5 ms·

I couldn't read much after this line which deliberately ignores the totality of the issue: > In 2022, the California Public Utilities Commission drastically sl

I couldn't read much after this line which deliberately ignores the totality of the issue: > In 2022, the California Public Utilities Commission drastically slashed the rate that utilities pay homeowners with new solar panels for excess energy sold to the grid — cratering demand for residential solar and sparking thousands of layoffs of solar workers. At the end of the day, net metering simply is not feasible for any electric utility long term, and it's not fair, either: people that can get by on 0-net electricity use pay nothing for the real, significant benefit of being connected to the grid. Also, electric utilities, like many/most businesses, depend on buying a product at wholesale prices and then selling it at retail prices. With net metering it's essentially forcing utilities to buy their power at retail rates. That is simply not sustainable for any business. And look, as a homeowner, I would love net metering, but who doesn't love getting something (the value of being connected to the grid) for nothing. I'm also not saying that California couldn't have "eased the transition" from net metering better by providing other subsidies, or changing the rate model altogether by charging separately for "hookup" vs. "power" line items. But it doesn't make any sense to simply complain that an unsustainable model was eventually switched to something that is sustainable.

Wowfunhappy 2y ago
I can't figure out from the article whether the rate changes being proposed are reasonable. Depending on the details, some adjustments might be okay. However, I'd like to point out that it's also not "sustainable" to get energy from dirty power plants and leave future generations to deal with the consequences. If the long-term effects of releasing carbon into the atmosphere were priced into the cost of energy, I suspect PG&E would have no problem paying today's "retail" rates. Put another way, we should have a carbon tax, but we don't, so I am in favor of subsidizing clean energy via whatever scheme is politically achievable.
- wins32767 2y ago
  They'd probably still have a big problem paying retail rates. They'd much rather buy from solar farms that have a much lower price of generation in that world.
  - Wowfunhappy 2y ago
    But they'd have no problem paying today's retail rate. In this alternate universe, the actual retail rate would be higher. And that would suck for consumers, but it would also reflect the real cost of electricity, which someone is going to pay one way or another. Right now, we effectively subsidize dirty energy by allowing utilities to ignore the consequences of releasing carbon into the atmosphere. So it's okay—good, even—to force the utilities to pay more for the cleaner energy instead.
    - sanderjd 2y ago
      I really don't get the point you're trying to make. If there were a carbon tax, net metering of retail solar would still be unsustainable, just with different price points. The spread between wholesale and retail rates would still exist, and having a grid connection but no net usage would still be a large benefit at no cost. The source of the rest of the power on the grid just isn't the relevant consideration for this particular issue. It's a very relevant consideration in general, just not for this specific question.
      - Wowfunhappy 2y ago
        > If there were a carbon tax, net metering of retail solar would still be unsustainable, just with different price points. If there was a (correctly priced) carbon tax, I wouldn't be making this argument. Clean forms of energy would naturally win in the market, because they are in fact much cheaper when you take the long-term consequences of dirty energy into account. We don't do that, so we need to subsidize clean energy production instead. The free grid connection is a reward for performing a social good. And, it is not "unfair" to make PG&E pay extra for clean energy when we let them release carbon into the atmosphere for free.
        s1artibartfast 2y ago
        That isn't the situation today. The decision is between two clean energy sources, where one is 10x the cost of the other. Net metering meant pge had to buy residentially generated power for 40 cents instead of industrial solar for 4 cents.
asdasdsddd 2y ago
this should be easily solved by having a grid fee separate from the energy fee
- jasonjayr 2y ago
  On my bill (ISO-NE region/market) there is a separate generation and transmission fee. Crediting generation, and zeroing/discounting the transmission fee would be "more fair" but it would wreck the incentives.
  - CaliforniaKarl 2y ago
    > On my bill (ISO-NE region/market) there is a separate generation and transmission fee. Same here, on the Peninsula of the Bay Area: Generation comes from generation owned or contracted by SVCE [0], which is then delivered via PG&E (both transmission and distribution). Billing is handled by PG&E: My bill has a section for PG&E charges, and a section for SVCE charges. The PG&E section has a generation credit, that effectively removes any costs of non-SVCE power generation, leaving the costs of transmission & distribution. [0]: https://svcleanenergy.org https://svcleanenergy.org
- guerby 2y ago
