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How should net metering affect your electric bill?

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Re: How should net metering affect your electric bill?

#101

Post by Arainach »

secabeen wrote: post #82
lillecarl wrote: post #51

In Sweden there are 2 separate charges, one for infrastructure and one for consumption. The infrastructure bill scales with how big your breakers/fuses (English) are while consumption scales with how many KWh you've used. You often have a different infra provider and power provider. For someone living in a condo/apt the infra cost is usually higher than consumption while in houses where heating often is powered by so…

Yes, this model is common in other utilities in the US (both by water and gas bills are structured this way), with a large meter fee and a consumption charge in line with the resource cost. Electricity could certainly be charged this way (and should), but it would be a huge change in how electricity is billed here, and the PUC would rather just make changes to just the net-metering system rather than open the can of…

I've seen this model, but it seems counterproductive to any environmental goals. For instance, my water infrastructure bill absolutely dwarfs my usage. I could take an hourlong shower every day and barely notice the increase in my bill. It seems like it's sending the wrong message.

Re: How should net metering affect your electric bill?

#102

Post by StillBored »

krapp wrote: post #69
StillBored wrote: post #58

Really, in deregulated markets, a similar concept should apply to wind/solar generators. They should be forced to guarantee 100% reliable production, which means that they are responsible for the batteries or gas plants as well. Then they won't get to financially destabilize the reliable power producers by shifting the costs of having a plant sitting around idle for most of the year to some other org that has to bala…

In a deregulated market, no one forces anyone to guarantee anything.

Well power deregulation has a lot of meanings, here in TX, in which is considered a "deregulated" market (because the producers, transmission and retails are different orgs, and there is an energy market) normal generators have to file servicing/downtime requests, which can be rejected, when they won't be able to deliver their nameplate capacity. That is to assure there is sufficient grid/transmission capacity, they won't be offline during peak demand season, etc.

So, power deregulation doesn't mean "free for all", because then they would just play games of assuring under supply and drive the price up, and the grid stability down. In the US it just generally means that there aren't integrated municipal power companies (which can sometimes still exist in deregulated environments). In TX case, the deregulated market has a market regulator called ERCOT.

(edit: to expound on this more) An integrated power company generally is responsible for assuring it can meet the peak demands of its customers. Which means it builds the power plants, transmission lines, and gets paid directly by the consumers. This was much of the US a few decades back where individual co/orgs were responsible for their service areas. The grid is more a bunch of regional grids all synced, so while a certain amount of power could be drawn from one region to another it wasn't the normal mode of operation. Anyway, the point being that should such an org build wind/pv they would also be responsible for building/maintaining the backup generation. So the books balanced in the end, that isn't true when any rando can attach an intermittent source to the grid, and reap the benefits when it suits them.

Re: How should net metering affect your electric bill?

#103

Post by JaimeThompson »

Dave_Rosenthal wrote: post #99

I just moved into a new construction house in Colorado with a substantial (23kW) solar installation. It’s been interesting to see how much, in the words of the author, ‘feeding bread to pigs’ I have ended up doing. The solar installation (which is probably larger than optimal) is dictated by the policy for the house to be “net zero”, which in turn is dictated by a policy based on the size of the house. (In practice,…

>To completely disincentivize any actual conservation

If you are running off of 100% solar that isn't a net negative impact to the environment to use more power in nearly every case.

Re: How should net metering affect your electric bill?

#104

Post by skybrian »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #72
ed25519FUUU wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly right. Now that PG&E has built a sizable solar installation base, the NEM3.0 move is to make sure they can capture more profit. Their plan for passing NEM3.0 seems to be to cry and moan about how they're being taken advantage of by individuals who paid $30k to install solar panels on their homes.

When your business model is getting a guaranteed ~10% return on equity, you’re going to fight hard to not give up your cash cow. https://dms.psc.sc.gov/Attachments/Matter/5f64b1b3-d2bc-4b20...

Not really guaranteed if you consider the risk of bankruptcy due to wildfires.

