Posted on 10/01/2014 5:39:18 AM PDT by rellimpank
It seems counter-intuitive and more than a little greedy to spend tens of thousands of dollars building green energy facilities so you can live off the grid and then fight the power company because they aren’t paying you for the extra power you give back to the grid.
Let’s have our cake and eat it, too. Most people invest in solar panels and wind energy to relieve themselves of the burden and insecurity of depending on the giant energy grid most of us depend upon. And it is a dependable grid. Not having power in America is not common and not tolerated for very long, even in the toughest circumstances.
Solar panels and windmills are now much more affordable then they were 20 years ago, so more of us are buying into self-sustaining energy. Just in case, most people who do live off the grid don’t cut the wires that connect us to the grid. And therein lies the rub.
Electrical meters run both ways. They measure how much energy we are using that is produced by the major energy companies. They also measure how much energy is being pumped back onto the grid by people producing green energy. So it has occurred to more than a few green energy producers that they should be paid for the energy they produce and don’t use.
(Excerpt) Read more at rapidcityjournal.com ...
I think the author is forgetting that the energy put back into the grid is sold by the utility. Giving away electricity to the utility is a job for communists.
The problem is not that it is wanted for free. The problem is utilities are forced to pay more to the individual solar providers, than they buy electricity from traditional power producers.
It is a subsidy paid by the other power consumers, forced purchases by the utilities above the market rate for electricity.
The power companies require certain equipment on the user side to insure that power being fed back into the grid is properly regulated. Paying green energy producers for back fed power is pretty common as I understand it.
The author, although he sounds like a liberal hack, does make a good point however. Maintenance of the grid is included in the electric rates. A green energy supplier should help pay for that maintenance (as the wires run to his house)
This can easily be done by adjusting the rate he is paid for his back fed power. However this charge should be minimal as the green energy producers ‘share’ of the grid is also minimal.
Is there any way to actually be completely independent of utitlity companies at an affordable cost?
Depends upon what you can afford.
But to be cheaper or even as cheap as the utilities if you are already in grid location? Not unless you have your own Natural Gas well and maintain the equipment yourself, and don’t value your time.
Tax credits to buy energy producing solar panels to sell energy back to the power companies?
Who knew that greenies were crony capitalists?
I have a house ‘off grid’, store solar sourced elec. in batteries. However, my (backup) generator is propane powered and I am reliant on that ‘utility’. It’s not free but it’s about $40K to the nearest power pole.
I wish I could by my own miniature self contained nuclear plant as part of my house purchase. Pay for it over 30-40 years, it might be reasonable.
This might have been a reality if not for the nuclear hysteria in the 70’s and 80’s.
The problem is in storage(i.e. batteries). There must be a way to store enough energy to sustain your home through the longest no sun, no wind, etc. period you will endure which could be days or even weeks. And storage is expensive.
How high, or low, is the feed in tariff. If the feed in tariff is high, more will implement solar, but if it is too high, you end up with problems like they had in Spain and Germany.
The argument in the article about solar users avoiding infrastructure costs is exaggerated. But it is a good argument so you see Oklahoma Gas and Electric convincing the republican state government to levy a "sun tax" on solar users.
OTOH, you have the recent announcement that Arizona Public Service Corp(a utility) is getting into roof top solar, which many(including Energy Sec Chu) have advocated for a long time. But if a utility does this they are a threat to companies like Solar City.
It is hard to think of solar panels on the roof of one house as "infrastructure". But if APS puts solar panels on top of 3000 houses, that is definitely "infrastructure". And APS(or any utility) can make money off of this infrastructure just like they make money off of traditional power infrastructure.
In the mean time, most utilities will continue to fight solar and undoubtedly try to use their political influence in the fight.
Do most individual solar producers sell to the utility? Or, are the solar installation companies the ones selling back.
It’s my understanding that if you get a solar company to install and lease from THEY get the excess electricity and the profit from “selling” back to the utility.
There’s still the “customer charge”.
Around here, the “customer charge” for water is as much or more, most months, than the water itself.
Electricity, gas - a significant part of the bill is for the privilege of being a customer.
Yes, battery banks are expensive and somewhat fragile.
You have to “treat them better than you treat your dog” - ie, they have to be in a nice constant temperature if you want them to last.
Probably the best AH for the buck are Costco’s golf cart batteries.
I don't. I run a hybrid system that allows me to run whatever circuits I want from the grid or solar. I let the grid heat my water
since it is a huge energy drain. If the grid went totally down I could run 80% of normal. Next year I'll be adding more batteries and
alternative water heating.
I don't know. Some do, some don't. I "think" most do not install enough capacity to exceed their own use.
It’s my understanding that if you get a solar company to install and lease from THEY get the excess electricity and the profit from “selling” back to the utility.
That would depend on the agreement, but I could see that. If you don't own it, you likely would not get profits from it; the owners would.
When we lived in Alaska, the water wasn't metered. A flat monthly charge I believe was based upon house size.
I used to have a beach house in Texas the same way, flat rate, no meter. Water pressure was so bad on holidays I installed a shallow well surface pump to maintain my own pressure.
*** They also measure how much energy is being pumped back onto the grid by people producing green energy.***
Woah now! How does a homeowner with a solar or wind system syncronize his home grown electric power with the grid! The sine waves must be within a few degrees of each other to lock in. Does the home owner’s wind generate 3600 rotations a minute?
The only way to do it is to take home made electricity as DC current, run it through a converter that converts it to AC at 3600 sine waves a minute, and those sine waves must match the sine waves of the power grid.
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