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I'm not sure I understand this. "a monthly residential Grid Participation Charge of $8 per kilowatt (kW) of installed solar" Does that mean for ever kW of sol

I'm not sure I understand this. "a monthly residential Grid Participation Charge of $8 per kilowatt (kW) of installed solar" Does that mean for ever kW of solar capacity a customers has in the panels on their house, they'll be billed $8 per month to contribute power to the grid? Because that sounds crazy.

hedora 5y ago
Apparently so. (Even if the panels are producing << 8kW, and the electricity is consumed on site.) The rule isn’t finalized yet, so there’s still time to fight it.
- ganoushoreilly 5y ago
  What incentive does anyone have to go "green" with solar anymore. Combine this with the fact that they're trying to push all new homes to require solar, it's clear it's just another money grab. If I was still in the Bay, I'd have a 280 ish bill to pay for the convenience of having solar, assuming i'm reading this right. Combine that with the payment of $300 for the solar system itself and i'm well above what my power bill was by a large margin. All these rulings do is turn people away from trying to reduce carbon usage and make things more economically prohibitive.
  - oaiey 5y ago
    You also earn money by selling the energy. This is cost of good essentially. We pay this in Germany not as a flat rate but indirectly by a very low price offered by the grid company. $8 however seems quite high but I do not know the offered price and solar output in California.
    - lsaferite 5y ago
      Think of an install that generates enough for the customer during the day and needs grid supplement at night. Based on reading this, they'd still get charged. Maybe it's only for solar that feeds back to the grid, but event then, if I only have a small amount of excess capacity, it's possible it won't even cover the monthly charge.
    - 0xquad 5y ago
      Per LA Times [ https://www.latimes.com/environment/newsletter/2021-12-16/california-plan-to-cut-solar-incentives-boiling-point https://www.latimes.com/environment/newsletter/2021-12-16/ca... ] They propose to pay customers $0.05 / generated kWh instead of the $0.20-$0.30/kWh that customers pay in California. So you would have to generate an excess 160 kWh /month to cover the $8 fee (per installed kW of capacity). Your non-solar neighbor who uses your 160kWh of generated electrons will pay the utility $32-$48 for them, while reaping the benefit of lowered stress on the grid.
      - elzbardico 5y ago
        It makes sense. The cost of generation is just a part of the cost of distribution. It never made much sense to force the power company to buy power from consumers at consumer prices, it amounted basically to a subsidy for grid-tie installations. What I hope is that this incentives people to move towards off-grid systems with their own storage. Grid-tie was never viable in large scale if you really think about all the details.
      - hedora 5y ago
        160kWh is twenty 8 hour days at 100% efficiency. That will almost never be worth it. I guess that’s the end of net energy metering in California. According to an article about the legality of the fee linked elsewhere in this thread, customers can still opt out of NEM, and just waste the excess electricity generation. That will essentially always be the right financial decision. It would actually be less hostile towards solar installs if they simply paid $0 for excess energy, and didn’t introduce the fee.
oaiey 5y ago
See it from the grid perspective: who pays the grid owner for maintaining the uplink. For working with the unfortunate peeks in solar/wind energy availability.
- simplyaccont 5y ago
  solar owners already paying for grid hookup like everybody if they think it doesn't cover real costs of grid maintainance, they should raise it. for everybody
  - elzbardico 5y ago
    It is far more complicated than just “maintaining” the cables as most lay people think when they hear grid costs. The problem is that the grid has to match power demand with the roughly the same amount of power generation during all the time. So, if a cloud passes over your system and reduces your output by 25%, those 25% need to come from somewhere, usually from rotational inertia from giant steam or hydro turbogenerators in the nearest second, and either by regulating steam production or water flow in the long run or if necessary by either taking offline generator or adding more easily dispatchable power sources. And all the while making sure the frequency keeps very close to 60hz all the time. It is not just about sending a man in a pole to change some insulators from time to time.
    - simplyaccont 5y ago
      I pay for grid hookup and for electricity, if they think that they don't have enough money for managing their stuff properly across the board (both wires and loads), they should increase those costs for everybody and not just throw some charges (or essentially tax to benefit utilities) on panels. how is it exactly fair that in case when there are two households having same minimal use (essentially grid connection price) with one of them having 10k of solar, the household without solar will pay $10 per month and the other one will pay $90 per month ? (as i said, they consume same amount of energy from grid)
- olliej 5y ago
mc32 5y ago
It appears like they’re figuring it’s mostly “people who have money” who install solar, not poor folks, so we’re going to tax “people who have money’s” solar “consumption.” A bit of cutting of your nose (sustainable power) to spite the middle class (people who are more than poor).

