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SolarCity Will Eliminate Over 550 Job Due to State’s Anti-Rooftop Solar Decision

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Re: SolarCity Will Eliminate Over 550 Job Due to State’s Anti-Rooftop Solar Decision

#91

Post by notlisted »

SmallBets wrote: post #79
notlisted wrote: post #68

Somewhat off-topic. I'm all for solar, but there are some nasty practices out there with the "free" installs (lease). To maximize energy-harvesting potential, many "free" solar installers don't seem to care at all about ruining the look of nice houses, for example stuff like this [1], reducing the value of the home and increasing the time to sell. There are many horror stories about unexpected liens on homes [2] prev…

Exactly. This stumbling block is as much about the solar lease/ppa model as net metering, because math about cost of botg grid and solar are assumed 100% unchanged for 20 years. Rooftop owners that buy their systems outright are still im good shape, with a different payback period. Leases have been pushed bc theyre more lucrative for installers and homeowners have avoided the upfront cost of buying. Leases were a gat…

Once home batteries like Tesla's Powerwall become mainstream we may see another up-tick in self-financed systems, especially since those may have an effect on the price of electricity for people without them [1]. This is a lovely article on the latest developments and side-effects [2]

[1] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-09-24/batteries-...

[2] http://rameznaam.com/2015/04/14/energy-storage-about-to-get-...

Re: SolarCity Will Eliminate Over 550 Job Due to State’s Anti-Rooftop Solar Decision

#92

Post by pkaye »

vinceguidry wrote: post #81
CWuestefeld wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, that's a long reach to get to the OP's "de facto ban on rooftop solar". If we take the OP at face value, then, it seems to be declaring that solar energy is completely impractical, and can't survive without life support. I realize that other forms of energy generation are all subsidized in various ways, so it's clearly not as serious as my above interpretation, but still, it doesn't speak well of solar.

It's not that simple. Solar is only really practical if it fits into the grid system, otherwise there's no real point. The energy it gives you goes up and down, and not in sync with your own household needs. So you need something to do with excess capacity. All by itself, units of power aren't all that expensive. But a solar installation is very expensive. You need to amortize the cost of the installation, the people…

What would happen if more and more people start using solar along with the net metering? Who would pay for the infrastructure costs?

Re: SolarCity Will Eliminate Over 550 Job Due to State’s Anti-Rooftop Solar Decision

#93

Post by vinceguidry »

dpark wrote: post #90
vinceguidry wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that simple. Solar is only really practical if it fits into the grid system, otherwise there's no real point. The energy it gives you goes up and down, and not in sync with your own household needs. So you need something to do with excess capacity. All by itself, units of power aren't all that expensive. But a solar installation is very expensive. You need to amortize the cost of the installation, the people…

> Why should they pay wholesale? They're not buying in wholesale quantities from each consumer. Why should they pay retail? As a consumer thinking about solar, I like that, but it makes no economical sense. What business can afford to buy and sell for the same price? You don't sell a car to the dealership for the price they will sell it for. That would be absurd.

I don't think they should pay retail either. But a power company is not a normal company, it's a government-supported effectual monopoly. So what they should pay for stuff is going to be by nature more political than economic.

My guess is that they're going to compromise at around 75% of the difference between retail and wholesale. Nobody, except the power companies, really wants to see solar disappear, so the solar side is going to have more political might in this fight.

Re: SolarCity Will Eliminate Over 550 Job Due to State’s Anti-Rooftop Solar Decision

#94

Post by mikeash »

skrause wrote: post #77
_ea1k wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not really about subsidies in this case. It is about a change to Net metering and the addition of a new fixed monthly fee just for solar users. Fixed fees can significantly affect the cost of solar and some reports have this fee as high as $40/month[1]. The fact that they have also made this retroactive to existing solar customers adds a lot of uncertainty to the market as well. That can't help from a sales per…

> It is about a change to Net metering and the addition of a new fixed monthly fee just for solar users. I've predicted rising fixed fees for solar customers before [1] and I think it's just the beginning. When a significant amount of households have a solar installation they're not really providing a service to the grid anymore. Everyone sends a lot of power into the grid when nobody else needs it during the day, an…

The grid doesn't need your energy most of the time, but when it does need your energy it tends to be right around when you're giving it, because peak solar production lines up pretty well (admittedly not perfectly) with peak electricity consumption.

