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Utilities Fight Back Against Solar Energy

Posted by timothy on from the this-again dept.

JoeyRox writes "The exponential growth of rooftop solar adoption has utilities concerned about their financial future. Efficiency gains and cost reductions has brought the price of solar energy to within parity of traditional power generation in states like California and Hawaii. HECO, an electric utility in Hawaii, has started notifying new solar adopters that they will not be allowed to connect to the utility's power grid, citing safety concerns of electric circuits becoming oversaturated from the rapid adoption of solar power on the island. Residents claim it's not about safety but about the utility fighting to protect its profits." We mentioned earlier the connection fee recently approved in Arizona. Do you have a solar system? If not (or if so, for that matter), does this make you think twice about it?

10 of 579 comments (clear)

  1. There must be a very good reason... by benjfowler · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I don't understand why the utilities simply don't build out their grids to accept feed-in from customers' solar rigs, and then split their pricing structure into 1) grid access, and 2) net power supplied? Or is this too simple?

    1. Re:There must be a very good reason... by Nerdfest · · Score: 5, Insightful

      More accurately, it's going up because of corrupt government and bad management.

    2. Re: There must be a very good reason... by noh8rz10 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      in CA all the utility power is "decoupled", which means that electricity is sold at cost while the utility makes all of its money of off its installed infrastructure. This way they don't give a hoot if you get your electrons from a power plant or a solar panel. in fact, every person who installs a solar panel needs a utility upgrade to connect it to the grid, and the utility makes $$ off of that in perpetuity.

    3. Re:There must be a very good reason... by Trepidity · · Score: 4, Insightful

      On a day-to-day and month-to-month accounting basis, my utility (Salt River Project in Arizona) gives me a kWh-for-kWh credit. If I generate 20 kWh during the day, use 15 kWh during the day, and another 5 kWh during the night, I have net zero usage.

      The fair price for net-zero usage is more than $0. You are deriving a service from the grid, which is presumably why you're connected to it. In this case, you're using it to time-shift your energy usage, rather than buying your own batteries and going off-grid. So if you draw 20 kWh from the grid at some point, and feed 20 kWh back into it at another point, and are paying $0 for that, you are being subsidized.

      The correct accounting would be that you should be charged retail rates for what you draw out of the grid, but reimbursed only at wholesale rates for what you feed into the grid, like any other power producer who feeds into the grid is paid.

      --
      10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
    4. Re: There must be a very good reason... by Dr+Max · · Score: 5, Insightful

      We do that in australia by letting anyone with solar generation jack up the network voltage in order to backfeed. It's causing massive problems (mostly around retirement homes) because the network is operating at around 270v in the middle of the day, in a suburb with lots of solar (should be about 240v). Thats the other thing, we don't need all this extra power in the middle of the day, we need it at 6 oclock at night when everyone turns on the big screens and ovens. It's not a good soloution, and thats a big part of why you cant get a good price on solar generation any more (used to be 44cents per kwh, now its 8cents per kwh). We need a new long life battery technology to use solar properly if you ask me.

      --
      Rocket Surgeon.
    5. Re: There must be a very good reason... by currently_awake · · Score: 4, Insightful

      hydro-electric works rather well for that. You pump water into the upper reservoir during the day and use that to run the generators at night.

    6. Re: There must be a very good reason... by Ungrounded+Lightning · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Solar goes from zero to max out put from dawn to solar noon back to zero at sunset. ... You need a huge amount of peaking plants to keep the grid stable. You do not want large voltage and or frequencies swings.

      Except that renewable energy largely feeds during the peaks, REDUCING the need for peaking generation. Solar generates more during sunny times, closely tracking air conditioning requirements. Wind peaks in afternoon/evening, along with classical peak load, due to "lake effect" wind at good sites (i.e. Altamont pass, with the Pacific for the "lake" and California's central valley for the "land") and also tracks heating requirements, due both to lower temperatures during stormy times and greater thermal transfer through walls during windy times. A mix of solar and wind is normally a close match to the grid's peak cycle.

      Meanwhile, generation-affecting weather phenomena, like storm shadows and weather-related winds and gusting, make output vary quickly at any given site, but with both solar and wind generation spread out over many square miles and grid-connected these variations are smoothed out. They're also predictable days in advance.

      So solar and wind DECREASE the need for peaking generation.

      --
      Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
  2. One sided analysis by OFnow · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The utilities appear to be doing a one-sided analysis from what I have noticed. They complain about their lines being loaded by customers generating power and don't count the reduction in line use from the local power a home solar instatllation is helping to power the local neighborhood. Yes, we have a rooftop solar installation. Currently around 90,000 of them in California. Increasing fast. Local solar company is hiring 10-15 new installers *every day* according to local paper.

  3. Re:Solar power is subsidy of rich by blue+trane · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Why not fund research into energy storage technologies so when the grid is overloaded, the energy can be saved and used later?

  4. Our Utility Admits It is about Money by pubwvj · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Our utility has also put a ban on "Net Metering Connects" as they call it here. They fully admit it is all about money but still try and look green. It is all a sham and a scam.

    The way net metering works here is during the summer months when you generate excess power you build up a credit on your account. Then come January 1st take all that extra credit that you have built up and donate it to themselves such that you start the new year with no credit during the darkest, cloudiest time of the year. Now you have to buy power from them until you get to late summer when you've finally got a net metered credit again. Very lucrative for the power company.

    So, why don't they want more connections? Because they say the people who are net metering aren't having to pay the cost of power delivery and they are protesting this by demanding a new fee and higher rates.

    Pure greed.