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Gambling State Says the Solar Gamble Is Over
New submitter mdnuclear writes: In a strange echo of the depressed oil economy SolarCity recently announced a layoff of a quarter of its workforce as the apparent result of the Nevada PUC's decision to phase solar net-metering customers down from retail to wholesale per kWh. A scathing editorial in the WSJ last December took both solar leasing companies and their financial underwriters to task, calling net metering a "regressive political income redistribution in support of a putatively progressive cause."
Wednesday the PUC fronted a possible compromise, 'grandfathering' existing net metering customers to their current rates to create a third caste of energy consumers, those who had been in the right place at the right time — for awhile. One who had paid $22k into solar lamented, "I'm not happy; my wife isn't happy, we could have done something else with that money." Like many who leave Vegas, perhaps they should have. But this begs the real question... are net-metering schemes ultimately 'right' or 'wrong' for the grid?
Wednesday the PUC fronted a possible compromise, 'grandfathering' existing net metering customers to their current rates to create a third caste of energy consumers, those who had been in the right place at the right time — for awhile. One who had paid $22k into solar lamented, "I'm not happy; my wife isn't happy, we could have done something else with that money." Like many who leave Vegas, perhaps they should have. But this begs the real question... are net-metering schemes ultimately 'right' or 'wrong' for the grid?
Why should you be paid retail for generation? That totally ignores the part the grid takes in handling your energy...
That's absurd. This is a regulated monopoly. If the government wasn't regulating them, they would dramatically raise rates and prohibit solar altogether. When you have a monopoly, you have to regulate.
The more the utilities push towards charging decentralized solar, the more it becomes attractive to get battery banks and to completely go off the grid. Technology isn't quite there yet. Batteries are still too expensive, capacities are too low, and they need replacement too frequently. But the trend is definitely in the right direction. In a few years, it'll make sense for many current home owners to install batteries and disconnect from the grid altogether.
Why would you want to pay a monthly interconnection-fee, if you don't really need the grid and if you can't sell excess energy.
The "real question" is not whether net metering is good or bad. Of course it's good, and it will continue to become more common as solar (and even wind) micro-generation technology improves. It will get an even bigger boost if EV technology with bidirectional charging and large storage batteries become more popular, as Tesla would like them to. The dispute here isn't over net metering itself. The issue is all about the MONEY of net metering. Who pays what, and how? Before net metering, utility rates were set based on a fixed connection fee to pay for certain fixed infrastructure costs, plus an energy charge per kWh to gover generation costs. For large commercial users, the fixed fee was set as a "demand charge" based on peak consumption (since that determines how hefty the grid needs to be to serve the customer). For residential users, the demand charge is usually just a flat fee per month for the connection. In practice the demand/connection fee is not enough to actually cover the fixed costs of the system, and a lot of that expense is rolled into the energy rates. That doesn't matter in a world without net metering - it makes no difference to the utility whether they get their money per kWh or per month, as long as they get the money. Net metering screws this all up. A net-metered user may have zero net consumption in a month, while still requiring the same infrastructure as a user without net metering. As a result, the demand or connection charge needs to be greatly increased to make up for the lost kWh revenue.
The problem is that the adjustment of rates to accommodate net metering has been a hugely political process with every party trying to screw everyone else to the max. Solar companies want their customers to see huge financial benefits to justify their prices, so they lobby for net metering rates that strongly favor their customers: low monthly charges (ideally the same as for non-net-metered customers), with reimbursement for net metered power at the full retail rate (i.e. 1kWh sold back to the power company nets you the same money you would pay to buy the 1kWh from the power company). This makes solar look like a great investment. The problem is that is really does screw the power company. Since utilities are typically government-controlled monopolies, that means it actually screws the non-solar customers who will all be forced to pay for the net-meter-users' share of infrastructure. Not quite fair. On the other hand, though, we have utility companies trying to get the solar power as cheaply as possible while still collecting full reimbursement for infrastructure costs. They want to treat net-metered customers like power plants: charge them for all the infrastructure costs, and only buy their power at "wholesale" rates that are far less than what the consumer pays for power going the other direction on the same wires. This is also not fair, and screws the people who want to invest in solar by artificially depressing the value of their power. The solution must lie somewhere in-between. Utility rates and their basic method of allocating them will need to change, and it will take honest politicians not bought off by solar companies or utilities to reach a compromise that is fair for everyone. Fat chance of that happening any time soon.
I am a geek attorney, but not your geek attorney unless you've already retained me. This is not legal advice.
Someone reading the WSJ editorial might get the impression that fossil fuel subsidies don't exist. Sure, get rid of the subsidies. ALL of them.
Well your 'little more' is x4.23 as much. Instead of selling at the market price for supplying power at 2.6, they were selling it at the customer purchasing price of 11.
Now they are being dropped back down to normal supply pricing.
It was inevitable. Those kinds of premiums are only temporary to jump start an industry. Once they get large enough, the premium is removed and they then have to compete with everybody else in the market. After all, a market that makes nothing can't afford maintenance and other costs and collapses.
Spot electricity prices are typically higher during the day but that is not always so. Imagine a situation where a large number of people on a local grid had grid tied solar. On a cool sunny day it is conceivable for the spot electricity price to go negative. Would the people with the solar panels be then expected to pay the utility for taking their electricity? Perhaps the utility should have the choice to simply not buy their electricity at that time.
As the laws are typically written for rooftop solar the utility must, *MUST*, purchase the electricity from the homeowner at the retail rate. This is awesome for early adopters, and perhaps even for the utility. The problem arises when the number of rooftop solar customers exceed what the utility can handle. Too much solar power and the electric grid is now "running backwards" along some runs, the grid is not designed for that. An electric utility certainly can make an electric grid to handle rooftop solar but then the people with the rooftop solar are no longer "customers" in the traditional sense, they are producers. As producers they should be no different from other producers. Failing that then the economics start to break down, people with rooftop solar could conceivably be paid for the privilege of getting back-up power from the utility. Too many people doing this and the utility will have to raise prices. The income from the utility to the rooftop solar people goes up and the people that cannot have rooftop solar, apartment dwellers (typically the poorer people) and industry see their rates go up.
Solar subsidies like paying rooftop solar producers retail rates is a wealth redistribution from the poor to the wealthy. It's time for it to stop.
Solar power is now a mature technology, we don't need subsidies to encourage adaption anymore. Solar makes sense on its own, we don't need to prop it up with government mandates and subsidies. Solar subsidies are now just corporate welfare and regressive taxation.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
Tell that to the folks who generate electricity by burning fossil fuels. They are using the government to fight changes to the market brought about by new technology. And if you want a completely market driven solution then we should stop subsidizing the companies that burn fossil fuels by paying for the damages caused by the pollution generated by them. Burning coal spews out Mercury, Sulfur Dioxide, and many other pollutants yet society pays to clean them up and for any health problems caused by them. We can estimate fairly well how much those costs are so that amount should be paid by those companies back to society. Yes, the price of electricity would go up but then as you said the government shouldn't be picking winners and losers.
"They effectively have prohibited solar. If I understand what they've done correctly, they've set a ridiculously high grid-tie charge with a ridiculously-low kWh payout, such that it is impossible to even break-even. "
No one owes you a break-even on a harebrained scheme. You are free to power your own house with solar. No one will prohibit it or care. But your insistence on a break-even means you're wanting someone else to subsidize your hobby.
OTOH, a deal is a deal.
Sadly, I am not an island. Your decision to smoke, drive a car, or buy power from a coal-fired plant impacts me.