If having a bunch of household solar saves the power company from spinning up expensive peaking plants, you're saving them a ton of money and performing a great service.

Of course, if enough households have solar then you'll exceed what the system needs even at peak times. But we're so far away from that point that there's no reason to discuss it in the context of current policy.

The big question to me in this case is, when the power company buys back solar power at wholesale rates, are they paying average wholesale rates, or are they actually paying the marginal wholesale rates at the time in question? How well do their retail rates reflect their peak marginal costs?

In many places, residential rates can end up below cost at peak times, even with time of use metering. In a situation like that, switching from net metering to paying true wholesale rates could be a net gain for homeowners with solar. But I have a feeling the setup here is not quite so fair.

Re: SolarCity Will Eliminate Over 550 Job Due to State’s Anti-Rooftop Solar Decision

#95

Post by dpark »

_ea1k wrote: post #67
Animats wrote: post #13

If solar can't make it in Nevada without subsidies, the industry has a big problem. Nevada's population is mostly around Las Vegas, which is at 36° latitude and has 294 sunny days a year. It doesn't get much better than that. Utilities are still buying back power, just at wholesale rates. You can still use the power yourself and buy less at retail rates. Or you can get some of Tesla's batteries and store it for night…

It is not really about subsidies in this case. It is about a change to Net metering and the addition of a new fixed monthly fee just for solar users. Fixed fees can significantly affect the cost of solar and some reports have this fee as high as $40/month[1]. The fact that they have also made this retroactive to existing solar customers adds a lot of uncertainty to the market as well. That can't help from a sales per…

I think wholesale prices or fees make sense. The combo of the two is a little ridiculous. It starts to make more sense to just burn off excess solar rather than send it back to the grid.

Re: SolarCity Will Eliminate Over 550 Job Due to State’s Anti-Rooftop Solar Decision

#96

Post by ethbro »

inthewoods wrote: post #70

Seems like they need a middle ground - not selling at wholesale prices or full retail. Putting the price at wholesale doesn't take into account the costs for the homeowner (or a 3rd party company like SolarCity) to invest in solar panels. Selling at retail doesn't take into account cost of grid maintenance for the power companies. It also doesn't make a lot of sense to me that they charge higher fees to connect to th…

I don't see where the argument against retail (possibly minus a small amount) comes from.

Effectively, they're deleting load from close to the end user from the utility's books. If that load hadn't been deleted, the utility would have charged retail pricing in order to generate it.

The small negative adjustment from retail would come from the fact that the utility is still servicing the solar user as a retail user. So still needs to charge a set amount for admin costs & transmission (NOT generation) infrastructure.

Paying them wholesale is pretty ridiculous, and is a blatant abuse of the fact that they're a monopoly enshrined in law. If the state decides that you can't sell your electricity to anyone else because they anoint a utility, then that utility should absolutely be banned from exploiting that position to compensate solar generation less than it could.

If utilities can't balance their long-term amortizations of recent/new plants, then the state government can step in an reimburse them over the top for the disruption.

Re: SolarCity Will Eliminate Over 550 Job Due to State’s Anti-Rooftop Solar Decision

#97

Post by vinceguidry »

pkaye wrote: post #92
vinceguidry wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that simple. Solar is only really practical if it fits into the grid system, otherwise there's no real point. The energy it gives you goes up and down, and not in sync with your own household needs. So you need something to do with excess capacity. All by itself, units of power aren't all that expensive. But a solar installation is very expensive. You need to amortize the cost of the installation, the people…

What would happen if more and more people start using solar along with the net metering? Who would pay for the infrastructure costs?

