How should net metering affect your electric bill? • Hacker News Board

Re: How should net metering affect your electric bill?

#221

Post by SilasX » Thu, Feb 03, 2022, 8:36 PM UTC

oogali wrote: post #136

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,…

> I don’t know what the solution is, but the problems are pretty easy to see. In theory, if you were dealing with one entity, it could be pretty easy. But you are actually dealing with multiple entities: - your utility’s transmission subsidiary - your utility’s generation subsidiary - your applicable regulatory entities - your regional grid operator/planning organization > Well, this is not in the interest of the uti…

Maybe it's just me, but I don't get how any of that translates to a defense of the utilities' overall behavior. (Though I appreciate the context -- thanks!)

Why can't they like, suggest to the relevant authorities, that it be refactored along more logical lines, where solar power generators have the appropriate checks for safety (before feeding into the grid), and are paid a significant fraction of the value their power adds to the network?

I don't expect them to be Remy-Danton-grade workaholic lobbyist heroes. But if they recognize that there are perverse incentives, why aren't they pushing, however gently and tepidly, for natural fixes to the misalignment of incentives?

If you were in a startup that had fundamentally screwed up incentives that prevented the optimal solution, you (like most here) would probably at least start writing the document that outlines what the system should look like, and push a little towards its implementation.

So where is that document? Why is their first reaction to create this passive-aggressive Kafkaesque barrier to integrating solar, knowing that it slows down solar roll-out and our efforts to decarbonize?

Why can't they answer the criticisms as, "oh, yeah -- you're preaching to the choir here. This is how we'd prefer it work, but we can't get the others to agree."

If they actually do that, then I accept that they may be operating in the least bad option. If not, they are making the problem worse, and do merit the criticisms levied at them here.

Re: How should net metering affect your electric bill?

#222

Post by nostrademons » Thu, Feb 03, 2022, 8:41 PM UTC

cool_dude85 wrote: post #201

microfen wrote: post #59

People have seen this net metering problem coming from far off. I wrote a very unpolished undergrad thesis on this a while ago. Some standout articles from back then showed how net metering leads to a positive feedback of solar adoption [1] because of how rates are structured throughout this country (and the world for that matter), and it was time to consider modifying the rate setting process [2]. My conclusion was…

>My conclusion was that net metering ends up being a regressive tax on those who can't afford the upfront capital to install solar themselves. This is the traditional conclusion in the utility business, but I'd say it's also almost meaningless. By the exact same arguments, any kind of conservation winds up being a "regressive tax on those who can't afford the upfront capital", e.g. insulation, fancy windows, high eff…

It also ignores how R&D and tech markets work. That "regressive tax on those who can't afford upfront capital" is an "R&D subsidy to early customers who are providing the upfront capital to lower the cost of solar". As solar companies get more wealthy customers, they can spend more on technology to improve efficiency, they gain economies of scale, and they can attract more financial capital on equity markets.

All of this has actually played out - the cost per watt of a solar installation is now 1/3 of what it was 10 years ago:

https://www.nrel.gov/news/program/2021/documenting-a-decade-...

Re: How should net metering affect your electric bill?

#223

Post by StillBored » Thu, Feb 03, 2022, 8:52 PM UTC

cool_dude85 wrote: post #207

StillBored wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>In the US it just generally means that there aren't integrated municipal power companies Huh? There are plenty. The second biggest city in the US has one.

Hu? I was trying to define what a is considered a deregulated power grid, because apparently people don't know how its generally defined in the US. I wasn't saying that the entire US is deregulated, its state by state as the example below points out, and even in some deregulated states (like TX) there remain integrated power companies, again as I said.

random google hit, https://www.quora.com/What-is-a-deregulated-power-grid?share...

Re: How should net metering affect your electric bill?

#224

Post by tempnow987 » Thu, Feb 03, 2022, 9:02 PM UTC

ohgodplsno wrote: post #114

tempnow987 wrote: post #107

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.

Make your own country. Being interconnected with the grid is a net positive, for everyone, you included.

Listening to a big corp like PG&E whine about how they are going to need to spend billions to upgrade a grid I'm not using, and so will need to charge me to have solar and battery power is rediculous if part of the reason they need to spend all this money is they won't allow folks to be disconnected from the grid.

Re: How should net metering affect your electric bill?

#225

Post by Ekaros » Thu, Feb 03, 2022, 9:07 PM UTC

conk wrote: post #73

epistasis wrote: post #42

One thing that's missing from this is that with current California net metering, for new solar customers, you can't dump a kWh on the grid at noon and then swap it for one at 7pm at the top of the duck curve. New plans are all time-of-use rated, meaning that you can only swap kWh within the same time of use band. At least, that's how it's been explained to me, I have not yet been able to find any explicit rules on PG…

For each kwh you feed to the grid you get a credit for the value of that kWh during that time. Say off-peak is $.20 and peak is $.40 (this is an exaggeration but makes the math easy). You would need to feed 2 kWh to the grid during off peak to cover 1 kWh drawn from the grid during peak usage. On top of this there are non-by passable charges for every kWh drawn from the grid regardless of any credits on your account.

I see no reason why not do this in proper spot market way. Calculate it every 5 minutes, what you supply you get accounted for and what you use or that is withdraw you get accounted. At certain intervals these are matched and you pay the difference.

Re: How should net metering affect your electric bill?