Re: How should net metering affect your electric bill?

#105

Post by Bilal_io »

junon wrote: post #98
Bilal_io wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's how it is for electricity in Texas. You pay a delivery charge, and then usage charge, both based on kw/h.

You also pay for power you don't even use, from other power providers, in the case of extreme crisis, it seems. I've never lived there but from the outside Texas's power situation seems broken at best.

That's accurate. We're in constant fear of losing power whenever there is a freeze warning (we're on that today and tomorrow at least), rain or heat. That's all thanks to the greedy for-profit system enabled by "conservative" politicians.

Re: How should net metering affect your electric bill?

#106

Post by secabeen »

Bilal_io wrote: post #94
secabeen wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, this model is common in other utilities in the US (both by water and gas bills are structured this way), with a large meter fee and a consumption charge in line with the resource cost. Electricity could certainly be charged this way (and should), but it would be a huge change in how electricity is billed here, and the PUC would rather just make changes to just the net-metering system rather than open the can of…

That's how it is for electricity in Texas. You pay a delivery charge, and then usage charge, both based on kw/h.

But that's the problem! The cost of the grid is the same whether it delivers you 100kWh or 10,000kWh. The delivery charge should be a fixed monthly charge, based on the size of your meter, not scaled to the number of kWh you consume.

Re: How should net metering affect your electric bill?

#107

Post by tempnow987 »

One BIG issue with this article. You are often not allowed to just go off grid and use your own battery as a backup.

Does anyone know if they've changed that (zoning / building code / certificate of occupancy) requiring an interconnect with the grid?

That is my big issue here. We are getting told how we need to pay for them to build us a bigger / higher power grid. What if I want to go off grid.

Re: How should net metering affect your electric bill?

#108

Post by epistasis »

PaulHoule wrote: post #70

Right, the claim that renewables are cheaper than nuclear and other alternatives are a half-truth. It's true that renewables can be highly affordable when the sun is shining but when the wind is blowing but the reason why they work with the current grid is that natural gas is highly available and cheap and the capital cost of gas turbine generators (very similar to jet aircraft engines) is very low. Hydroelectric can…

> they are still orders of magnitude too expensive

This isn't right as of today, stored energy charged by solar is about $0.20/kWh ($200/MWh) which is within spitting distance of the cost of new nuclear. And when you average this cost with the cost of solar/wind delivered directly, it's a huge cost winner.

https://www.lazard.com/media/451566/lazards-levelized-cost-o...

This is just the cost today, batteries are dropping precipitously in cost. If storage dropped in cost multiple orders of magnitude, and there's reason to believe that it will drop at least an order of magnitude, then thermal cycle electricity will completely obsolete.

Re: How should net metering affect your electric bill?

#109

Post by greendave »

Macha wrote: post #80
greendave wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, if my net usage from the grid were to drop to zero, without solar (say because I used a gas generator or whatnot), I’d basically be paying the utility zero too (modulo some small connection fees). The utility still wouldn’t save on any of its fixed costs though. What net metering with solar does is simply make this option much more practical. The straightforward solution would be to fund major infrastructure co…

Or to put in a smaller scale and not require adding your own generation, are you stealing from an electricity company's fixed costs if you turn all your applicances off when you go on holiday, or if you have a holiday home which is only occupied 25% of the year? I think the answer is clearly not.

Or for that matter, switching to more efficient appliances or other types of conservation.

Re: How should net metering affect your electric bill?

#110

Post by dahfizz »

guelo wrote: post #64
__s wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"carbon tax" is trouble to enact because you can't expect to rally support for something with the word tax in its name Then people complain about where will that tax money go. It doesn't matter. The government could burn all the carbon tax money collected (& in fact, this would help against inflation) . The purpose is to fix incentives, not find funding

Giving the carbon tax revenue back to people as cash payments could help politically.

Doesn't that ruin the incentive structure? Your cash payments are higher when carbon use is higher.
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