Do you get a bill at the end of the year for having solar panels?

[trbizwiz]

I actually hate the sales part of my job. But it is a needed evil. I am in logistics and I am charges with finding clients and then personally managing their logistics. I generate the bulk of my business from customer referrals. So I figure all the selling I need to do is provide equitable solutions to every problem, and let my customers do the selling.
I have often heard in my life, " failure to plan on your part doesn't mean emergency on mine". Or something to that effect. Well my customers failure to plan does nessicitate emergency action on my part. But that's another story.
I agree with the wishing and crapping to determine the faster volume.
I am not suggesting we sit around wishing for advancement. But if we don't all test our theories, and buy the parts to do so, the economics won't be there to promote people with the means and ability to create advancement.
Case and point. Government health care. If the government provides us all healthcare, and they decide how much procedures cost and which procedures get done, the economics won't be there to interest the best and brightest to go into healthcare. And the few that go into it anyway, wont have the opportunities to try new things because the government won't pay for it.
The parallel is new ideas and advancements cost money. If we vote with our dollars and if we promote with our mouths, the best and brightest will find the advancements.
Take for example if solar were more effecient than the current 15% or so of useable daylight. Imagine if you current panel could translate 60% of daylight into energy. The. Imagine if the demand for that product allowed the cost f that panel to be similar to todays panels. That would produce generous amounts of peak energy. That could survive the inefficiencies of storage. In Missouri there used to be a place called tomsak resavour (?spelling), anyway there was a "mountain"(are there really mountains in MO) next to the resavour, a small amount of energy was used during off peak to lift water from the lake to fill the resavour inside the mountain. Then when peak energy exceeded that which the hydro on the dan could produce the opened a valve in the bottom of the mountain resavour allowing the water to come out turning another hydro generator. That provides peak energy. Imagine using more efficient solar to fill up a well and using the run off to provide the energy during non solar time just one thought.

[Sunking]

I am not suggesting we sit around wishing for advancement. But if we don't all test our theories, and buy the parts to do so, the economics won't be there to promote people with the means and ability to create advancement.
Case and point. Government health care. If the government provides us all healthcare, and they decide how much procedures cost and which procedures get done

OK you have a good point. Government needs to be completely removed from the equation. Folks do not remember what Obama and Biden promised they would do. They promised to bankrupt the USA energy sector. Their plan to do that is with Cap-N-Trade aka Cripple-M-Tax. They want to make electricity and all petroleum products so expensive it will make Renewable Energy seem like a good deal. So imagine tomorrow they get their way. Your gasoline goes to $5 per gallon, electricity goes to $1 per Kwh. Loaf of bread jumps to $4 per loaf, and everything you need to live sky rockets in price. That is one heck of a good plan, bankrupt the country. Makes one wonder who's side they are really on huh?

Point here is let the Free Market decide. There are billions of private sector money being poured into R&D. All the Government can do is screw things up as they always do.


[QUOTE=trbizwiz;11247] In Missouri there used to be a place called tomsak resavour (?spelling), anyway there was a "mountain"(are there really mountains in MO) next to the resavour, a small amount of energy was used during off peak to lift water from the lake to fill the resavour inside the mountain. Then when peak energy exceeded that which the hydro on the dan could produce the opened a valve in the bottom of the mountain resavour allowing the water to come out turning another hydro generator. [QUOTE]That is called a Pump Back Lake and is old as the 1920 Depression when it was built out and ended in the 60's. It ended because all available land and water in the USA is used up for hydro.

[trbizwiz]

I technically agree that we get government out of everything. I love love live love the idea. I think the fair tax is the only real way to support our country the way the founding fathers intended. I am for doing it with across the board eliminations of programs so as not to hurt specific demographics while still aiding other demographics at the same time. Across the board. All at once would be great, incremental with a plan for completion would be acceptable. I am of the belief that my tax savings would far off set any gains from grants or programs would ever pay out.
Now how do we get america on board??

