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Solar power is growing so fast that older energy companies are trying to stop it
vox.com ^ | September 29, 2014, 10:10 a.m. ET | Brad Plumer

Posted on 09/30/2014 9:23:07 AM PDT by Utilizer

If you ask the people who run America's electric utilities what keeps them up at night, a surprising number will say solar power. Specifically, rooftop solar.

That seems bizarre at first. Solar power provides just 0.4 percent of electricity in the United States — a minuscule amount. Why would anyone care?

But utilities see things differently. As solar technology gets dramatically cheaper, tens of thousands of Americans are putting photovoltaic panels up on their roofs, generating their own power. At the same time, 43 states and Washington DC have "net metering" laws that allow solar-powered households to sell their excess electricity back to the grid at retail prices.

That's a genuine problem for utilities. All these solar households are now buying less and less electricity, but the utilities still have to manage the costs of connecting them to the grid. Indeed, a new study from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory argues that, without policy changes, this trend could soon put utilities in dire financial straits. If rooftop solar were to grab 10 percent of the market over the next decade, utility earnings could decline as much as 41 percent.

(Excerpt) Read more at vox.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy
KEYWORDS: electricity; energy; photovoltaic; powercompanies; solar; solarpanels; utilities
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Normally, I try to link to known sites for information to peruse, but this article seems quite interesting considering the material involved.

Lengthy article with graphics and many links and references for those wishing to know more about the topic.

Feedback welcome.

1 posted on 09/30/2014 9:23:07 AM PDT by Utilizer
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To: Utilizer

Yes, the power company has to pay you if you generate more electricity than you use, but they only pay you at the rate of the cheapest available power, usually hydroelectric, which costs only a few cents per kw hr. Still, you are saving several hundred dollars a month if you come out a net zero in generation.


2 posted on 09/30/2014 9:31:53 AM PDT by Blood of Tyrants (The cure has become worse than the disease. Support an end to the WOD now.)
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To: Utilizer

“utility earnings could decline as much as 41 percent”...in the summer...in the southern states.


3 posted on 09/30/2014 9:32:10 AM PDT by gr8eman (Bill Carson...meet Arch Stanton!)
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To: Utilizer
As solar technology gets dramatically cheaper, tens of thousands of Americans are putting photovoltaic panels up on their roofs, generating their own power. At the same time, 43 states and Washington DC have "net metering" laws that allow solar-powered households to sell their excess electricity back to the grid at retail prices.

This creates an issue when the sun goes down. Utilities will have to increase on-demand generation capacity to make up for the drop-off. Germany is building six coal-fired plants precisely for that reason. They even burn firewood for electric generation because firewood is classified as a renewable.

4 posted on 09/30/2014 9:34:37 AM PDT by dirtboy
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To: Utilizer

I have my campground solar powered, but I use batteries because I am not hooked up to the grid, for Solar to ever be meaningful this would have to happen nationwide, that’s a lot of batteries. Otherwise you are still dependent on “The Grid”.

A more feasible option and far superior would be Personal Thorium Reactors for EVERY HOUSEHOLD. Make Americans truly independent again and SCRAP the Grid.


5 posted on 09/30/2014 9:34:43 AM PDT by eyeamok
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To: gr8eman
“utility earnings could decline as much as 41 percent”...in the summer...in the southern states.

But they still have to maintain the infrastructure necessary to handle the full load in the winter.

6 posted on 09/30/2014 9:38:09 AM PDT by tacticalogic
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To: Utilizer

Very good article on the problems with solar power in Germany:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2013/10/04/should-other-nations-follow-germanys-lead-on-promoting-solar-power/


7 posted on 09/30/2014 9:38:55 AM PDT by dirtboy
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To: Blood of Tyrants

Thats not true. It depends on where you live. For instance, TVA will pay for solar at a rate well above all others...b/c its green and b/c its law. Solar installers can make the numbers work for that reason only.


8 posted on 09/30/2014 9:39:44 AM PDT by 556x45
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To: Utilizer

As I read those small stats I am reminded of how many people a century ago drove cars.

A friend of mine here in KY specializes in solar installations. Actually, he’s my guitar player in my band. His family lived off their own garden and livestock, even butchering their own pigs, selling their raw milk (the only way it’s technically legal) and making their own Sourgum.

They’ve eaten all the livestock and even the chickens are gone. He went from doing the odd solar job every six months to a year to being so swamped he’s turning down work and raising his rates.

There is a tide finally turning. I think Solar has hit its “Model T” moment.


