[HN Gopher] Dominion Energy's NEM 2.0 Proposal: What It Means fo...
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Dominion Energy's NEM 2.0 Proposal: What It Means for Solar in
Virginia
Author : Vsolar
Score : 37 points
Date : 2025-05-16 19:03 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.virtuesolar.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.virtuesolar.com)
| laurencerowe wrote:
| Rooftop solar in the US is absurldy expensive. The 30% federal
| subsidies alone are greater than the full buildout cost of
| utility scale solar. At these prices rooftop solar makes no
| sense.
|
| This seems to be more about the US market than rooftop vs utility
| scale. Australia shows it is possible to install rooftop solar
| cheaply. Why can't we?
| detourdog wrote:
| I find it hard to judge the expense of a solar array. I have
| purchased 2 in Massachusetts about 8 years apart. The SRECs I
| have received for the first array I would say roughly covered
| the costs. The second array seems to be on the same pace. I
| also benefit from the electricity produced.
|
| Last year the second Massachusetts changed the electrical
| repurchase agreement and I just checked the bill for April. I
| produced 480 more kWh than used. I ended up with a $58.04
| credit. National Grid pays me $.24320141 per kWh. I will be
| pumping just under 6,000 kWh a month into the gird until
| October.
|
| I don't see solar as expensive I see it as a good value. I will
| always be buying electricity and it will always be rising in
| price. I'm happy to have the opportunity to invest to reduce
| these costs.
|
| I agree that the system is not fair...
| conradev wrote:
| I studied this for a year fellowship, and there are lots of
| problems, but problems with permitting and interconnection are
| pretty unique in the US.
|
| NREL, NFPA, UL, and Tesla got together and developed SolarAPP
| (https://gosolarapp.org). It enables instant online permitting
| for standard installations, and California passed a law
| mandating its adoption.
|
| It's also sales. Solar is currently sold by salespeople and
| they need to be paid. The small solar companies contract out to
| the larger solar companies for crap rates because top of funnel
| is very hard for them. There is a YC company going after that
| opportunity: https://projectsolar.com/
|
| Software providers like Aurora (https://aurorasolar.com) are
| used for making proposals, but they sell software to solar
| installers rather than vertically integrating and going after
| it themselves.
|
| Tesla sells online, but the online experience ends after you
| pay and they try to sell you too much solar. Everything,
| including design, is subcontracted out in my understanding.
|
| Sunrun is a great option even though you don't own the panels.
| PPAs are more popular at the moment because interest rates are
| so high.
| Analemma_ wrote:
| It's mostly shortage of labor: if you're willing to do the
| research on your setup, buy the equipment yourself, and just
| hand instructions+gear to a contractor, you save a bunch of
| money. If you're willing/able to do the installation yourself,
| you save even more.
|
| This isn't specifically a rooftop solar thing, the entire
| construction industry in America has been bottlenecked on labor
| for years. You can insert your own personal hobbyhorse here
| about why that is (immigration, undervaluing trades, etc.), but
| whatever it is it sure is a headwind on solar migration.
| kanisae wrote:
| Glad I am not a Dominion customer anymore. I will happily stick
| with my coop and pay $0.12/kwh and keep my 1:1 metering.
| detourdog wrote:
| .12 kWh sounds great where is that.
| kanisae wrote:
| I am on svec.coop, and have been much happier with them than
| I was on Dominion.
| gruez wrote:
| Many states have rates in that range. https://www.eia.gov/ele
| ctricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.ph...
| aidenn0 wrote:
| Edison designs their bill to make it very hard to tell what you
| are paying per kwh, but I think I'm paying between $0.20 and
| $0.30 depending on time of day.
| conradev wrote:
| It's worth noting that while net metering is helpful for
| bootstrapping rooftop solar, ratepayers are essentially
| subsidizing solar arrays on the houses of (wealthier) homeowners.
|
| The utility company would normally pay wholesale rates for solar
| energy (which has an aggressive duck curve), but instead they're
| forced to pay retail prices to net metering customers.
|
| California pays wholesale rates now (they're on NEM 3.0) with a
| fixed fee for maintaining the wires even if you don't use them a
| whole lot.
