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How should net metering affect your electric bill?

climateer.substack.com

271–280 of 332 posts

Re: How should net metering affect your electric bill?

#271
post #263
post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I meant the part where the OP had to go though an obscured workflow and wait over months to receive slow replies just to get the process moving to be paid for their solar contribution. This is the same workflow that commercial entities go through but employ an army of lawyers as expensive lubrication to keep the process moving. > If it was a long time because that was an inherent difficulty of complying with necess…

> This is the same workflow that commercial entities go through but employ an army of lawyers as expensive lubrication to keep the process moving. And? How does that make it any more defensible in the context of the point I was making there? What is that replying to? > Forgive me if I'm wrong here, but I think you're classifying regulations as primarily for safety reasons. No, I was referring back to your own claim[1…

> And? How does that make it any more defensible in the context of the point I was making there? What is that replying to?

> Yes? That was my point all along? That rather than make token efforts to get the incentives in alignment, they’re just stubbornly fighting things that would benefit solar because “sigh, more work [as things currently stand]”.

It's not defensible. I'm stating what exists today and it's uniform for GiantPowerMegaco who wants to bring on megawatts of capacity or the Doe who just wants to light up a few panels on their roof.

My overall points have been a) this is entrenched for a long time and b) the utilities are not the primary ones making the rules. Regular people may be noticing the friction now due to increased touch points via solar, but it's not in response to solar.

They did not calcify overnight. No, that doesn't make it right but it does make it harder to change. So things that are long entrenched but need change usually get the "sigh, more work" response and lots of push back.

> No, I was referring back to your own claim[1] that some of them are for that reason

> ...you’re redefining the point to refer to the former, and then acting like I don’t understand why we’d want people who can follow regulations.

I'm not redefining the point but I should have referenced that I was reacting to the callout of safety but the other aspects play into it just as much.

It's not my intention to imply you don't want people who can follow regulations -- it's more about clarifying that if one has to play in a regulated space you accept the whole pie and all its hangups, literal or figurative. Or not participate until the pie becomes more palatable.

The reason I mention law firms that operate in this space is they are generally ranked for their experience and ability to navigate around these confusing, slow, or non-existent responses from these agencies.

> “Crediting you for your power contribution” is an accounting-level concept, not a hardware-level concept. you don’t need special meters for it beyond their ability to know when the power passed through.

I guess my personal hangup here is on not allowing meters to rollback or "reverse".

The portion of the document I referenced is where the PUC says you cannot use a rollback meter for net metering but must instead use a meters specifically capable of measuring in-flow and out-flow.

They go on to state the reason for measuring out-flow is to determine when the energy was made available to calculate the wholesale market price at that given point in time.

Re: How should net metering affect your electric bill?

#272
post #267

The annoying thing about this is that, if the new California metering rules do end up passing, I will definitely not be installing solar on my roof, because it will end up either costing more in the long run, or the break-even point will be so far out that it's not worth it to me. Now, as the article says (or at least hints at), maybe there are better things we can do as a society to reduce carbon emissions than have…

California requires[0] new construction to have solar now, so while you might not have to worry about installing it you very well may be stuck with a system if you move.

I'm not sure I agree with your assertion that increased solar installs will leave less money for grid infrastructure. With the moves away from gas for heating and cooking and the proliferation of electric cars, it seems that demand for residential power is only going to go up with solar offsetting it, so demand on the grid should stay fairly steady with increases in areas that solar doesn't work as well. Higher density housing will also increase energy demands with limited ability to offset the demand with solar. Overall, that should mean income to maintain the grid should hold steady or even go up, though I suppose only time will tell.

[0]https://www.energy.ca.gov/news/2018-05/energy-commission-ado...

Re: How should net metering affect your electric bill?

#273
post #266

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,…

> E.g. I am heating my garage with an electric heater because it costs me zero. There's very few situations in which pushing electrons through a resistor is the best use of the electrons. Why not build a BOINC farm for the winter or something? You put 1000W through a heater, you get 1000W thermal. You push 1000W through a collection of computers that are old and more or less free, you get... still 1000W thermal, plus…

Heating is not just room temperature. For who prefer radiant heating, resistor heater is easier option. Possibly heat pump based radiant heater is available but temperature is not high as resistor.

Re: How should net metering affect your electric bill?

#274
post #267

The annoying thing about this is that, if the new California metering rules do end up passing, I will definitely not be installing solar on my roof, because it will end up either costing more in the long run, or the break-even point will be so far out that it's not worth it to me. Now, as the article says (or at least hints at), maybe there are better things we can do as a society to reduce carbon emissions than have…

Why not fund the solar panels directly if the goal is to have solar panels?

Net metering is a terrible deal for the utility, there's not really anyone that gets a terrible deal if you directly subsidize panels.

