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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 e

by 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.
  - jjk166 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. For the electric company, a rooftop solar panel is a source of electricity with no capital cost of generation, no fuel costs, no depreciation, no maintenance, no variable pricing, and no new billing and collections, no additional risk of non-payment, and no additional compliance burdens - it's free. > 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 A rooftop solar owner gets a credit on their own account for what they would have paid for the electricity they provide, so it looks like they are getting paid retail rate, but this is fictitious. Let's say I buy 10 bottles of water wholesale for a dollar a piece ($10 total), then I retail them to you for 2 dollars a piece ($20 total); I'm currently up $10. You sell me back 5 water bottles at 2 dollars a piece ($10 total); I now have $0 in cash, but I have 5 perfectly good water bottles. I am in exactly the same position I would be in if I had only sold you 5 water bottles to begin with. Now I retail my remaining 5 water bottles to someone else for $2 each; overall I'm still up $10. I haven't subsidized you nor has anybody lost anything. Every customer has paid the same price for what they actually consumed, and I have made the same profit off of my wares. Likewise, ff the electricity company purchases a kwh for 5 cents and retails it to you for 11 cents, then credits you back 11 cents if you give them a kwh, that kwh only cost them the initial 5 cents, and is ready to be retailed. No one has ever claimed that rooftop solar is the be all end all silver bullet to fix every issue with power generation. It doesn't need to be. More rooftop installations which the electricity company isn't paying for don't inhibit investment in energy storage and robust distribution systems. But rooftop solar decreases emissions, reduces grid demand in turn reducing stress on the grid, locates power generation much closer to power consumption reducing transmission losses, and overall increases the available supply of electricity. If you live in the environment or have an electric bill, all of those things are beneficial to you.

by slv77 5y ago

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.
- jjk166 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. For the electric company, a rooftop solar panel is a source of electricity with no capital cost of generation, no fuel costs, no depreciation, no maintenance, no variable pricing, and no new billing and collections, no additional risk of non-payment, and no additional compliance burdens - it's free. > 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 A rooftop solar owner gets a credit on their own account for what they would have paid for the electricity they provide, so it looks like they are getting paid retail rate, but this is fictitious. Let's say I buy 10 bottles of water wholesale for a dollar a piece ($10 total), then I retail them to you for 2 dollars a piece ($20 total); I'm currently up $10. You sell me back 5 water bottles at 2 dollars a piece ($10 total); I now have $0 in cash, but I have 5 perfectly good water bottles. I am in exactly the same position I would be in if I had only sold you 5 water bottles to begin with. Now I retail my remaining 5 water bottles to someone else for $2 each; overall I'm still up $10. I haven't subsidized you nor has anybody lost anything. Every customer has paid the same price for what they actually consumed, and I have made the same profit off of my wares. Likewise, ff the electricity company purchases a kwh for 5 cents and retails it to you for 11 cents, then credits you back 11 cents if you give them a kwh, that kwh only cost them the initial 5 cents, and is ready to be retailed. No one has ever claimed that rooftop solar is the be all end all silver bullet to fix every issue with power generation. It doesn't need to be. More rooftop installations which the electricity company isn't paying for don't inhibit investment in energy storage and robust distribution systems. But rooftop solar decreases emissions, reduces grid demand in turn reducing stress on the grid, locates power generation much closer to power consumption reducing transmission losses, and overall increases the available supply of electricity. If you live in the environment or have an electric bill, all of those things are beneficial to you.