  In France we have a fixed grid monthly fee depending on the maximum feed power (usually 3, 6, 9, 12 kVA in single phase and up to 36 kVA in triple phase) and a variable part proportional to the kWh consumed. As of now the official rate "tarif bleu" available to all consumers are 151.2 EUR per year (12.6 EUR/month) for grid free of a 6kVA feed and 0.2516 EUR/kWh. Average electricity consumption of a household in France is 5681 kWh/year. For homeowner with solar when you export to the grid the excess you are paid (currently) 0.1301 EUR/kWh so less than the consumer price per kWh. There is also a small annual fixed fee for grid injection (24.36 EUR/year currently).
- hot_gril 2y ago
  It is in California, but I don't understand how they decide what falls into each category.
zer00eyz 2y ago
>> people that can get by on 0-net electricity use pay nothing for the real, significant benefit of being connected to the grid. Unless one is a rural resident you cant get to net zero and legally disconnect from the grid. You will pay PGE for something even if you dont draw power from them in most of their service area. > With net metering it's essentially forcing utilities to buy their power at retail rates The retail rate for electricity is getting to ZERO at points during the day. Transmission is the biggest cost/factor here and PGE has decades of not doing any upkeep on that aspect of the system. Color me less than sympathetic to the situation. Sorry but PG&E can go fuck itself. It is backwards at best and greedy at worst.
- jeffbee 2y ago
  > The retail rate for electricity is getting to ZERO at points during the day. No, you misapprehend the word "retail".
- shuckles 2y ago
  My wife is a biologist and her income is evidence that PG&E does invest in transmission upkeep. You may not like the bang for the buck you get, but consider that part of that might be because PG&E has to pay her to drive to various remote locations to monitor construction workers doing maintenance lest they step on some valuable mushrooms (only a slight exaggeration).
fallingsquirrel 2y ago
> people that can get by on 0-net electricity use pay nothing for the real, significant benefit of being connected to the grid What's stopping them from changing their pricing structure to something that makes sense in a world with solar? Example: My gas bill is $30-40/mo in summer months when I'm only using maybe $1 worth of actual gas for cooking. They need to pay salaries and maintain the pipelines, etc, fine by me. Why can't PG&E do the same and charge $x/mo + $y/kWh? (where $x is a flat rate and only $y could go to 0)
- RegnisGnaw 2y ago
  Approval by "California Public Utilities Commission"
- philipkglass 2y ago
  This would be the best solution, but other low-usage customers (retirees, low income workers) have come to rely on the implicit subsidy granted by not charging explicit infrastructure fees. The solution to that second order problem is to grant some sort of government financial aid to low income customers with low monthly electricity consumption. That way most households pay for infrastructure proportional to infrastructure costs, but the most vulnerable are protected against financial hardship.
- s1artibartfast 2y ago
  It's already moving in that direction. You will have a $100/mo hookup fee and a $1 charge for usage. It will be fair with respect to actual costs, but the state hates it because it is less favorable to the poor. This is why they are implementing income based service pricing. Edit: it seems like there is some skepticism, so the law requiring it was AB 205, which was passed, and CPUC has approved the plan. https://www.sierraclub.org/press-releases/2024/05/california-public-utilities-commission-adopts-income-graduated-fixed-charges https://www.sierraclub.org/press-releases/2024/05/california...
idontpost 2y ago
[dead]
shagie 2y ago
If you have a wind, solar, and storage setup on your house that supplies 110% of your household needs... who pays for the hookup and maintenance for your house to be connected to the grid? With the current approach, that is paid for by everyone. If you are just paying for the net energy used from the grid, and that's 0 (or less) then someone else is paying for the grid infrastructure maintenance (that you are using to push your power out onto the grid). That in turn means that the people who can least afford to offset their own power consumption by installing rooftop solar and whole house backup batteries are the ones that are paying proportionally more for those who can do rooftop solar and backup to be able to connect to the grid. And that's where the problem with just net metering is. If it was net metering + flat infrastructure fee, that would be a different thing. The sustainability that PG&E is concerned about in this context is the sustainability of the infrastructure itself - not the power sources. California is concerned that the maintenance of the infrastructure (that everyone uses) is being placed disproportionally on people with less means to put up rooftop solar.
- coldtea 2y ago
  >If you have a wind, solar, and storage setup on your house that supplies 110% of your household needs... who pays for the hookup and maintenance for your house to be connected to the grid? Presumably people do pay taxes, no? This should get them basic infrastructure as a public power grid - and their house being hooked to it, amond many other things like bridges, roads, running water, and so on.
  - shagie 2y ago