[Naptown]

I read a newspaper article where some lady bought a new home with solar panels and her first months energy bill was under 5 bucks. Than I overheard some people talking about a friend of theirs who was nailed with a huge energy bill, I cant remember what the exact amount was but it was in the high hundreds, and it was supposedly for having solar panels. Does anyone know if its true that energy companies charge customers for having solar panels and why?

If they didn't have a net meter installed they may have been paying for the electricity they were feeding back to the grid. Some of the newer digital meters only add up the flow no mater which way it is flowing. The older mechanical ones will spin backwards.

[Designer_Mike]

I was at a "pump back lake" in New Jersey about ten years ago....It's called Yard Creek I think.

In theory, it's a reasonable idea to pump water up the hill at night (off peak) and use it to generate electricity during peak hours. The big problem is that pumping water is incredibly in-efficient and generating electricity from it on the way down is probably equally in-efficient from a mechanical energy standpoint.
Most centrifugal pumps would be less than 70% efficiency going up and less coming down so it's a very poor storage of energy.
BUT according to the engineer I spoke with, efficiency is not the focus for them. Their goal is to suck excess energy out of the grid during off peak hours because it is very difficult to "throttle" nuke plants and many other power plants back during reduced demand. The huge pumps pull a massive amount of electricity out of the grid during night hours and help to smooth the demand then any electricity they can generate during peak hours is just gravy.

They could really use some football stadium size batteries that can be charged at 90%+ efficiency and deliver at the same rate and last 30 years.

How about a flux capacitor??

[Sunking]

I was at a "pump back lake" in New Jersey about ten years ago....It's called Yard Creek I think.

In theory, it's a reasonable idea to pump water up the hill at night (off peak) and use it to generate electricity during peak hours. The big problem is that pumping water is incredibly in-efficient and generating electricity from it on the way down is probably equally in-efficient from a mechanical energy standpoint.

Depends on what you call inefficient as pump back lakes are on the order of 70% on the low end, and 85% on the high end which is as good as most batteries.

BUT according to the engineer I spoke with, efficiency is not the focus for them. Their goal is to suck excess energy out of the grid during off peak hours because it is very difficult to "throttle" nuke plants and many other power plants back during reduced demand.

He is right but I think he could have stated it better.

First Pump back is the most economical and efficient means to store grid power on any kind of usable scale. Downside here in the USA all available land and water are already utilized, so there is no more to build out.

Pump back is used for peaking base load plants using thermal and renewable energy sources. Base load plants are plants that generate constant power over a given amount of time like a coal fired or natural gas plant. Example a typical coal fired generator can deliver or generate 800 Mw around the clock During the day at peak usage, demand will exceed what any given plant can deliver. So at those times you need peaker plants like a natural gas turbine to be fired up and supply the shortage for a few hours each day. But after peak usage the plant has extra capacity which is not being used like at night. You take that extra capacity and pump back water. Then at day during peaks you can use it as a Peaker Plant to supplement Base Plants

[dulcimoo]

It depends on how much of the bill it offsets...

I read a newspaper article where some lady bought a new home with solar panels and her first months energy bill was under 5 bucks. Than I overheard some people talking about a friend of theirs who was nailed with a huge energy bill, I cant remember what the exact amount was but it was in the high hundreds, and it was supposedly for having solar panels. Does anyone know if its true that energy companies charge customers for having solar panels and why?

If you live where I live SDG&E is your power company then if you have solar power installed you get "net metering". What happens is once they update your meter (well when they get the paperwork) you only pay your power bill once per year. So if you only offset so much of your bill you could get a "huge" energy bill.

Let's say your energy bill was $200 on average and your system offset half the usage... then at the end of 12 months you would be stuck will a bill of maybe between $600 - $800. It would be lower that 1/2 of the 2400 your bill was for the year before because your energy cost for usage would be in a lower rate per kWh used. So after 11 months of bills of about $5 you could get one very large bill. This is the most efficient use of your money and will result in a system with a lower ROI than one that generates about 100% of your usage...but you do have to plan for it.

