[HN Gopher] Solar panels reduced my electric bill in 2022
___________________________________________________________________
Solar panels reduced my electric bill in 2022
Author : iandev
Score : 275 points
Date : 2023-01-03 17:22 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (mattbruenig.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (mattbruenig.com)
| deadcore wrote:
| I've just installed solar & batteries (not 2 weeks ago we turned
| them on!). Be interesting to see how things will unfold and I
| love reading stories on how people have got on with theirs. It
| was roughly ~PS12,900 installed (in the UK) and we pay
| 32.596p/kWh & 42.290p/day standing charge...
|
| Will either pay off well or be an expensive lesson
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| That's a pretty good return. I paid around $20k for my system
| (parts and installation) and get ~$1700 a year out of it (I live
| pretty far north). After tax credits and other state incentives I
| break even in 7 years. Output is warrantied by the manufacturer
| for 25 years (there's a schedule, but should still be 85% at 25
| years IIRC). It's a great time to get solar if you own your home.
| hnburnsy wrote:
| Don't kid yourself that residential electricity prices have
| tremendous price jumps every year. Nationally prices have
| increased 2 cents per Kwh from about 2009 to 2021. That is a
| 1.47% CAGR, CPI inflation was 1.55% per year over that same time.
|
| https://www.eia.gov/electricity/data/browser/#/topic/7?agg=0...
| plantain wrote:
| Is this the normal price for a solar install in the US?
|
| In Australia it's ~$7000AU (~$4000 US) for a system like this,
| unsubsidized - then we have a 400$/kWh subsidy.
|
| Our 10kW solar system was $4000AU installed, and the payback
| period is 2-3 years...
| nightski wrote:
| Wow that is impressive! My electric bill in total is well under
| $1000/year... We average about $60-$70/mo
| ck2 wrote:
| Weird question and probably rare but what happens if solar array
| is hit by lighting?
|
| Are they insured?
|
| Do they get damaged? Does the inverter/batteries get damaged or
| is there likely a circuit breaker?
| heythere22 wrote:
| > Are they insured?
|
| You are better off if you add them to your already existing
| coverage for your roof. So probably yes.
|
| > Do they get damaged?
|
| You typically don't expect trees to fall onto your solar
| panels. So where should any damage come from?
| foobiekr wrote:
| Hail.
| bonzini wrote:
| My installation has separate circuit breakers for the various
| components (grid, home, backup that is on even if grid is off,
| panels), plus some extra protection against overcurrent in the
| inverter and batteries.
| Proven wrote:
| [dead]
| latchkey wrote:
| If you're interested in learning a lot about doing home/campervan
| installations, I highly suggest watching/reading everything that
| Will Prowse has published.
| bushbaba wrote:
| I paid ~15k to install solar in 2019. After tax rebates it was
| ~11k. I'm generating ~12MWh per year. My break even period is
| less than 5 years.
|
| I'm based out of California, and generate excess energy. My
| electric bill is now just ~$100/year.
| Aperocky wrote:
| Do you have a battery or are the excess directly dumped to
| grid?
| bushbaba wrote:
| Excess sent to the grid using the NEM 2.0 TOU-C rate plan.
| mesarvagya wrote:
| ~12MWh or ~12KWh ?
| perfectstorm wrote:
| if you generate excess energy, can you store it for a later
| time when you need more energy (presumably summer time)?
| asdff wrote:
| While you wait decades for home battery storage technology to
| improve, you can make a water battery in the meantime with a
| few things from the hardware store.
|
| https://hackaday.com/2021/10/08/power-your-home-with-a-
| water...
| AdamTReineke wrote:
| This system only had enough power to run a small light,
| IIRC.
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| You can buy a residential battery today that provides real
| value. The limitation on batteries is for grid scale
| supply.
| gpm wrote:
| > presumably summer time
|
| Assuming you have batteries, you discharge and charge them on
| a daily cycle, not a yearly cycle, to make the most
| money/have the most benefit. There are predictable time of
| day based troughs and peaks in the price that you can take
| advantage of.
| mrits wrote:
| It's a lot more efficient to sell back to the power company.
| I'd be more comfortable with having a dual fuel generator for
| apocalyptic situations vs a bunch of batteries.
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| Some (all?) electric companies in CA do net metering, where
| you can sell them your excess electricity at any time and
| storage essentially becomes their problem.
| pkaye wrote:
| You would need batteries which are quite expensive at this
| time.
| mnw21cam wrote:
| There are no sensible storage methods that would allow you
| to store enough energy from summer to make any reasonable
| contribution towards winter.
|
| Batteries a great for powering your house for a few days.
| Not really beyond that. Unless you buy a ridiculous amount
| of batteries.
| bushbaba wrote:
| Why would I? I'm on NEM 2.0. The grid is my "battery". Every
| KWh I generate that isn't used is sent back to the grid. In
| exchange I get an IOU for the equivalent $/KWh price during
| that time. This is the retail $/KWh which includes
| transmission costs.
| Dwolb wrote:
| Have you experienced any grid power outages where your solar
| panels saved your day?
| cheald wrote:
| Solar won't keep you online through a power outage. The
| inverter is required by law to cut power from solar panels
| when there is not power from the grid, so as to avoid feeding
| electricity back into the grid lines (which technicians may
| be working on!) - this is known as anti-islanding protection.
| If you want to be online through a grid outage you need a
| battery array.
| CTmystery wrote:
| From a circuit perspective, it seems trivial to open a
| switch back to the grid to prevent grid-feed, while still
| feeding the internal circuit that is the house. Can you
| help me understand why this is hard?
| zombielinux wrote:
| The problem is that its not a DC connection to the grid.
|
| Not only do you have to match voltage on re-connection,
| but you have to match frequency AND phase.
|
| Its "doable" but to do so reliably without a stable
| reference can be challenging. That's why the DC
| requirement is there. They want some form of reliable
| power to well tested electronics to match phase and
| frequency when the grid comes back up.
|
| A heavily loaded AC line will drift in voltage and
| frequency stability (say when your AC kicks on and browns
| out your solar panels).
| [deleted]
| Xt-6 wrote:
| It is possible to do this without battery, but you need
| some special inverters, like the Enphase IQ8.
| dymk wrote:
| Not just that, but an ATS needs to be installed like the
| Enphase Enpower. That's usually at least a few thousand
| to have an electrician install.
| bushbaba wrote:
| No as I haven't lost power since installation. However during
| a power outage I can configure the SMA inverter to detach
| from my breaker box and operate a single 15Amp outlet
| sedatk wrote:
| One side benefit of solar for me was reducing cooling
| requirements of the top floor, which I anticipated but didn't
| expect it to be this significant. Expectedly but interestingly,
| installing solar panels didn't make any difference, but starting
| energy production did. Physics is fascinating.
| aimor wrote:
| This is interesting to me, I like reading people's experiences
| with solar panels since I'm waiting for the price to make sense
| for my own home. But as someone spending about $1,000/year, it's
| just not there yet. My options seem to be: diy, 20-30 year roi,
| find more ways to use electricity, or wait.
| giantrobot wrote:
| Residential solar changes the calculus for some appliances. You
| can go with all electric appliances and have their use covered
| by your solar. Same with EVs, your solar can offset your
| charging costs.
| isanengineer wrote:
| > find more ways to use electricity
|
| I'm not sure if you were serious with this comment, but for the
| sake of other readers I wanted to point out this is a
| legitimate strategy. Many people tend to pair solar with
| installing mini splits, EV chargers, or some other home upgrade
| that will offer value at the expense or a higher electric bill.
| This can make the solar investment make sense where it
| previously didn't.
| CorrectHorseBat wrote:
| I'm always surprised about the price of solar panels in the US, I
| think we paid about EUR1.2/W. It's not like labor is cheap in
| Belgium.
| mnw21cam wrote:
| It varies. A lot of solar installers will push the benefits of
| microinverters or optimisers, because they can make your system
| cope better with partial shading or panel failure. However, the
| microinverters or optimisers are expensive, and can easily
| double the cost of the system. They also have dubious merit,
| because if you design your system properly in the first place
| it will cope with partial shading and panel failure quite
| happily anyway. However, selling the units makes sense for the
| installer, because it's more money that passes through their
| hands. Remember, the installers are not necessarily working for
| your best interests.
|
| You can buy panels off Amazon at about PS0.73/W. Add in the
| various bits that you need to go along with it, and that
| probably pushes it up to around PS1.10/W, if you're doing it
| yourself.
| CorrectHorseBat wrote:
| Hmm, my parents also looked into micro inverters and while
| they were more expensive it still was far from this price.
| koyote wrote:
| Australia is even cheaper, I paid around USD 0.6/W for my
| system (including subsidies, it's closer to USD 1.0/W excluding
| subsidies). Break-even will be in around 3-4 years.
|
| I noticed (by following the solar sub-reddit) that almost every
| single US install has either Enphase or Solaredge inverters
| (which happen to be on the pricier side). I am not sure if
| that's an indication for the lack of competition but surely
| this seems like an industry where disruption is possible?
| r00fus wrote:
| Is that the subsidized (ie, including tax rebates) price, or
| the raw cost?
| CorrectHorseBat wrote:
| There are no tax rebates here, cost including tax and labor.
| kube-system wrote:
| The US also bans a lot of Chinese solar panels, which are the
| cheapest on the market.
| rhn_mk1 wrote:
| Surely you mean 1.2 Eur/W?
| CorrectHorseBat wrote:
| Yes, fixed.
| vanderZwan wrote:
| My mom tells me she's practically been making money with hers in
| the last years.
|
| She had them installed when my parents were still running a GP
| practice together in a small village. That was only a few years
| before they retired though, so now half of the building is
| basically storage space that's barely used and unheated (also no
| sterilizing equipment in autoclaves, fewer fridges needed, etc).
| She also has a solar water heater, she cooks with gas, and her
| house is very well insulated. As a result of all this she ended
| up producing more electricity than she uses.
|
| However, she's also still on an "old" contract with her energy
| provider that is quite beneficial towards her because they didn't
| anticipate this scenario - this will likely change soon when she
| has to renew it.
|
| This is in the Netherlands, can't speak for other countries.
| AndrewGaspar wrote:
| Can somebody explain where the return on investment comes from in
| residential solar? It just strikes me that if there was easy
| money to be had on solar installations, we'd just get tons of
| utility scale solar installs (which would likely by more capital
| efficient) and my utility bill would over time converge on the
| expected total utility bill for a home with residential solar. Is
| it just because we're in that transitional period where utility
| scale solar _is_ being installed, but in the mean time
| residential solar install internalizes the savings to your own
| residence? Or is it because most of the testimonials are hiding
| the ball a bit (only net savings reported due to buyer's remorse,
| etc.)? Or is it because government subsidies for residential
| solar are distorting the true capital cost, and thus
| profitability, of solar at scale?
| rr888 wrote:
| Because with net metering you can generally sell at a much
| higher price than the wholesale rate. It was a loophole that is
| now going away.
| shawndrost wrote:
| Residential solar reduces retail power costs @ $0.30/kWh,
| whereas grid-scale solar supplies wholesale power @ $0.02/kWh.
| (Representative figures from California.) NEM (net energy
| metering) amplifies this effect.
|
| If you look at a system-cost ROI analysis, the difference
| between residential and grid-scale is that the latter requires
| more transmission lines and provides fewer jobs (which is a key
| part of the political economics), but residential solar comes
| out looking very bad.
|
| Explicit subsidies -- which pay a part of residential solar
| capital costs -- are a much smaller force.
| phh wrote:
| I would say most people can't afford 25k$ investment cost for
| something relying on governmental decision that can change on a
| whim
| manimino wrote:
| Utility-scale solar is far more efficient than rooftop solar.
| With rooftop, the panels face whatever direction the roof does.
| But utility solar fields have panels that rotate to face the
| sun.
|
| Considering that power generation depends on the cosine of the
| angle between the sun and the panel - angle matters a LOT.
| Efficiency falls off fast if your angle is bad.
| baq wrote:
| This should be at least somewhat offset by the fact that you
| generate power approximately where it is consumed, so the
| grid doesn't have to grow as much. Turns out it isn't so
| simple due to peak demand vs peak production etc but still. I
| wouldn't have a problem with plastering PV on half of Nevada.
| walnutclosefarm wrote:
| To be fair, there is a lot of grid scale solar (and wind) being
| built, largely because they are the cheapest way to add
| generation capacity right now. But they are not a simple
| pluggable replacement for gas, coal, or nuclear, because they
| deliver power to the utility grid when the weather dictates
| power is available, not when the utilities demand dictates they
| need it. Utilities struggle once the fraction of their power
| supplied by these "interruptible sources" gets over 1/4 or so
| of their total generation base. As far as I know, the only
| regional-scale grids that have gone completely to renewables
| are Tasmania and Iceland. South Australia is not far behind,
| and Scotland not far behind them. But each has special
| circumstances that make it an easier lift. Tasmania and Iceland
| have abundant hydro and geothermal, which are ideal complements
| to interruptible renewables, because they can be quickly
| throttled up and down as required, as the interruptibles wax
| and wane. South Australia has highly reliable sunshine and
| wind, and so have been able to bridge the stochasticity of
| these with relatively manageable sized batteries (and a couple
| of flywheel installations to provide very short term momentum
| based frequency control). Scotland has highly reliable wind,
| and is headed in the same direction as South Australia.
| jasonpbecker wrote:
| We are getting tons of utility scale solar:
|
| > Utility-scale solar power generation in the U.S. is surging.
| This year, almost half the 46.1 gigawatts (GW) of generating
| capacity added to the grid will be solar, according to the U.S.
| Energy Information Administration, and solar has contributed
| more than 30% of all new capacity in five of the last six
| years.
|
| https://news.sap.com/2022/11/the-take-utility-scale-solar-su...
|
| Residential solar has no complexity for siting, transmission
| infrastructure, takes different skills to install, and let's
| relatively wealthy people move fast.
| theptip wrote:
| > we'd just get tons of utility scale solar installs
|
| This is happening, in a big way: https://emp.lbl.gov/utility-
| scale-solar/
|
| The main limitation AIUI is grid interconnections, i.e. there
| are a lot of projects in the backlog that can't be built until
| the utility approves and prepares for it.