    The power lines are maintained by private companies (PG&E for example). Many of these companies across multiple states. The larger interconnect is not necessarily owned by the same organization that does the last mile. Is it your suggestion that the power lines and local power (e.g. Alameda Municipal Power) be taken over by the state itself and be made responsible for their maintenance and funding? Or are you suggesting that California taxes be used to fund the California Independent System Operator (which also operates in Nevada, but not Northern California which is part of WRAP along with southern and central Oregon, south eastern Washington, and a tidbit of Idaho. As it stands, the electric utility is private - not public. A public takeover of a private company (and multiple private companies) would likely be distasteful to many.
outside1234 2y ago
With NEM3 this has largely been fixed - you only get paid for the "replaced generation" not retail rates for new solar installations.
francisofascii 2y ago
> (the value of being connected to the grid) for nothing PG&E has a Minimum Delivery Charge of $10.12. If a customer uses 0 KWH for a month, they pay $10.12. Is that not the value of being connected to the grid?
- dgfitz 2y ago
  This comment needs more attention. 47 people have suggested this be done, and it already is, in fact, being done
  - s1artibartfast 2y ago
    I think the idea is that this number would have to be much larger
  - vel0city 2y ago
    This $10 isn't nearly enough for actually maintaining it. For customers without net, it's not just $10. It's $10 plus some per-kWh cost to try and scale it based on your actual load on the grid equipment. If it was a flat rate for all customers it would have to be a good bit more than $10.
- hot_gril 2y ago
  That's probably the value of being connected to the grid in case you need power, but not the value being able to sell your excess energy back.
- yuliyp 2y ago
  There's a fixed cost and another cost that scales with usage. For instance, the California E-1 rate (non-time-of-use) is about 42 cents per kwh. Of that, 25 cents is transmission (long distance lines) and distribution (local lines), and 17 goes toward generation (if someone switches to another electricity provider, it's this 17 cents that would go to that other provider. Scaling the cost of the grid with usage serves as a price signal for people to conserve power, as opposed to it being jumbled behind a more comprehensive tax or a larger flat fee.
nostrademons 2y ago
The root problem here is that the market structure for energy should change to adapt to new technologies and new climate realities, but we have a century of regulation, infrastructure, and entrenched incumbents that have a vested interest in preventing the change. I could believe that we need some form of a grid to smoothe out demand across consumers, and some form of time-based demand pricing. It is probably not the grid that PG&E owns, and it is probably not the rate structure that CPUC approves. Renewables generally have much smaller economies of scale than fossil-fuel based generation - you can craft and install solar panels in much smaller modules than a single power plant that services tens of thousands of homes, and you have much more flexibility where you put them. At the same time it's becoming much riskier and more expensive to run transmission lines through tinder-dry forests and burn down another city every few years. I think the future is microgrids and municipal grid defection. We'll still have electric grids and electric companies - but they will likely service and be owned by the city-states that they serve. To the extent that we have a rural population, they'll setup their own rooftop & community solar, and back it with generators and iron-air batteries. The grids won't interact much - people in say San Jose are unlikely to want to subsidize the tree-clearing needed to run wires out to say Petrolia. We also need much more transparent time-of-use pricing, to encourage demand shifting back to daylight hours. You actually don't need huge battery setups: well-built homes with energy-conscious owners draw only a couple hundred watts at night, vs. several kilowatts during the day. You do need a couple things that have passed under the radar screen so far: 1) workplace EV charging, so all your vehicles get charged during the day, and 2) better insulation, so you run your heat pumps during the day. Shift those loads from nighttime to daytime and you'll end up consuming 90% of your energy usage while the sun shines.
stale2002 2y ago
So you are saying that net gives people a financial incentive to switch to renewable energy? Yes, absolutely! And this sounds great to me!
luhn 2y ago
> or changing the rate model altogether by charging separately for "hookup" vs. "power" line items Earlier this month the utility commission approved a $24 flat fee. https://www.cpuc.ca.gov/news-and-updates/all-news/cut-residential-electricity-prices https://www.cpuc.ca.gov/news-and-updates/all-news/cut-reside...
Gibbon1 2y ago
Net metering was always a subsidy to kick start the solar PV industry. It feels kinda kick started. Myself I'd be interested in a map of the cost per customer for PG&E. Because I suspect customers in dense to medium density area's are heavily subsidizing Potemkin rural customers. Meaning very low density pretend rural suburbs where the cost per connection is high, the power delivered is low and the risks are high enough they bankrupted PG&E twice.