That's up to Nevada to decide. Won't happen for some number of years, what the world's going to look like then is going to be very different. No problem kicking that can down the road.

Re: SolarCity Will Eliminate Over 550 Job Due to State’s Anti-Rooftop Solar Decision

#98

Post by phkahler »

vinceguidry wrote: post #81
CWuestefeld wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, that's a long reach to get to the OP's "de facto ban on rooftop solar". If we take the OP at face value, then, it seems to be declaring that solar energy is completely impractical, and can't survive without life support. I realize that other forms of energy generation are all subsidized in various ways, so it's clearly not as serious as my above interpretation, but still, it doesn't speak well of solar.

It's not that simple. Solar is only really practical if it fits into the grid system, otherwise there's no real point. The energy it gives you goes up and down, and not in sync with your own household needs. So you need something to do with excess capacity. All by itself, units of power aren't all that expensive. But a solar installation is very expensive. You need to amortize the cost of the installation, the people…

>> Solar is only really practical if it fits into the grid system, otherwise there's no real point. The energy it gives you goes up and down, and not in sync with your own household needs.

>>So you need something to do with excess capacity.

The simplest solution is to push it onto the grid. With net metering you can get the energy back later at not cost. It's like using the grid as a battery.

The alternative of course is to up the installation cost a bit and install an actual battery system in the home. Much like those available from Juicebox:

http://www.juiceboxsolar.com/home/

So this whole thing about net metering is really just delaying the problem the power companies are experiencing. Hardware prices will continue to fall, and at some point the solar installation plus battery will cost the same as today's installation and the demand will return.

At that point we're likely to see some fees just for connecting to the grid. And after that, we'll see larger batteries and more panels so that people can unplug from the grid completely.

Re: SolarCity Will Eliminate Over 550 Job Due to State’s Anti-Rooftop Solar Decision

#99

Post by dpark »

vinceguidry wrote: post #93
dpark wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why should they pay wholesale? They're not buying in wholesale quantities from each consumer. Why should they pay retail? As a consumer thinking about solar, I like that, but it makes no economical sense. What business can afford to buy and sell for the same price? You don't sell a car to the dealership for the price they will sell it for. That would be absurd.

I don't think they should pay retail either. But a power company is not a normal company, it's a government-supported effectual monopoly. So what they should pay for stuff is going to be by nature more political than economic. My guess is that they're going to compromise at around 75% of the difference between retail and wholesale. Nobody, except the power companies, really wants to see solar disappear, so the solar…

A discounted rate is certainly reasonable, maybe not wholesale if the goal is to encourage solar. Wholesale rate plus high fees is ridiculous, though. That seems to serve no purpose except to make solar nonviable. That could easily make it more expensive to have solar than not (without even accounting for procurement and installation costs).

Re: SolarCity Will Eliminate Over 550 Job Due to State’s Anti-Rooftop Solar Decision

#100

Post by downandout »

NVEnergy, Nevada's primary power producer, is behind this and a couple of other recent controversial decisions. The company is ultimately controlled by Warren Buffett and has proven to have far too much political influence. Own some casinos and want to leave NVEnergy because of absurdly high power rates? Sure, just pay an "exit fee" of $126.6 million for the privilege of having the right to buy power from other companies [1]. Own a data center? Good, you'll only pay $27 million to leave [2]. Now we have this decision, which destroyed the economics of solar for both future and existing solar users in the state - unsurprisingly, for the benefit of NVEnergy.

It's pretty rare that political corruption is this transparent. Normally at least some attempt is made to cloak it. In Nevada, this is apparently not necessary.

[1] http://www.reviewjournal.com/business/casinos-gaming/3-strip...

[2] http://www.reviewjournal.com/business/energy/casino-companie...

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