Re: How should net metering affect your electric bill?

#275
post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As my comment suggested, you could change that fear to inconvenience with minimal preparation: put some water jugs, canned/packaged food, and blankets+cheap snow outfit in your closet, and throw in a little campground propane burner for a nice warm meal. -17 outdoors is a warm ski day indoors. If you've known anyone that lives in a cold part of the country, having some preparation is an extremely common practice.

Good advice for folks stuck in a place where corruption makes basic utility service unreliable, but doing a bunch of extra work to make getting through those times when you are without power a little less painful is no replacement for solving the problem. If I were in that situation I'd just move. There are plenty of states in the US that do not regularly have problems providing power, heat, and water to the folks wh…

> a bunch of extra work

I'm having trouble believing that having a bit of extra food and water available is considered some large burden. It's universally suggested by all entities that deal with emergencies: https://www.fema.gov/pdf/library/f&web.pdf

> If I were in that situation I'd just move.

It's great that you have the freedom and resources to move around the country so easily, but I think that's a fairly rare privilege.

> is no replacement for solving the problem

I don't think I suggested it was. But it's not feasible that the problem will be solved in the next few weeks. For those next few weeks, fear and risk can be minimized with some "extra work".

Re: How should net metering affect your electric bill?

#276
post #130
post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you're generating the power at the "last mile" and sending it to your neighbor, that power doesn't travel through a substation, it doesn't travel through long transmission lines that need to be maintained, it's just generated (roughly) where it needs to be, saving you a lot of infrastructure. So it certainly seems "fair" to offset that infrastructure cost at least somewhat - you are providing value to the utilit…

> This is true if you're not connected to the grid. However if you use power on those cold winter cloudy days you need all that infrastructure still. Cold winter days don't represent peak consumption for the grid, there is no capacity being built specifically for cold winter days. In contrast there is capacity being built to offset everyone turning on the A/C during summer heatwaves, and solar has high power output d…

> Cold winter days don't represent peak consumption for the grid, there is no capacity being built specifically for cold winter days.

That might be true in California, but in Europe that's where the peak demand was before AC got popular. And it can easily go back to that with the spread of heat pumps.

Re: How should net metering affect your electric bill?

#277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You comment makes sense if I was not hooked up to the grid. But I am. So, if my family conserves, that energy we save offsets someone else’s coal-generated energy and helps the environment. But I have zero incentive to so do because of layers of bad policies.

The big problem is timing, if your neighbour's solar panels were at peak output in the night and yours in the day, the credit system works.

That's not just a problem with being hooked up to the grid so you can altruistically use less of your own energy and donate the rest to other people.

It's also a problem for billing Dave Rosenthal appropriately. Assuming he turns on lights at night, he's not using his own energy. No amount of solar generation will let you use power when the sun isn't shining. So he's not reducing the demand for (say) coal at night.

But because he's being billed wrong, rolling over daytime power he doesn't use as if it were the nighttime power he does use, people still think he is.

Re: How should net metering affect your electric bill?

#278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The delivery fee being artificially low was a political decision to subsidize utility prices for the poor. Every single utility has step function of pricing for usage fees that works to capture the cost of providing the infrastructure. This is why net metering never made sense to utilities and why they were trying to reject it despite states and politicians seeking to force it on them. The utilities who did go all-in…

This is why all subsidies should be in the form of cash. Give poor people cash rather than obfuscate prices, which then results in hampering of market mechanisms and results in inefficient allocation of resources.

The implicit assumption behind such subsidies is that the poor would spend the cash benefit frivolously (booze, entertainment etc.)

Re: How should net metering affect your electric bill?

#279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why not both? they literally ALREADY HAVE the excess of cheap power AND can conserve. This is a push for action on policy and incentives

But why conserve? If they find a use for that excess power then they could better their life or the lives of others.

Yes, exactly this. Iff there is more than enough free solar (or nuclear) energy, then our goal should be to maximize energy used per capita and minimize energy only for specific activities, because energy is a proxy for utility.

Re: How should net metering affect your electric bill?

#280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aside from the obvious problem (which poor people) it is a very interesting idea to remove all subsidies (explicit and implicit). Terrifying but interesting

Even in a single example such as your electric bill, this is absolutely impossible (or, maybe with a team of statisticians and accountants working on each customer's bill each month, and of course their associated costs). The fact is, the utility does not know how much money you cost them in a given month and it's impossible to say. Some of your electricity is being generated from a plant planned and built 40+ years…

> The fact is, the utility does not know how much money you cost them in a given month and it's impossible to say. Some of your electricity is being generated from a plant planned and built 40+ years ago, long since paid for.

There are generators independent from utilities, yet they figured the pricing out somehow.

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