5 ms·

Yeah, I've read a handful of studies that claim to show something like that, but every time you dig down in to the numbers there are glaring errors. Given that

Yeah, I've read a handful of studies that claim to show something like that, but every time you dig down in to the numbers there are glaring errors. Given that the Maryland study accounts for the benefit to the local economy (??), I'm not going to bother spending an hour on that. They've left their thumb on the scale. Typically solar does not provide much power at all during peak use, which is why the duck curve was coined. You can clearly see that homeowners with solar aren't subsidizing the grid, because laws needed to be passed in order to force utilities to accept the power. If someone hands you free money, you don't turn it down. Net metering was a handy subsidy to get solar started, but it's an obscene transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich in the long run. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_curve https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_curve

ZeroGravitas 7y ago
Many utilities are run on a cost plus basis which means they would be entirely economically rational to literally turn down free money, because it would reduce the amount of profit they could make. Also, the duck curve doesn't show peak use. The duck curve shows the peaks that are left after solar has been subtracted. Go find a duck curve, note that it will almost certainly be in springtime when overall demand is low. Then look up the yearly demand peak for that region. It will almost certainly be in the afternoon in the summer and will dwarf the duck curve peaks. So solar will be directly reducing the requirement to build out capacity (and further reducing utility profit potential/ saving everyone lots of money). Worst case scenario for the duck is to throw away a bit of solar power sometimes because other parts of the system need time to ramp. People clutch their pearls at this, just like they do at negative prices, but it's just nonsense with no logical basis. It's like complaining that buying a dozen eggs is wasteful if you only need 11. Yeah, but it's cheaper than buying 11 individual eggs so maybe just think of something to do with your "free" egg instead of complaining about a non-issue.
- reitzensteinm 7y ago
  To the extent that solar is economically beneficial, net metering isn't necessary. Just sell it at market rates, which are astronomical on peak days. How's that for logical basis?
  - ZeroGravitas 7y ago
    Yeah, sounds great to me. Add in a carbon tax, removal of fossil subsidies and allowances (to capture externalities) and a whole bunch of nonsense gets solved by the power of the market incentives. I'm not in favour of net metering as an end in itself. As I said I think it still cheats solar providers. But it's a neat hack that quickly and easily moves us closer to the real solution than we were before, while using the existing deployed hardware (the basic idea is the existing meter runs forward and backward and you pay the net).
    - reitzensteinm 7y ago
      I'd love a carbon tax. However, I still think you're mistaken that residential solar is in any way subsidizing the grid. Utility scale solar is under half the price, and the gap is only going to widen as PV prices fall and the panels become a smaller part of total cost. Why would you pay a homeowner $2.5/W to install panels on their roof instead of paying $1/W to build a power plant that has the same profile? The only benefit you get is the distribution of the power generation, but if that's the goal and we're willing to pay a lot of money to subsidize it, BEVs capable of demand dispatch powering a home or even battery to grid are a significantly better target. The new Leaf can do this, but there's limited enthusiasm as the economic benefit can't be easily captured. We need to switch to BEVs anyway, and it's crazy not to take advantage of the dual use potential. Solar might shave a bit off the peak days - whether residential or utility by the way - but BEVs would go much further, and enable much higher wind and solar mixes in the grid. Solar is cheap enough already. Net metering did its bit as a kick starting subsidy, but for new installations today it serves only as a wealth transfer to the upper middle class, who get to break even on something uneconomic, greenwash their lives, and displace spending on utility scale solar. Let's solve the issues of tomorrow instead of doubling down on what worked yesterday.

ZeroGravitas 7y ago

Many utilities are run on a cost plus basis which means they would be entirely economically rational to literally turn down free money, because it would reduce the amount of profit they could make. Also, the duck curve doesn't show peak use. The duck curve shows the peaks that are left after solar has been subtracted. Go find a duck curve, note that it will almost certainly be in springtime when overall demand is low. Then look up the yearly demand peak for that region. It will almost certainly be in the afternoon in the summer and will dwarf the duck curve peaks. So solar will be directly reducing the requirement to build out capacity (and further reducing utility profit potential/ saving everyone lots of money). Worst case scenario for the duck is to throw away a bit of solar power sometimes because other parts of the system need time to ramp. People clutch their pearls at this, just like they do at negative prices, but it's just nonsense with no logical basis. It's like complaining that buying a dozen eggs is wasteful if you only need 11. Yeah, but it's cheaper than buying 11 individual eggs so maybe just think of something to do with your "free" egg instead of complaining about a non-issue.

reitzensteinm 7y ago
To the extent that solar is economically beneficial, net metering isn't necessary. Just sell it at market rates, which are astronomical on peak days. How's that for logical basis?
- ZeroGravitas 7y ago
  Yeah, sounds great to me. Add in a carbon tax, removal of fossil subsidies and allowances (to capture externalities) and a whole bunch of nonsense gets solved by the power of the market incentives. I'm not in favour of net metering as an end in itself. As I said I think it still cheats solar providers. But it's a neat hack that quickly and easily moves us closer to the real solution than we were before, while using the existing deployed hardware (the basic idea is the existing meter runs forward and backward and you pay the net).
  - reitzensteinm 7y ago
    I'd love a carbon tax. However, I still think you're mistaken that residential solar is in any way subsidizing the grid. Utility scale solar is under half the price, and the gap is only going to widen as PV prices fall and the panels become a smaller part of total cost. Why would you pay a homeowner $2.5/W to install panels on their roof instead of paying $1/W to build a power plant that has the same profile? The only benefit you get is the distribution of the power generation, but if that's the goal and we're willing to pay a lot of money to subsidize it, BEVs capable of demand dispatch powering a home or even battery to grid are a significantly better target. The new Leaf can do this, but there's limited enthusiasm as the economic benefit can't be easily captured. We need to switch to BEVs anyway, and it's crazy not to take advantage of the dual use potential. Solar might shave a bit off the peak days - whether residential or utility by the way - but BEVs would go much further, and enable much higher wind and solar mixes in the grid. Solar is cheap enough already. Net metering did its bit as a kick starting subsidy, but for new installations today it serves only as a wealth transfer to the upper middle class, who get to break even on something uneconomic, greenwash their lives, and displace spending on utility scale solar. Let's solve the issues of tomorrow instead of doubling down on what worked yesterday.