|
| https://emp.lbl.gov/queues
|
| > The lists of projects in this process are known as
| "interconnection queues". The amount of new electric capacity
| in these queues is growing dramatically, with over 1,400
| gigawatts (GW) of total generation and storage capacity now
| seeking connection to the grid (over 90% of which is for zero-
| carbon resources like solar, wind, and battery storage).
| BrentOzar wrote:
| > Can somebody explain where the return on investment comes
| from in residential solar?
|
| During the run-up on housing prices over the last couple of
| years, there was a belief that an _owned_ solar system would
| raise your house 's sale price in much the same way that a
| kitchen or bathroom renovation would.
|
| Couple that with the supply and labor constraints, which made
| it hard to get the panels, battery, and installers you wanted
| in a timely basis - that raised the perceived home value yet
| again, because if you wanted to add your own solar later, it
| wasn't seen as easily doable.
|
| I don't know that the ROI was ever great, but with both of
| those factors gone today, it's worse than it ever was. (Source:
| shopped for homes in 2020-2021, bought in 2022, tried to get
| solar installed, ROI made no sense.)
| foobarian wrote:
| I have a pretty ideally angled roof near Boston and was
| considering a solar setup. However as far as I can tell we won't
| get paid for excess generation in any given month, so since we
| don't really use much electricity it seems this is not a good
| investment. Are there any common updates possible to take
| advantage of the excess power? Before ETH switched to POS I
| thought about mining crypto... otherwise we could switch to
| electric heat but that is a huge outlay.
| Someone1234 wrote:
| > otherwise we could switch to electric heat but that is a huge
| outlay.
|
| You can walk into any major retailer, buy a space heater, and
| plug it into any outlet in your home. Keep in mind that your
| gas furnace is turned on/off using a thermostat and temperature
| setting, so if you reduce the set-point e.g. 1 degree, and then
| either locate the coldest parts of your home or areas you want
| to prioritize (e.g. livingrooms/bedrooms), you can then target
| space heaters into that location to offset the savings from
| gas.
|
| In terms of deployment heating or cooling, electric heat is the
| cheapest and easiest. You're just thinking that it must be
| whole-home or nothing, which isn't the case, you can reduce
| your whole-home and spot-heat as needed.
| foobarian wrote:
| Sure but I don't want a bunch of random space heaters around
| the house. Regardless of whether they are safe or not it's a
| waste of space if there is an existing central heating
| system.
| Someone1234 wrote:
| What about Electric Baseboard Heaters instead? They don't
| take up space like a freestanding space heater does.
| foobarian wrote:
| That's one of the options I've been considering. Another
| is to switch to heat pumps instead of natural gas
| burners, which has the benefit of being drop-in for the
| existing furnace.
| jackmott42 wrote:
| My parents had panels installed on their house, it is a large
| single story house in Austin, Texas, which is pretty ideal (more
| surface area for panels, less volume inside vs two story). No
| trees in the way either. They haven't had to pay anything for
| electricity yet. And that is with an EV charging in the garage.
|
| We have panels on our roof, a two story house, also in Austin
| Texas, not so lucky as my parents. With the area maxed out we
| still have to pay for about 25% of the electricity we use.
| jjeaff wrote:
| It sounds like they have a good net energy metering plan that
| is crediting them for their solar being put back to the grid.
| (So they don't have to pay for charging the electric car in the
| evening when solar stops working) I wonder if Texas is working
| to walk that back like California is right now.
| scarby2 wrote:
| almost certainly. Net metering is ultimately unsustainable.
| Realistically we should be paying homeowners wholesale
| electricity rates + an amount to cover transmission savings +
| whatever incentive we decide on for the energy they produce
| (along with time of use based consumption charges).
|
| This would likely incentivize storage, and could be extremely
| valuable with V2G technologies that are incoming.
| jackmott42 wrote:
| Agreed, incentivizing storage right now is a great idea
| because there are many creative ways to get it done. From
| used EV battery packs to EVs that can run the power both
| ways, and who knows what else people will think of
| depending on their location and skills.
| bgentry wrote:
| I'm in the Austin suburbs on Pedernales Electric Coop (not
| Austin Energy as in the city proper). In 2022 they switched
| away from net metering to a scheme that pays just over 50% of
| the cost for power returned to the grid. So I now pay
| $0.090337/kWh for power consumed from the grid, and am
| credited only $0.05377/kWh for power returned to the grid.
|
| https://www.pec.coop/your-service/distributed-
| generation/int...
|
| This has changed the payback equation quite a bit. I'm now
| incentivized to do everything I can to use the power I
| generate rather than returning it to the grid, whether
| running more A/C during daylight, running laundry during the
| day, or storing it on my Powerwalls for using off hours.
|
| Although the payback equation doesn't really make sense
| anymore, we're still happy with our decision to install solar
| + powerwalls because we can run the A/C as much as we want
| without feeling guilty, and also get a solid backup in case
| of major storm events like the 2021 winter storms. We both
| work from home and have an infant so keeping the house
| comfortable is important.
| manscrober wrote:
| My parents in Germany are paying 0.50EUR/kWh this year. How
| much does a typical household use in austin?
| bgentry wrote:
| Looks like the household average is ~1000 kWh/month, with
| summer months being a lot higher.
|
| https://austinenergy.com/about/reports-and-data-
| library/data...
| mrits wrote:
| In Austin I'd like to see some studies on solar vs tree
| coverage. My empirical evidence would suggest that great tree
| coverage alone keep the inside livable on 100f+ summer days. On
| my house without trees I could barely keep some of the rooms
| cool.
| jackmott42 wrote:
| I would certainly never cut a tree down to get more solar on
| my roof, even if the math worked out favorably from a cost
| perspective it just feels gross.
| UmYeahNo wrote:
| That makes me wonder if the installation of solar panels on a
| roof act as "shade" similar to partial tree coverage in some
| way, since in many cases they add a thin cushion of shaded
| air between the panel and the roof. I wonder if that provides
| any meaningful shade or temperature reduction.
|
| Not making an argument either way, I just hadn't really
| considered if this was a factor until I read your comment.
| usefulcat wrote:
| The shade from the panels does make a big difference in
| summer, according to a friend of mine in Colorado who has
| had panels for many years now.
| boyter wrote:
| It does. Not in Texas but Australia and one of he rooms
| that got solar became slightly cooler after it was
| installed on those very hot days.
| isanengineer wrote:
| I worked in the solar industry for years and this is a very good
| summary of the residential install process from the customer
| side.
|
| I'll also second one of the main points of the author: do NOT get
| a solar lease. Either finance it through a solar loan or pay
| cash. A good solar company will not push you into a lease. If
| they try, talk to someone else.
| moffkalast wrote:
| Why are the leases so problematic? If you don't have the funds
| nor credit score to finance it, why not just rent out the roof
| space so to speak? Any return you get from it is better than
| nothing.
| killjoywashere wrote:
| We got a house in San Diego near the bottom of the last
| market (2012) and I was a medical resident at the time with
| two school age children. The previous owner had installed
| electric everything (even had to get a larger trunk line run
| and breaker panel). So our electric bill was a little nuts,
| randomly hitting tier 3 pricing and landing $350+ electric
| bills. For a household with negligible marginal income, that
| was unpleasant. We had 0 capital to play with but switching
| to solar was a no brainer. Even the lease is cheaper than
| paying PG&E.
|
| Would I do it that way again? Probably not. But I have more
| wiggle room now.
| forbiddenlake wrote:
| So why wouldn't you get a lease now?
| stronglikedan wrote:
| Also should be noted to get multiple estimates, even though
| that's kind of common sense. I had them vary wildly, where the
| most expensive one was literally twice as much as the cheapest
| one.
| KaiserPro wrote:
| In the UK, I've had a battery plus solar for just over a year.
|
| its a 5kwp set of panels and a 13kwhr battery. From mid march to
| late November, we only drew from the grid once (that was because
| we had a portable hottub setup, which took ~28kwhr to heat up.)
|
| Its raining and january and december are shit months for solar,
| well mostly because of the short days. December we were 45%
| independent from the grid.
|
| Currently we do not have heating or cooling from electricity. If
| that were the case we'd need 10kwp plus more storage.
| hippich wrote:
| Any1 built their own battery-arrays? I am interested in solar in
| part to avoid blackouts. But for that I will need batteries. And
| my house being 100% electric, tesla's powerwall quickly becomes
| expensive. On a first glance, using lead-acid batteries appears
| to be straightforward, but I wonder what edge-cases and gotchas
| others experienced with it. How much time is needed to maintain
| it.
|
| So far 10kW gas generator was able to power most of the house's
| essentials before resistive heater kicks in in HVAC system (two
| heatpump units, each has a 7.5kw resistive heater as a backup
| when outside temperature drops too much.) But I would feel better
| if I did not have to rely on availability of propane/gas and
| clean roads during periods like 2021 blizzard in Texas.
| punkrex wrote:
| The DIY part of the solar market and now most none Tesla
| options have moved towards Lithium Phosphate batteries,
| particularly in rack mount format. They're denser and way
| easier to handle then lead acid.
|
| 30kwh of batteries is about $10k wholesale, and inverters run
| about $1500, although most of the time you need 2 if you want
| to supply 240v.
|
| Sample system: https://signaturesolar.com/off-grid-
| eg4-system-13kw-120-240v...
| ShakataGaNai wrote:
| My system generated 14.36 MWh in 2022, which comes out to roughly
| $4,308 USD. The ROI is about 5-6 years for the system itself. But
| a new roof was also in order.... so more like 10-12 years. Still
| a great deal if you can afford to invest for the long term.
| Especially with a 30 year warranty on most of the equipment.
| koolba wrote:
| > Especially with a 30 year warranty on most of the equipment.
|
| Warranted by who exactly? A 30-year warranty from a company
| that's been in existence for 2-3 years doesn't quite have the
| same weight.
| ShakataGaNai wrote:
| Warrantied by the installer, whom has been around for more
| than 30 years. Also warrantied by the OEM. Which is small
| names like "Panasonic".
| timerol wrote:
| Another way to say that is that you installed solar panels and
| they paid for your new roof
| ars wrote:
| "per-kWh price of electricity was around 25 cents"
|
| This sounds like the total price of electricity, including
| distribution. However my understanding of net-metering means that
| you have to pay distribution fees to put your power on the grid,
| so you don't get back the full 25 cents, only around half that
| (the generation portion).
|
| If the author of this post is on here, could you please clarify?
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| It depends on your state and the laws surrounding net metering.
| Some will let you put it back into the grid at the full per-kwh
| price, even if some of that is for distribution. California
| used to, but they're rolling this back (I think old installs
| are grandfathered in).
| maerF0x0 wrote:
| >Realizing that the solar company was in quite the pickle insofar
| as repossessing the panels would require costly legal actions on
| top of paying people to take out the system, I just waited on the
| payment. They would contact me periodically asking me to make
| payment and offering to help me get approved for a new loan. But
| I just ignored all of that.
|
| Seems pretty unethical tbh. The solar company delivered, but now
| this guy is going to refuse to pay? Sure he did later, but not
| without blackmailing them for $5k discount.
| xenadu02 wrote:
| The solar installer wanted him to eat the rate change due to
| their own delay.
|
| The discount was to offset that rate change.
| pizza234 wrote:
| Based on his explanation, the company has at least some level
| of fault:
|
| > my non-payment would not be a default because default is
| defined by a breach of contract and no such contract existed.
| Indeed, if anyone breached the contract, it was the solar
| company by not installing in the six-month period.
| maerF0x0 wrote:
| but they did install it in the 7th month, and we see no real
| hardship applied to the author, perhaps save for $200 per
| month lost opportunity for savings (less interest applied,
| would have to think that through more) ...
| dml2135 wrote:
| From my read, the solar company delivered late, causing the
| original loan to fall through and requiring the homeowner to
| refinance at a higher rate. Since that delay cost money it does
| seem fair that the company should bear the cost.
| EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK wrote:
| Going from, say, 3% to 4% on a $20k 10-year loan would cost
| him about $1100. He squeezed them for $5k.
| maerF0x0 wrote:
| Ok, so adding in another $200 a month lost opportunity (say
| for 7 months. We're now at $2500... So I guess these
| details are adding up, still not $5k, but the case for a
| discount is definitely growing.
| __derek__ wrote:
| IIRC, the author is part of the so-called "dirt-bag left" so
| that's just connecting theory and praxis.
| throwaquestion5 wrote:
| They took 7 months to install the panels. I'm sure times during
| all that the OP thought if they forgot about him, called them
| to ask for a installation date, etc.
|
| As a way to curb any thought about undue wait time, the company
| made a contract guaranteeing installation between 6 month after
| signing. They didn't comply and the loan lapsed. Now the
| company needed to negotiate a new contract with OP or go for
| the legal route. There is nothing unethical about this.
|
| The company had everything to lose going the the legal option,
| with all the long terms procedures, paying money for a pay back
| that may never come. They are probably grateful that OP just
| asked for a discount instead.
| maerF0x0 wrote:
| > There is nothing unethical about this.
|
| I dont consider strong arming someone due to your now
| advantageous position against something you previously agreed
| upon and reasonably similarly delivered (7 months instead of
| 6, we're not talking about multiple years later here).
|
| A similar ethical framework would allow someone in marriage
| say "I quit my job, can get alimony from you, better do as I
| say or I'm filing for divorce" -- It's all legal. Still
| unethical.
| throwaquestion5 wrote:
| OP wasn't planning a devious plan here. The 6 month
| contract seems standard from the company side. They shoot
| themselves on the foot and the loan just got voided. OP
| would be paying the company for nothing without a new loan
|
| > (7 months instead of 6, we're not talking about multiple
| years later here)
|
| Maybe this is a disagreement based on past experiences, but
| the most infuriating thing when working with home
| contractors is chasing them around so they do they finish
| their job. I get if this were business to business
| transaction that are used to year long delays, but as a
| person I find having a half finished ceiling to by a big
| disruption in my daily life. Being fair OP didn't say
| anything about having to fix their roof before installing
| the solar panels, but having to put up with business delays
| in your home projects isn't the most pleasant experience.
