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Should Homeowners With Solar Panels Pay To Maintain Electrical Grid?
NPR ^ | 11 Dec 2014 | Peter Overby

Posted on 12/11/2014 5:39:22 PM PST by Theoria

The costs of solar energy are plummeting, and now are about on par with the electricity generated at big power plants. This new reality intensifies a long-running business and regulatory battle, between the mainline electric utility companies and newer firms that provide solar systems for homeowners' rooftops. Sometimes the rivalry looks more like hardball politics than marketplace economics.

The way rooftop solar typically works, the homeowner leases rooftop panels from a company that owns and installs them. It can be an expensive proposition, but the homeowner saves some money by drawing less power from the utility company's electric plants, and even by selling some solar power back up the electrical grid to the utility.

Utilities say rooftop solar users need to pay their fair share to maintain that grid.

David Owens, a vice president of the Edison Electric Institute, the trade association of investor-owned utilities, says they want to preserve the choice that customers have. "If they want to put on rooftop solar, that is their right. And we think it's a great technology. What we are arguing for is fairness in paying for the grid," he says.

The rooftop solar companies say the utilities just want to drive them out of business. "It's a state-by-state battle where the utilities are trying to stop competition," says Bryan Miller, vice president of solar company SunRun and co-chair of a trade group, The Alliance for Solar Choice. Utilities "are monopolies," he says. "Monopolies don't like competition, and that's what these fights are about."

Driving the competition are solar power and other new technologies, which reduce the demand to generate more electricity.

(Excerpt) Read more at npr.org ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Society
KEYWORDS: electricity; monopolies; solar
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To: freekitty
"Yes. People with no children have to pay school taxes."

As do those who send their children to private schools, or home-school.
21 posted on 12/11/2014 6:14:49 PM PST by Steve_Seattle
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To: Theoria

Of course they should pay.

The solar panels just demonstrated that they still have money left.


22 posted on 12/11/2014 6:15:39 PM PST by Scrambler Bob (/s /s /s /s /s, my replies are "liberally" sprinkled with them behind every word and letter.!)
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To: CdMGuy

If a house with solar power panels uses the regular power grid at any time, they should just have a meter and be billed on a per-usage basis like everyone else.


23 posted on 12/11/2014 6:16:19 PM PST by Steve_Seattle
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To: Theoria

Get off of the grid.

http://www.richsoil.com/rocket-stove-mass-heater.jsp

http://www.permsteading.com/

http://donkey32.proboards.com/
(more on rocket stove mass heaters)

$1000 Solar Water Heater —Overview
http://www.builditsolar.com/Experimental/PEXColDHW/Overview.htm
(good learning tool for the system behind the next link)

$2K Solar Space + Water Heating — One Simple DIY System
http://www.builditsolar.com/Projects/SpaceHeating/DHWplusSpace/Main.htm

As for PV solar power plants, there are sites all over the Net for learning how they work, how to install them and the best components to install. Get a copy of the National Electrical Code. Study it. Study electrical safety. It’s well worth it. A powerful, self-installed system can use as little as about $60 per month, if you get rid of some of the more outrageously hungry appliances and use better equipment for comforts—especially home-built equipment.


24 posted on 12/11/2014 6:17:41 PM PST by familyop (We Baby Boomers are croaking in an avalanche of corruption smelled around the planet.)
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To: freekitty

Ding, ding..


25 posted on 12/11/2014 6:18:41 PM PST by Bronzy
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To: Theoria

end heavy subsidies and tax breaks on solar


26 posted on 12/11/2014 6:22:06 PM PST by GeronL (Vote for Conservatives not for Republicans)
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To: Theoria

If they have absolutely no connection whatsoever to the transmission system then no, otherwise yes.


27 posted on 12/11/2014 6:22:35 PM PST by Mastador1 (I'll take a bad dog over a good politician any day!)
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To: Theoria

OMG! One Leftist Utopia Idea just MIGHT be coming to fruition! Solar Power for all! (As IF they invented it, LOL!)

Oh, wait...it’s probably DESTROYING the planet in some manner, like frying some ‘protected’ fly that flies over our solar panels on the roof - so in the next decade we’ll need to BAN solar!

Effing Eco-Weenie Morons.

HOWEVER - I’m not giving up my wind-powered water-pumping windmill on my farm. Eff you! Eff you all! I’ve got mine, so screw the rest of ya, LOL!

