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Net metering just doesn't make sense though. Everyone who wants to rely on the grid for power availability ought to pay for grid upkeep costs. Net metering woul

Net metering just doesn't make sense though. Everyone who wants to rely on the grid for power availability ought to pay for grid upkeep costs. Net metering would make sense if it came on top of a baseline "connectivity fee" that covered grid maintenance, but that's not the current policy, would likely be politically infeasible, and would hurt rooftop solar customers financially anyway. Subsidizing solar is a perfectly good policy choice, but net metering is ultimately an unsustainable way to implement it.

_ea1k 4y ago
I tend to agree, but the fixed $/kw monthly fees that utilities want is just about the dumbest possible alternative.
K0balt 4y ago
Isn’t there a base charge though? In my home town it’s around 25 dollars a month just to be hooked up whether you use anything or not. What would seem logical to me would be a base charge, they net meter you to zero, but then you sell power at the wholesaler rate. If that wipes out your connect charge you still have them the value that they would have paid for the power you made. Maybe the base charge would have to be higher for net metered houses, it might have some subsidy built into it based on expectations of selling power to the client.
- HDThoreaun 4y ago
  The thing is that grid upkeep costs increase when people are selling power back. Who should have to pay for those increased fixed costs? Net metering means everyone pays.
mcv 4y ago
Even then, solar panels produce electricity when demand is low and supply is high. In the evening, demand goes up and solar panels produce a lot less.
umvi 4y ago
In Idaho at least, you do have to pay a monthly infrastructure fee even if you are using net metering.
mrguyorama 4y ago
In maine, CMP charges $11 a month for a "connection" to the grid and your first monthly 50kwh. Is that not the case in california or other net metering markets?
- HDThoreaun 4y ago
  $11 a month is nowhere close to the grid upkeep cost.
- eppp 4y ago
  $11 doesn't even come close to touching the distribution cost. It is just a way of showing you a slightly lower kWh rate if it is that low.
- ihaveajob 4y ago
  Yes it is, there's a connection fee of approximately $10/month for that same reason. Net metering is a totally unrelated topic. What's being argued about is the rate. Until now, rooftop solar customers get a retail-level payback for excess production sent to the grid. Under the proposal, this payback would be at the wholesale price, which is significantly lower.
  - jrochkind1 4y ago
    You can still totally offset your own actual consumption at retail rate, but any negative over your actual consumption for the month, you only get paid cash at wholesale rate? Without knowing anything about this or any context... that does not seem unreasonable to me. Note that OP didn't even require net negative at all to have it still totally be a great investment. He only offest a portion of his actual usage. So net negative paid only at wholesale rate seems like it should still be functional economically and leave plenty of incentive. Wouldn't have effected OP at all, for those who do go net negative and it effects, it seems like it shouldn't tip the scales.
    - dahfizz 4y ago
      > You can still totally offset your own actual consumption at retail rate AFAIK, most home solar is not set up this way. You don't use the energy from your solar panels. The solar panels feed directly into the grid, and your usage comes directly out of the grid. So if you use 100kwh, and generate 100kwh, then you will pay 100kwh at retail rate, and receive 100kwh at wholesale rate.
jackmott42 4y ago
Agreed, at some point the grid will need to spend on storage to enable more solar users. So either you need to have a fee to pay for that, or push the storage burden onto the end users. Make that cost apparent and force people to deal with it and we will find creative ways to do so (like more EV vehicles that can act as storage, as the Ford Lightning can)
- briffle 4y ago
  If only people were buying hundreds of thousands of batteries a year. Ideally mobile, on wheels or something. that they could plug in while working, and suck up all this extra grid power...
- baq 4y ago
  More likely at some point it will be uneconomical to run PV without attached storage. As an added bonus you’ll be able to pull cheap power on the winter from the grid overnight if you have that kind of tariff available.
scld 4y ago
In the northeast at least there are separate lines for supply and distribution. If your supply goes negative, you still pay the distribution fee....and if you supplied more than the distribution cost....why wouldn't you receive money? Unless the energy company is for some reason not charging properly for distribution, seems everything is already baked in.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
walnutclosefarm 4y ago