9 posted on 09/30/2014 9:40:47 AM PDT by cuban leaf (The US will not survive the obama presidency. The world may not either.)
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To: Blood of Tyrants

In my state, they don’t pay you for your excess, but they will deduct from your bill. So if you generate power during the day but don’t use it, and then use the exact same amount of power at night, your bill will be zero.

But if you use even less than you produce, you don’t get paid.


10 posted on 09/30/2014 9:42:41 AM PDT by cuban leaf (The US will not survive the obama presidency. The world may not either.)
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To: raybbr

BFL


11 posted on 09/30/2014 9:43:57 AM PDT by raybbr (Obamacare needs a death panel.)
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To: Utilizer

We don’t have “root top” solar, but we do have “on the ground” solar. I would say that 20% of the houses in our neighborhood have solar. On sunny days, 90% of the days, we give back 3-5 KWH of power each day. This means that the electric coop doesn’t have to buy as much peak power because we supply a lot of the power for our non-solar neighbors. The cost of transmission from my house to the folks across the street is negligible, so it makes sense that the folks across the street should, essentially, pay me directly for that power.

What local generation does is prevent the big power companies from running roughshod over the consumers who now have a dog in this fight.


12 posted on 09/30/2014 9:45:51 AM PDT by SubMareener (Save us from Quarterly Freepathons! Become a MONTHLY DONOR!)
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To: Blood of Tyrants

Would allow me to earn back a tiny fraction of my tax dollars that Obama poured into companies making the solar panels.


13 posted on 09/30/2014 9:46:54 AM PDT by Buckeye McFrog
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To: Utilizer

Truth in posting:

Vox Media is from Ezra Klein, founder of the Journolist and member of the leftist Juicebox Mafia.


14 posted on 09/30/2014 9:53:50 AM PDT by bkopto (Free men are not equal. Equal men are not free.)
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To: Blood of Tyrants

I think you have it backwards, I think they are required to pay at the rate for surge generation, not base generation, which is the higher rate.


15 posted on 09/30/2014 9:54:15 AM PDT by dangerdoc ((this space for rent))
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To: 556x45

Interesting. Admittedly, the info I have is several years old.


16 posted on 09/30/2014 9:55:55 AM PDT by Blood of Tyrants (The cure has become worse than the disease. Support an end to the WOD now.)
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To: 556x45

Also, with smart meters do they have to pay you when you generate electricity in off peak hours at solar rates but you pay at peak hours at the general rate? Could your bill be zero or negative even if you used more than you generated?


17 posted on 09/30/2014 9:57:45 AM PDT by Blood of Tyrants (The cure has become worse than the disease. Support an end to the WOD now.)
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To: Blood of Tyrants

Residential net metering in my state does not allow excess generation sold onto the grid. So-called “Net Zero” is as far as it can go. So, there’s no motivation to put more panels up than the electric demand of a given residence might be. There are different arrangements for selling power onto the grid, but not under residential service.


18 posted on 09/30/2014 9:57:58 AM PDT by RegulatorCountry
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To: Utilizer

This is at least partly similar to the problem the “phone company” has.

More and more people, myself included, don’t have a landline anymore. Yet the cost to maintain the infrastructure for those still on the system doesn’t drop much at all when another person disconnects and drops revenue for the company.

At some point, it will become uneconomical to continue to maintain the landline infrastructure, at which point it will fall apart or will have to be subsidized.

In the solar power case, the utilities must still maintain sufficient reserve power generation capactity to handle the highest possible load, but their revenues to pay for that capacity drop everytime somebody goes solar. That means their cost to generate the power they do sell goes up per kwh.


19 posted on 09/30/2014 9:59:39 AM PDT by Sherman Logan (Perception wins most of the battles. Reality wins ALL the wars.)
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To: Utilizer

1st thougth: With a 30% tax credit and the utility forced to buy from me at retail rates I could make the numbers work but that is only if I never sell and the tax assessors don’t ever find out about the “improvement” to my property. Without subsidy I would need solar installation to be in the $1.75/watt range and the state would need to make it illegal to raise property taxes on the value of the solar system before it becomes economically worth while.

Second thought: When feeding into the grid the best that can be said for residental solar is that it reduces the utility power generation needed during a portion of the system’s peak load. This may save a little natural gas or coal but the real costs, generation and distribution capacity, remain the same. This is a big loser for utilities forced to pay retail for solar becuase the power they would have otherwise generated themselves is much cheaper. Essentially laws that force the utility to buy at retail are simply subsidizing people who have installed solar by forcing the utility to raise everyone else’s rates.


20 posted on 09/30/2014 10:05:13 AM PDT by RightOnTheBorder
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