Wowfunhappy 2y ago

I can't figure out from the article whether the rate changes being proposed are reasonable. Depending on the details, some adjustments might be okay. However, I'd like to point out that it's also not "sustainable" to get energy from dirty power plants and leave future generations to deal with the consequences. If the long-term effects of releasing carbon into the atmosphere were priced into the cost of energy, I suspect PG&E would have no problem paying today's "retail" rates. Put another way, we should have a carbon tax, but we don't, so I am in favor of subsidizing clean energy via whatever scheme is politically achievable.

wins32767 2y ago
They'd probably still have a big problem paying retail rates. They'd much rather buy from solar farms that have a much lower price of generation in that world.
- Wowfunhappy 2y ago
  But they'd have no problem paying today's retail rate. In this alternate universe, the actual retail rate would be higher. And that would suck for consumers, but it would also reflect the real cost of electricity, which someone is going to pay one way or another. Right now, we effectively subsidize dirty energy by allowing utilities to ignore the consequences of releasing carbon into the atmosphere. So it's okay—good, even—to force the utilities to pay more for the cleaner energy instead.
  - sanderjd 2y ago
    I really don't get the point you're trying to make. If there were a carbon tax, net metering of retail solar would still be unsustainable, just with different price points. The spread between wholesale and retail rates would still exist, and having a grid connection but no net usage would still be a large benefit at no cost. The source of the rest of the power on the grid just isn't the relevant consideration for this particular issue. It's a very relevant consideration in general, just not for this specific question.
    - Wowfunhappy 2y ago
      > If there were a carbon tax, net metering of retail solar would still be unsustainable, just with different price points. If there was a (correctly priced) carbon tax, I wouldn't be making this argument. Clean forms of energy would naturally win in the market, because they are in fact much cheaper when you take the long-term consequences of dirty energy into account. We don't do that, so we need to subsidize clean energy production instead. The free grid connection is a reward for performing a social good. And, it is not "unfair" to make PG&E pay extra for clean energy when we let them release carbon into the atmosphere for free.
      - s1artibartfast 2y ago
        That isn't the situation today. The decision is between two clean energy sources, where one is 10x the cost of the other. Net metering meant pge had to buy residentially generated power for 40 cents instead of industrial solar for 4 cents.

asdasdsddd 2y ago

this should be easily solved by having a grid fee separate from the energy fee

jasonjayr 2y ago
On my bill (ISO-NE region/market) there is a separate generation and transmission fee. Crediting generation, and zeroing/discounting the transmission fee would be "more fair" but it would wreck the incentives.
- CaliforniaKarl 2y ago
  > On my bill (ISO-NE region/market) there is a separate generation and transmission fee. Same here, on the Peninsula of the Bay Area: Generation comes from generation owned or contracted by SVCE [0], which is then delivered via PG&E (both transmission and distribution). Billing is handled by PG&E: My bill has a section for PG&E charges, and a section for SVCE charges. The PG&E section has a generation credit, that effectively removes any costs of non-SVCE power generation, leaving the costs of transmission & distribution. [0]: https://svcleanenergy.org https://svcleanenergy.org
guerby 2y ago
In France we have a fixed grid monthly fee depending on the maximum feed power (usually 3, 6, 9, 12 kVA in single phase and up to 36 kVA in triple phase) and a variable part proportional to the kWh consumed. As of now the official rate "tarif bleu" available to all consumers are 151.2 EUR per year (12.6 EUR/month) for grid free of a 6kVA feed and 0.2516 EUR/kWh. Average electricity consumption of a household in France is 5681 kWh/year. For homeowner with solar when you export to the grid the excess you are paid (currently) 0.1301 EUR/kWh so less than the consumer price per kWh. There is also a small annual fixed fee for grid injection (24.36 EUR/year currently).
hot_gril 2y ago
It is in California, but I don't understand how they decide what falls into each category.