That's how my distributed generation contract with our Rural Electric Cooperative works. We pay $50/month for the connection, but the actual use/generation is 1 for 1 net metering. We are limited in how much generation we can connect to 105% of our average annual consumption, so over the course of year, on average, we zero out energy costs. If we want to connect more distributed generation than that, the tariff shifts to we get wholesale for what we sell, pay retail for what we use.
- gh02t 4y ago
  Is the $50/month prorated into the cost if you end up net consuming for the grid? Or are any costs on top of that?
  - walnutclosefarm 4y ago
    We pay $50 per month real money for the service, regardless of the net metering. If we are net producers in a given month, we pay nothing additional for power, and get a credit (in kwh) that rolls forward to the next month. If we are net users, after applying any rolled forward credits, we pay for the net usage in addition to the $50. Once a year, any rolled forward credits not used are paid to us at what amounts to wholesale rates, so we start over with zero credit balance.
monkeydust 4y ago
Just be glad your not in the UK. I pay 35p / kWh down and get only 5p / kWh for excess I sell to grid through Smart Export Guarantee. Price down has doubled in two years and way up has hardly moved. I joked with my neighbour that we should wire up our homes and sell my excess to him at mid point and we would both be better off.
- gnicholas 4y ago
  Low-effort version, if he has an EV: get a long charging cable and charge him up when you're generating excess.
  - kbob 4y ago
    Or just let him park at your place.
  - monkeydust 4y ago
    He doesn't but few on the street do. Could hack something over the summer that provides some charge on my driveway when I am net producing. Not sure if any legal/tax issues with the setup though. An interesting community project.
    - reacharavindh 4y ago
      It might even be a greater option to have a community battery booth(a bank of LFP or the upcoming Sodium ion batteries). Everyone throws their excess energy into it, and it can be a charging station for e-bikes, EVs etc. Absolutely no clue about legal issues though.
      - monkeydust 4y ago
        Interesting, getting close to a virtual power plant I think. Ideally you want to use the grid network for transmission to the bank of batteries.
- jacquesm 4y ago
brk 4y ago
Most net metering does have a base connection charge. Mine is ~$35/mo, even when I have produced more energy in a month than we consumed, my bill was still about $40 after base fees and taxes/etc.
ezfe 4y ago
But that's why your bill has generation and delivery split into two lines. Net meter the generation line but don't touch the delivery line.
jacquesm 4y ago
But you do pay for 'grid upkeep costs', the grid availability is a part of that connection fee, otherwise what would you connect to if not to the grid. Even if you consume zero KWh in a month you will still pay.
dpierce9 4y ago
Net metering means utilities sell the power your system produces at full price to your neighbor. They pocket the avoided cost of producing and delivering that power (and during price spikes the cost of fuel can be higher than the value of producing power). Net metering does create stranded assets if everyone does it. But not everyone does. Further, the idea that the utility gains NO benefit from net metering is wrong. The corresponding view that rate payers are subsidizing solar by paying additional grid costs is wrong. Solar reduces grid demand. This reduces required generation capacity. Capacity is very expensive.
- konschubert 4y ago
  Your solar panels tend to produce power at times when power is cheap - because there is so much solar power. When you do net metering, the utility has to pay on top: They have to sell the power that you produce on the spot market, but the price they get for it is less than what they have to pay to you. It's not a scalable approach.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - Retric 4y ago
    Solar also produces power when demand is at it’s absolute peak. It varies by location but prices are still cheapest at night the vast majority of the time. There’s many ways to do net metering, but regulations are setup to maintain profitable local utilities. Utilities hate it because they make less money by selling less electricity not because it’s ever going to drive them to unprofitability.
    - mcv 4y ago
      I think the demand peak is in the evening. Whether that overlaps with daylight depends on the season. I suppose in areas where people use a lot of AC, peak demand might be earlier in the day, but I haven't seen any figures showing that. I have seen the evening peak.
pydry 4y ago
This kind of attitude only really make senses if there is a carbon tax. Net metering is as good a subsidy for green energy which we DIRELY need as any. Making perfect the enemy of the good is bad enough as a general principle but is 100x worse when the future of the planet is at stake.

