possible major changes to net metering (for the bad, of course)

[Mike90250]

I agree. It's really lame. I've never really seen anything like it at other forums. And yeah on your last thing - do we never get any sort of trusted status ?

If I edit my own post, it gets moderated and then I approve it.

[reader2580]

For most residential customers solar will never pay for itself without net metering. Battery storage is an option, but batteries are so expensive today it would also never pay for itself unless TOU becomes prevalent. Someone with a 28KWh lithium battery is going to be paying way over $10,000 unless building it from EV modules.

Net metering has to go away at some point, but does residential solar die at that point without cheap storage?

My solar production this time of year is the highest between about 9 am and 4 pm. Before COVID five days a week I was never home during those hours. I am pretty sure on a weekday more than half of my electricity usage is after 5 pm and before 10 pm. If I didn't get paid for energy sent to the grid my electric bill would go from zero to at least 50% of what it was before solar. An EV wouldn't help as the vast majority of the time it was home on weekdays would be when the sun isn't shining.

[bcroe]

If I edit my own post, it gets moderated and then I approve it.

For some reason errors are more obvious after posted, but I leave them so at
least the post gets out. Next day I correct them, but by then someone may
have captured the error in a quote, which I cannot edit. Bruce Roe

[RShackleford]

For most residential customers solar will never pay for itself without net metering. Battery storage is an option, but batteries are so expensive today it would also never pay for itself unless

Never is a long time. Panels and batteries are getting cheaper every day, unfortunately the latter not so much as the former.

[Ampster]

For most residential customers solar will never pay for itself without net metering. Battery storage is an option, but batteries are so expensive today it would also never pay for itself unless TOU becomes prevalent. Someone with a 28KWh lithium battery is going to be paying way over $10,000 unless building it from EV modules
.

Interesting you should mention that. I am in the process of installing 28kW of new LFP bateries which I purchased delivered to my door for $3400 (less than $125 per kWh.)

Net metering has to go away at some point, but does residential solar die at that point without cheap storage?

My hedging strategy is anticipating that solar will not be economical without storage for those that are not grandfathered in the traditional NEM agreements of today.

My solar production this time of year is the highest between about 9 am and 4 pm. Before COVID five days a week I was never home during those hours. I am pretty sure on a weekday more than half of my electricity usage is after 5 pm and before 10 pm. If I didn't get paid for energy sent to the grid my electric bill would go from zero to at least 50% of what it was before solar. An EV wouldn't help as the vast majority of the time it was home on weekdays would be when the sun isn't shining.

My EVs help me leverage my solar because I can bank kWhrs at 3 times the rate that I put them into my car at off peak rates. I am still grandfathered on NEM and TOU rates are not going away. By the time NEM goes away in California there will be so much solar that we will probably get paid to charge our EVs from 10AM until 4PM because the state of California will not want to curtail the solar production. These are just idle speculations from some anonymous poster from the Left Coast.

[RShackleford]

By the time NEM goes away in California there will be so much solar that we will probably get paid to charge our EVs from 10AM until 4PM ...

We virtually get paid to charge our EV here, at less than $0.03/kwh (during the wee hours). I've seen articles on the economics of charging EV versus filling up ICE vehicles, and even when they mention TOD rates, they never are anywhere close to that low, so I'm thinking this is about as cheap as it currently gets. Perhaps not coincidentally, our rural electric co-op just pulled the plug (so to speak) on any new grid-tied solar (or at least on any juice going INTO the grid).

[reader2580]

Interesting you should mention that. I am in the process of installing 28kW of new LFP bateries which I purchased delivered to my door for $3400 (less than $125 per kWh.)

My hedging strategy is anticipating that solar will not be economical without storage for those that are not grandfathered in the traditional NEM agreements of today.

My EVs help me leverage my solar because I can bank kWhrs at 3 times the rate that I put them into my car at off peak rates. I am still grandfathered on NEM and TOU rates are not going away. By the time NEM goes away in California there will be so much solar that we will probably get paid to charge our EVs from 10AM until 4PM because the state of California will not want to curtail the solar production. These are just idle speculations from some anonymous poster from the Left Coast.

Where are you getting a 28KWh lithium battery that cheap? One issue with a traditional off grid system is that the inverters often cost much more than a grid-tie inverter.

Prior to COVID I was getting home from work about 5:30 pm. Not much of a chance to charge an EV off of solar. My vehicle was sitting at a park and ride all day.

[Ampster]

Where are you getting a 28KWh lithium battery that cheap? ..........

Alibaba

Prior to COVID I was getting home from work about 5:30 pm. Not much of a chance to charge an EV off of solar. My vehicle was sitting at a park and ride all day.