You could over generate and end up with a surplus. This is very costly because they pay very low rates for the over generation (about $0.06/kWh) while your system costs probably upwards of $0.10 (maybe $0.20 or more) depending on how long you spread out your investment in your cowculations.

SDGE does charge self generators $0.14/day to be connected to the grid and us it as a big battery. They are trying to get it changed so that self producers pay a larger cost depending on how much they generate. Currently non-self generators pay about half of the bill to pay for non-generation fees like distribution and maintenance fees. Paying these fees would be more fair, but make solar to costly to install.

If enough people installed solar then many of these fees would be reduced significantly however. But the real issue is that the power company would be using our (the solar home owner) to reduce there costs (there are significant cost benefits if enough people install solar to the power company) which would then be passed on not to the public, but to the stockholder.

[russ]

cowculations.

If enough people installed solar then many of these fees would be reduced significantly however. But the real issue is that the power company would be using our (the solar home owner) to reduce there costs (there are significant cost benefits if enough people install solar to the power company) which would then be passed on not to the public, but to the stockholder.

Not sure what a cowculation is?

Significant cost benefits to the power company? Such as? The infrastructure is not free and home solar (unless off grid) requires use of the grid.

Kind of like telling a cargo company to carry your freight for free as they are going to the destination anyway. People come up with all sorts of reasons the utility should provide the service for free but all are nonsense on a business basis and totally unfair to the 99%.

[dulcimoo]

Not at all....

Not sure what a cowculation is?

Significant cost benefits to the power company? Such as? The infrastructure is not free and home solar (unless off grid) requires use of the grid.

Kind of like telling a cargo company to carry your freight for free as they are going to the destination anyway. People come up with all sorts of reasons the utility should provide the service for free but all are nonsense on a business basis and totally unfair to the 99%.

No it's not a all like that...

When I buy electricity from them they charge all sorts of infrastructure fees ... because they have to pay the suppliers these fees. They purchase electricity from me at VERY low rates they sell it to the guy next door who pays all those fees but didn't actually use any of the things that used them. They get the benefits of using my excess electricity and NOT paying these peak rates, but still charging my friends down the street the same extra fees and at times that are probably peak.

They want me to pay fees for using the wire ... to sell them electricity ... which they then sell to someone else ... and get the fees paid again. If I use electricity then I should pay for it. If I don't use electricity then I should not pay for them to use my electricity to get these fees (again) from someone else.

[Sunking]

You are not entitled to use the POCO facilities. They have every right to charge you. How about I come and live in your house. I will pay for my own food.? I should be entitled to your home.

[dulcimoo]

Umm ... but it is fair?

You are not entitled to use the POCO facilities. They have every right to charge you. How about I come and live in your house. I will pay for my own food.? I should be entitled to your home.

Let say my yearly production exactly matches my usage....it doesn't matter what it is ... but for discussion it's 12 MW per year.

6MW I generated and used as I was generating it.
6MW I over generated at the time, but used it later. ... that electricy was used by bill and joe down the street.
They were charged as if genrated from the mixed geneation over the grid and the tasmission costs for electricity down the street.
In addition they want to change me to send that electricity to bill and joe down the street.
Then later when I neeed to purchase that electricty they want to bill be again for these extra fees.

In addition they want to charge me for the whole 12MW worth of extra fees ... when half of that never made it to the grid in any direction!

I get to pay the fees twice, my nabors pay it once; when in reality I provide a cost savings. It's just not fair.

The way things work now (that they want to change) ... is I only pay the fees if I didn't generate enough to cover my usage. This still isn't as fair, as in the long term I have a zero sum...but it's somthing I could live with (because I'm paying for using some of there electricty at the time).

In addition I do pay a small fee (about 5% of my old bill) just to be connected... which is resenable ...but I think 25% fee is a little much.

[russ]

Not to worry, owners of electric cars will be in for a surprise one of these days as well - their share of the road taxes will become a big topic.