| lokar wrote:
| I'm not sure it makes sense to pick one spot in such a complex
| system and say "x is subsidizing y"
|
| If you believe burning carbon fuels is a big negative
| externality, then solar users are subsidizing everyone else.
|
| When the utility puts up capital to build a plant, they are
| promised a return on that investment over time.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| > If you believe burning carbon fuels is a big negative
| externality, then solar users are subsidizing everyone else.
|
| If the energy company is paying you $0.12 to sell electricity
| for $0.09 - they're losing money. Not to mention, they aren't
| covering any of the costs of maintaining their network (which
| is a large chunk of the overall cost).
|
| If they're forced to buy rooftop solar from homeowners at a
| loss - they are FORCED to transfer that loss onto other
| costumers - which means the other customers are subsidizing
| that.
|
| There isn't anything tricky about who is subsidizing whom.
|
| Your issues with "dirty" energy are entirely separate.
| abracadaniel wrote:
| They're also simultaneously selling it again for $0.12
| ensuring that your surplus free electricity is used by your
| neighbors. Conceptually it's a wash, because they then
| scale down the amount of power they generate. The real
| world consequence is that power generation is not easily
| scaled on demand.
| mgraczyk wrote:
| "because they then scale down the amount of power they
| generate"
|
| They spend 0.12 for power that would have cost them much
| less than 0.12 to generate. The consequence is that they
| make up for it by charging other customers more.
| gusgus01 wrote:
| At least in New York state, they've recently tried to deal
| with this discrepancy while still keeping the incentive to
| install solar. There's a flat rate fee for all electricity
| customers to be hooked up to the grid to support grid
| infrastructure. There's also an additional fee to those
| that have solar panels called the Customer Benefit
| Contribution that is based off your generation to help fund
| energy efficiency projects and low-income programs.
| Y_Y wrote:
| > they are FORCED to transfer that loss onto other
| costumers
|
| How does that figure?
|
| I won't even insist you account for second order effects of
| having the solar panel, just that the consumer is only
| paying for their net draw of energy from the grid (which
| has decreased).
| herewego wrote:
| You are stating a common misconception. That being that
| solar owners should be paying for anything other than the
| cost to push power into the distribution grid. The grid
| fees solar owners pay account for that. They should not be
| paid for supplying power at wholesale rates bc that assumes
| a wholesale power flow model, which is not physically
| applicable to solar owners who support the local
| distribution grid. If you look at the portion of the grid
| that a solar owner interacts with, how their power flows
| through it, the efficiencies of supplying that power
| locally are clear and should be at retail + distribution
| fees only. It's the solar owners that are actually
| (marginally) subsidizing the non-solar owners in reality.
|
| The utilities and ISO's do not argue against this. They
| want to eliminate NEM 2.0 in favor of NEM 3.0 bc the
| difference in rates are to then be provided by alternative
| incentives such as battery pay-for-performance programs.
|
| Disclaimer: I own an energy company that does C&I and
| Residential energy aggregation and participates in
| wholesale market energy supply and incentive programs.
| johncalvinyoung wrote:
| I wish this article recognized that there is a cost to
| maintaining the grid, both in transmission infrastructure, but
| also in maintaining the dispatchable generation capacity to
| smooth out solar's variability. As frustrating as this policy
| change sounds for consumers, I can see the case that the utility
| has variable && fixed costs related to net metering that warrants
| a sub-retail rate of exchange. In point of fact, roughly the rate
| that Dominion is willing to pay for solar energy in commercial
| PPAs.
|
| The SREC situation is more complicated. I'm not familiar with
| Virginia's program, but I could see a case that Dominion doesn't
| _deserve_ those credits... or one that says if they 're
| building/operating their grid around accepting rooftop solar,
| some of those tax credits should accrue to their operations. I
| don't know. I wonder if commercial PPAs also transfer credits in
| exchange?
| andyferris wrote:
| Wow. I don't think we've had net metering in Australia basically
| ever (maybe if you DIYed decades ago, the analogue counter would
| have simply spun backwards... not sure if that was ever legal
| though). If you have solar, there's always two one-way metres
| with seperate rates (and now real-time smart meters with the
| optional capability to use a provider that offers time-of-use
| wholesale rates - so you can profit in energy trading/arbitrage
| if you have a battery).
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