[HN Gopher] The Attack on Rooftop Solar Power in California Is B...
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The Attack on Rooftop Solar Power in California Is Beyond Stupid
Author : iqtidar
Score : 26 points
Date : 2021-12-15 20:37 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (cleantechnica.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (cleantechnica.com)
| belval wrote:
| This is an interesting issue because it's something I thought
| would happen at some point, but I just don't see how and why it
| would be applied to California.
|
| Grid-tied solar has an issue because they feed energy to the grid
| when the sun is shining which for a lot of northern
| states/Canada, does not make sense because it is unrelated to
| when there is actually peak demand (the evenings).
|
| In California though, a lot of energy goes to AC, and AC is most
| needed when the sun is shining bright so I don't understand why
| it would be an issue?
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| Folks aren't home during peak sunshine. They're home in the
| evening. They may turn on the AC then to cool off the house
| from a day of heat accumulation. Just when the solar has
| tapered off.
| Kon-Peki wrote:
| I'm up in the north central US. People around here have
| started putting solar in an east-west orientation rather than
| due south.
|
| They are trading peak power generation for peak usefulness.
| blitzar wrote:
| I am fortunate enought to have a south west facing roof,
| not fortunate enough to have sunshine. Obviously the peak
| solution is just to to track the sun across the sky all day
| - smartflower.com
| belval wrote:
| This is addressed in the "Common misconception" of the
| "California Duck Curve" article:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_curve
|
| > California's annual demand peaks usually occur around 3 pm
| to 5 pm, when solar power output is still substantial. The
| reason that California's annual peak tends to be earlier than
| the daily peak is that California's annual peak usually
| occurs on hot days with large air conditioning loads, which
| tend to run more during midday.
|
| TLDR: The overall peak is between 3 and 5PM.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| Which isn't peak sunshine. That's at around noon?
|
| At 2PM your solar panels are producing about half of what
| they could.
| mjh2539 wrote:
| This issue isn't as clearly cut as articles like this make it out
| to be. There are a few competing interests: the (wealthier than
| average) folks that own solar panels, the utility companies, and
| the plants.
|
| Solar is cutting into the margins that the plants need to be
| profitable. So the plants increase the base rates they charge so
| that they remain profitable. This increase is then paid for by
| everyone (not just the solar owners). But it's still a net win
| for the solar owners, because they're the ones saving the most
| when rates are highest (when it's hottest, and ACs are cranked
| up). So effectively, doing nothing (and letting plants increase
| rates) acts as a net wealth transfer to those with solar panels.
|
| This isn't in the interest of the common good. So the utilities
| try to soften the costs by taxing the solar owners. But then the
| math for the solar owners is thrown off because they anticipated
| saving more/making more over the life time of the panel.
|
| I don't know what the right answer is.
| ericmay wrote:
| And with the proliferation of battery technology, eventually
| the solar owners (and increasing numbers of them) may just
| _disconnect from the grid_ and then the numbers really won 't
| work.
|
| My off the cuff solution here is that energy
| providers/plants/etc. need to invest in storage capacity, or
| eventually the economic incentives will win out and people just
| won't buy energy from them in states where solar + battery
| works.
|
| If you are a net producer of energy, the _only_ calculus that
| makes sense (unless you want to pay for access to the grid as a
| form of insurance) is that you get money for providing energy
| back to the grid. Otherwise you just disconnect and figure it
| out afterward.
|
| With renewals, decentralization of energy production, and
| battery proliferation we're going to see some interesting
| market dynamics play out here soon. We probably need a general
| energy market accessible to producers as small as a single
| person all the way up to a nuclear plant. Perhaps you should be
| able to log in to an energy market like you do your brokerage
| and buy or sell energy.
| bsder wrote:
| > may just disconnect from the grid and then the numbers
| really won't work
|
| Which works until _everybody_ is off the grid and then
| collapses.
|
| Everybody relies on the fact that the grid is ubiquitous.
| Street lights, traffic lights, water pumps, etc. When the
| grid isn't ubiquitous, you lose all manner of things we take
| for granted.