|
| If we go to the ethical side of things, in this case the
| company installed something without doing proper diligence
| in their part. This could have been solved if they
| presented a new contract in OP home when they went to
| install the panels. Paying without a loan would have been
| foolish from OP side, same if he paid it at the more
| expensive 2022 prices. In fact OP would probably be forced
| to do if they asked him about it before installing the
| panels. This would be unethical from the company side:
| delaying 6+ months the installation and proposing a more
| expensive loan before installation.
|
| Let's not skip the company trying to swindle OP to pay
| without a proper contract by scaring him. Some of us may be
| used to this kind of threats. Doesn't mean they are ethical
| at all. They should have been upfront with the problem from
| the beginning, not bullying people with scary letters.
| maerF0x0 wrote:
| > Let's not skip the company trying to swindle OP to pay
| without a proper contract by scaring him. Some of us may
| be used to this kind of threats. Doesn't mean they are
| ethical at all. They should have been upfront with the
| problem from the beginning, not bullying people with
| scary letters.
|
| If I understand correctly those only came after OP
| refused to pay their bill.
| marvin wrote:
| Expand the argument to the economy as a whole, and it's
| just the Prisoner's Dilemma. You'll get screwed by someone
| else someday, the solar company will screw someone other
| than you etc. I'll certainly agree it would be better if
| everyone cooperated. Whether it's unethical depends on your
| ethical framework.
| EricE wrote:
| > (7 months instead of 6, we're not talking about multiple
| years later here)
|
| So? Do you seriously think the solar company was ignorant
| of the loan terms? Was this their first job and they just
| didn't realize it?
| [deleted]
| mdorazio wrote:
| Author definitely took advantage of the situation to force a
| larger discount on the company, which I also consider a dick
| move. However, the situation was complicated. The solar company
| failed to install within the original timeline, so when they
| did, the original approval on the loan was no longer valid. It
| seems the interest rate went up during that time as well so the
| author's new loan would have been more expensive to him/her.
|
| The solar company messed up by not getting a new confirmation
| of loan approval prior to installation, and the author then
| leveraged that into a fat discount.
| brianbreslin wrote:
| Slightly off topic, but is there a service that would quote out a
| new roof + solar install? We're waiting on doing solar until we
| need a new roof as ours is ~9-10 years old, and not near EOL.
| Jemaclus wrote:
| You could consider getting a solar roof! I have no particular
| expertise here, but a guy down the street from me got one, and
| he loves it so far (~1.5 years into it).
|
| Here's an article about it with a few vendors, including Tesla,
| that might help: https://www.forbes.com/home-
| improvement/solar/solar-shingles...
| brianbreslin wrote:
| from what I understand the tesla solar shingles aren't
| hurricane code compliant in Florida yet. So the thing would
| make the house uninsurable.
| Jemaclus wrote:
| Ah, fair enough! I'm in California so that's not a problem.
| Dang. Hope you can find something good, then!
| irrational wrote:
| We had solar panels on our last house. Even in the cloudy PNW, we
| generated enough electricity to cover 100% of our electrical
| needs. And, the monthly cost of the loan payment was about $30
| less than our previous cheapest monthly electrical payment.
|
| Unfortunately our new house doesn't have a roof configuration
| that allows for solar panels. I wonder if new home architecture
| and alignment will change to make solar panels work better?
| CTmystery wrote:
| > Even in the cloudy PNW, we generated enough electricity to
| cover 100% of our electrical needs.
|
| I'm curious, was your heat and stove electric or natural gas
| (or other)?
| irrational wrote:
| Our stove was electric. The furnace was electric, but the
| water heater was gas.
| ernestipark wrote:
| I have a large 20kw system for an old leaky farmhouse and it
| provides me about $6k in energy and credits a year.
|
| I like thinking about it as a near guaranteed, medium return long
| term investment that's good for the environment. Each year is
| roughly 13% returns and I should get that for at least 20 years
| or so.
| jacquesm wrote:
| if you don't have net metering you should consume as much as you
| can yourself, cook when the sun is out, run your washer / dryer /
| vacuum / dishwasher and whatever else you have when you have
| excess power and minimize during the times the sun is below the
| horizon. 60% self consumption is doable without too much effort,
| 70 is work and if you get to 80%+ please let me know how you are
| doing that.
|
| Also: the big trick to running of renewables is conservation
| comes first, solar second and finally the grid as a fallback for
| the remainder.
| jksmith wrote:
| The conversation here seems a bit binary. Maybe I missed a few
| posts. The whole solar thing is not realized until cooperatives
| de-grid in favor of their own local grids, along with an
| arbitrage sharing model. That has the potential to to manage all
| power needs (including electrical cars). It's a scaling issue
| sort of in between entirely centralized and rugged individualism.
|
| Of course the tech for this is a real threat for utilities, so it
| wouldn't surprise me if they would go to any length to stop such
| and effort. Same could be said for any deflationary tech like
| micro reactors.
| ravivooda wrote:
| Does solar make sense for anyone in Seattle area?
| mg wrote:
| It's surprising that it's possible to produce electricity at home
| for a lower cost than the wholesale price.
|
| I can't think of any other commodity for which this is possible.
| You couldn't make your own steel, bread or printer paper at home
| and beat manufacturing at scale.
|
| Why is electricity different?
| jefftk wrote:
| Subsidies, primarily net metering.
|
| With panels on your house the grid is still providing you a key
| service, providing you with any power you need in excess of
| what you produce, and sinking any extra for you. But with net
| metering you only pay in proportion to your net usage,
| effectively compensating you at retail rates for the power you
| supply to the grid.
| sbradford26 wrote:
| Largely it is because you don't have to pay for delivery. It is
| very similar to having a well. If the water is available at
| your house already it is most likely cheaper to just pump it
| versus paying someone to supply water to your house.
| alexose wrote:
| The short answer is delivery costs. And that's what makes this
| current era of solar power so exciting, in my opinion! The
| market is practically begging us for microgrids.
| nightfly wrote:
| The equipment needed is hardly cheap though.
|
| And bread is a bad example, you can easily make that cheaper
| than retail price at home.
| NotYourLawyer wrote:
| Subsidies?
| bonzini wrote:
| Because the cost of grid electricity includes the comfort of
| having it 24/7. Solar is damn cheap, but you can rely on it
| perhaps 10% of the time (0 hours in very cloudy days up to 4-5
| hours a day in the summer). There is some way to do some
| arbitrage even without net metering (charge your car during the
| day, install batteries) but solar alone is _by far_ not enough
| to leave the grid.
| analyte123 wrote:
| It isn't - other customers are paying for their ability to have
| electricity when (and how much) they want it, via the net
| metering subsidy. If you divide their cost by the lifetime
| expected generation, you get 9-13 cents per kWh depending on
| panel subsidy. This sounds great in California but isn't far
| off from retail prices in some states. And the actual grid
| "wholesale" price is usually far less than that except at peak
| times or exceptional situations. You pay at retail to still
| have power in those situations. With net metering everyone else
| pays you that price for something you are not providing.
| ars wrote:
| Grid scale solar is half the price of home electricity.
|
| Also about half your bill is distribution fees.
|
| And, BTW, making bread at home is cheaper than buying it. Get a
| bread machine, put in ingredients, wait a bit, and you have
| bread.
| sampo wrote:
| Location is revealed only at the very end of the text:
|
| > My residential-scale solar installation in New England
| rektide wrote:
| This was built by a solar company, not the author directly, but
| the actual parts making up this system are pretty damned cheap.
| ~$4200 in panels + $2000 inverter plus additional hardware
| (mounting, cables, fasteners). Then labor costs.
|
| Net output was 10,894 kWh, inline with a 20 year estimate of
| 193,545 kWh. If we just divide $6200/193545kWh (ignoring
| additional costs!!) that'd be $0.032/kWh.
|
| One other data-point: daily output averaged to 29.8 kWh, from
| this 7.56kWh array.
| daniel_reetz wrote:
| What are you using to estimate the raw panel cost?
| rektide wrote:
| The author linked the parts. The link to the Longi
| LR4-60HPH-360M panels shows a $200 price (x 21). I had to
| google for the inverter, a Solar Edge SE6000H-USS3, to find a
| price ($2000 x 1).
|
| > I ended up getting a 7.56 kW solar panel system consisting
| of 21 LONGi panels[1] and 1 Solar Edge inverter[2].
|
| [1] https://www.solaris-shop.com/longi-solar-
| lr4-60hph-360m-360w...
|
| [2] http://www.solardesigntool.com/components/distributeddcin
| ver...
| mnw21cam wrote:
| There might have been solar optimisers in there as well.
| They're one per panel, and they're expensive, but they tend
| to be pushed by installers.
| nkurz wrote:
| > One other data-point: daily output averaged to 29.8 kWh, from
| this 7.56kWh array.
|
| This is useful information that is surprisingly hard to find:
| if I install panels with a nameplate rating of x kW, how many
| kWh will I generate per day? In Bruenig's case the multiplier
| is just less than 4x.
|
| The linked page provides a widely available map for "Peak Sun
| Hours" (defined as average hours per day greater than 1000
| W/m^2 of sunlight), but it's not immediately clear how this
| relates to the multiple. In theory, you could figure out the
| efficiency of the panels and their area, but this still doesn't
| account for the actual curve of sunlight intensity.
|
| Bruenig is (I think) in Connecticut, which according to the map
| has 4.2 Peak Sun Hours, which is only a little greater the the
| measured rated kW to kWh multiplier. Is it safe to assume that
| the "Peak Sun Hours" is always slightly more than the
| multiplier? Or is there a more better map somewhere that shows
| this conversion directly?
| gnicholas wrote:
| > _if you use a 5 percent discount rate, 20 years of $2,677 of
| annual electricity bill savings yields a net present value of
| $33,361._
|
| Yes, but with an 8% discount rate, the PV is $26,283. It's true
| that the cost of electricity will probably rise over time, as he
| notes. But current interest rates make this a much less
| attractive proposition from a financial perspective (that is,
| assuming you don't care about solar generation for environmental
| reasons). The homeowner takes on significant risk, and the gain
| is not all that great. Your panels can be destroyed by hurricane,
| earthquake, or falling trees, rendering them worthless, for
| example.
|
| I'm not saying this isn't worth doing, just that the financial
| calculations seem a bit flawed in today's economic environment.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > Your panels can be destroyed by hurricane, earthquake, or
| falling trees, rendering them worthless, for example.
|
| That's what homeowners insurance is for.
| gnicholas wrote:
| Good point! I guess I view panels as being especially
| vulnerable because of their fragility and exterior location.
|
| I've also heard that one way to get booted from your
| homeowner's insurance is to ever file a claim. I know several
| people who lost coverage after their first claim (decades
| after becoming a customer).
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Anecdotally, I know plenty of people who've filed claims
| without repercussions. Rates might go up a bit, though.
| Your friends might consider contacting their state's
| insurance regulator.
| Nathanael_M wrote:
| Does anyone have any detailed, up-to-date resources for personal
| solar use? I'd love to learn more, in particular the
| cost/output/lifespan progress by time. Last time I checked in my
| area it seemed that you didn't quite break even, but that was a
| while ago and my understanding was/is very limited.
| RivieraKid wrote:
| Electricity from utility solar (large power plants) is about 2x
| cheaper than electricity from residential solar if you don't
| count subsidies.
|
| So residential solar really doesn't make a lot of sense to me on
| a societal level, assuming blackouts are rare.
| swagasaurus-rex wrote:
| > The unsubsidized all-in price for buying and installing the
| panels was $25,525.43... after counting this $6,636.61 tax
| credit, the subsidized price was $18,888.82
|
| Looks like a 7 year return on investment after subsidies, 10
| years without.
| atonalfreerider wrote:
| I'm not affiliated, but Solar Wholesale is a DIY that can be
| 1/4 the cost of hiring a contractor:
| https://www.solarwholesale.com
|
| Even the wiring is DIY. Most people think this requires a lot
| of skill, but you are just adding an input to your panel board
| on your house.
| czbond wrote:
| Thank you so much for mentioning this. Their offering looks
| compelling and interesting.
| dymk wrote:
| I enjoyed working with Solar Wholesale, and they got me off
| to a good start. But there is a pretty significant markup
| even when considering they're giving you a "wholesale" DIY
| kit. I was quoted ~$35k pre-incentive for my project.
|
| Also, be sure to do your own roof measurements when you look
| over their proposals. For my project, they used fairly
| inaccurate aerial/sat photos, which got the shape of my roof
| entirely wrong. Had I accepted their offer, I'd have ~33% too
| many panels / racking that wouldn't fit on the roof.
|
| I ended up sourcing all the materials myself. I got much
| nicer inverters (1:1 Enphase IQ8+) and PV modules (455W LG
| bifacial) than what they were offering (2:1 APSystems
| inverters, 355W Bluesun panels).
|
| The real kicker: I had enough budget left over to _have a
| professional solar installer install all the panels for me_ ,
| so I'm not the one that has to get on my steep roof, plus I
| have a warranty on the worksmanship of the installation. Pre-
| incentive, I'll have spent about $24k on my self-sourced
| version.
|
| At some point I'll write up a blog post about the whole
| process - parts selection and sourcing, finding an installer,
| permitting, etc. It's really not that hard.
| avgDev wrote:
| I would love to DIY but that website is a complete turn off
| for me.
|
| In my opinion, a good DIY solar company site would have
| transparent pricing and ability to buy components. I
| understand there are variations in installations and pricing
| may be different, but they should have a pricing catalog.
| prettyStandard wrote:
| What's so wrong with the website, that you wouldn't take
| 75% off?
| dymk wrote:
| What's wrong with the website? You submit your address,
| within a short period of time a human looks at your rooftop
| using aerial photography, and sends you a quote.
|
| I used them in the past, and they were fine to work with. I
| still ended up sourcing all my own equipment (saved an
| additional 50% from what they were quoting me, for a better
| system), but they're not secretive about what they'll send
| you.
| Dries007 wrote:
| Unfortunately where I live (Belgium), this kind of options
| result in a disqualification of any subsidy. They always
| require that the install is done by a pro with some
| certificate (even though DIYing electrics is actually legal
| here).
|
| I understand that there are reasons for this, but as someone
| with the qualifications but not the certification, I hate
| that I have to pay someone else to do things like this.
| jwineinger wrote:
| If the DIY discount (minus your time and risk) is greater
| than the subsidy, then doesn't it still makes sense to DIY?