I don't know of a cost effective solution to charge an EV off grid using batteries. I am on the grid and use off peak rates.
If it were me I would find a DC fast charging solution near a park or gym and use that time for exercise. C19 may change normal work patterns and there maybe more options.

[solar_future]

With residential solar, utilities are experiencing competition for electricity distribution and, predictably, utility companies are trying to get rules and regulations put in place to thwart that competition.
So electricity utility companies and people with pensions from electric utility companies hate solar and then they give you bs arguments to support their financial. As solar and battery prices decline year-by-year, electric companies will experience more competition and lower profits.

[SunEagle]

With residential solar, utilities are experiencing competition for electricity distribution and, predictably, utility companies are trying to get rules and regulations put in place to thwart that competition.
So electricity utility companies and people with pensions from electric utility companies hate solar and then they give you bs arguments to support their financial. As solar and battery prices decline year-by-year, electric companies will experience more competition and lower profits.

Try to remember the majority of capital a POCO receives is from industrial and commercial companies not residential. Although the distribution system to residential is probably more costly to maintain then large feeders to industrial sites the money a POCO makes from an industrial company far outweighs what they make from a housing development.

So even if a lot more people go off grid all it will do is raise the cost for those homes still connected. That may mean higher home costs as well as higher product costs from suppliers.

[solar_future]

Try to remember the majority of capital a POCO receives is from industrial and commercial companies not residential. Although the distribution system to residential is probably more costly to maintain then large feeders to industrial sites the money a POCO makes from an industrial company far outweighs what they make from a housing development.

So even if a lot more people go off grid all it will do is raise the cost for those homes still connected. That may mean higher home costs as well as higher product costs from suppliers.

If utility companies raise rates, then more people go off grid, then utility companies raise rates again, leading to a utility company death spiral where they keep losing customers and raising rates. Utility companies understand the death spiral and realize their best bet is to kill rooftop solar with regulation. Florida utility companies spent $21 million on a single ballot initiative to kill roof top solar.

[SunEagle]

If utility companies raise rates, then more people go off grid, then utility companies raise rates again, leading to a utility company death spiral where they keep losing customers and raising rates. Utility companies understand the death spiral and realize their best bet is to kill rooftop solar with regulation. Florida utility companies spent $21 million on a single ballot initiative to kill roof top solar.

If you think that POCO's will go broke due to people going off grid then that is your dream. Trust me when I say that POCO's will still be around a long time as long as there are industrial and commercial customers that use electricity. None of them will be able to go completely off grid or they will shut down. In the meantime if the POCO spends their money to keep people on grid then that is their business model which is not going to change anytime soon.

[bob-n]

For better or worse, utility-customer solar is here. It is here on homes and also on some businesses. Utilities can and will try to regulate it out of existance. All of that is certain.

In my opinion, utilities will be successful at discouraging solar in some places and fail in others. It seems to be too late to kill it in some places, such as Arizona, California and Hawaii.

solar_future mentioned Florida. A friend of mine moved to Florida and bought a new house. The HOA regulations required solar on the roof of every home in this development. So even with strict anti-solar regulation, some places in Florida are going solar.

I believe that utilities will have to evolve to survive, just like every other business facing new competition. We couldn't close the door to imported cars in the US. US car companies evolved, partnered, merged, sold, or died (and in some cases, did many of those things). Who would have guessed that an immigrant geek would be successful starting a new car company in the US? It happened and Tesla seems to be turning a profit now. Let's see if they can survive COVID-19.

Utility-customer solar can be part of a good utility business model. It produces energy at the peak of the day, when it is most needed. It is distributed rather than centralized, so more fault tolerant and less demanding on the long-distance grid. In addition, it adds power to the grid without requiring investment from the utilities. As long as the utility can convince regulators to set rates such that the utility is profitable, it can be a part of a good business model.

Netmetering can be part of that model, too. It all comes down to the rates.

[peakbagger]

The FERC threw out the case so net metering is safe. The group that was pushing it is backed by the Sununu family in New England. John Sununu former govenor of NH was a controversial White House Chief of Staff who had to leave the position under a black cloud due to abuse of government services. His son is currently Governor of NH and has vetoed several recent renewable energy bills.

[solar_future]

The the next President will likely be Biden, and the democrats will likely make gains in the Congress, which means that government policy will be favorable to renewables over the next four years. Solar and battery prices will decline steadily over the next 10 years. Solar panels will get more efficient, lowering balance of system costs. Already, Chinese battery makers have come up with car batteries which last one million miles, which means that stationary storage will have a much longer life too. The Chinese and to lesser extent, the Americans and Europeans are investing heavily in battery technology.

A positive trend for the utility companies will be the increasing adoption of electric vehicles which will greatly increase demand for electricity.