|
| We've seen this before in California. Some suburbs made a
| point of being in unincorporated land to avoid being
| associated with LA. Well, they found out _really quickly_
| that their infrastructure was horribly expensive when they
| had to pay for it all themselves.
| bsder wrote:
| > I don't know what the right answer is.
|
| You have to unbundle the two different costs:
|
| 1) Infrastructure cost. It costs a fixed amount to connect
| someone to the always-on grid. This needs be set.
|
| 2) Consumption cost. It costs a different amount to consume
| produced electricity.
|
| The problem is that the panel owners are going to get very
| cranky (as you see in this article) when that happens because
| maintaining the grid is quite a bit more expensive than the
| production costs and they're going to lose their cost benefit.
| philipkglass wrote:
| Panel owners aren't the only group that would get cranky
| about unbundling. Some non-solar consumers also reap
| effective subsidies from bundling costs into per-unit
| charges. Rural customers in low density areas would have
| higher bills if they paid for infrastructure explicitly. So
| would customers in dense areas who consume only a little
| electricity each month but still need the infrastructure to
| work around the clock. Customers who live in urban or
| suburban areas and consume a lot of electricity would see
| their bills fall. Since this latter group tends to be more
| affluent than the previous two groups, charging each customer
| proportionally to their incurred costs is also likely to be
| perceived as unfair.
| blitzar wrote:
| > Solar is cutting into the margins that the plants need to be
| profitable.
|
| There is more supply, the utilities should be dropping their
| prices and excess, high cost production drop out of the market.
| Ofc ourse that assumes that it is a f free market.
|
| > So the utilities try to soften the costs by taxing the solar
| owners.
|
| Oh how noble of them to look out for the little guy. There is a
| small chance that they are just opportunists gauging as much
| money as possible out of any avenue they can. Of course it
| would be unheard of for a big business with a practical
| monopoly over a basic human necessity to do such a thing.
| horsawlarway wrote:
| I mean - regressive taxes are bad. And this situation is
| essentially a regressive tax bundled into your power bill.
|
| Those with less means are forced to continue buying power
| from utilities that are faced with shrinking customer bases,
| and which have high, long-term costs (Building power plants
| ain't cheap, and the costs to amortize the initial
| construction can't just be waved away because "there is more
| supply"...)
|
| Does that mean utilities aren't also angling to make the most
| of the situation? Of course not - they are businesses.
|
| But it does mean your black and white approach isn't really
| useful here - unless you're fine with poor people getting
| fucked. Maybe you are.
| Kalium wrote:
| You're describing a death spiral, like has happened with
| car insurance in some places. As the costs on those still
| in the market go up and the costs of getting away from it
| come down, you can expect more and more people to go for
| the exit. Which sounds great, except it eventually leaves
| the few who can't get out stuck with the bill for the whole
| thing.
|
| I suppose the question is what we expect to make of the
| electrical grid in the future and how to pay for it. If the
| goal is to stop having a grid, the death spiral seems like
| a reasonable way to get there.
| blitzar wrote:
| My black and white approach works just fine, I am more than
| happy to see the poor shareholders get fucked. Take away
| their monopoly and allow competition. It turns out it is
| already happening as community choice aggregators (CCAs)
| are all over the place and CEOs of companies that have
| monopolies have managed to drive their business into
| bankrupcy.
|
| There is a reason for governments to exist beyond writing
| and regulating the creation of monopolies for private
| citizens to get rich. The costs to amortize the initial
| construction can't just be waved away because they paid all
| the money out in dividends and executive bonuses. These
| companies raked in money in bucketloads, agressively wrote
| down the construction costs and still had money left over
| to pay fat dividends.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| It's not just a matter of 'solar is good'. A rational system
| generates the power it needs on the grid that needs it when its
| needed. Solar does none of that.
|
| And it seems obvious that a mishmash of solar panels on thousands
| of roofs pointed in random directions, is nowhere as efficient as
| a large solar farm.
|
| I've always thought of rooftop solar as 'energy theatre'.
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(page generated 2021-12-15 23:02 UTC)