Utility Commission or PUC to show the reason for the change and then second, after getting permission from the PUC.
While the PUC may have ties to the state politics it is tasked with keeping the POCO's from "screwing" the public. So NVEnergy must have shown good cause to have been given permission by the PUC to change the rules.
While you may not agree with the ruling or the rate changes there is really only two things you can do to reduce your electric costs. Vote out the state government and the PUC and hope the new administration forces the POCO's reduce their rates or USE LESS electricity.Comment
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I usually can see your point of view on most of your posts and see them as a more radical view of some of mine. The above two points are absurd.
The poor get a subsidized rate in California and most states.
Allowing the POCOs to sell at retail and buy at wholesale does not make sense. Either sell at retail and buy at retail or sell at wholesale and buy at wholesale, plus charge a fee for maintaining the grid, monitoring useage, billing, etc. and allow the fee to be cancelled out by excess generation credit on either plan. The electricity solar users generate is just as good (probably better due to where it is generated) as what they provide.Comment
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I am sorry but you still do not understand what the costs are to generate power, distribute it and maintain the infrastructure the power is sent over know as "the grid".
A POCO usually combines multiple costs into their kWh rate. It may includes all three of those attributes I mentioned or even more. So why should they pay someone for all three when a home owner is only providing the "generation" part but neither the distribution or maintenance part of the costs?
Maybe you are correct that all of the electric bills should list each component that make up the true cost for a POCO to send each kWh out to their customers. It might make it clearer to those that assume what the cost is and expect to paid back the same amount if they generate even a small amount of kWh.Comment
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Do you have any references for this? I tried doing my own research, but all I can find is "tin-foil hat" information for people worried about the health effects of EMF.
To me it makes sense to reimburse at wholesale and charge at retail. The part that gives me pause is when POCOs lobby for a fixed access fee in addition to these charges. Some kind of access fee makes sense for minimal users of the grid, but it seems to me that fee is already included in the regular rates, so Solar customers may end up getting double-charged unless the access fee is in the form of minimum fee.
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1. Most inverters use Pulse-Width Modulation electronics to generate power. PWM power supplies have a history of causing harmonic distortion due to the way they "chop" up the AC sine wave. Those harmonics are considered "dirty" or "noisy" and reduce the quality of power.
2. The basic connection fee that all customers pay pretty much covers a fixed cost for the POCO to maintain the administration costs to run the company. The additional "connection fee" for solar customers "should" cover costs that are built into that standard kWh charge. Since the solar customer is not "using" as much kWh as a non solar customer the additional "fee" is supposed to make up for a portion of what the POCO needs to maintain the grid that the solar customer is no longer paying.
But I agree with you that if not properly determined, a POCO could end up over charging a minimal solar customer because the solar "connection fee" is much more than what they would have been charged just purchasing the amount of kWh that is off set by their small solar pv system.
The same argument can be used for EV owners. A road tax is added to each gallon of gas. That tax is supposed to help cover the maintenance of the roadway that is worn out by the user. Yet all EV users don't pay that tax since they do not purchase gas but still "use" the roads. So shouldn't an EV owner be hit up with a "road tax" for their EV?
I am just saying that the cost to maintain a system needs to be supported by the users of that system.
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