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The grid isn't storing the excess power from rooftop solar, that electricity is being consumed by others on the grid at that moment in time. Your neighbors are

by jjk166 5y ago

The grid isn't storing the excess power from rooftop solar, that electricity is being consumed by others on the grid at that moment in time. Your neighbors are paying you, via the electric company, for the power you are providing them. When the sun isn't shining, rooftop solar owners are paying the same price as everybody else to have that power generated. Yes, as more and more power is generated by solar there will naturally be a shift from baseload to peaker plants, and peakers have higher costs per kwh than baseload, but you are generating a lot fewer kwh with those peaker plants, so overall cost is still low. Net-metering also has benefits like reducing the strain on the distribution system and decreased losses due to transmission, which actually makes the system a net gain for all parties. Power companies complaining about net-metering is just nefarious accounting. If they stop net-metering, they still get all the benefits - they can still sell your excess electricity to your neighbors, their maintenance costs still go down - but they don't have to compensate rooftop solar owners with account credits anymore, so they can have their cake and eat it too. It's wealth transfer from middle class households to monopolistic corporations that directly discourages emission reduction.

slv77 5y ago
From the perspective of the homeowner there is no functional difference between net-metering with a grid tie-in and oversized panels with battery capacity. In either case the light switch will work at night but net-metering comes at zero cost and the other is cost prohibitive. From the neighbor’s perspective who is paying for the grid the rooftop solar is just another power company. A commercial solar provider is offering to sell solar power at average costs of $0.06 per KWH while the solar rooftop owner is offering to sell it at multiples of wholesale. In addition the rooftop solar owner wants long term guaranteed price contracts to deliver power to the grid whenever it is convenient. Nobody would agree to that arrangement. Rooftop solar owners are currently heavily subsidized and if they weren’t they’d just disconnect from the grid and it wouldn’t be a debate.
- jjk166 5y ago
  There's also no functional difference between net metering and having a farm of a million hamsters spinning little wheels to turn little generators. In either case the light switch will work at night, but one is obviously cost prohibitive. But the difference between the cost of paying your electric company and the cost of powering your house with hamsters is not a subsidy, no one is giving you that money, you have not become richer by some amount, you've merely not pursued an uneconomical option. Using solar power during the day and paying for gas at night is more economical than using stored solar power at night, so that's what people do. The rooftop owner is offering to sell electricity for exactly the same rate that their neighbors are purchasing it at. When you buy electricity from the electric company, they are doing the work of going to the wholesaler, making the contract to get some basic amount of capacity, setting up all the distribution infrastructure to get it from the wholesaler to you, etc. That is value added, and the retail rate is marked up accordingly. When rooftop owners pump electricity into the grid, the electric company isn't doing any work, they're not adding any value, they don't profit directly from the affair but they have no reason to. They do, nevertheless, save money on reduced maintenance expenses. Everyone in this scenario is coming out ahead, but no one is subsidizing anyone else. Everyone is better off simply for the more efficient utilization of resources. The rooftop owners aren't paying to burn gas during the day, the electric company isn't paying to pump large amounts of power where they don't need to, and non-rooftop owners are buying power that is in lower demand. Win-win-win.
  - slv77 5y ago
    The retail cost of electricity consists of the capital cost of generation (20-30 year cost of building a plant) PLUS fuel costs; depreciation and maintenance of the grid; financial risk of selling electricity at a fixed price to consumers while purchasing it at a variable price; billing and collections; the risk of non-payment and compliance burdens as a regulated entity along with overhead and profit. A rooftop solar owner under net metering has zero costs or risks outside of capital depreciation but still sells electricity to the grid at full retail price. There is no obligation to provide the neighbor with power during high demand times when power is more expensive. No costs to build or maintain the grid. No costs to bill your neighbor. No risk if he doesn’t pay. No obligation to extend power to distant communities over rocky terrain. These costs and risks are non-trivial and in California represent more than two-thirds of retail cost of electricity. Costs for solar installations are dropping while other cost are rising. What the grid needs now is not more solar installations but very capital intensive investments in energy storage and more robust distribution systems. Renewables aren’t going to decrease the cost of the grid but likely increase it as power will need to be able to be distributed across states to compensate for a rainy day in So-Cal. The rooftop solar installations in So-Cal with excess power doesn’t compensate for the more power demand from No-Cal is there is no way to move power between them. Net-metering is paying a rooftop solar owner well in excess of the value of the electricity produced. No free agent in the market would ever buy power at retail rates. There is nothing special about the electrons coming from a rooftop solar installation versus a commercial solar installation a mile away but the rooftop solar owner gets paid 5x the price for those electrons. If there is anything special about them is it the commercial solar plant because it can distribute its power beyond the step down transformer at the end of the block which is as far as the rooftop solar owners power can be distributed. Paying the rooftop solar owner in excess of market rates is a subsidy. Win for rooftop solar and lose for every other participant.

