Posted on 01/29/2022 7:34:33 AM PST by Brian Griffin
Here are some of my thoughts on the billing of electricity with respect to homeowners with solar panel installations. The topic is complex. My suggestions are intended to be possible improvements and not perfections.
There are a number of components that could go into the computation of a solar panel homeowner's bill: the capital cost of the related non-solar backup capacity, the cost of the utility lines dedicated to the customer, the cost to collect payment, the fuel cost of the electricity and credit for the electricity supplied to the grid by the customer.
A CUSTOMER'S USAGE-BASED SHARE of the CAPITAL COST of the NON-SOLAR BACKUP CAPACITY
The capital cost of the non-solar backup capacity runs for many years and the utility will normally pay monthly for it, as should its customers with solar panel installations that utilize it.
The capital cost of the non-solar backup capacity should be determined when there is a high demand for this capacity on a utility wide basis for customers with solar panel installations. The peak demand for a utility might be in January, but other high demand months should be considered in computing the customer's bill since the customer may game the system in January by being frugal but use far more capacity in December, February and March when the utility's non-solar backup capacity is also in high demand. Other high demand months might be July, August and September.
The capital cost of the non-solar backup capacity might be made in the customer's peak demand month among the past fifteen billing months that are also high backup demand months, or it might be weighted among all high backup demand months in the past fifteen.
My suggested lookback period of 15 months is longer than 12 months since the highest demand month may change from year to year. It is possible for January and February for a year to be warmer than normal but the preceding December much colder than normal.
An April 2024 bill might well include the customer's usage share of the capital cost of the non-solar backup capacity based on high demand in January 2024, or February 2023.
Year-round winter month usage-based utility billing is not unprecedented. I used to live in Fairfax County, Virginia and each of my quarterly sewer charges was based on my last winter water usage amount, when people were least likely to use water for lawns and landscape plants.
COST of the UTILITY LINES to the CUSTOMER
I live in a house with 100 feet of lot frontage and utility line and about 70 feet of service drop. I live in a part of Florida where each side of the street has a utility line for post-hurricane reliability.
There is a cost to maintaining these lines, which the utility would want to receive monthly income for. The amount might be fixed utility wide for residential customers, actual line length based or zoning density based.
COST to COLLECT CUSTOMER PAYMENT
The main cost for my house is having someone come read my meter monthly. I get billed by e-mail and payment comes out of my checking account.
In my area, I get billed a monthly customer charge that was $7.50/month the last time I checked. Some of this may cover utility line maintenance.
COMPENSATION for the ELECTRICITY SUPPLIED to the GRID by the CUSTOMER
I would first like to mention that charging customers for the solar panels on their roofs is absurd.
Black-out plagued California needs all the electricity generating capacity it can get. Californians should not fully rely on utility-supplied and large investor-supplied solar power investment given massive investor losses related to Pacific Gas & Electric and Southern California Edison.
Bear in mind that a large, well-insulated house built in 2021 may use less electricity than a modest house built many decades ago. The large house might have many more solar panels than the modest house, but its demand for non-solar backup electricity may often be less.
The solar panel capacity of a house is a far cruder and less accurate measure of a house's need (and appropriate basis of charging) for non-solar backup electricity than the utility's highly accurate monthly meter readings.
There is then the matter of determining how much the customer should be paid (or credited) for the customer's electricity supplied to the grid.
Leftist governments run by officials that believe as Al Gore does would not want homeowners to stop installing solar panels that can supply excess electricity their neighborhood merely because natural gas electricity might be a penny cheaper per kilowatt-hour(kwh) than homeowner solar panel electricity.
The homeowners with solar power installations are effectively in competition with utilities supplying solar electricity and should be paid competitively. It should be borne in mind that the homeowners are near the point of use and that the utility solar installations say 50 miles away in a desert would need expensive grid expansion and grid improvements that the homeowner-sourced electricity would not. Homeowners in Encino could easily supply excess electricity to recharge electric vehicles parked in Encino without much change to the utility's lines. If the utility supplies solar electricity at say 5 cents per kwh, the homeowners might reasonably be paid 6 cents a kwh.
