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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."
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.
The utility spent $3.7 million to promote its argument, compared with about $330,000 spent by the solar industry, according to documents filed with the commission.
Fuck these crooks. $3.7M buys a lot of infrastructure improvement.
Oldest trick in the book. Ask for the moon ($50/month insanity) and cry when they hand you a sterling silver platter instead.
I sincerely hope cheap high density batteries come out in the next decade that will make grid tie completely moot point if all you want is energy at night.
You still need fossil fuel power plants to regulate voltage. Those have to be paid for and solar installations are getting a benefit without paying for it. VARS aren't cheap. And bitching over 5 bucks a month - that is nothing.
I'm OK with a grid connection fee. It is reasonable.
However, I am not OK with some other policies that I have seen, such as no buyback for excess generation. Or, as in my case, the policy is such that regardless of how much excess generation you pump into the grid, there will NEVER be a net on the bill. The bill will always be at least ~$30 even if I pump 20MW of excess generation back into the grid.
It really pisses me off. But, luckily, the state commission just approved another rate hike that "will benefit consumers".
If i produce power and give it back to the system they should be paying ME, not the other way around. WTF.
Its not hard to avoid not feeding back into the "system", but what sort of nonsense is this where you get penalized for trying to be a good citizen.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
If you have solar panels and don't want to sell your excess back to the utility then don't . But don't try to pretend that you don't make use of the grid when you do. The public utility has been forced to buy your excess energy at above market rates thus pushing up costs to everyone. Stop crying about being treated like a wholesale power supplier.
The free market argument is a weak one, and doesn't correlate with the reality in which we live. Have you seen the way "free market" ISPs operate in regards to competition? Doesn't work so well does it? With many geographical areas being locked into a choice between AT&T and Time Warner, there is virtually no competition. There are many who are arguing that ISPs should be treated as public utilities so that they can't throttle competing services that traverse their wires, requiring government intervention.
If you want to argue that the government is screwing something up and needs to get its hands out of something, I'd look towards the military industrial complex.
Crimey
That is just one tiny example of why gov't shouldn't be regulating any businesses, why it shouldn't be involved in any projects, including infrastructure - no competition. If this law passes, it just gives the gov't established monopoly a special power to tax people because they have no competition. No competing grids, no competing roads, no competing water and sewer and garbage providers, etc.etc. This company COULD, in a free market, do the same thing: impose a fee like that. However if it did, people would have a choice to switch to another provider, however that would have been done, but we can't even KNOW at this point, because of gov't meddling, which gives monopolies to the most connected players.
While I generally agree that the marketplace should decide who wins and loses, there are some things that are impractical to leave to the market. Taking your example of roads: how would you picture a road system for a city that allows for multiple "road providers?" How would new players enter the market? I ask because I can't picture having multiple road grids in the same geographical area that doesn't end up with more roads than buildings (picture downtown Chicago with the local lanes and express lanes everywhere in the city).
Government's idea of a balanced budget: take money from the right pocket to balance...oh who am I kidding?
I'm not sure I understand the logic of the commission (that is, the logic of their stated argument, as opposed to the unspoken "we just got $3.7 million from the utilities so we'd better side with them" argument that we all suspect).
The Arizona Corporation Commission says that this fee is necessary because people who use solar are foisting off some of the maintenance cost onto the other customers who do not use solar panels.
Some residents installed solar-electric panels on their homes. Any excess energy they generate is sold back to the utilities, transmitted through the utilities infrastructure. The utilities are claiming that this is costing its other, non-solar customers money. But how?
It's not costing them money in infrastructure; that is still being paid for by all its customers - including those using solar power, as they are still hooked up to the grid and paying Arizona Public for the service (necessary, I suppose, for the occasional cloudy day in AZ). The maintenance costs of the lines are included in this service, just as they are for any other Arizona Public customer; it is not as if AP had to hook up any extra lines to these users of solar power, or as if the lines remain connected and the solar-customers aren't paying for the privilege.
The utility has to pay for the juice they receive back from these solar-customers, but they can then redistribute this power to other non-solar customers. AP need generate less electricity. I /suppose/ that AP might be operating at loss here if they have to pay out more per watt than it costs them to generate it themselves, but I have strong doubts this is the case. More likely, they are getting a deal on the extra volts and saving by not having to buy extra fuel for their generators.
In either case, I do not see how the use of solar would raise the cost of electricity for non-solar customers. Maintenance is shared equally among all customers, and purchased electricity from solar users saves the corporation money. There's no added cost to be passed on to non-solar customers.
There is a danger of becoming irrelevant (and unprofitable!) if solar usage takes off, but - while that may be the real concern of the utility - that is /not/ the argument that they are making.
Is the Arizona Corporation Commission's case that blatantly bogus or am just I missing something?
And the highest consumer demand for power is during a hot sunny day.