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| Is this for 100% detachment from the grid? Otherwise you need
| to add cutoffs so you don't kill a lineman, right? Is that a
| DIY thing?
| mrguyorama wrote:
| Different states have different rules but in some states
| you can just put a new breaker in your box that connects
| the solar output to the rest of your house and a mechanical
| interlock (literally a stamped piece of metal) that
| prevents both the main breaker and solar breaker being
| closed at the same time.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| Ah, OK, so that would work for the "simple" systems, but
| not the ones where you can feed power back into the grid
| and get a credit.
| dymk wrote:
| For those you need an automatic transfer switch (ATS),
| such as the Enphase Enpower. Such devices contain
| circuitry to automatically manage disconnecting your home
| from the grid, so you 1) maintain power in the home (at
| least on the critical circuits you decide on), and 2)
| don't island your home (so linemen don't die).
| DeRock wrote:
| https://projectsolar.com is another DIY-able option, where
| they help with the permitting, etc.
| ars wrote:
| It's nice they give you an instant quote, but they don't
| give enough info for me to be willing to take the next
| step.
|
| Basic things like:
|
| What is the physical size of the quoted panels?
|
| The KW rating they give, is that actual power delivered, or
| rated power?
|
| If rated power, how much actual power would they expect
| given my geographical location, and angle of roof.
|
| How much of the roof are they covering?
|
| They want $100 for the next step - presumably I would get
| those answers then, but I'm not willing to risk $100
| without knowing more.
| whycombagator wrote:
| I never usually see it factored in as a cost but if a roof is
| replaced or a leak forms under the panels (or a panel) then the
| cost of removing/re-installing the panel(s) surely isn't free.
| So that cost should also be included
| 1123581321 wrote:
| There is typically a ten year warranty on the installation
| that covers leaks. An installer checks for roof age as part
| of qualification so you don't put panels on a roof that will
| age out before the panel warranty (typically 20 years,
| sometimes 25.)
|
| Roof leaks that are accidental are covered by insurance, and
| the work to remove or replace the panels is part of that.
| Typically you adjust your home insurance coverage by the
| value of the panels when you install them to make sure
| everything's covered.
|
| That just leaves the chance that the installer work will be
| good enough to make it ten years but not twenty, and the
| insurance won't cover the damage. I don't know the odds of
| that. It seems like it would be infrequent, but what numbers
| do you use?
| manimino wrote:
| Cleaning panels also needs to happen periodically. That cost
| can be in the thousands, especially if your roof is hard to
| access (e.g. high off the ground).
|
| There are so many ways a rooftop solar installation
| investment can turn against you. If regulations change, your
| net metering goes away. If electricity prices drop, your ROI
| goes negative.
|
| Rooftop solar is a fun enthusiast project, but it's a lousy
| use of solar panels. Community solar or utility solar
| projects are far better for homeowners. And for the
| environment.
|
| The only reason people do it is that there are artificial
| incentives; it's not actually efficient in reality.
| david422 wrote:
| I have rooftop solar - and eventually I will need a new
| roof - which will require taking the solar panels off and
| then mounting them back on again - labor costs.
| Additionally the inverter will fail at a certain point and
| that is not cheap. Given some ballpark estimates, I do feel
| like it could simply be a wash financially.
| conjecTech wrote:
| Sounds great to me. Especially considering you aren't paying
| any taxes on your returns when they come in the form of
| deferred costs. That's equivalent to a pre-tax return in the
| mid-teens. You won't find that in most asset classes these
| days, and definitely not with the risk profile of solar.
| [deleted]
| jjeaff wrote:
| Especially considering most modern panels are expected to
| still have a good amount of life left in them after 25 years.
| (80% or more}
| pkulak wrote:
| AND considering that replacing only the panels has to be
| far cheaper than the initial installation, if they do drop
| too much in 25 years. So long as your roof is still okay, I
| suppose.
| matwood wrote:
| Just bake new panels into the cost of a new roof. It's
| probably time for both after 25 years.
| lostlogin wrote:
| Eh? My crappy roof was installed in 1945 and has some
| life left.
|
| What sort of roofing lasts 25 years?
| pokeymcsnatch wrote:
| Afaik shingle roofs (common in US) need replacing every
| 10-20 years.
| kibwen wrote:
| I actually wonder how solar panels reduce the rate at
| which a roof deteriorates. The panels themselves should
| bear the brunt of the light and rain that the shingles
| below them would otherwise endure, but on the other hand
| the panels don't cover the entire roof, so maybe at best
| you'd need to replace less of the roof but on the same
| schedule.
| pokeymcsnatch wrote:
| Yeah, that makes sense to me. I don't know the specifics
| of shingle deterioration, but just having them physically
| shielded from light and precipitation has got to
| drastically improve their lifespan. That's a good point
| about only part of the roof being protected though.
| encoderer wrote:
| Asphalt singles
| lostlogin wrote:
| Is there a reason that corrugated iron, concrete tile or
| similar aren't used? They last near indefinitely if
| looked after, and a hell of a long time if not looked
| after.
| Nathanael_M wrote:
| Sorry, life after 25 years? That's WAY higher than I
| thought. That's incredible.
| Filligree wrote:
| Generally you can find the degradation curve in their
| datasheet, and yes, 80% after 25 years sounds possible.
| IIRC they fade faster with time, so it might be 50% after
| 50, but ... that's still pretty good.
| jeffbee wrote:
| I don't see anything in the NREL data that suggests panel
| degradation accelerates. Most of the panels in their data
| have higher initial degradation, then less in subsequent
| years. This LG panel seems to be getting stronger as it
| ages:
| https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy22osti/81172.pdf#page=28
| tekno45 wrote:
| you'll need to supplement with some new panels to account
| for the loss, but each new panel is more efficient than
| the one you're "replacing"
| xenadu02 wrote:
| This is standard now. My REC Alpha Pure Black 400 panels
| are warrantied for 92% at 25 years.
|
| The degradation is about 0.25%/yr. Assuming no
| exponential drop-off it would take >50 years to hit 80%.
|
| Essentially no one has had to replace their panels due to
| degradation losses as of yet (since the vast majority of
| panels have been installed in the past ~30 years).
| jeffbee wrote:
| The idea that PV panels become trash in a decade is a lie
| promulgated by oil companies. According to NREL,
| reputable panels degrade as little as 0.1% per year,
| which means they will still be above 90% of rated output
| after 100 years. The trashiest panels NREL has tested
| degrade at 1.1% per year which would put them at 75%
| rated capacity in 25 years.
|
| https://www.nrel.gov/pv/lifetime.html
| Nathanael_M wrote:
| This is very exciting. Does this mean the biggest
| continuing expense would be batteries if you wanted to
| self-sustain with solar?
| frankfrankfrank wrote:
| That is technically true, but why is no one asking how and why
| his electricity bill is $223 at minimum, plied higher since the
| bill was only reduced by that amount.
|
| Also, "subsidies" are really just a quaint term for "made the
| working and lower middle class that can't pay for such
| exorbitant luxuries pay for it through taxes and inflation".
|
| I'm always a bit confused if seemingly otherwise smart people
| simply don't understand something so basic, or if they simply
| just ignore and don't want to acknowledge it as if that changes
| the fact.
|
| Guess who else gets subsidies; someone who buys goods out of
| the truck of a car ... wow, such a great deal.
|
| Would anyone like to subsidize my next restaurant visit by
| paying for my entree? No? But making someone unknown working
| class person pay for my $25,000 solar install through inflation
| is ok?
|
| How about we all just pay for the things we want I stead of
| making others pay for it? It's immoral and evil, whether you
| call it subsidies or something else.
| malfist wrote:
| Perhaps instead of being angry that people are using taxes
| that come from the working class, instead you should ask why
| the wealthy aren't paying their share of the taxes?
|
| And nobody pays for anything with inflation. That's not how
| inflation works.
| prottog wrote:
| > instead you should ask why the wealthy aren't paying
| their share of the taxes?
|
| And what is the right share that the wealthy should pay,
| and how wealthy should one be to be paying that amount? I'm
| assuming it's some level of wealth above yours.
|
| About half of the US doesn't pay any federal income tax,
| and a little over a quarter pays no net federal taxes at
| all, including payroll taxes. The labor force participation
| rate hit its peak in the 90s and has been steadily
| decreasing since then, with the last reading at 62.1%.
| Perhaps you should ask why two-fifths of adults aren't
| doing their share of the labor?
| malfist wrote:
| > Perhaps you should ask why two-fifths of adults aren't
| doing their share of the labor?
|
| Careful that you don't cut yourself with all those edgy
| takes.
| prottog wrote:
| I say this without any snark or sarcasm: I welcome your
| analysis on the matter, if you have thoughts to add. It's
| inconceivable to me where this belief comes from, that
| everything will be so much better if only the wealthy
| paid their "fair share" of taxes.
|
| Otherwise, I ask that you keep empty comments out of the
| forum.
| EricE wrote:
| "And nobody pays for anything with inflation."
|
| other than inflation canceling the debt of the
| rich/government by moving to all of us.
| claytongulick wrote:
| "The top 1 percent paid a greater share of individual
| income taxes (38.8 percent) than the bottom 90 percent
| combined (29.2 percent)."[1]
|
| How is that not paying their share?
|
| [1] https://taxfoundation.org/publications/latest-federal-
| income...
| foobiekr wrote:
| How much of the income and wealth did they capture?
| bena wrote:
| You're missing some "of"s.
|
| It's the "top 1 percent of taxpayers". So the people who
| paid the most taxes, paid the most taxes. They also made
| 20% of the total income. Or roughly 2 trillion dollars.
|
| So if you managed to make a lot of money but also managed
| to avoid paying taxes on that money, you would not be
| included in "the top 1 percent of taxpayers".
|
| The bottom 50% of taxpayers only made 11.1% of the
| income.
|
| And that's the problem with all of this, there are ways
| to slice the data to try and gloss over the very real
| problem of wealth inequality we have right now.
| jgeada wrote:
| Well, given that the top 1% in the US owns over 43% of
| all wealth (numbers as of 2011), and who by definition
| are getting a bigger benefit from all the infrastructure
| and protections of the system than everyone else, not
| seeing how a 38.8% contribution of total tax income is
| anything but a distortion favoring the wealthy.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_inequality_in_the_Un
| ite...
|
| Particularly since you carefully ignore that _income_ is
| typically small fraction of the wealth of the 1%, most of
| which is capital and which largely escapes taxation.
| claytongulick wrote:
| Do you have any sort of citation to back this up?
|
| Capital gains tax is a thing, and in most cases that
| capital is taxed multiple times through its "lifecycle".
| The reason capital gains are taxed at a lower rate is
| because we _want to encourage capital investment_. It 's
| what makes things. Food. Jobs.
|
| You're also following a flawed premise (many people do
| this) that wealth is a finite pool, or a zero-sum game.
|
| It isn't.
|
| There's no upper bound to wealth creation. It's not a
| limited pool. It's unlimited.
|
| Wealth is created when a person, or group of people,
| create a product or service that other people desire.
| That's it. Anyone can do it, and successful people do -
| through a combination of work, opportunity identification
| and luck.
|
| The ideology I see behind "wealth inequality" in the U.S.
| typically boils down to some derivative of envy.
|
| The solution to "wealth inequality" isn't taxation - that
| only has the power to destroy.
|
| The solution is individual, different for each person,
| their life goals and what sorts of things are important
| to them, but rests in creation and innovation.
|
| That's what's created wealth through human history, and
| it's what will continue to do so, if we allow it.
|
| Taxing others and giving it away is lots of fun until you
| run out of people to tax, and you've managed to
| disincentivize and destroy what wealth remains.
|
| Take a look at Prodrazvyorstka [1] to see how that works
| out.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prodrazvyorstka
| RC_ITR wrote:
| >Would anyone like to subsidize my next restaurant visit by
| paying for my entree? No? But making someone unknown working
| class person pay for my $25,000 solar install through
| inflation is ok?
|
| It's amazing how ignorant people can be to the world around
| them. Let's assume you live in the US, since the article is
| dealing with those subsidies.
|
| The food you're eating - c. 20% of US farm income is
| subsidies [0]
|
| The employees of the restaurant - probably, at least one of
| them is on a government support program to augment their
| wages [1]
|
| The car you drove to the restaurant in - the US Federal
| government subsidized your gas (ever wonder why US gas is
| cheaper than Canada/EU?) [2]
|
| So maybe instead of spending your time looking down your nose
| and 'not understanding why people don't understand
| economics,' why don't you do research on the world around
| you?
|
| [0] https://perc.tamu.edu/PERC-Blog/PERC-Blog/U-S-Farm-
| Subsidies...
|
| [1] https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-21-45
|
| [2] https://www.eesi.org/papers/view/fact-sheet-fossil-fuel-
| subs...
| TMWNN wrote:
| >The car you drove to the restaurant in - the US Federal
| government subsidized your gas (ever wonder why US gas is
| cheaper than Canada/EU?)
|
| US gas is cheaper than elsewhere in the developed world
| because a) the US is self-sufficient in terms of supply
| and, more importantly, b) US fuel taxes are less.
|
| If you actually read the EESI paper you cited, you see that
| the "subsidies", whether direct or indirect, are actually
| varying accounting treatments; basically, the same amount
| of taxes are collected but over a longer period of time. In
| any case, even if you were to remove all the direct
| "subsidies", the paper does not claim that tax revenue
| would rise more than about $40 billion over about a decade.
| $4 billion a year is a pittance for a federal government
| that collected $4.9 trillion in 2022.
| pkulak wrote:
| Unless you walk to that restaurant, it will absolutely be
| subsidized. 6 percent of all state and local spending is on
| roads. And that's not counting any negative externalities,
| which subsidies should be reducing (like, for example, a
| solar installation subsidy), not increasing.
| thfuran wrote:
| There are a lot of subsidies in agriculture as well.
| throwaway6734 wrote:
| Subsidies exist for many industries
| arrosenberg wrote:
| > Would anyone like to subsidize my next restaurant visit by
| paying for my entree? No? But making someone unknown working
| class person pay for my $25,000 solar install through
| inflation is ok?
|
| Yes, it obviously is ok? Your next restaurant meal doesn't
| have a broad impact on the world we live in, whereas the
| deployment of solar panels does.
