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Rate-design wars are the sound of utilities taking residential PV seriously

blogs.berkeley.edu

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Re: Rate-design wars are the sound of utilities taking residential PV seriously

#11

Post by jonah »

lsc wrote: post #8

Hilarious. "they want to further reduce the incremental energy price by implementing a fixed monthly charge on each customer, aimed at covering some of the costs of retail distribution, metering and billing." That's straight out of the 1975 hippie classic "Ecotopia: The Notebooks and Reports of William Weston" - and is one of the Casus belli California cited when seceding from the union in that book.

I keep getting notes from SoCal Edison with each bill wanting to tack on fees for every little thing. New distribution lines, cleaning up their nuclear mess at San Onofre. In other businesses those are costs of doing business and are factored into their balance sheet rather than getting directly passed on to the customer.

Re: Rate-design wars are the sound of utilities taking residential PV seriously

#12

Post by sehugg »

Brakenshire wrote: post #6

> What makes the policy debate so difficult to resolve is that tariff design is a very indirect way to support residential PV. In Germany, they’ve gone with feed-in tariffs for solar PV instead – a direct subsidy for every kWh of energy coming from your PV system. Much simpler, and allows a reasoned debate on tariff design apart from solar PV policy. I'm fairly confident this section about Germany is wrong - Germany…

Sure, PV exports to "the grid", but practically speaking you are reducing the power requirements for your local area. Since peak demand to the area is lessened, utilities get to defer infrastructure upgrades, thus saving money.

Re: Rate-design wars are the sound of utilities taking residential PV seriously

#13

Post by EEGuy »

The IBP (tiered rating) isn't a birthright of utilities, geez. It's a conservation measure!

Whether I shave off my higher-tiered consumption by changing my thermostat, changing my lighting or by putting in solar, that lost high-profit consumption isn't the company's property, it's mine to do something else with.

Re: Rate-design wars are the sound of utilities taking residential PV seriously

#14

Post by EEGuy »

I am a net-metering solar PV owner who's not averse to a reasonable, independently audited "connection charge".

But I would be adverse to having to pay via a "connection charge" for what looks to me like a failed uprating of a nuclear plant, if I were I a Southern California Edison customer.

Re: Rate-design wars are the sound of utilities taking residential PV seriously

#15

Post by toomuchtodo »

sehugg wrote: post #12
Brakenshire wrote: post #6

> What makes the policy debate so difficult to resolve is that tariff design is a very indirect way to support residential PV. In Germany, they’ve gone with feed-in tariffs for solar PV instead – a direct subsidy for every kWh of energy coming from your PV system. Much simpler, and allows a reasoned debate on tariff design apart from solar PV policy. I'm fairly confident this section about Germany is wrong - Germany…

Sure, PV exports to "the grid", but practically speaking you are reducing the power requirements for your local area. Since peak demand to the area is lessened, utilities get to defer infrastructure upgrades, thus saving money.

Until there is enough renewable generation that you're actually reducing or eliminating their profits on the fixed-cost of generating equipment they have in play.

I think that's the concern. It was all, "Ha ha look at solar, how cute and expensive." Now its more, "Its going to eat our lunch." and its only getting cheaper year by year.

Re: Rate-design wars are the sound of utilities taking residential PV seriously

#16

Post by toomuchtodo »

hohead wrote: post #2

Hawaii gives us a glimpse of the future of what solar will look like in the US. They are the hottest solar market in the US due to having the highest electricity rates combined with excellent conditions for solar. The primary utility in Hawaii (HECO), has started denying many permits to homeowners due to grid saturation on many circuits. Infrastructure investments must now be done by HECO to allow for increased solar…

Can you simply disconnect from HECO and self-generate?

Re: Rate-design wars are the sound of utilities taking residential PV seriously

#17

Post by csense »

moocowduckquack wrote: post #7

Dig a 15 meter pit 5 meters across and suspend a 5 meter cube of ferro-concrete on a cable feeding onto a drum above it connected to a gearbox and motor/generator. Attach this to your PV and then relax.

Google says density of concrete is 2400 kg / m^3. Multiply that by 5x5x5 m^3 and you have 300,000 kg of concrete (300 metric tons).

   m = 300000 kg
   g = 9.8 m/s^2
   h = 10 m
The total amount of potential energy you can store is:

   m * g * h = 29400000 J = 29.4 MJ
The more customary unit of energy in electric circles is the kW hr. Converting a kW hr to joules gives:

   1 kW hr = 1 kJ hr / s
           = 1000 J hr / s * (60 s / min) * (60 min / hr)
           = 3600000 J
           = 3.6 MJ
So the potential energy stored in the parent's system is:

   29.4 MJ * (kW hr / 3.6 MJ) ~ 8.17 kW hr.
Probably needs to be bigger to supply a decent sized household. Not to mention issues with inefficient conversion of potential energy to electricity, maintenance, and a backup plan for cloudy days.

Re: Rate-design wars are the sound of utilities taking residential PV seriously

#18

Post by hohead »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #16
hohead wrote: post #2

Hawaii gives us a glimpse of the future of what solar will look like in the US. They are the hottest solar market in the US due to having the highest electricity rates combined with excellent conditions for solar. The primary utility in Hawaii (HECO), has started denying many permits to homeowners due to grid saturation on many circuits. Infrastructure investments must now be done by HECO to allow for increased solar…

Can you simply disconnect from HECO and self-generate?

You could, but you would need to purchase and setup batteries.

Re: Rate-design wars are the sound of utilities taking residential PV seriously

#19

Post by toomuchtodo »

hohead wrote: post #18
toomuchtodo wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you simply disconnect from HECO and self-generate?

You could, but you would need to purchase and setup batteries.

The other option is to grid-tie, but agree not to sell any power back to them (which can be configured in the inverter). You would then use utility power when you don't have enough solar output to meet your needs.

Disclaimer: I have read WAY too much Home Power magazine over the last decade. I could design said system in about 20 minutes, part numbers and all. [http://www.homepower.com/]

Re: Rate-design wars are the sound of utilities taking residential PV seriously

#20

Post by tanzam75 »

danielharan wrote: post #10

Higher fixed monthly charges will only delay the inevitable. In places like Hawaii, it could actually speed it up. Suppose you were a homeowner with solar panels installed. Right now, you're not paying very little because of net metering. Two years from now, the utility decides you'll need to pay monthly for grid connection. It might then make sense to just cut the grid connection. Adding panels and batteries is the…

Batteries are very expensive.

It costs $10,000 to buy a battery system large enough to carry your whole house. And you're cycling the batteries every day, so you'd be lucky to get 10 years use out of them.

Even with the higher fixed charges mentioned in the article, it is still cheaper to connect to the grid than to buy the batteries.

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