_ea1k 4y ago

I tend to agree, but the fixed $/kw monthly fees that utilities want is just about the dumbest possible alternative.

K0balt 4y ago

Isn’t there a base charge though? In my home town it’s around 25 dollars a month just to be hooked up whether you use anything or not. What would seem logical to me would be a base charge, they net meter you to zero, but then you sell power at the wholesaler rate. If that wipes out your connect charge you still have them the value that they would have paid for the power you made. Maybe the base charge would have to be higher for net metered houses, it might have some subsidy built into it based on expectations of selling power to the client.

HDThoreaun 4y ago
The thing is that grid upkeep costs increase when people are selling power back. Who should have to pay for those increased fixed costs? Net metering means everyone pays.

mcv 4y ago

Even then, solar panels produce electricity when demand is low and supply is high. In the evening, demand goes up and solar panels produce a lot less.

umvi 4y ago

In Idaho at least, you do have to pay a monthly infrastructure fee even if you are using net metering.

mrguyorama 4y ago

In maine, CMP charges $11 a month for a "connection" to the grid and your first monthly 50kwh. Is that not the case in california or other net metering markets?

HDThoreaun 4y ago
$11 a month is nowhere close to the grid upkeep cost.
eppp 4y ago
$11 doesn't even come close to touching the distribution cost. It is just a way of showing you a slightly lower kWh rate if it is that low.
ihaveajob 4y ago
Yes it is, there's a connection fee of approximately $10/month for that same reason. Net metering is a totally unrelated topic. What's being argued about is the rate. Until now, rooftop solar customers get a retail-level payback for excess production sent to the grid. Under the proposal, this payback would be at the wholesale price, which is significantly lower.
- jrochkind1 4y ago
  You can still totally offset your own actual consumption at retail rate, but any negative over your actual consumption for the month, you only get paid cash at wholesale rate? Without knowing anything about this or any context... that does not seem unreasonable to me. Note that OP didn't even require net negative at all to have it still totally be a great investment. He only offest a portion of his actual usage. So net negative paid only at wholesale rate seems like it should still be functional economically and leave plenty of incentive. Wouldn't have effected OP at all, for those who do go net negative and it effects, it seems like it shouldn't tip the scales.
  - dahfizz 4y ago
    > You can still totally offset your own actual consumption at retail rate AFAIK, most home solar is not set up this way. You don't use the energy from your solar panels. The solar panels feed directly into the grid, and your usage comes directly out of the grid. So if you use 100kwh, and generate 100kwh, then you will pay 100kwh at retail rate, and receive 100kwh at wholesale rate.

jackmott42 4y ago

Agreed, at some point the grid will need to spend on storage to enable more solar users. So either you need to have a fee to pay for that, or push the storage burden onto the end users. Make that cost apparent and force people to deal with it and we will find creative ways to do so (like more EV vehicles that can act as storage, as the Ford Lightning can)

briffle 4y ago
If only people were buying hundreds of thousands of batteries a year. Ideally mobile, on wheels or something. that they could plug in while working, and suck up all this extra grid power...
baq 4y ago
More likely at some point it will be uneconomical to run PV without attached storage. As an added bonus you’ll be able to pull cheap power on the winter from the grid overnight if you have that kind of tariff available.

scld 4y ago

In the northeast at least there are separate lines for supply and distribution. If your supply goes negative, you still pay the distribution fee....and if you supplied more than the distribution cost....why wouldn't you receive money? Unless the energy company is for some reason not charging properly for distribution, seems everything is already baked in.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

walnutclosefarm 4y ago

That's how my distributed generation contract with our Rural Electric Cooperative works. We pay $50/month for the connection, but the actual use/generation is 1 for 1 net metering. We are limited in how much generation we can connect to 105% of our average annual consumption, so over the course of year, on average, we zero out energy costs. If we want to connect more distributed generation than that, the tariff shifts to we get wholesale for what we sell, pay retail for what we use.

