The math only works when you get a big fat subsidy or tax break.
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 ...
The math only works when you get a big fat subsidy or tax break.
Exactly what I was referring to.
They still use the grid.
They'd have to convince me that that is not already built into the per kilowatt hour cost.
I’m pretty sure somebody got a subsidy. And an eye sore is an eye sore. You are imposing an aesthetic cost on your neighbors. A mass of steel on your roof is inherently dangerous and inconvenient, should you need to reshingle or perform maintenance up there.
That’s another closely related subject. Soon, much less centralized and more distributed production of everything necessary for a thriving economy will begin in every community in several countries, and many new communities will rise in rural areas from new, small production starts. The support for the project and hundreds of sub-projects is enormous.
It’s already been in the works for quite a while toward the right moment and has been put to tests in several seed communities. We’ll see men and women off all adult ages making products of real, good use again in a much more solid and secure distributed system made up of many thousands of communities. And they’ll be having multitudes of happy children.
Residential power generation changes the dynamics. If you've got enough solar generation capacity to power your home, then the grid is a backup that you're going to expect to stand in for the solar panels if they fail. If you never use it then the power company is building and maintaining the grid to your home for free. The only way they can recoup that cost is to charge the other customers more per KWH.
The combiner boxes and conduit are steel, by the way, but they don’t weigh much. You’re an engineer? I’m surprised. An old EE PE recently advised my daughter to go into a technology instead of engineering. She had already decided to attend a machining school for a couple of years because of what she’s seen from engineers stealing from owner-builders through local governments (their expensive stamps on our correct and finished designs to codes).
Fine. But PG&E just jacked my rates up nearly 40% in the past year, I wonder what rational economic reason there was for that.
” People with no connection to the power grid”
Fine.
People who are connected sell their excess to the company at a fascist government determined rate that all other customers must make up for (subsidize).
A fair rate would be significantly below the wholesale rate the utility pays it’s reliable wholesale suppliers.
Unreliable power is worth significantly less.
Left to the market the distributed, intermittent electricity produced by homes would be valued at practically nothing.
The biggest subsidy of home PV is mandating that the utility’s other customers must pay outrageous prices for the excess produced- even as ridiculously much as the retail price!
This article is obfuscation with it’s focus on the grid cost.
True. Another reason for rates going up in many cities is that of natural gas interests recently pushing the government to shut down some coal-fired plants and pushing up the costs of others.
Well, Nat gas is dirt cheap and a good economic choice today.
Of course in 10 years it may not be. Demand and supply will equalize.
You can’t beat coal.
BTW I’m a big fan of passive solar. Have even designed a HW heater I’ll put in in spring when I have the money and weather. People are crazy not to do the simple things to utilize passive.
The truth be known, this whole discussion is redundant.
The cost per kW that the utilities charge regular customers factors in grid maintenance, does it not? There’s no reason why that same factor can’t be worked in when the meter is running in the other direction so to speak, with respect to how much the utility pays or credits customers who use solar and sell their excess.
Agreed. Solar is much better for heating than electricity. Drainback systems for hot water and floor heating with collectors and tanks can work very well in extremely cold, sunny areas if properly built, but mechanical code regulations require stealth installs with quick disconnects for homebuilt collectors (superior to overly costly commercial collectors) and heat exchangers.
Rocket stove mass heaters are also much less costly than forced air furnaces and $20,000 masonry heaters, but the coming EPA regulations pushed by global corporates and local governments will also require those to be stealth installs (very low heat and smoke emissions). But that’s okay. Solar-radiant heating systems and especially rocket mass heaters are great for stealth installs.
[Homebuilt mass heaters and solar-radiant drainback systems are not suitable for people with mortgages, because such systems may prevent homeowners from buying insurance. Those systems are best for small, efficient houses built by do-it-yourself-ers who can quickly and easily rebuild.]
Agreed on passive, though. It’s the best and should take priority for a homeowner over active systems. Thanks for bringing that up.
Well, of course MY passive HW design solves all those problems, and freezing and overheating too- at least on paper LOL!
It does remove the little-discussed risk of legionnaire and other disease from stagnant ‘warm’ water too.
But simple eaves, awnings and ‘solar spaces’ have tremendous quick paybacks and savings, on par with insulating and draft-proofing.
Yeah, I remember seeing that in my researches (very good site)... and thinking “Oh no! There’s got to be a better way!” LOL!
But for that kind of system it struck me as a very good design.
Can you quantify it’s performance and payback?
Or are you just satisfied that it makes a significant improvement in cost and comfort.
Checked into “rocket mass heaters” tonight, very interesting. Thanks!
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