And those are the days where there's most gained from solar power, so the other moron is wrong too.
The cost of delivering power has two components: fixed costs (say, power lines to the home) and variable costs (say, of producing the power) The current system was to bundle the fixed costs into the variable ones, and just chage proportional to consumption. Since those selling back power to the grid still need to pay for the fixed costs, this principle of this change seems right. Better execution would have been to add the fixed cost to everyone and make a corresponding reduction to the marginal (per KWh) tariff, at which point those with and without solar panels would be treated equally.
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?
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
This law is the equivalent of telling your wife you love her while beating her half to death. Society should love people who conserve energy and our government has begged the public to conserve for decades. So laws that encourage people to use solar power are all that we should have. This new tax will hold back solar installations which is exactly what the government claims it does not want. The same is true for electric cars. Electric cars avoid a gas tax so some states now have a special fee for allowing people to use electric cars under the guise that they are not paying their fair share of road taxes. In the case of a fee applied to solar powered homes the tiny fee first required means little. But it puts people on notice that that fee will grow and grow over time. The simple truth is that as more and more homes go solar the grid, in effect, gets smaller and smaller but still has the same maintenance fees which must be passed on to the people who use the grid. Therefore we should expect electric prices to rise for those that do not install solar which will encourage more and more people to go solar. At some point the power gri will not be needed at all for homes and industry will be the only consumer.
Have you seen the way "free market" ISPs
Protip: Such a thing doesn't exist in the US. You know why you have a shitty choice in Internet providers? Because your local government sold you out.
.. so I don't expect any slashdotters to read it.
http://erc.ucd.ie/files/theses/Eleanor%20Denny%20-%20A%20Cost-Benefit%20Analysis%20of%20Wind%20Power.pdf
It's a recent doctorate thesis examining the impact of wind power on the Irish Grid, and it explains a lot of the damaging effects that putting variable power supplies can have on a grid.
To save you going through the maths, it comes to the conclusion that, with best possible assumptions, a maximum of 30% power from variable renewable supplies can be accepted. With worst assumptions, the figure is 5%. Beyond these figures, costs are in excess of the benefits gained, and remain so up to 100%. That includes things like fuel costs, which are actually greater due to increased base-load cycling.
The Irish power stations are fairly old and inefficient. On a more modern grid, the 30% figure would come down to about 20%. At all times the variable supplies add some value, and take some away due to their variable nature.
The charge applied by Arizona will offset some of this grid damage due to variability.
I have to pay 15 dollars a month, about half my bill right now, just to stay connected to the grid. So adding another massive dis-incentive for conservation really does seem unfair. You can never conserve your bill to zero.
As more homes get built with solar pre-installed, I look forward to the time when entire subdivisions buy a "community battery" and never need fossil.
We have a shitty choice because ISPs lobbied to get municipalities to give them exclusive monopolies and ISPs choose amongst themselves to not compete with each other in certain areas. The best part is then the ISPs come back around and act like the very things they lobbied for were against what they wanted.
Well, then, explain what happens during the day as cloud cover moves over a large area. Solar input drops and it must be made up with traditional sources. Fossil and gas need to spin up. But Fossil plants take hours to start from cold, and gas plants lose money if they are not running at full. Spinning reserve is required even for that slow moving peak. Those resources must be ready and available. You can argue to which extent they are needed, but do dismiss that need shows me you don't get the bigger picture of how grid stability is maintained.
Every electric bill contains a fee to remain connected.
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.
I don't read AC A human right
So free market caused "geographical areas being locked into a choice between AT&T and Time Warner"!? I don't think you quite understand what free market means. It is regulation at the local level that gives monopoly to ISP providers over certain geographical areas, not the free market.
As for government getting it's hands off military industrial complex, you got it wrong again. The primary purpose of the government is the national security, that's one thing that can't be privatized. This is not to say that there isn't an enormous amount of waste and corruption in defense procurement, just like in everything else government does.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
I'm pretty sure that a parallel grid would cost more than $4.95 a month.
There is a cost of spinning reserve and grid stability maintenance. Why shouldn't those who need it or negatively impact it pay for it?
The answer has to do with the Prisoner's Dilemma. What is best for the individual may not be the best for society, and what appears to be a sub-optimal choice for the individual often turns out to be better for the individual in the long run if everyone makes the same choice.
For a concrete example, consider the Polio vaccine. There is a small chance of getting polio from the vaccine, so from the individual's point of view it makes no sense to get your kids vaccinated. If everyone else is vaccinated, you can forego the vaccination and reduce the risk to your child even further... except that if everyone makes that selfish choice, no one is protected.
In this particular case, there is now an incentive for people to purchase batteries and disconnect from the grid (or perhaps purchase batteries and not back-sell electricity). Instead of having the public service managing grid load using the best possible method with economies of scale, the problem is distributed among many small players. It's a narrow-minded view of an externality.