gh02t 4y ago
Is the $50/month prorated into the cost if you end up net consuming for the grid? Or are any costs on top of that?
- walnutclosefarm 4y ago
  We pay $50 per month real money for the service, regardless of the net metering. If we are net producers in a given month, we pay nothing additional for power, and get a credit (in kwh) that rolls forward to the next month. If we are net users, after applying any rolled forward credits, we pay for the net usage in addition to the $50. Once a year, any rolled forward credits not used are paid to us at what amounts to wholesale rates, so we start over with zero credit balance.

monkeydust 4y ago

Just be glad your not in the UK. I pay 35p / kWh down and get only 5p / kWh for excess I sell to grid through Smart Export Guarantee. Price down has doubled in two years and way up has hardly moved. I joked with my neighbour that we should wire up our homes and sell my excess to him at mid point and we would both be better off.

gnicholas 4y ago
Low-effort version, if he has an EV: get a long charging cable and charge him up when you're generating excess.
- kbob 4y ago
  Or just let him park at your place.
- monkeydust 4y ago
  He doesn't but few on the street do. Could hack something over the summer that provides some charge on my driveway when I am net producing. Not sure if any legal/tax issues with the setup though. An interesting community project.
  - reacharavindh 4y ago
    It might even be a greater option to have a community battery booth(a bank of LFP or the upcoming Sodium ion batteries). Everyone throws their excess energy into it, and it can be a charging station for e-bikes, EVs etc. Absolutely no clue about legal issues though.
    - monkeydust 4y ago
      Interesting, getting close to a virtual power plant I think. Ideally you want to use the grid network for transmission to the bank of batteries.
jacquesm 4y ago

brk 4y ago

Most net metering does have a base connection charge. Mine is ~$35/mo, even when I have produced more energy in a month than we consumed, my bill was still about $40 after base fees and taxes/etc.

ezfe 4y ago

But that's why your bill has generation and delivery split into two lines. Net meter the generation line but don't touch the delivery line.

jacquesm 4y ago

But you do pay for 'grid upkeep costs', the grid availability is a part of that connection fee, otherwise what would you connect to if not to the grid. Even if you consume zero KWh in a month you will still pay.

dpierce9 4y ago

Net metering means utilities sell the power your system produces at full price to your neighbor. They pocket the avoided cost of producing and delivering that power (and during price spikes the cost of fuel can be higher than the value of producing power). Net metering does create stranded assets if everyone does it. But not everyone does. Further, the idea that the utility gains NO benefit from net metering is wrong. The corresponding view that rate payers are subsidizing solar by paying additional grid costs is wrong. Solar reduces grid demand. This reduces required generation capacity. Capacity is very expensive.

konschubert 4y ago
Your solar panels tend to produce power at times when power is cheap - because there is so much solar power. When you do net metering, the utility has to pay on top: They have to sell the power that you produce on the spot market, but the price they get for it is less than what they have to pay to you. It's not a scalable approach.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- Retric 4y ago
  Solar also produces power when demand is at it’s absolute peak. It varies by location but prices are still cheapest at night the vast majority of the time. There’s many ways to do net metering, but regulations are setup to maintain profitable local utilities. Utilities hate it because they make less money by selling less electricity not because it’s ever going to drive them to unprofitability.
  - mcv 4y ago
    I think the demand peak is in the evening. Whether that overlaps with daylight depends on the season. I suppose in areas where people use a lot of AC, peak demand might be earlier in the day, but I haven't seen any figures showing that. I have seen the evening peak.

pydry 4y ago

This kind of attitude only really make senses if there is a carbon tax. Net metering is as good a subsidy for green energy which we DIRELY need as any. Making perfect the enemy of the good is bad enough as a general principle but is 100x worse when the future of the planet is at stake.