| unixlikeposting wrote:
| maybe that poster is a vegan locavore
| zopa wrote:
| > I'm always a bit confused if seemingly otherwise smart
| people simply don't understand something so basic
|
| Are you surprised, truly? All right, I'll play along.
|
| We have a progressive tax system. So the majority of the
| costs are born by the wealthy and the well-off, rather than
| the working class. Some of the well-to-do got that way by
| grit and hard work; others by luck; and at least a few by
| fraud and worse. They're the winners of a somewhat-arbitrary
| game, and I don't see anything wrong with tweaking the rules
| in pursuit of a collective good, like wider solar panel
| deployment.
|
| Meanwhile! We know that most industries have quite dramatic
| learning-by-doing and returns to scale. And yet in this
| fallen world transaction costs and imperfect information can
| prevent new technologies from getting enough scale practice
| to become economically viable. So temporary subsidies in the
| early stage have a good chance of bringing costs down for
| everyone.
|
| I'm very glad to be the first to introduce you to these
| arguments, if I am. You don't have to agree: I left my mind-
| control goggles in my other coat. But please, don't play
| dumb.
| kube-system wrote:
| Sort of. The literal tax bracket for earned income is
| progressive. But due to lower tax rates for certain other
| types of income, and the ability for the ultra rich to
| utilize the tax code to the fullest, the net effect is that
| the actual overall tax rates are progressive at the bottom
| end, and regressive at the top end.
| kube-system wrote:
| Your restaurant visit _is_ quite subsidized. Notably, both
| the labor and the materials used are heavily subsidized.
| wittycardio wrote:
| You are incredibly ignorant about how the world works.
| chongli wrote:
| 7-10 years to break even. If the panels last 15 years you'll
| see a net return of $21,416 on investment of $18,888. If they
| last 25 years, that net return grows to $48,186. In either case
| it works out to an annual rate of return of 5%, assuming
| electricity prices stay the same (BIG ASSUMPTION) and also
| assuming the weather doesn't change to get cloudier or more
| violent (also a big assumption).
| Ekaros wrote:
| Also there is a question if electricity produced by panels
| will match the peak demand or in general is utilized.
| Scenario where solar is overbuild and thus power generated by
| it has near zero price for large part of the day might
| happen.
| wedn3sday wrote:
| I agree its a big assumption to assume that electricity
| prices will stay the same, my assumption is that electricity
| price increases will significantly outpace inflation.
| shostack wrote:
| Is net return all that matters? Seems like with increasing
| heat waves, power outages etc, being able to generate and
| store your own electricity has value from a resiliency
| standpoint.
| kibwen wrote:
| Note that merely having solar panels on your house doesn't
| automatically let you run your house off of the panels in
| the event that the grid goes down. Firstly, if you're
| connected to the grid, then a single house trying to push
| power into a downed grid would be like trying to refill the
| ocean with a super soaker. Even with lots of houses doing
| it, the frequency would be wildly unstable at best and
| cause damage to equipment. Secondly, it poses dangers for
| lineworkers who are probably trying to resolve the outage,
| by putting surprise voltage into wires.
|
| It's certainly possible to have a solar installation that
| _does_ let you disconnect from the grid, but it requires
| extra hardware (including a battery backup).
| manimino wrote:
| Exactly right. Typical solar installations keep you on
| the grid. And when the grid goes out, so do you.
|
| To become grid-independent adds substantial expense.
| Having your own battery adds another $10-20k, along with
| whatever costs are associated with switching the grid.
|
| Also, being off-grid is actually illegal in some places.
| brianbreslin wrote:
| What's the math if we see annual electricity price increases?
| we've seen 2 hikes of 10-20% in the last 18 months here in
| Florida. Making me consider solar sooner rather than later.
| chongli wrote:
| If the savings is $2677 on year 8 (first year of profits
| after paying off the initial investment) and then increases
| 10% every year after that, the net return is $33675. This
| works out to an annual return of 7%, a considerable
| improvement! The same calculation with annual rate
| increases of 20% yields a net return of $53002 and an
| annual return of 9%.
| agilob wrote:
| >Looks like a 7 year return on investment after subsidies, 10
| years without.
|
| Price of electricity more than tripled in some EU countries in
| the last few years. Prices going up and OP reducing consumption
| will work towards reducing ROI period.
| csense wrote:
| Interesting to see a post about this from someone else who I'm
| assuming is in a northern climate (they say New England).
|
| One of my biggest questions about solar is, what happens when it
| snows? Do you have to get up on the roof and clean them off by
| hand? Or do they have built-in defrosters?
| cogman10 wrote:
| > One of my biggest questions about solar is, what happens when
| it snows? Do you have to get up on the roof and clean them off
| by hand? Or do they have built-in defrosters?
|
| Nothing.
|
| In northern climates rooftops usually have more of a pitch to
| them so snow doesn't accumulate (because you don't want the
| roof to collapse). The panels, because they are black, will
| generally collect enough heat to melt the snow in a day or 2
| after a snowstorm.
|
| If you want to clean the panels, you risk damaging them. So the
| common advice is don't do anything and let the sun do the work.
| treis wrote:
| >The panels, because they are black
|
| Doesn't seem like that would matter once covered by a few
| inches of snow. But otherwise your points seem solid.
| dashundchen wrote:
| All it takes is a little snow to melt or blow off and the
| exposed panel will heat and cause the rest of the snow to
| melt and slide off. The panels are relatively slippery so a
| little melt at a pitch will clear them in no time.
| acomjean wrote:
| my partner has panels on her house around boston. They
| work well. The snow slides off, usually with a great
| "wump" as it drops 2 stories into the yard. Its acually a
| little startling at first.
|
| They work better in the summer, but provide most of the
| house power. Doesn't help much with the EV she got since
| except in the summer. She got a electric water heater as
| well.
| EricE wrote:
| If her water heater is in the basement, when it comes
| time to replace look at the heat pump water heaters. As a
| bonus, they dehumidify as they work - which is usually a
| very good thing for basements!
| bombcar wrote:
| It somehow does - dark asphalt melts snow faster than grass
| even when not shoveled.
|
| But once it's deep enough it stops.
| mnw21cam wrote:
| The dark asphalt has stored heat, and is in good thermal
| contact with the bottom of the snow. Grass insulates the
| snow from the ground.
| cogman10 wrote:
| You don't ever get a few inches of snow on the top of the
| roof. The point of the aggressive pitch is so the weight of
| the snow pulls itself off the roof so your roof/home
| doesn't have to support 5 tons of water weight.
|
| IDK if you live in a place that sees significant snow, if
| so, just drive around a neighborhood and notice what the
| snow looks like on the rooftops. Generally none on the top
| and some on the bottom. That's by design.
|
| While the bottom of the panels aren't doing anything to
| melt the snow, the top portions are, and that accelerates
| as the snow melts.
| [deleted]
| treis wrote:
| >You don't ever get a few inches of snow on the top of
| the roof. The point of the aggressive pitch is so the
| weight of the snow pulls itself off the roof so your
| roof/home doesn't have to support 5 tons of water weight.
|
| This is definitely not how snow on roofs work. Here is an
| example with a roof with lots of snow on it:
|
| https://millworksconstructionservices.com/wp-
| content/uploads...
|
| Roofs in cold climates are designed to hold the weight of
| snow on top of them.
|
| ETA:
|
| The no snow on top but some on the bottom is because
| their attic isn't insulated well enough. Ideally you lose
| no heat through the ceiling into the attic. But without
| enough insulation you will lose a significant amount and
| the hotter air will rise to the highest point and melt
| the peak first. You don't want this because the melted
| snow can run down your roof and freeze again on the
| colder parts.
| cogman10 wrote:
| That's absolutely how snow on top of the roof works. Most
| building codes in snow heavy areas have pitch
| requirements.
|
| https://www.atozroofingdenver.com/how-does-roof-pitch-
| affect...
| treis wrote:
| >That's absolutely how snow on top of the roof works.
|
| How do you explain that picture with ~1 foot of snow on
| the roof's peak?
| cogman10 wrote:
| It's a low pitch roof which allows for a lot more
| buildup.
|
| Also, if you read the article I linked, you'll know that
| pitch isn't perfect (pun intended), but it does go a long
| way in preventing snow buildup. A major snow storm with
| wind blowing snow in the right direction can twart a high
| pitched roof. But that sort of condition is a lot more
| rare.
| lawn wrote:
| Northern climates is relative. I live in the north of Sweden
| and the solar panels here will be completely covered from
| December to February or similar.
|
| It's true though that the snow will melt or fall off quickly
| when it's not that cold anymore.
| jsight wrote:
| Usually if any significant amount of the panel is exposed, they
| will start to heat up from the sun and defrost the rest. Its a
| significant reduction in performance, of course, but still
| worthwhile if utility power is expensive.
| angst_ridden wrote:
| The actual performance of the cells increases as they get
| colder. The attenuation due to ice or snow will, of course,
| reduce power generated.
| ecshafer wrote:
| I've lived in very snowy areas. Snow mostly falls off the roof
| because of the pitch, or it melts off in the sun. Its pretty
| much only in the absolute worst storms AND roofs with low
| pitches you need to get up there and clean them.
| xenadu02 wrote:
| Take most of the sibling replies here with a grain of salt. In
| areas where there are large snowfall events (eg Tahoe) the
| story is very different; panels can and do cause ice dams,
| dangerous snow slides, and even the panels can get ripped right
| off the roof.
| dugmartin wrote:
| According to the folks on this YouTube channel that have an
| installation in a very snowy climate if you have two sided
| panels they melt any accumulating snow off much quicker.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/c/ambitionstrikes
|
| My issue with New England (I live there) is there that only 50
| to 60% of the days are sunny - we get a lot of overcast skies.
| That, combined with the lack of available roof space on our
| Four Square style house, has kept me from thinking about
| installing panels.
|
| https://www.currentresults.com/Weather/Massachusetts/sunshin...
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| You don't produce much in the winter anyway, you can brush it
| off the panels with an extendable broom but it will naturally
| melt and slide off. Unless you have snow cover all winter you'd
| likely spend more on the extendable broom than you'd produce
| from the panels.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| My brother-in-law's panels produce just as much electricity
| at noon in the winter time as they do in the summer time.
| Winter sun in the Canadian prairies is quite intense, and the
| panels are more efficient at -20C than they are at +20C.
| mnw21cam wrote:
| But they'll produce for less time each day in the winter.
| giantrobot wrote:
| What the GP is saying is that _with_ the losses from
| higher angle and shorter duration of insolation, the
| decreased temperatures increased efficiency such to match
| the summer 's output. The heat in the summer reduces a
| panel's efficiency.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| How north do you mean? Solar panels are at a high angle,
| slippery and black. Snow generally does not stick for long.
| They'll self clear.
|
| My brother's panels in Saskatchewan don't self-clear. But
| that's for an average temperature of -20C.
| LgWoodenBadger wrote:
| I had them when I lived in Pennsylvania. The panels self-clear
| in a literal avalanche that destroyed all the bushes where it
| landed. It sounds like a freight train in your attic when it
| happens.
|
| Had someone been standing underneath when it happens they would
| have been seriously injured.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| Had the same experience in Canada - woke up thinking the
| house was collapsing. Found a mountain of snow next to the
| house the next morning.
|
| Edit: There are "reverse" shovels called roof rakes[1] that
| can help remove snow before it builds up.
|
| [1] https://www.thespruce.com/best-snow-roof-rakes-6830889
| NotYourLawyer wrote:
| I looked into solar in 2022. The bid I got for a 9.5 kW system
| and one Tesla Powerwall ended up being right around $50,000.
|
| No thanks.
| jefftk wrote:
| Why a Powerwall?
| NotYourLawyer wrote:
| Not sure, that's just the way the company wrote up the bid.
| The Powerwall portion was around $16k I think.
| acomjean wrote:
| I know someone who did 5000W system for around 15,000 in
| 2018.
|
| Battert/Powerwalls let the solar work when the power goes
| out. (the dc to ac converters use the 60hz out of the grid
| to sync. There is no shutoff to the grid so for safety
| reasons her system shuts down when the power is out).
| NotYourLawyer wrote:
| Oh sure, and I wanted a battery of some kind to keep
| things running in an outage. I just mean I don't know why
| they bid a Powerwall specifically instead of some other
| battery system.
| jefftk wrote:
| Any sort of battery system that lets you keep running in
| an outage is going to be pretty expensive, unfortunately.
|
| But at that point your question isn't "what would be the
| payback period if I got solar" but "how much is it worth
| to me to have power when the grid is down". And so not
| surprisingly many people get solar but don't install a
| battery.
|
| (Systems that provide a small amount of best-effort when-
| the-sun-is-shining emergency power when the grid is down
| seem like they should be a sweet spot here, because they
| can be implemented very efficiently. Unfortunately a
| combination of consumers not wanting it, the NEC not
| prioritizing it, and the shift to microinverters means
| that instead of adding ~$200 like it did when I got solar
| several years ago it's now more like $7k)
| NotYourLawyer wrote:
| I get that it's not gonna pay for itself any time soon,
| and I'm on board with paying for the privilege of keeping
| things running when the grid is down. But 50 grand? Come
| on.
| JanisErdmanis wrote:
| That's an insane number. 25 solar panels + 9 kW inverter +
| bindings and wires would result in around 8000$.
| NotYourLawyer wrote:
| Seemed crazy to me too. If it had been $8k plus battery costs
| I would have done it.
| hbarka wrote:
| Assuming you are grid-tied, the reduction of electric bills is
| predicated on net metering, where the utility company gives you
| (ideally) 1-for-1 credit for the electricity you produce. In
| California, this was called NEM 1.0 and NEM 2.0. Every few years
| the California utilities lobby the Public Utilities Commission
| (PUC) to chip away at the NEM program. This year the PUC voted
| unanimously to cut net energy metering and any new solar owner
| will fall under the NEM 3.0 rules. Net energy metering is
| essentially dead in California. In addition there are additional
| fixed fees customers have to pay. This will disincentivize solar-
| only installation. If you want fair compensation of what you
| generate you'll have to store it and pay yourself.
|
| PG&E will find a way to keep their profit margin.
|
| https://www.npr.org/2022/12/15/1142927418/california-plans-t...
| brk wrote:
| No, you'd don't need net metering to make it viable.
|
| In a typical grid-tied system, the setup is such that any
| demand is fulfilled first by solar capacity, and second from
| the grid. If your array can fulfill 100% (or more) of your
| demand, then you pull nothing from the grid.
|
| If you don't have a net metering arrangement and you regularly
| produce more than 100% of your local demand, then your options
| are to simply throw away the excess, or use a battery system to
| store it for later use.
|
| If you have a net metering agreement, then the grid acts like a
| giant battery, which may or may not have input and output fees
| (think of it very roughly like Amazon S3 pricing). Ideally you
| have a 1:1 arrangement, where you can feed energy into the grid
| for free, and pull back up to whatever you supplied at parity
| pricing (eg: for free). But, there is no reason a utility
| company has to offer that arrangement, they could charge you
| some fee to supply energy if they wanted, and they could charge
| you some fee to pull energy back.
|
| For the most part, the most cost effective solar systems will
| supply about 75-80% of your average monthly demand. It almost
| never a good investment to overbuild your solar system on the
| premise of making money off of net metering, as the rate you
| are paid for production is essentially a wholesale price,
| making you a micro power plant, which is not a very profitable
| business. Covering the bulk of your energy usage with your own
| solar supply, and then pulling a minimum amount of power from
| the grid to fill the gaps will tend to keep you at the best
| supply pricing tier.