People have an incentive to spend revenue purchasing the batteries, and spend time dealing with installation/setup/maintenance/disposal rather than a few people doing this in bulk. The aggregate loss of productivity to society is much greater. Environmentally speaking, there will be lots of batteries in landfills in 10 years or so.
There is an incentive for less electricity put into the grid to be made available for others. The market has less "liquidity" now, generally considered (economically) to be a bad thing. The utility will need to generate more energy to compensate, which will result in more expenses and more environmental damage, and these changes may cost the utility more than the revenue from the monthly fees.
People without solar panels had the burden of an extra expense. Rather than viewing the expense as unwarranted, you could view it as an incentive to purchase solar panels, which is generally better for society.
Public services are corporations and as such want to make as much money as possible for their stock-holders. They only view this in terms of revenue - they could also consider the expense of externalities, and make decisions to maximize stockholder value rather than narrowly focusing on profit.
People in the 'States scream about Big Government...
Oddly enough in most of Europe, with their big government that actually regulates industry, you see MORE competition in broadband, in cell service. Weird. Almost like businesses get too huge, start monopolistic practices, and NEED to be wacked with a stick once in a while.
Remember folks, there's a world outside the USA, and it works pretty well for a lot of things. Our culture/economy/law is not a universal Truth for the world.
They smooth out peaks during Summer because the hottest & sunniest part of the day where you need your AC on full blast here in Phoenix, the panels are also hitting their maximum output.
This is not hard to figure out.
Germany is an interesting example of scale. They are planning to add over 7GW of fossil generation in the next few years.
What an amazing coincidence that this is the first hit in google when searching for "Germany 7GW"
German power utilities seek to close 7 GW in capacity - Oct 24, 2013
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
But, no fee if you instead install a wind system?
Here in Vermont if you 'sell' via grid-tie you're not paid, rather you get a 'credit' that you must spend before the end of the year. Then at the end of the year the power utility company 'donates' your accumulated credits to itself. Since most power is generated in the sunny months of warm weather and most power is needed during the cold winter months this means the power company comes out way ahead. All summer and fall you are accumulating power credits and then they steal them, oops, I mean donate the credits to themselves so that all winter when your system is producing little power you must buy power and can't use your accumulated summer credits.
On top of that they charge a hookup fee and a monthly fee for services, a meter reading fee (although they don't actually read meters anymore) and a energy efficiency fee and then taxes on the power you generated too.
Net metering is a sweet deal for the electric power companies.
After all the fixed costs of connecting each house is the same.
Not really, especially when you get into the back-end. This gets complicated, I'm not an expert, I mostly worry about field capacity, stability, and such using generators in remote locations.
Somebody who merely uses less electricity isn't as much of a load on the electric lines as somebody who puts solar lines up, as aaarrrgggh mentions.
That's because, just like roads, while there's a fixed component to just having a line somewhere, there's also costs associated with sizing the lines based on maximum load and costs based on wear&tear on actually shipping the power. Most electric equipment is high durability, but there is gear that wears out, besides things like weather damage.
With just lowering usage you can shrink the size of the lines(or don't upgrade as you expand). Now consider the house w/solar panels situation - The house is using just as much power at night, so you can't shrink the lines, but now it's producing power during the day when people are generally not home, which translates to current on the lines(losses). Right now that doesn't matter much in most areas because vampire drain and such from homes to do things like keep fridges running and AC/DC converters warm, as well as homes with occupants means the power won't go far. But if you get enough solar panels now you need the infrastructure set up to move the power away from the neighborhood to the rest of the grid.
As for the last part of your comment, while I don't live there anymore, my old utility in ND would cut your rate by about a penny for any kwh over ~1k/month. It's political maneuvering why places like California charge you more per kwh if you 'use too much'.
I don't read AC A human right
This thread is full of a bunch of people who aren't from Arizona and don't have rooftop solar. I, on the other hand, am from Arizona and have rooftop solar.
I live in Tucson and have electric service with TEP. Everyone, including those with and without rooftop solar, already pays a $10/month "Customer Charge". Reading verbatim on the back of my bill, the Customer Charge is "A fixed fee that helps cover the cost of maintaining electric service to your address. This fee does not vary with usage." Solar customers, as well as everyone else, already pays $10/month to maintain the grid. Now the Arizona Corporation Commission is unfairly telling the solar customers that they have to pay more than the non-solar customers to maintain the grid.
Obviously you have never taken a look at the California ISO website during the summer, which gives real information on demand and production. as opposed to rants of solar fanboys writing for Wikipedia. Peak production from solar occurs at 12 noon, peak demand occurs at 6PM. Solar does help with energy production during the hottest part of the days but is no help when demand is highest and thus does nothing to reduce the need for spinning reserves.
A Shadeless room is a brighter room.