There is also an installation speed factor. Homeowners can quickly have solar electricity panels installed on their house. It can take a long time for a utility to get a solar panel farm permitted and built.
I suspect Al Gore would prefer that California electricity vehicles get recharged via solar electricity than natural gas electricity. Homeowner solar can help speed up the process to powering California cars with solar power. Homeowners should not be made solar install skittish by a state changing a rule that forces homeowners in the state to take unforeseeable solar installation losses.
SOLAR PANEL DISTRIBUTION
Solar panels should be distributed on a rational basis to minimize alleged possible CO2 harm. If a bunch of solar panels might reduce China's coal-based CO2 emissions by 9 tons a year or California's natural gas-based CO2 emissions by 3 tons a year, the solar panels should be used in China and Joe Biden should cool his heels in his basement. If a bunch of solar panels might reduce California's CO2 emissions by 3 tons a year or West Virginia's by 1 ton a year, the solar panels should be used in California.
There is also a social justice factor. If a bunch of solar panels could supply a village in Africa with ample electricity for the first time, then it would be improper for a Maryland millionaire to adorn his mansion with them to show his green credentials.
I’d say your social justice support would also work to say no one should have lobster when people in Africa may be starving.
BTTT
You do not understand economics nor business.
Solar panels - overly complex, unreliable, and not cost effective, as they rely on subsidies to make them seem “affordable”. To get a great deal for very little, means that somebody, somewhere, is paying WAY too much for very little return, or none at all.
TANSTAAFL (”There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch”)
“wealth redistribution”
Imagine the local real estate prices if a Caribbean island was populated with former Europeans instead of former Africans.
Jamaican houses might fetch an average of $2 million each.
I want my solar panels charging batteries to provide power to a SEPARATE CIRCUIT!
It will power my water well and pressure tank, and gas utilities, and a few critical items like freezer and fridge.
No TV, A/C, few lights, no washer/dryer.
Means a separate 4 gang outlet in the utility room, and similar in kitchen.
Anyone considering solar, and also considering selling their house in a few years should check with local real estate agents on the headaches they face when selling solar properties. Because some of the installation schemes are based on contracts that need to be transferred, and in many cases cannot. Do you owe money on the panels etc.
Everything is in the legal Tariff agreed upon by the local utility company, and the state’s PUC. They will not make tons of variance, as it’s completely unreasonable.
I have worked in electrical distribution for two utility companies, and they are as slow and cumbersome as any governmental institution. They are purposely undermanned, and the field is always overworked.(at least in the important jobs) This in conjunction with perpetual changing scientific components/technology makes an adaptable leviathan impossible.
“You do not understand economics nor business.”
There is much uncertainty in economics and business.
I look forward to your detailed expertise to enlighten me.
“Anyone considering solar...headaches”
The solar business tends to attract the unscrupulous.
What problem are you trying to solve by writing this article?
Heinlein had it figured out for sure.
Do the utility companies actually use the electricity generated by home solar systems? Do they even collect it? Or is this a total public-private scam?
We live on a sail boat in a mooring field. We got 660w in Solar and 300ah of Lithium.
We don’t sell anything back to anyone, but, occasionally have to run our little Honda Generator for rainy days.
“You do not understand economics nor business”
codetoad to setter:
“You (setter)claim a subsidy is innovation and operation funding. What a communist moron.”
Setter to codetoad: The billions US farmers get every year in subsidies is not funding their operation??
The billions in subsidies US companies receive every year from the gov’t what is it used for other than funding research, innovation and operational funding?
You seem to advocate an inconsistent and strange mixture of freedom and government control.
Do you believe that anthropogenic climate change is a threat?
Ok, do it. I have it both ways.
Freep mail me your zip code and I’ll help ya.
It’s fed back onto the distribution lines and used by local customers. It helps reduce the percentage of output towards max kVA on distribution substation transformers. I wouldn’t call it a scam, but the tax breaks are a skew in the market. Peak load will never be carried by it, or any solar. Nuclear, hydro, and gas turbine are the proper way to go, but we probably won’t...
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