hedora 5y ago

Apparently so. (Even if the panels are producing << 8kW, and the electricity is consumed on site.) The rule isn’t finalized yet, so there’s still time to fight it.

ganoushoreilly 5y ago
What incentive does anyone have to go "green" with solar anymore. Combine this with the fact that they're trying to push all new homes to require solar, it's clear it's just another money grab. If I was still in the Bay, I'd have a 280 ish bill to pay for the convenience of having solar, assuming i'm reading this right. Combine that with the payment of $300 for the solar system itself and i'm well above what my power bill was by a large margin. All these rulings do is turn people away from trying to reduce carbon usage and make things more economically prohibitive.
- oaiey 5y ago
  You also earn money by selling the energy. This is cost of good essentially. We pay this in Germany not as a flat rate but indirectly by a very low price offered by the grid company. $8 however seems quite high but I do not know the offered price and solar output in California.
  - lsaferite 5y ago
    Think of an install that generates enough for the customer during the day and needs grid supplement at night. Based on reading this, they'd still get charged. Maybe it's only for solar that feeds back to the grid, but event then, if I only have a small amount of excess capacity, it's possible it won't even cover the monthly charge.
  - 0xquad 5y ago
    Per LA Times [ https://www.latimes.com/environment/newsletter/2021-12-16/california-plan-to-cut-solar-incentives-boiling-point https://www.latimes.com/environment/newsletter/2021-12-16/ca... ] They propose to pay customers $0.05 / generated kWh instead of the $0.20-$0.30/kWh that customers pay in California. So you would have to generate an excess 160 kWh /month to cover the $8 fee (per installed kW of capacity). Your non-solar neighbor who uses your 160kWh of generated electrons will pay the utility $32-$48 for them, while reaping the benefit of lowered stress on the grid.
    - elzbardico 5y ago
      It makes sense. The cost of generation is just a part of the cost of distribution. It never made much sense to force the power company to buy power from consumers at consumer prices, it amounted basically to a subsidy for grid-tie installations. What I hope is that this incentives people to move towards off-grid systems with their own storage. Grid-tie was never viable in large scale if you really think about all the details.
    - hedora 5y ago
      160kWh is twenty 8 hour days at 100% efficiency. That will almost never be worth it. I guess that’s the end of net energy metering in California. According to an article about the legality of the fee linked elsewhere in this thread, customers can still opt out of NEM, and just waste the excess electricity generation. That will essentially always be the right financial decision. It would actually be less hostile towards solar installs if they simply paid $0 for excess energy, and didn’t introduce the fee.

oaiey 5y ago

See it from the grid perspective: who pays the grid owner for maintaining the uplink. For working with the unfortunate peeks in solar/wind energy availability.

simplyaccont 5y ago
solar owners already paying for grid hookup like everybody if they think it doesn't cover real costs of grid maintainance, they should raise it. for everybody
- elzbardico 5y ago
  It is far more complicated than just “maintaining” the cables as most lay people think when they hear grid costs. The problem is that the grid has to match power demand with the roughly the same amount of power generation during all the time. So, if a cloud passes over your system and reduces your output by 25%, those 25% need to come from somewhere, usually from rotational inertia from giant steam or hydro turbogenerators in the nearest second, and either by regulating steam production or water flow in the long run or if necessary by either taking offline generator or adding more easily dispatchable power sources. And all the while making sure the frequency keeps very close to 60hz all the time. It is not just about sending a man in a pole to change some insulators from time to time.
  - simplyaccont 5y ago
    I pay for grid hookup and for electricity, if they think that they don't have enough money for managing their stuff properly across the board (both wires and loads), they should increase those costs for everybody and not just throw some charges (or essentially tax to benefit utilities) on panels. how is it exactly fair that in case when there are two households having same minimal use (essentially grid connection price) with one of them having 10k of solar, the household without solar will pay $10 per month and the other one will pay $90 per month ? (as i said, they consume same amount of energy from grid)
olliej 5y ago

mc32 5y ago

It appears like they’re figuring it’s mostly “people who have money” who install solar, not poor folks, so we’re going to tax “people who have money’s” solar “consumption.” A bit of cutting of your nose (sustainable power) to spite the middle class (people who are more than poor).