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It's a subsidy. Powerplants don't get paid retail rates.
by wbl 9y ago
It's a subsidy. Powerplants don't get paid retail rates.
- ZeroGravitas 9y agoPowerplants often get paid many multiples of retail rates at peak times. The retail rates are averages. And, in places with air-con usage, those peaks coincide to a high degree with solar production. So it's not a subsidy.
- wbl 9y agoWhat if we paid consumers like powerplants then?
- ZeroGravitas 9y agoThe closer we get to the economically perfect solutions the better, but even powerplants have lots of weird regulations and "subsidies" around their pricing e.g. paying gas peakers to be on standby because it's not clear exactly how much power will be needed. At some point you have to accept simplicity rather than waste money on perfection. Net-metering is a pretty good solution by any measure.
- jhayward 9y agoWhy would we do that? The structure of how power plants generate electricity and are paid for it are idiosyncratic to their particular operating and economic conditions. It would make no sense to try to force something completely unlike that in to their regime. Thus the many efforts that are designing a "value of solar" regime that encompasses the important aspects of solar, so that equitable and efficient cost schemes can be designed.