Posted on 02/24/2025 11:06:46 AM PST by E. Pluribus Unum
California officials are pressing for further cuts to the electric bill credits people with rooftop solar panels can earn, in a move that would align the state with its for-profit utilities at the expense of consumers who invested thousands of dollars to power their homes with renewable energy.
Southern California Edison, Pacific Gas & Electric and San Diego Gas & Electric have long complained about the financial credits to households that generate more solar energy than they can use — credits that can keep rising electricity costs in check for those with panels.
But the energy generated by rooftop solar also puts a dent in utility sales of electricity, and the big utility companies successfully pressed the state Public Utilities Commission in 2022 to reduce the value of the billing credits for panels installed after April 15, 2023.
Now, the credits for consumers who installed panels before that date are becoming a target.
The commission staff, with the support of its consumer-focused Public Advocates Office, is making a case for cutting credits to those who installed rooftop panels before April 2023. Those panel owners are paid the retail rate for the excess electricity they send to the grid, while later adopters are paid a fraction of that price.
Among the ideas floated in a report by commission staff last week is to limit the number of...
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Oh gee, who could have seen this coming?
Oh wait EVERYONE with at least to functional brain cells.
Smells like stupid leftists. Both the government and their voters.
I sat with a “salesman” for half an hour...in the laundromat. When he told me how long it would take to re-coop my money, I laughed right in his face.
The home rooftop panels can generate the the ‘green’ solar electricity to recharge cars parked at daytime workplaces.
No one saw this coming.../s
So, do excessive roof panels actually add power to the grid?
The article says only that solar use “puts a dent in utility sales of electricity”, but I would expect them to lower costs, as well, if they work.
I heard that personal solar panels in California are required to be hooked up to the grid. Perhaps they should remove this requirement.
Just like the solar panel craze of the 70s these too will rot away when ultimately they won’t be cost effective to maintain and replace. I hope I’m wrong because I see them everywhere.
Soooo, how long?
Ask your homeowner’s insurance agent how much more it will cost to insure your home with solar panels... if they will insure you.
Another classic bait and switch by the environmentalists who also happen to dominate and run almost every single state public utility board.
Ask yourself, after all the energy star rated appliances, after switching to all LED lights, after all that extra home insulation, and after all the wind and solar farms why are energy prices still sky high?
Hint: It’s a green energy scam to limit your choices and to fleece as much money from you in the process.
Ska-rew the "power grid"!
They should buy some batteries and tell the "grid" to go pound sand.
The intermittent nature of sunlight means that "fossil fuel" generators have to remain running even while the solar panels are producing electricity. You don't just turn power plants off and on with the flip of a switch.
The same issue applies to wind turbines.
https://www.law.utoronto.ca/blog/faculty/wind-power-complete-disaster
It’s not credits. It’s being compensated for excess electricity produced by your solar panels. See, my solar panels are connected to the utility which absorbs all of the electricity produced. They then send me whatever electricity my home needs to power all of the devices and machinery therein. If I don’t produce enough to cover my demand, they charge me for the excess need. If my panels produce more than my demand they pay me for the extra at the same price as they buy their electricity from outside the state.
I would rather have an isolated system that would charge some batteries with my surplus production. They would not allow me to do that. It is worth noting that they pay us for the electricity at a price that is lower than what we pay them. For that reason we deliberately underbuilt our system so that we would always be a net consumer of a nominal amount each day. Combine this with the fact that they have a minimum connection charge for each month to cover the cost of billing us and tracking our usage and also for maintaining the infrastructure.
We trade up on a house about every 7 years.
About selling...I'm betting it cuts down the market.
We are in a drought. We have to cut water usage. Get rid of lawns and plant desert plants instead.
Sorry, but we’re going to have to raise your water bill. Usage is down so much, we have no choice.
“”But as more people have been motivated to install the panels””
Motivated? MOTIVATED??
Kalifornia has mandated that any new construction must have solar power installed. When someone purchases a home, the $$$ of the solar power system is not included in the advertised home price.
“”I heard that personal solar panels in California are required to be hooked up to the grid.””
Kalifornia has also mandated that all EVs have bi-directional charging systems. In other words, after you charge your EV, the State can take some (all?) of that battery power if they ‘feel the need.’
Back when the Prius was newer, Kalifornia announced that if you drove the politically-correct Prius, you could use the carpool lanes, even though you were driving alone. A few years later, they rescinded that ‘permission.’ I imagine all of the Prius owners who only purchased it to be able to get back and forth more easily were not all that happy. Oh, Well.
What a con job...
Never seen a discussion about the lifetime cost for the electricity generated. Therefore, I will assume that you would be better off just buying from the utility. Right now, I predict there will be a special charge for disposing of worn-out solar panels.
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