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| >... the most cost effective solar systems will supply about
| 75-80% of your average monthly demand
|
| I am not so sure that is true. Seemingly a large percentage
| of new installation costs are fixed (paperwork, labor,
| inverters, etc) with only a smaller portion for the panels
| themselves. For a minor incremental cost, you can fully
| provision your house.
| opo wrote:
| Consumer rooftop solar is the most expensive way ever thought
| of to provide electrical power. Money is fungible. A dollar
| tied up in building a one-off consumer solar installation is
| exactly a dollar unavailable for building out utility grade
| solar which can be done at a fraction of the cost.
|
| With net metering, wealthier home owners are essentially paid
| the retail rate for the electricity they sell to the grid which
| causes higher electricity bills for those who can't afford to
| put panels on their roof - sort of a reverse Robinhood scheme.
| I recall reading that with net-metering, non-solar households
| in CA pay an estimated extra $115 to $245 per year to cover the
| subsidies given to their wealthier neighbors.
| colechristensen wrote:
| It's a nice incentive, but you shouldn't need to be paid the
| retail rate for solar when selling it back to the utility.
| Especially when the retail rate is from PG&E and contains a lot
| of non-paying-for-electricity things like covering past
| liabilities for wildfires.
|
| And you can perfectly well size your solar appropriately so
| that you aren't net-positive pushing electricity back to the
| grid at all (or only a little).
| Analemma_ wrote:
| Net metering is a regressive tax on the poor, because when rich
| people get solar panels and sell back to the grid at retail
| prices, the utility has to raise rates on everyone else to pay
| their large fixed costs. It may have been a good idea at one
| point when residential solar was so rare as to be effectively
| nonexistent, but now it has to be abandoned.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| In my state, generation is still pretty "regulated" and the
| cost of generation is a separate line item on my bill,
| technically from a different company, from distribution.
| There's no reason at all I shouldn't be paid the same price
| per kWh for generation.
| eppp wrote:
| That depends what "generation" includes. It probably also
| includes the transmission and stepping up and all of the
| equipment to deliver it to the distributor. If you are grid
| tied, you are still using that system as a backup at
| minimum and should contribute to its upkeep. Therefore you
| should be paid accordingly. I don't think there is much
| objection to paying for solar excess at the bulk rate.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| Was the California grid always private or was it run by the
| state government at one point? To me it makes no sense to
| privatize services where no competition is possible. You just
| end up with perverse incentives to do stuff like the above.
| beembeem wrote:
| A few data points as the picture is murky and mixed:
|
| The wider "grid" is managed by CAISO - the independent system
| operator.
|
| LA's utility is municipally run, in contrast to the big 3
| IOUs in the state - PGE, SDGE, SCE.
|
| SDGE had a 50 year exclusive franchise agreement with the
| city of San Diego that recently renewed under slightly
| different terms. Notably, and I'm paraphrasing: the city has
| the option after 10 years to terminate under certain
| conditions. [1]
|
| Enron lobbied for, contributed to, and profited off of
| utility deregulation over 20 years ago. [2]
|
| [1] https://www.kpbs.org/news/midday-
| edition/2020/07/27/sdges-50...
|
| [2] https://www.consumerwatchdog.org/newsrelease/lesson-
| enron-el...
| lwf wrote:
| The vast minority of utilities in the United States, by
| number of customers served, are investor-owned; publicly-
| owned and co-operative utilities only cover 50m people.[1]
|
| Theoretically, the grid is supervised by the California
| Public Utilities Commission, which has wide latitude to set
| standards and regulations for PG&E and others. The Public
| Utility Code is the highest law in the state of
| California[2], so IMHO a large part of the blame for PG&E's
| failures fall on CPUC's failed oversight[3][4]
|
| [1]: https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=40913
|
| [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Public_Utilitie
| s_Co...
|
| [3]: http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/CPUC-head-Michael-
| Peev...
|
| [4]: https://www.nbcbayarea.com/investigations/pge-probation-
| lift...
| eppp wrote:
| Because net metering is forcing the utility to purchase power
| at the retail rate. It doesn't make any sense. It isn't a
| profit margin issue. There is a massive infrastructure and
| expense to deliver wholesale power to an individual customer
| and it has to be recouped. Either you sell back your power at
| some percent of wholesale or solar installs need to get a
| corresponding increased delivery fee.
| amluto wrote:
| This is all rather bizarre. If PG&E charges 30 cents/kWh for
| a marginal kWh delivered, then either something is quite
| wrong with the pricing model or it really does cost some
| respectable fraction of 30 cents/kWh to get a marginal kWh
| through their system into their distribution network where
| the customer is. If it's the latter, then reduction of 1 kWh
| delivered should save them the same amount of money.
|
| I think the real issue is that the pricing is almost
| completely divorced from the actual cost structure, so the
| whole rate system is a kludge that gives everyone the wrong
| incentives.
| eppp wrote:
| The issue is that you have to size the hardware for a
| multiple of the power draw you expect and the cost doesn't
| go down because people use less temporarily. You also have
| to do all the vegetation management and billing and it and
| billing regardless of the amount of kWh that are used even
| if a solar install is negative. They might draw today and
| it has to be available.
| secabeen wrote:
| Reduction of 1kWh delivered does not save them the same
| amount of money because the cost of connection is dominated
| by the 1st kW delivered. Scaling delivered power does have
| some cost, but the majority of delivery is in being able to
| deliver power to a particular area in the first place and
| to the maintenance of the lines providing any power.
| majormajor wrote:
| > If it's the latter, then reduction of 1 kWh delivered
| should save them the same amount of money.
|
| The "net metering" policy being changed isn't regarding
| "saving the grid the money by _reducing_ the amount
| delivered to a customer. " If you don't use the power from
| them, you don't pay for it. But this is about the utility
| _paying_ the customer the retail rate for excess generation
| - aka paying retail rate for something that would offset a
| cost they 'd otherwise pay wholesale rate to generate. This
| is about the current (not the new) system:
| https://news.energysage.com/net-metering-2-0-in-
| california-e...
|
| It's not clear to me at all that it makes sense to compel
| the utility to purchase your excess power at the retail
| rate, if you're generating more than you can use. It also
| seems to gives weird incentives to size and spend on your
| home setup.
| [deleted]
| secabeen wrote:
| What we need is a fundamental change in electricity billing.
| The value in a grid connection is in its reliability,
| availability and demand response (you can demand anything
| from 1 Amp to 200 Amps at any time, with no notice). The
| current usage-only billing model is broken.
|
| What we should do is pay a large flat monthly fee for the
| grid connection, then a lower rate for generation/usage,
| rather than bundling the delivery costs in. This is how many
| other utilities (Gas, Water, etc.) are billed, and it makes
| much more sense. This would also line up better for people
| with solar panels, as those who choose to leverage a grid
| connection would lay in line with their utility, or could
| choose to go off-grid, if they didn't want to pay for the
| availability of the grid.
| axus wrote:
| Why do power companies even buy back solar power in the
| first place? It seems like it's not in their interest to
| help their customers compete with them.
|
| I do agree there should be a connection fee, like an
| Internet connection, that covers fixed costs. Watts cost
| more than bytes, so a usage fee makes sense too.
| ok_dad wrote:
| > Why do power companies even buy back solar power in the
| first place? It seems like it's not in their interest to
| help their customers compete with them.
|
| Good question! The more power you generate locally, the
| less you need to transmit along expensive infrastructure,
| so it is actually in the interest of utilities to utilize
| and pay for all of the generation capacity they can as
| close to the consumer as possible. You can't get any
| closer to the consumer than paying their neighbor to
| power their house!
| secabeen wrote:
| > The more power you generate locally, the less you need
| to transmit along expensive infrastructure,
|
| This is true, but I don't think the savings on
| infrastructure scales linearly with the distributed power
| generated. For example, if you generate 1 MW of
| distributed power, that reduces the load on wires,
| transformers and towers across the grid, and may even
| mean you can eventually use cheaper gear at your next
| replacement, but it's not going to eliminate the baseline
| costs (towers, wires, transformer sites, etc.) of serving
| any particular customer or region.
| ok_dad wrote:
| Eventually you will be able to break large grids into
| smaller ones and still be as reliable as previously, thus
| eliminating longer runs of transmission lines and
| reducing power over the lines you cannot eliminate, which
| will reduce the sizes and costs of the lines, but not
| eliminate them. Someday, I would hope that you could tie
| small neighborhoods together as the grid cells, with very
| little interconnections needed between them.
|
| I work in the industry, and my vision for the future is
| less about realtime power transmission and more about
| pooling energy in smaller grid cells, predicting the
| usage of the pooled energy in the future, and moving
| energy to the pools which will need more energy sometime
| in the future at a trickle rate based on predictions. The
| ideal situation is to reduce energy transfer to zero over
| time by distributing the energy generation densely
| amongst the most dense users of the energy. I don't think
| the industry is ready for such a step-change in thought
| yet, but someday electricity will be treated more like
| water than like it is today.
| hinkley wrote:
| I think you're missing a different piece of the puzzle here
| which is that if I pay $10 for the first gallon of water
| and next to nothing for the next 500, I have an incentive
| to use more water and not less. I've paid for it anyway.
|
| When you're trying to solve public policy problems
| especially where conservation is concerned the notion of
| math gets complicated very quickly.
| birken wrote:
| Additionally, the worst strains on the grid are really
| measured by the _peak_ loads, so if you change billing a
| way that makes the _peak_ energy less expensive, and
| therefore disincentivize people to (a) reduce usage at
| peak times or (b) install solar panels /batteries to
| mitigate their peak usage, then it actually might make
| the grid more unreliable.
|
| Water is different in that we really only have usage
| concerns about water, AFAIK there is never any issue with
| the water pressure drops at peak times (perhaps thanks to
| water towers). With electricity the concerns are mostly
| about the peak usage, and not so much the overall usage.
| secabeen wrote:
| Yes, that's what you see in the commercial side, where
| demand charges based on your highest peak usage in a
| month are common. However, they are un-intuitive and easy
| to generate big bills for small amounts of power used, so
| I agree with the general idea that they're not a good
| idea for residential users.
| nicoburns wrote:
| You could institute something like time-of-day-based fees
| based on average demand for residential users without
| having the large unexpected bill problem.
| hinkley wrote:
| I'm told that Industry gets charged not by how much
| current they draw but by how much it distorts the grid
| power waveforms. In fact there are experimental designs
| out there for power correction facilities that delay the
| waveforms by for instance 90% of a wavelength (so
| everything lines up again) and convert the delta to DC to
| store in batteries. The battery power can be used for
| their own purposes or to reinject in low voltage
| situations.
| eppp wrote:
| They are billed for demand, usage and power factor. They
| use capacitors to help with power factor.
| notJim wrote:
| Theoretically, you could add a third type of charge
| related to the externalities associated with your
| consumption. I'm not sure exactly how the accounting
| would work, but maybe an escalating fee based on the
| amount you consume. My utility actually does this with
| electricity, where the rate goes up after your first 1000
| kWh. Obviously this could get more elaborate.
| carschno wrote:
| This is effectively similar to the "energy price ceiling"
| that the Netherlands have introduced for this year:
| https://www.government.nl/topics/energy-crisis/cabinet-
| plans...
|
| Note: the most recent English document still describes
| this as "planned", but it has been approved and has gone
| into effect with the start of 2023.
|
| The difference is though that the state subsidies the
| "cheaper" rate. When a customer has consumed the
| subsidized amount of electricity or gas, they pay the
| full market price.
| hinkley wrote:
| That's a fancy way to say carbon tax, which I agree with
| but also recognize has been turned into a political
| landmine.
|
| Also I thought PG&E still had the reverse situation, of
| people voluntarily paying more for green power.
| secabeen wrote:
| Perhaps, but if we want to dis-incentivize usage as a
| political policy, we can just increase the usage charge
| above from "next to nothing". For power, generation costs
| in California run from $150/MWh to -$150/MWh:
| https://www.caiso.com/TodaysOutlook/Pages/prices.aspx
|
| $0.15/kWh seems like enough to begin the dis-
| incentivizing of usage, and that can certainly be pushed
| up more.
| spockz wrote:
| In the Netherlands you a fixed price for being connected.
| The amount varies on the size of the connection. Usually 1
| phase 40A is as expensive as 3 phase 25A. Anything above
| that easily triples in price. Aside from this you have net
| metering still and you pay for what you consume. No "usage
| bundle" is included in the connection fee.
|
| Also, the companies for infrastructure and that provide the
| actual energy are separate but the energy supplier charges
| for the infrastructure provider. The infrastructure
| provider is semi privatised while the energy supplier is
| fully privatised.
|
| It kind of works, except that we need like everyone else,
| to upgrade the power grids to deal with increased
| consumption and we haven't invested in that.
| Ekaros wrote:
| In Finland system is setup for this.
|
| First you pay for the electricity itself, can be from
| anyone, as on the level of the country in question
| electricity is entirely fungible.