by jjk166 5y ago

slv77 5y ago

From the perspective of the homeowner there is no functional difference between net-metering with a grid tie-in and oversized panels with battery capacity. In either case the light switch will work at night but net-metering comes at zero cost and the other is cost prohibitive. From the neighbor’s perspective who is paying for the grid the rooftop solar is just another power company. A commercial solar provider is offering to sell solar power at average costs of $0.06 per KWH while the solar rooftop owner is offering to sell it at multiples of wholesale. In addition the rooftop solar owner wants long term guaranteed price contracts to deliver power to the grid whenever it is convenient. Nobody would agree to that arrangement. Rooftop solar owners are currently heavily subsidized and if they weren’t they’d just disconnect from the grid and it wouldn’t be a debate.

jjk166 5y ago
There's also no functional difference between net metering and having a farm of a million hamsters spinning little wheels to turn little generators. In either case the light switch will work at night, but one is obviously cost prohibitive. But the difference between the cost of paying your electric company and the cost of powering your house with hamsters is not a subsidy, no one is giving you that money, you have not become richer by some amount, you've merely not pursued an uneconomical option. Using solar power during the day and paying for gas at night is more economical than using stored solar power at night, so that's what people do. The rooftop owner is offering to sell electricity for exactly the same rate that their neighbors are purchasing it at. When you buy electricity from the electric company, they are doing the work of going to the wholesaler, making the contract to get some basic amount of capacity, setting up all the distribution infrastructure to get it from the wholesaler to you, etc. That is value added, and the retail rate is marked up accordingly. When rooftop owners pump electricity into the grid, the electric company isn't doing any work, they're not adding any value, they don't profit directly from the affair but they have no reason to. They do, nevertheless, save money on reduced maintenance expenses. Everyone in this scenario is coming out ahead, but no one is subsidizing anyone else. Everyone is better off simply for the more efficient utilization of resources. The rooftop owners aren't paying to burn gas during the day, the electric company isn't paying to pump large amounts of power where they don't need to, and non-rooftop owners are buying power that is in lower demand. Win-win-win.
- slv77 5y ago
  The retail cost of electricity consists of the capital cost of generation (20-30 year cost of building a plant) PLUS fuel costs; depreciation and maintenance of the grid; financial risk of selling electricity at a fixed price to consumers while purchasing it at a variable price; billing and collections; the risk of non-payment and compliance burdens as a regulated entity along with overhead and profit. A rooftop solar owner under net metering has zero costs or risks outside of capital depreciation but still sells electricity to the grid at full retail price. There is no obligation to provide the neighbor with power during high demand times when power is more expensive. No costs to build or maintain the grid. No costs to bill your neighbor. No risk if he doesn’t pay. No obligation to extend power to distant communities over rocky terrain. These costs and risks are non-trivial and in California represent more than two-thirds of retail cost of electricity. Costs for solar installations are dropping while other cost are rising. What the grid needs now is not more solar installations but very capital intensive investments in energy storage and more robust distribution systems. Renewables aren’t going to decrease the cost of the grid but likely increase it as power will need to be able to be distributed across states to compensate for a rainy day in So-Cal. The rooftop solar installations in So-Cal with excess power doesn’t compensate for the more power demand from No-Cal is there is no way to move power between them. Net-metering is paying a rooftop solar owner well in excess of the value of the electricity produced. No free agent in the market would ever buy power at retail rates. There is nothing special about the electrons coming from a rooftop solar installation versus a commercial solar installation a mile away but the rooftop solar owner gets paid 5x the price for those electrons. If there is anything special about them is it the commercial solar plant because it can distribute its power beyond the step down transformer at the end of the block which is as far as the rooftop solar owners power can be distributed. Paying the rooftop solar owner in excess of market rates is a subsidy. Win for rooftop solar and lose for every other participant.