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The poorest people still won't be able to afford residential solar even with the greatest incentives. And the old rates that forced the electric company to buy

The poorest people still won't be able to afford residential solar even with the greatest incentives. And the old rates that forced the electric company to buy electricity at 1:1 retail rates which was never sustainable. Those rates include grid maintenance, not just power generation. Unless you have a battery, your peak demand is likely to be when solar generation is low, so you're still reliant on the same grid capacity during peak hours. That's the duck curve: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_curve https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_curve Under the old plan, if you have solar and no battery and exported enough power during the day to cover your electricity costs at night, how much are you paying for grid upkeep? Basically zero. So who is going to be paying for the grid? Those who cannot afford to get solar. That would become a huge problem when the majority of people have solar panels. https://youtu.be/C4cNnVK412U?t=1048 https://youtu.be/C4cNnVK412U?t=1048 talks about this subject in-depth more. Timestamp at the relevant part to our discussion.

dv_dt 3y ago
But they don't buy at retail rates, so that's a fallacy. The CA utilities pay a fraction of retail rate for residential grid energy inputs with even the old NEM. And I am charged a separate grid connection fee with that setup, so nothing of what you're saying seems to align with my direct experience nor with the policy coverage I've read.
- ThatPlayer 3y ago
  In my experience, any excess you generate is given to you in 1:1 credit. Any excess in the credit after a year is paid in a fraction of rates, yes. Sure I have a daily basic charge, but that's on the TOU plan, not NEM. Otherwise what did you think NEM 3.0 changed if NEM 2.0 was already a fraction of retail rates? Which power company are you on and what rates are you getting? Even the CPUC's website says "retail rate (including generation, distribution, and transmission components)": https://www.cpuc.ca.gov/NEM/ https://www.cpuc.ca.gov/NEM/ The grid has to be built to handle peak power, and if you don't have a battery, solar doesn't help with that. But it's not fair to split up grid fees evenly, say in the daily basic charge I have in my TOU plan, because poorer people will use less power and contribute less to peak. And you've brought up points on why raising prices during peak is no good either, then it'll be only affordable to the ones who have solar to offset it. And any fees only to solar customers disincentivizes solar.
  - dv_dt 3y ago
    Utilities are actually incentivized to charge more per kwh in order to capture profits at an allowed percentage of that kwh. That really serves nobody but the shareholders of the private utilities, and it certainly does not serve the poorer customers. The poorer customers would be served by the fastest move to renewable energy, as pollution from fossil fuel generation also disproportionately affects their health due to placement of generation in their neighborhoods disproportionately. I found this podcast interesting in terms of lower cost technical solutions as well as community control of their own microgrids, but it's really unclear how to push back private utility lobbying to get there. https://theamphour.com/630-renewable-energy-policy-with-ari-gerstman/ https://theamphour.com/630-renewable-energy-policy-with-ari-...
    - ThatPlayer 3y ago
      Those are completely different topic than residential solar though. I don't disagree, we should be moving to renewables. But even in a community microgrid, are you going to incentivize private solar? There still isn't really a way to incentivize too much without passing along costs to those who cannot afford solar. I would much rather have a community owned solar power station, instead of funding individual private residential solar.
      - dv_dt 3y ago
        It's not a completely different topic. If a microgrid interface is allowed, for example, then different community and investment models can be considered on a per microgrid basis. If only utility models exist, then most likely a much narrower set of models exist - and likely under serving many communities and groups in addition to higher pricing.

dv_dt 3y ago

But they don't buy at retail rates, so that's a fallacy. The CA utilities pay a fraction of retail rate for residential grid energy inputs with even the old NEM. And I am charged a separate grid connection fee with that setup, so nothing of what you're saying seems to align with my direct experience nor with the policy coverage I've read.

ThatPlayer 3y ago
In my experience, any excess you generate is given to you in 1:1 credit. Any excess in the credit after a year is paid in a fraction of rates, yes. Sure I have a daily basic charge, but that's on the TOU plan, not NEM. Otherwise what did you think NEM 3.0 changed if NEM 2.0 was already a fraction of retail rates? Which power company are you on and what rates are you getting? Even the CPUC's website says "retail rate (including generation, distribution, and transmission components)": https://www.cpuc.ca.gov/NEM/ https://www.cpuc.ca.gov/NEM/ The grid has to be built to handle peak power, and if you don't have a battery, solar doesn't help with that. But it's not fair to split up grid fees evenly, say in the daily basic charge I have in my TOU plan, because poorer people will use less power and contribute less to peak. And you've brought up points on why raising prices during peak is no good either, then it'll be only affordable to the ones who have solar to offset it. And any fees only to solar customers disincentivizes solar.
- dv_dt 3y ago
  Utilities are actually incentivized to charge more per kwh in order to capture profits at an allowed percentage of that kwh. That really serves nobody but the shareholders of the private utilities, and it certainly does not serve the poorer customers. The poorer customers would be served by the fastest move to renewable energy, as pollution from fossil fuel generation also disproportionately affects their health due to placement of generation in their neighborhoods disproportionately. I found this podcast interesting in terms of lower cost technical solutions as well as community control of their own microgrids, but it's really unclear how to push back private utility lobbying to get there. https://theamphour.com/630-renewable-energy-policy-with-ari-gerstman/ https://theamphour.com/630-renewable-energy-policy-with-ari-...
  - ThatPlayer 3y ago
    Those are completely different topic than residential solar though. I don't disagree, we should be moving to renewables. But even in a community microgrid, are you going to incentivize private solar? There still isn't really a way to incentivize too much without passing along costs to those who cannot afford solar. I would much rather have a community owned solar power station, instead of funding individual private residential solar.
    - dv_dt 3y ago
      It's not a completely different topic. If a microgrid interface is allowed, for example, then different community and investment models can be considered on a per microgrid basis. If only utility models exist, then most likely a much narrower set of models exist - and likely under serving many communities and groups in addition to higher pricing.