|
| Next is the connection or standing fee. Make sense,
| eventually you have to pay for the transformer and cabling
| to your home, even if in some location this is rather high.
|
| And final piece is taxes + transfer fee paid by kWh. Again,
| you have pay for the local grid and charging by use makes
| some sense.
|
| There is two prices that vary per use and one that doesn't.
| And reasonably so. Maintaining existing lines have a cost.
| AtlasBarfed wrote:
| We need something that will incent home solar + storage
| because:
|
| 1) it increases resilience in disaster scenarios and a lot of
| high usage scenarios. I especially think back to Puerto Rico
| getting hit by the Hurricane, or the Texas icestorms or
| things like that. Having a lot of homes semi-independent of
| the grid would help people mitigate impacts, because you can
| rely on neighbors for certain things while the grid is down.
|
| 2) BEVs are going to introduce a huge additional burden on
| the grid. But if we couple it with a lot of home solar
| installations, it will reduce the impact to the grid and the
| grid can focus on more industrial tasks like highway
| supercharging for semis and those big challenges.
|
| 3) aside from the solar panels, home solar means a
| distributed storage for the grid too.
|
| Net metering is flawed, but there's the baby with the
| bathwater argument. Let's introduce better incentives before
| chucking the flawed ones that are working, and I don't see
| that happening.
|
| And it's hard to price the incentives. Home solar panels are
| going to change a lot with forthcoming perovskites, and home
| storage is going to drastically change with production Sodium
| Ion, high density LFP/LFMP in the next few years, and Sulfur
| beyond that.
|
| What I think is ridiculous is the pricing of home
| solar+storage versus what the grid buyers get. If home solar
| programs could have their panels bulk-purchased along with
| grid solar purchases and then the grid providers have to get
| them installed to homes, it would swap the grid providers
| from opposing home solar to being incented to finding people
| to allow the installation.
| caseysoftware wrote:
| > _Because net metering is forcing the utility to purchase
| power at the retail rate._
|
| No, it doesn't.
|
| I have solar+battery with net metering. I buy from the
| electric company at ~11.5c/kWh and sell our excess to them at
| ~2.7c/kWh for a difference of ~4.3x
|
| As the sole entity that you can sell to - short of regulators
| being involved - they set the rate. And yes, there's already
| a monthly connection fee.
| ok_dad wrote:
| That is not "net" metering, then. "Net" metering is having
| an import and an export accumulator meter and charging the
| customer for the "net" value in the equation "net = import
| - export". Anything else is marketing bullshit from utility
| industry organizations.
| caseysoftware wrote:
| That's what I thought "net metering" was before getting
| solar too. Most don't do that.
|
| Unfortunately, billing departments run the world.
| ok_dad wrote:
| That is supposed to be what net metering is, but electric
| utilities captured the regulators and changed the
| definition to ensure they could cheat the consumer out of
| the value of their bought and paid for solar panels.
| [deleted]
| oso2k wrote:
| No (potential) customer is required to make any company
| profitable.
| eppp wrote:
| And should a company be forced to subsidize a customer?
| AtlasBarfed wrote:
| When the company is a utility with a built in monopoly,
| with legal access to shared resources like land for
| transmission cables, and is the easiest path to executing
| policy as important as decarbonization?
|
| Yes, if it helps the implementation of the policy.
|
| Our entire power system lacks proper carbon taxation. So
| I won't cry over minor things like power companies making
| a bit less money when the effect is a major avenue to
| mitigating carbon emissions.
|
| Arguably incenting the grid to switch over from
| coal/natural gas to wind/solar/storage is more important,
| but lets try multiple approaches and not stop what is
| working.
| oso2k wrote:
| When said company is government subsidized said customer
| who is also a tax payer, yes. These companies use tax
| dollars for infrastructure investment and maintenance, at
| least here in CA.
| londons_explore wrote:
| Another option is to split the fee into a 'connection fee',
| 'transmission fee' and a 'power fee'.
|
| Have the power fee set realtime by a market. The price might
| go to zero if there is excess generation.
|
| Have the transmission fee capped by a regulator - and charge
| it for any kilowatt hours that enter the power network.
|
| Allow third parties to arbitrage and offer 'fixed rate'
| deals, so consumers aren't at the whims of an electricity
| market with occasional sky high prices.
| sandos wrote:
| This is sort of how it works in Sweden and probably a few
| other countries.
|
| Bill is split into market and (local) grid parts. Many
| consumers have now moved the market parts to realtime
| pricing, since fixed-price arbitraging has become so
| expensive.
| eppp wrote:
| Congratulations you invented Enron.
| [deleted]
| Ekaros wrote:
| Finland uses this model. Though the capping of transmission
| fees is bit iffy.
|
| And lately the fixed rates have been quite variable going
| from 4 cents to 40 cents. The action by European countries
| caused some uncertainty. So timing has great effect.
| yupyup54133 wrote:
| What we need is a nationalism of the electricity grid and
| power plants. A federally owned and operated electric grid
| solves this issue.
| g42gregory wrote:
| PG&E is a designated as a Utility by law. This means that
| their profit margin is fixed (at 9? percent). Basically this
| is the discount they should buy the power from you, which
| should be fine.
| francisofascii wrote:
| You have valid points. But it does make sense if you are
| trying to 1) incentive solar and 2) keep the pricing super
| simple for the average Joe customer.
| shostack wrote:
| Would a good tl;Dr summary of things in CA be that if you
| didn't need solar before and got grandfathered, it doesn't make
| sense to get solar now?
|
| How does that work with new homes being required to have solar
| installed? Is it just a net giant win for pg&e?
| figers wrote:
| There is also the savings from the solar your house produces
| and uses directly instead of pulling from the grid at the price
| per kWh.
| ufo wrote:
| Does that also apply if you're not sending surplus energy back
| into the grid?
| KerrAvon wrote:
| If there's no net-zero metering, aren't they incentivizing
| people to be completely disconnected from the grid, or at least
| not incentivizing them to be connected? (Which is bad for the
| grid.) Why would I fuck around with the utility at all if I'm
| installing enough solar/battery to power my needs?
| rsync wrote:
| "Why would I fuck around with the utility at all if I'm
| installing enough solar/battery to power my needs?"
|
| This is exactly my sentiment and is the reason that we have
| made ourselves independent from the grid.[1]
|
| _However_ the math gets very difficult if you need to charge
| an electric car ... it 's a tremendous amount of electricity
| to keep one, not to mention two, cars topped up after daily
| use.
|
| The extra panel and battery requirements for cars are such
| that it really does make sense to be grid-tied and arrange
| your charging on off-peak hours, etc. That is what makes this
| so frustrating for typical homeowners - there's an obvious
| and sensible symbiosis here that would work well for (most
| people).
|
| [1] That, and the fact that I hate PG&E with the burning fire
| of 1000 suns.
| birdyrooster wrote:
| If the grid is smaller, then it is good for the grid because
| it reduces capacity and complexity requirements. Also if the
| net human experience is better, the grids can as bad as what
| enables that.
| tehlike wrote:
| because very likely you won't have enough solar/battery to
| power your needs...
| [deleted]
| danans wrote:
| > Why would I fuck around with the utility at all if I'm
| installing enough solar/battery to power my needs?
|
| What will you do when it has been raining/cloudy for weeks
| straight like it has recently in California? For this period,
| wind has dramatically outproduced solar [1]. Even in the
| summer/fall, when there was severe wildfire smoke in the
| area, my solar+battery barely produced anything.
|
| Sure, you can set up a propane generator (very expensive at
| the size needed for a full house backup), but then you are
| dependent on the propane-distribution grid. The dirty secret
| of "no-sacrifice off-grid" lifestyles is how much they are
| dependent on propane for heating and electricity.
|
| Also, the grid's up-time is going to be better than your home
| battery setup up-time both because it is constantly
| maintained and it has access to a greater diversity of energy
| sources (wind, nuclear, fossil, large-scale storage) that are
| firmer than anything you can attach to your house.
|
| The fact is that modern living standards (cars, TVs,
| comfortable temperatures) require a much larger amount of
| energy and energy-availability than most people can produce
| on their properties with solar. The additional energy has to
| be imported somehow, either from the electric grid or as
| liquid or gaseous fuels.
|
| 1. See Renewables Trend at
| http://www.caiso.com/TodaysOutlook/Pages/supply.html
| notJim wrote:
| This incentivizes storage and time-shifting usage to solar peak
| times, which seem to be needed in California. Does anyone know
| if there are pricing signals to help with that? For example, if
| I (as a power-plant operator or whatever) found a way to sell
| electricity right as the sun is going down, am I rewarded for
| that?
|
| As an individual with a solar install, I think this also
| encourages people to use the energy they produce directly,
| which also seems beneficial. For example, if your house is
| well-insulated, you can probably pre-cool it a few degrees
| while your solar is producing so that you don't need as much
| cooling during the peak times. If you can be home during the
| day time, you could set your car to only charge during peak
| times.
| danans wrote:
| > This incentivizes storage and time-shifting usage to solar
| peak times, which seem to be needed in California. Does
| anyone know if there are pricing signals to help with that?
| For example, if I (as a power-plant operator or whatever)
| found a way to sell electricity right as the sun is going
| down, am I rewarded for that?
|
| NEM3.0 incentivizes exactly that. It prices exported
| electricity at the avoided cost rate. During the late summer
| and early fall, between 7-9PM that can be more than $1/kWh,
| or 3x the average NEM2.0 rate [1]. Of course to maximize that
| rate you need to store energy and sell it back at the optimal
| time.
|
| The average rate with NEM3.0, however, is much lower.
|
| 1. https://www.cpuc.ca.gov/-/media/cpuc-
| website/divisions/energ...
| praxulus wrote:
| Net metering just doesn't make sense though. Everyone who wants
| to rely on the grid for power availability ought to pay for
| grid upkeep costs. Net metering would make sense if it came on
| top of a baseline "connectivity fee" that covered grid
| maintenance, but that's not the current policy, would likely be
| politically infeasible, and would hurt rooftop solar customers
| financially anyway.
|
| Subsidizing solar is a perfectly good policy choice, but net
| metering is ultimately an unsustainable way to implement it.
| scld wrote:
| In the northeast at least there are separate lines for supply
| and distribution. If your supply goes negative, you still pay
| the distribution fee....and if you supplied more than the
| distribution cost....why wouldn't you receive money? Unless
| the energy company is for some reason not charging properly
| for distribution, seems everything is already baked in.
| monkeydust wrote:
| Just be glad your not in the UK. I pay 35p / kWh down and get
| only 5p / kWh for excess I sell to grid through Smart Export
| Guarantee. Price down has doubled in two years and way up has
| hardly moved.
|
| I joked with my neighbour that we should wire up our homes
| and sell my excess to him at mid point and we would both be
| better off.
| gnicholas wrote:
| Low-effort version, if he has an EV: get a long charging
| cable and charge him up when you're generating excess.
| kbob wrote:
| Or just let him park at your place.
| monkeydust wrote:
| He doesn't but few on the street do. Could hack something
| over the summer that provides some charge on my driveway
| when I am net producing. Not sure if any legal/tax issues
| with the setup though. An interesting community project.
| reacharavindh wrote:
| It might even be a greater option to have a community
| battery booth(a bank of LFP or the upcoming Sodium ion
| batteries). Everyone throws their excess energy into it,
| and it can be a charging station for e-bikes, EVs etc.
|
| Absolutely no clue about legal issues though.
| monkeydust wrote:
| Interesting, getting close to a virtual power plant I
| think. Ideally you want to use the grid network for
| transmission to the bank of batteries.
| jacquesm wrote:
| > I joked with my neighbour that we should wire up our
| homes and sell my excess to him at mid point and we would
| both be better off.
|
| I've been looking at this but not as a joke and you run
| into some fairly interesting problems when you start
| paralleling after the meter. Long story short: don't do
| this unless you have a lot of electrical engineering chops
| or you might end up create a liability in case of a leak to
| ground or an overcurrent situation. This needs some special
| handling. The best way would be to just create an extra
| circuit and use a waterproof extension cord to power it,
| that way all GFPs see their real current and not a fraction
| of it and you can't accidentally feed into a distribution
| panel at more current than the breakers see, which is an
| excellent way to start a fire.
| [deleted]
| jacquesm wrote:
| But you do pay for 'grid upkeep costs', the grid availability
| is a part of that connection fee, otherwise what would you
| connect to if not to the grid. Even if you consume zero KWh
| in a month you will still pay.
| dpierce9 wrote:
| Net metering means utilities sell the power your system
| produces at full price to your neighbor. They pocket the
| avoided cost of producing and delivering that power (and
| during price spikes the cost of fuel can be higher than the
| value of producing power).
|
| Net metering does create stranded assets if everyone does it.
| But not everyone does. Further, the idea that the utility
| gains NO benefit from net metering is wrong.
|
| The corresponding view that rate payers are subsidizing solar
| by paying additional grid costs is wrong. Solar reduces grid
| demand. This reduces required generation capacity. Capacity
| is very expensive.
| konschubert wrote:
| Your solar panels tend to produce power at times when power
| is cheap - because there is so much solar power.
|
| When you do net metering, the utility has to pay on top:
| They have to sell the power that you produce on the spot
| market, but the price they get for it is less than what
| they have to pay to you.
|
| It's not a scalable approach.
| FartyMcFarter wrote:
| Net metering doesn't make sense for a simple reason:
|
| - when you use power, the grid is forced to produce it for
| you at that specific moment.
|
| - on the other hand, solar panels produce energy at random
| times, regardless of whether it's needed or not.
|
| Net metering forces symmetric pricing into a fundamentally
| asymmetric situation, which is not scalable.
| umvi wrote:
| In Idaho at least, you do have to pay a monthly
| infrastructure fee even if you are using net metering.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| In maine, CMP charges $11 a month for a "connection" to the
| grid and your first monthly 50kwh. Is that not the case in
| california or other net metering markets?
| eppp wrote:
| $11 doesn't even come close to touching the distribution
| cost. It is just a way of showing you a slightly lower kWh
| rate if it is that low.
| ihaveajob wrote:
| Yes it is, there's a connection fee of approximately
| $10/month for that same reason. Net metering is a totally
| unrelated topic. What's being argued about is the rate.
| Until now, rooftop solar customers get a retail-level
| payback for excess production sent to the grid. Under the
| proposal, this payback would be at the wholesale price,
| which is significantly lower.
