Arizona Approves Grid-Connection Fees For Solar Rooftops

mdsolar writes with this excerpt from Bloomberg News: "Arizona will permit the state's largest utility to charge a monthly fee to customers who install photovoltaic panels on their roofs, in a closely watched hearing that drew about 1,000 protesters and may threaten the surging residential solar market. The Arizona Corporation Commission, which regulates utilities in the state, agreed in a 3-to-2 vote at a meeting [Thursday] in Phoenix that Arizona Public Service Co. may collect about $4.90 a month from customers with solar systems. Arizona Public is required to buy solar power from customers with rooftop panels, and the commission agreed with its argument that the policy unfairly shifts some of the utility's costs to people without panels. Imposing a fee designed to address this issue may prompt power companies in other states to follow suit, and will discourage some people from installing new systems, according to the Sierra Club."

Comments

what cost

[Anonymous Coward]

shifts costs to the utility? What costs? A second meter base (which the customer has to pay for anyway) and a second meter? The second meter can't possibly cost $4.90/mo to maintain, over the typical life-time of a system.

Re:what cost

[whistlingtony]

I live off solar. It's fine. LED lighting is cheap enough and doesn't take a huge power draw. My huge power draw is the heater and the hot water heater. No problem. We have these things called Batteries... So I charge for a few hours to heat water for 15 mins. So what? It works fine. Solar panels are down around $1/watt, even for decent panels made somewhere without slave labor.

I live in Oregon. Clouds and night time aren't that bad. It does help that my home is Tiny though.

Re:what cost

[ArbitraryName]

And that's the tradeoff. You either need to have an incredibly tiny and power efficient house, or you need to have a backup system. Even the most ardent off the grid supporters accept that.

Re: what cost

[Anonymous Coward]

You have no clue what you are talking about. Arizona utility companies pay a wholesale rate to solar homeowners for the electricity they generate. During on peak hours my utility pays me a few cents per kWh and resells that for, depending on the time of use plan the other customer has chosen, possibly 10 times that amount. They do not pay me retail for my excess generation, and they always zero out the balance in April before the hot months start so that my credited kWh balance doesn't offset my usage in those months that my demand exceeds the capacity of my system.

What's the basis for this fee?

[bradley13]

According to the information I find about Arizona net metering, the power you generate offsets your bill (at retail rates) until your bill is zero; after that you are paid wholesale for any excess:

"Net metering is accomplished using a single bi-directional meter. Any customer net excess generation (NEG) will be carried over to the customer's next bill at the utility's retail rate, as a kilowatt-hour (kWh) credit. Any NEG remaining at the customer’s last monthly bill in a calendar year will be paid to the customer, via check or billing credit, at the utility’s avoided cost payment. "

If this is really true, then the utility is making a profit reselling the power you generate. So what's the basis for this fee they want to charge?

Re:What's the basis for this fee?

[MindStalker]

The "fee" is the cost of maintaining the grid and power-lines.

Lots of costs

[Firethorn]

In the USA most don't get a second meter, they use what's called 'net metering'. IE if you generate, say, 500 kwh in a month and use 600, you only pay for 100 kwh, even if you only used 100 kwh during the time your panels were generating significant power and used the other 500 at night and such. If your install is big enough that you go negative(spin the meter backwards), you get paid.

While 'spinning reserve' can be a problem, the bigger expense right now is that homes with solar panels are effectively getting out of would be line maintenance expenses. It costs money to keep the distribution lines and equipment up, and they're still using said lines.

They're effectively being paid retail for the power they produce.

Re:Prisoner's dilemma

[TheMeuge]

Just to get the facts straight, the live attenuated polio vaccine is not used any more because the risk/payoff ratio changed so drastically (largely because of its success). We have the inactivated vaccine, which is not as effective, but does not carry a risk of disease. When the pool of the infected is low enough due to suppression by the live vaccine, there is no reason to use the live vaccine anymore.