#226

Post by jabl » Thu, Feb 03, 2022, 9:24 PM UTC

cool_dude85 wrote: post #193

secabeen wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's not true at all, as people use more electricity, aggregate usage gets higher and the grid eventually needs beefier interconnections, beefier transformers... To a degree, but not in a linear fashion to the amount of power delivered, and certainly not on a unit-power delivery basis. >The delivery charge would actually be fairer based on peak usage, as it has more relevance to the sizing of the grid. Very true,…

Even demand charges often do a bad job of matching utility costs. If I run a church and my peak demand is consistently reached at 11 AM on Sunday morning, guess what, I'm way overpaying relative to my cost to the utility. The problem with high meter charges (or charging based on panel amperage/etc.) is that it doesn't do a good job matching utility costs either. Let's say I have a 2-story house and split it into a du…

If you'd want the transmission charges to match the cost to the utility you should have a base charge consisting of basically the cost to the utility of maintaining your customer relationship after the initial hookup cost, and another part to match the utility O&M cost of the grid distributed over all the customers. Then on top of that a time-varying per-kWh charge for the electricity transferred. This would probably in most cases be pretty cheap, except when the grid (either the utility grid as a whole or the local part that you're connected to) starts to become overloaded; in that case scarcity pricing would apply which would presumably be very high. This would incite customers to reduce usage during scarcity, or give the utility funds to invest in grid expansion.

Similarly for the energy price, that should match the wholesale price. Though see the $10k bills some people on a wholesale price plan got during last year's Texas freeze for why such an idea might not be so popular in practice, theoretically beautiful as it may be.

Re: How should net metering affect your electric bill?

#227

Post by yuliyp » Thu, Feb 03, 2022, 9:26 PM UTC

ed25519FUUU wrote: post #33

This article carries way too much water for PG&E. Sad, but I guess since we're gearing up for a net-metering 3.0[1] fight we'll see more and more articles like this one. Here's the places where I think it misses the mark: * The energy generation costs listed by the author actually includes rooftop solar. PG&E paid exactly $0 for you to spend $30k installing the panels, so that number is low for PG&E for a reason. * P…

Where is this mythical $0.40/kWh price for electricity (not transmission) actually occurring?

Net metering does not expire after a year. You can continue to get any power you need matching the power you had put in on a 1:1 basis. The 1c/kWh is for the excess.

Most of PG&E's infrastructure is transmission infrastructure, not generation. They wouldn't be building power plants themselves, anyway. Net metering allows rooftop solar to effectively get paid for electricity at a much higher rate than PG&E or local electricity cooperatives than would be paying on the open market. It is designed as a subsidy to motivate people to install solar. Pretending that it's a subsidy for PG&E is missing the mark.

Re: How should net metering affect your electric bill?

#228

Post by jabl » Thu, Feb 03, 2022, 9:30 PM UTC

secabeen wrote: post #143

Arainach wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Is water scarcity a thing in your area? Perhaps your water is cheap because its readily available in your area. In Chicago, they have so much water in Lake Michigan, most homes don't even have water meters.

Where I live we have plentiful of clean water. However what constitutes a major part of the water bill is the sewage treatment. No separate metering for clean water vs sewage, they just assume that everything you use also goes out as sewage.

Re: How should net metering affect your electric bill?

#229

Post by manquer » Thu, Feb 03, 2022, 9:32 PM UTC

secabeen wrote: post #178

manquer wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Living close to a water source or reservoir doesn’t make conservation less important.It is a intricate system with complex interconnects A lot of places downstream will be using the water from your Lake /Dam /river as their only source. Same reason why in some states like Colarado it is illegal to rain water harvest. Riparian rights and ethics are complex

Fair. I still prefer an honest system that charges a fair, flat rate for the infrastructure, and then a usage charge for usage. If we want to disincentive usage, we can put a tax on the consumption rate; that's certainly better than wrapping up some/all of the infrastructure costs into the consumption rate just to make the latter higher.

It is not just about conservation and high consumption.

For example, it is lot easier to build infra when you charge people 4x their consumption cost as single item, than split into line items. When you need to build a new power plant the infra costs are going to shoot a lot and nobody would want to pay for that when they see an line item for infra.

Every SaaS company and all of Cloud is built on this human behavior . I would even go so far to say that even mortgage, insurance, any credit business depends on this behavior. Most people would pay extra for their server by hour or second rather than pay for consumption + infra.

Also infra costs split equally is unfair ? if you consume more, more of the infra costs have to be apportioned to that person right ? Basically if power plant producer 1000MW the person consuming 900MW has to pay 90% cost of building the plant in addition to paying 90% for consumables for generating that 1000MW .

The solution here is to have spread between buy / sell rates which account for distribution losses, maintenance, infra and storage and peak capacity planning etc

Re: How should net metering affect your electric bill?

#230

Post by jabl » Thu, Feb 03, 2022, 9:34 PM UTC

secabeen wrote: post #178

manquer wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Living close to a water source or reservoir doesn’t make conservation less important.It is a intricate system with complex interconnects A lot of places downstream will be using the water from your Lake /Dam /river as their only source. Same reason why in some states like Colarado it is illegal to rain water harvest. Riparian rights and ethics are complex

Fair. I still prefer an honest system that charges a fair, flat rate for the infrastructure, and then a usage charge for usage. If we want to disincentive usage, we can put a tax on the consumption rate; that's certainly better than wrapping up some/all of the infrastructure costs into the consumption rate just to make the latter higher.

> I still prefer an honest system that charges a fair, flat rate for the infrastructure, and then a usage charge for usage.

There's a lot of things where the infrastructure costs are baked into the per-unit cost of stuff you buy. I'd say it's even vastly more common than separate infrastructure vs. per-unit charges. You don't pay a separate constant infrastructure fee for the petroleum refinery infrastructure when filling up your car, it's all baked into the per-liter (or per-gallon) cost. Nor do you pay a fixed cost for funding the astronomically expensive semiconductor fabs when you buy something containing electronics, it's all baked into the per-unit cost. Etc. etc.