Hmm, I think you may be confused/arguing against a strawman here, but I'll bite. > Nor should the power company force customers to buy the power that they gene

Hmm, I think you may be confused/arguing against a strawman here, but I'll bite. > Nor should the power company force customers to buy the power that they generated themselves at the utility's price. No one is forcing customers to do this. I'm not sure where you get that from? If you are using more power than consuming, it does not leave your local premises. Only the excess power you are not using at that point in time is being sent. That's kind of the point of net metering. > Certainly, when the net usage is negative, the utility should pay only the wholesale cost of that portion of production in excess of local usage. Which is precisely what they do. Some are forced to pay retail - which was a temporary subsidy both to spur solar development and honestly was adopted largely due to billing convenience if nothing else 20 years ago. Easy to just let a meter spin backwards and bill/pay based on those numbers vs. developing entirely new billing software but everyone knew at the time it was temporary and financially nonsensical. > When the net usage is positive, the customer should pay the retail price of that portion of usage in excess of local production. Currently the case. > But it is nonsensical for the customer to sell the power they generate at wholesale, and immediately buy it back at retail. This isn't the case anywhere I've heard of, and definitely not the TVA. Even the linked article very clearly describes the situation as net metering as defined everywhere else. Customers are not sending all their generated power out their meter, then putting load on the "grid" on another meter back in. That would indeed be absurd. > Immediate use should not be metered in either direction, and time-shifted use should account for peak vs. off-peak. Completely agreed. > That "grid battery" is actually the natural gas fuel supply at the peaking plant that does not need to be used to supplement the baseline plant. Fuel that stays in the tank instead of being burned is the best "battery" we have right now. Yes and no. You might be surprised solar load does not match up nearly as well with peak power demand as is reported. This of course is a fine point to debate, and generally is in your favor. My main point is that power companies being forced to operate a free battery for rich solar customers is immoral when think of who is subsidizing that free battery. Rooftop solar may be about the least valuable form of power to a power company as they can do nothing to schedule production, and the rest of the rate-payers shouldn't be forced to pay retail rates to the rich few who prefer to save $15k on a local battery pack so they don't need the grid battery at night. I don't think we should force folks to require battery packs, but I also know that the financial incentives are currently lined up to have us end up with a bunch of rich folks paying nothing for power with solar systems, and a bunch of poor renters paying for 100% of the capex on things like the nuclear baseload plants so the solar folks get power at night.