| jrochkind1 wrote:
| You can still totally offset your own actual consumption
| at retail rate, but any negative over your actual
| consumption for the month, you only get paid cash at
| wholesale rate?
|
| Without knowing anything about this or any context...
| that does not seem unreasonable to me.
|
| Note that OP didn't even require net negative at all to
| have it still totally be a great investment. He only
| offest a portion of his actual usage. So net negative
| paid only at wholesale rate seems like it should still be
| functional economically and leave plenty of incentive.
| Wouldn't have effected OP at all, for those who do go net
| negative and it effects, it seems like it shouldn't tip
| the scales.
| dahfizz wrote:
| > You can still totally offset your own actual
| consumption at retail rate
|
| AFAIK, most home solar is not set up this way. You don't
| use the energy from your solar panels. The solar panels
| feed directly into the grid, and your usage comes
| directly out of the grid.
|
| So if you use 100kwh, and generate 100kwh, then you will
| pay 100kwh at retail rate, and receive 100kwh at
| wholesale rate.
| jrochkind1 wrote:
| Hm, while I understand what you mean about where the
| actual energy goes, my understanding of how the costs are
| accounted are that there isn't any separate metering for
| "electricity out" vs "electricity in".
|
| The Solar out actually runs your meter backwards, so does
| actually reduce the amount the meter shows you owing to
| charge you at the retail rate. There is no metering
| present to make it possible to charge you for the 100kwh
| you used at one rate, but then you pay you for the 100kwh
| you generated at a different rate. The electricity you
| generate runs the meter backwards, and reduces what you
| are charged for consumption -- which monetarily means you
| are "being paid" for it at the retail rate.
|
| But if your meter goes negative in a given time period,
| they can tell at the meter you actually generated more
| than consumed, and could pay you out a different rate for
| that. (Or as OP notices, in some places, they allow you
| offset your use, but don't actually pay out for net
| negative at all. )
|
| This is why the metering is called "net", it's your "net"
| use, consumption minus generation. I believe that's how
| it works for my friends here in Baltimore who have solar
| panels.
|
| Are there other places in the USA where they install more
| sophisticated metering capable of separately metering out
| and in, and charge different rates for it?
|
| Or, anyway, since we're talking about California, if
| anyone wants to clarify how it actually is going to work
| in CA, rather than speaking in hypotheticals based on our
| theoretical understanding of how things work, that would
| be even better!
| eppp wrote:
| There are indeed places that have better meters in the
| USA. In the past we installed two meters but it can now
| be done with one.
| saltcured wrote:
| With PG&E, we have networked meters that report fine-
| grained usage in order to support the newly standard
| time-of-use rate plan. It is not an average over a
| metering period like a month but able to resolve usage at
| different hours of the day. Even my bill shows peak and
| off-peak usage as daily bar graphs, and I think I can
| login to see more fine-grained data at the power company
| website if I wanted to.
|
| But I agree with the message several posts up. The old
| net metering was a subsidy and I understand it going
| away. It makes sense to me at a technical level that you
| would be billed your fine-grained net usage, so if your
| solar supports your daytime load then you didn't consume
| power, but you can't expect daytime excess to 1:1 cancel
| your nightime grid load, unless you install local
| batteries to time-shift your own power.
|
| The old net metering did that. People generate excess
| during the day and consume power at night from the grid
| and expect it to all cancel out.
| jrochkind1 wrote:
| For home solar power, does your PG&E metering meter
| "power generated" separately from "power consumed"? I'm
| not sure if that's what you're saying or not.
|
| Do you have details on how home solar is or will be
| metered in California, with regard to credits for power
| generated, and if it will be different depending on
| whether it's "net negative" or not?
| baq wrote:
| My 3.5kWp PV installation is hooked up to one phase in
| the house and that power is definitely being used without
| being counted by the (2-way) meter.
| singhrac wrote:
| Hmm, I've never heard of such a setup, actually. Usually
| these kinds of generators are called "behind-the-meter"
| because they are literally behind the electric meter, so
| any generation you make is directly used by your house,
| and any excess crosses the meter. At least this web page
| (from a utility in NE-ISO) indicates that solar
| generation is still behind the meter even in a net
| generation setting: https://www.bostonsolar.us/solar-
| blog-resource-center/blog/w.... It could vary from place
| to place, though.
| K0balt wrote:
| Isn't there a base charge though? In my home town it's around
| 25 dollars a month just to be hooked up whether you use
| anything or not.
|
| What would seem logical to me would be a base charge, they
| net meter you to zero, but then you sell power at the
| wholesaler rate. If that wipes out your connect charge you
| still have them the value that they would have paid for the
| power you made.
|
| Maybe the base charge would have to be higher for net metered
| houses, it might have some subsidy built into it based on
| expectations of selling power to the client.
| walnutclosefarm wrote:
| That's how my distributed generation contract with our Rural
| Electric Cooperative works. We pay $50/month for the
| connection, but the actual use/generation is 1 for 1 net
| metering. We are limited in how much generation we can
| connect to 105% of our average annual consumption, so over
| the course of year, on average, we zero out energy costs. If
| we want to connect more distributed generation than that, the
| tariff shifts to we get wholesale for what we sell, pay
| retail for what we use.
| pydry wrote:
| This kind of attitude only really make senses if there is a
| carbon tax.
|
| Net metering is as good a subsidy for green energy which we
| DIRELY need as any.
|
| Making perfect the enemy of the good is bad enough as a
| general principle but is 100x worse when the future of the
| planet is at stake.
| brk wrote:
| Most net metering does have a base connection charge. Mine is
| ~$35/mo, even when I have produced more energy in a month
| than we consumed, my bill was still about $40 after base fees
| and taxes/etc.
| jackmott42 wrote:
| Agreed, at some point the grid will need to spend on storage
| to enable more solar users. So either you need to have a fee
| to pay for that, or push the storage burden onto the end
| users. Make that cost apparent and force people to deal with
| it and we will find creative ways to do so (like more EV
| vehicles that can act as storage, as the Ford Lightning can)
| baq wrote:
| More likely at some point it will be uneconomical to run PV
| without attached storage. As an added bonus you'll be able
| to pull cheap power on the winter from the grid overnight
| if you have that kind of tariff available.
| ezfe wrote:
| But that's why your bill has generation and delivery split
| into two lines. Net meter the generation line but don't touch
| the delivery line.
| mdorazio wrote:
| Over the last 8 quarters their average profit margin is a
| whopping 3.25%. If you think that's just too high I'm not sure
| what to tell you.
|
| An alternate way to look at the CA rule change is that CA needs
| more installed storage to shore up the shitty grid, and
| incentivizing people to install solar alone via net metering
| isn't a great idea anymore. Remember that peak power demand is
| right around and just after sunset.
| PointyFluff wrote:
| [dead]
| ericmay wrote:
| > Over the last 8 quarters their average profit margin is a
| whopping 3.25%
|
| This is the trade-off you take when you become a quasi-
| government company. You get a low, but nearly guaranteed
| profit. Executives still get their bonuses, employees get
| paid, etc.
|
| If they want more variable rates of return then they can drop
| the public protections and go full private like any other
| regular company.
| AtlasBarfed wrote:
| Texas!!!!
|
| Or, the California grid when Enron was doing market
| manipulations like paying power companies to shut down and
| induce a brown/blackout.
| mertd wrote:
| Does that include all deferred maintenance they had to do
| after the massive wildfires?
| ketralnis wrote:
| And payouts for the various ongoing wrongful death law
| lawsuits
| hbarka wrote:
| Companies can keep profit margin flat by increasing operating
| expenses such as salary. For PG&E it looks immoral.
|
| https://www.ewg.org/news-insights/news-
| release/2022/10/ratep...
| swayvil wrote:
| 3.25% of fifty bazillion ain't so bad.
| prettychill wrote:
| I am surprised at these power bills, at least in my area the
| implied "savings" are 2-3 times what my bill is on any given
| month. Huge house maybe?
| aidenn0 wrote:
| Air conditioning dominates summer electricity uses anywhere
| that is hot and/or humid.
| ghaff wrote:
| New England is generally not that hot and humid especially
| outside cities--except for fairly brief spells. That said,
| some people do regularly run the AC to keep houses cooler in
| the summer. His savings are probably more than I pay in
| electricity in a given year (with oil heat and a small window
| unit AC in my office if I bother to put it in.)
| prettychill wrote:
| I live in a much hotter and much more humid area than the
| author does, and my bills are not even remotely close to
| these. I do run my AC through the summer, probably more than
| most
| maerF0x0 wrote:
| how much is your bill and what's the breakdown of
| electricity costs (how many kwhrs) vs mandatory grid fees?
| (regulatory and connection fees)
| prettychill wrote:
| Hottest month for me was aug, I paid around 161
|
| ~$135 1190kWh (charged at ~$0.114 / kWh) ~$10.50 tax
|
| ~15.50 other fees/riders which can not be recouped with
| panels
|
| OP is somehow paying ~25c/kWh, though I have to believe
| they are counting the connections fees etc in their
| estimate, based on natl averages they would be an outlier
| for most states. https://www.eia.gov/electricity/state/
| prottog wrote:
| That's wild. I live in an extremely hot and humid part of
| the country, in the Gulf Coast; probably the area with
| the highest AC demand in the summer. I routinely exceed
| $300 a month in the hotter months.
|
| Do you have a particularly small or recently-built, well-
| insulated house?
| prettychill wrote:
| 1 story, ~1400sqft, built in 1920s reno in 2017..maybe
| its just insulated really well
| aidenn0 wrote:
| Yes, that price is insane!
|
| I don't have A/C, _do_ have net metering and _do_ have
| solar panels, so I intentionally picked the plan with the
| highest costs during the day in the summers and I pay 24c
| /kWh only in peak hours during the summer.
|
| Author may be a high energy user and on a tiered monthly-
| usage plan rather than a TOU plan; if that is the case
| than the solar panels may be saving energy billed at the
| highest marginal rate which might be 25c/kWh. My previous
| house had in-ceiling electrical resistive heating only
| and I accidentally got a 4-figure electric bill the first
| January I lived there because one thermostat was broken.
| IIRC everything after the first NkWh (where N was a crazy
| high number) was billed at around 25c.
| secabeen wrote:
| California rates (not sure the OP is in California, but
| still) are just high. Lowest Off-Peak rate is $0.22/kWh
| in my area, and On-Peak (4-9pm) can be as high as
| $0.62/kWh.
| akira2501 wrote:
| I don't find his methods particularly rigorous. He's just
| taking total generated kWh and multiplying it by current
| utility rates and then saying this represents savings.
|
| Does it, though? We don't know how much of the generated power
| was actually used instead of sold back into the grid, or if
| this is even a grid tied installation, and what the return
| sales rate would be.
|
| The only way to actually compare this is to look at the actual
| bills. What did you pay last year, what did you pay this year?
| That's _actual_ savings. This is calculated plausible savings.
| It's not at all clear they're the same thing in this scenario.
|
| Finally.. if you're in a position to even say you're _saving_
| $233/mo, then how inefficient is your home in the first place?
| How many people live there to generate this large of a bill?
| How much of a difference would it have made to make that house
| more thermally or electrically efficient instead?
| Kirby64 wrote:
| If you live in a place that does net metering, it truly just
| is as simple as generated kWh * utility rate. That's what net
| metering means. Each kWh you provide via solar offsets the
| cost of a kWh from the grid.
|
| Additionally, if you live in a place where power is
| $0.20-$0.30/kWh, then $233/mo is not a particularly large
| amount of electricity, especially for a single-family house.
| At $0.30/kWh, that's only ~775kWh of electricity.
| ThrowawayIP wrote:
| I am too. My last energy bill was $39 for 174kWh for a house
| built in 1926. Considering that I pay ~$12 in grid connection
| fees, the payback period is functionally never.
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| Energy price will go up in future tho
| kube-system wrote:
| The electricity prices listed in the article are quite high,
| the US average is about half of that.
| prettychill wrote:
| This is a great point. Avg cost for me last year was less
| than half, around 11c/kWh
|
| Though, https://www.eia.gov/electricity/state/ makes me
| wonder how you are getting 25c/kWh prices, as author
| estimates. Maybe higher price tiers due to usage.
| kube-system wrote:
| The reason is that residential customers pay higher rates
| than average: https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_t
| able_grapher.ph...
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| That was not takeaway as well -this person seemingly lives on
| an estate. I do not think most roofs even have the space for 21
| panels.
| _whiteCaps_ wrote:
| If my math is right, 21 panels is 38.2 m^2 or 411 ft^2.
| That's not a huge amount of roof space. Depends on the roof
| pitch, but I think it could cover just the south facing sides
| of a roof of a 2000 ft^2 home.
| jefftk wrote:
| Having 21 panels requires a rectangle 17ft by 24ft (each
| panel is 5.4ft by 3.25ft). That's far from an estate: if it's
| a two story home with a flat roof you're talking 816sqft
| compared to a US median of 2,300sqft.
| VintageLight wrote:
| 1. Most roofs aren't flat. 2. For pitched roofs, you're
| only going to want to install on the south or west facing
| sides. So only some percentage of your roof area is ideal.
| jefftk wrote:
| A pitched roof and installing on only half doesn't change
| it that much. If your roof is 45deg then you're talking
| about a 24x24 building. If that's two stories this is
| 1152sqft, still less than half the size of the median US
| house.
|
| There are roof designs where even on a large house 21
| panels won't fit, but looking around my neigborhood most
| houses could easily do that many.
| kube-system wrote:
| And if you have a hip roof, it may be an exercise in
| fitting a rectangular peg in a triangular hole.
|
| https://www.infiniteenergy.com.au/wp-
| content/uploads/2016/06...
| _whiteCaps_ wrote:
| Wouldn't the panels be the same pitch as the roof, so
| you'd reduce the footprint there as well?
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| JustSomeNobody wrote:
| Hmmm.. I have a 2400 sq ft home in FL. The electricity portion of
| my utility bill averages roughly $150/month.
|
| They must be in a really large home.
| jefftk wrote:
| FL electricity is ~$0.14/kwh, compared to about twice that in
| New England.
| whycombagator wrote:
| There are more factors involved than home size
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2023-01-03 23:01 UTC)