*SNORT*

‘New’ sources of energy. Bwa-Haaaaa-Haaaaaa!

*Shakes Head, Walks Away*


28 posted on 12/11/2014 6:24:29 PM PST by Diana in Wisconsin (I don't have 'Hobbies.' I'm developing a robust Post-Apocalyptic skill set...)
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To: Vendome

Anyone familiar with the term ‘from each according to their means...’ saw it coming.


29 posted on 12/11/2014 6:25:10 PM PST by skeeter
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To: Theoria

Huh, we are paying for other people’s medical...duh, yeah.


30 posted on 12/11/2014 6:25:30 PM PST by Bronzy
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To: Lonesome in Massachussets
"We deserve to get some of our money back."

Forcing everyone with solar electric systems to pay socialist investors and a government-linked business is not the way to do it.

"Take away the subsidies and solar panels are an expensive and dangerous eye-soar."

I did not get rebates or tax credits. The PV modules that I bought were not subsidized. They were not expensive or dangerous. And as for "eye-soar," you do not own my land, NIMBY.


31 posted on 12/11/2014 6:25:39 PM PST by familyop (We Baby Boomers are croaking in an avalanche of corruption smelled around the planet.)
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To: Theoria
Because I can purchase electricity from a different supplier than the local utility I have to pay for electricity and for delivery separately, along with a fixed monthly hookup fee.

If I were taking electricity from the grid part of the time and putting it back at other times it would be reasonable to pay for the fixed fee and the delivery fee both ways because I would be using the equipment no matter which way the electricity is flowing.

32 posted on 12/11/2014 6:26:57 PM PST by KarlInOhio (The IRS: either criminally irresponsible in backup procedures or criminally responsible of coverup.)
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To: GeronL
"end heavy subsidies and tax breaks on solar"

Agreed!


33 posted on 12/11/2014 6:28:41 PM PST by familyop (We Baby Boomers are croaking in an avalanche of corruption smelled around the planet.)
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To: Theoria

I have no car*. Should part of my taxes go towards street repair, infrastructure maintenance and new road construction?

* made up for the example. I do have a vehicle.


34 posted on 12/11/2014 6:30:00 PM PST by upchuck (Ferguson: Put your hands down and go to work!)
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To: Mastador1

They shouldn’t have their solar subsidised either


35 posted on 12/11/2014 6:32:49 PM PST by GeronL (Vote for Conservatives not for Republicans)
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To: freekitty

FU and your kind.


36 posted on 12/11/2014 6:35:46 PM PST by zek157
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To: Diana in Wisconsin
Build one of these babies, and watch the NIMBY commies cringe with terror, when they park at the edge of your property to take photos of it for the gossip gang!

Build our 10 foot diameter wind turbine! (including home-built alternator for it)
http://www.otherpower.com/turbineplans.html

It's much tougher than the commercial models. Free illustrated instructions start on the left side of the page with "Stator Mold." Look around the site for tilt tower instructions.

Or better, yet, build the 20-footer!

;-D


37 posted on 12/11/2014 6:39:09 PM PST by familyop (We Baby Boomers are croaking in an avalanche of corruption smelled around the planet.)
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To: freekitty

better analogy is people who’s kids go toprivate school are forced to also pay public school taxes plus private tuition.


38 posted on 12/11/2014 6:41:25 PM PST by Secret Agent Man ( Gone Galt; Not averse to Going Bronson.)
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To: freekitty

Yes, and that’s wrong. I’m paying to send my kids to school (private) while also paying for school (public) I don’t send them to. Gonna have to home school just so I can afford to not send them to public school.


39 posted on 12/11/2014 6:44:07 PM PST by ctdonath2 (Si vis pacem, para bellum.)
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To: upchuck
"I have no car*. Should part of my taxes go towards street repair, infrastructure maintenance and new road construction?"

Yes, because even people without cars are using the roads with their bicycles, feet, draft animals or whatever. People with cars are paying big sales taxes, fuel taxes and other taxes, though.

People with no connection to the power grid are not using it. There are many who buy non-subsidized PV modules and receive no rebates or tax credits.


40 posted on 12/11/2014 6:45:47 PM PST by familyop (We Baby Boomers are croaking in an avalanche of corruption smelled around the planet.)
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