It appears to me that the intent is to drive up electric rates to make solar and wind cost competitive. In other words, it’s coming, like it or not, rational or not. The best anyone can do is to educate themselves on how to avoid this imposed cost. If it means taking advantage of subsidy, then it does. Off-grid solar is a commitment, it’s a lot of work. Lifestyle changes are necessary. That clothes dryer, dishwasher and even climate control as it has come to be understood really add to the cost of off-grid power generation. It feels as if we’re being herded into it, because we are. Just my take on it, could be wrong.
The utility will jack up rates no matter.
I put in a small 4 panel 400 watt system with 1000 amp hour of batteries for nighttime. During daylight I run all excess solar power to household devices. At night the batteries store enough to act as a solar generator for power outages which are frequent. My wife relies on an O2 machine so backup power is important. I do NOT grid tie to the utility, I make sure to use all excess power after batteries recharge from overnight.
I just did a summary of the first 9 months of this year compared to last year. In 2013 I used just over 19,000 kwh in 9 months and this year over 2,000 kwh less at just over 17,000 kwh. It worked out to about 10% kwh usage savings. BUT my 9 months billing only saved $45.00 because of rate hikes. In reality I saved almost $300.00 over the period that I would have paid for the 2,000 or so kwh if I had used it from the utility instead of solar.
Hard to win, but you can get ahead.
The government and greens are happy to push solar precisely because it doesn’t work (at least not cost effectively). The funny thing is that if “everyone” starts installing solar power the pricing will come down on everything related including batteries. Once that happens solar could actually be a viable replacement for grid power. What then would the fedscum and greens do to stop it?