zer00eyz 2y ago

>> people that can get by on 0-net electricity use pay nothing for the real, significant benefit of being connected to the grid. Unless one is a rural resident you cant get to net zero and legally disconnect from the grid. You will pay PGE for something even if you dont draw power from them in most of their service area. > With net metering it's essentially forcing utilities to buy their power at retail rates The retail rate for electricity is getting to ZERO at points during the day. Transmission is the biggest cost/factor here and PGE has decades of not doing any upkeep on that aspect of the system. Color me less than sympathetic to the situation. Sorry but PG&E can go fuck itself. It is backwards at best and greedy at worst.

jeffbee 2y ago
> The retail rate for electricity is getting to ZERO at points during the day. No, you misapprehend the word "retail".
shuckles 2y ago
My wife is a biologist and her income is evidence that PG&E does invest in transmission upkeep. You may not like the bang for the buck you get, but consider that part of that might be because PG&E has to pay her to drive to various remote locations to monitor construction workers doing maintenance lest they step on some valuable mushrooms (only a slight exaggeration).

fallingsquirrel 2y ago

> people that can get by on 0-net electricity use pay nothing for the real, significant benefit of being connected to the grid What's stopping them from changing their pricing structure to something that makes sense in a world with solar? Example: My gas bill is $30-40/mo in summer months when I'm only using maybe $1 worth of actual gas for cooking. They need to pay salaries and maintain the pipelines, etc, fine by me. Why can't PG&E do the same and charge $x/mo + $y/kWh? (where $x is a flat rate and only $y could go to 0)

RegnisGnaw 2y ago
Approval by "California Public Utilities Commission"
philipkglass 2y ago
This would be the best solution, but other low-usage customers (retirees, low income workers) have come to rely on the implicit subsidy granted by not charging explicit infrastructure fees. The solution to that second order problem is to grant some sort of government financial aid to low income customers with low monthly electricity consumption. That way most households pay for infrastructure proportional to infrastructure costs, but the most vulnerable are protected against financial hardship.
s1artibartfast 2y ago
It's already moving in that direction. You will have a $100/mo hookup fee and a $1 charge for usage. It will be fair with respect to actual costs, but the state hates it because it is less favorable to the poor. This is why they are implementing income based service pricing. Edit: it seems like there is some skepticism, so the law requiring it was AB 205, which was passed, and CPUC has approved the plan. https://www.sierraclub.org/press-releases/2024/05/california-public-utilities-commission-adopts-income-graduated-fixed-charges https://www.sierraclub.org/press-releases/2024/05/california...

idontpost 2y ago

[dead]

shagie 2y ago

If you have a wind, solar, and storage setup on your house that supplies 110% of your household needs... who pays for the hookup and maintenance for your house to be connected to the grid? With the current approach, that is paid for by everyone. If you are just paying for the net energy used from the grid, and that's 0 (or less) then someone else is paying for the grid infrastructure maintenance (that you are using to push your power out onto the grid). That in turn means that the people who can least afford to offset their own power consumption by installing rooftop solar and whole house backup batteries are the ones that are paying proportionally more for those who can do rooftop solar and backup to be able to connect to the grid. And that's where the problem with just net metering is. If it was net metering + flat infrastructure fee, that would be a different thing. The sustainability that PG&E is concerned about in this context is the sustainability of the infrastructure itself - not the power sources. California is concerned that the maintenance of the infrastructure (that everyone uses) is being placed disproportionally on people with less means to put up rooftop solar.

coldtea 2y ago
>If you have a wind, solar, and storage setup on your house that supplies 110% of your household needs... who pays for the hookup and maintenance for your house to be connected to the grid? Presumably people do pay taxes, no? This should get them basic infrastructure as a public power grid - and their house being hooked to it, amond many other things like bridges, roads, running water, and so on.
- shagie 2y ago
  The power lines are maintained by private companies (PG&E for example). Many of these companies across multiple states. The larger interconnect is not necessarily owned by the same organization that does the last mile. Is it your suggestion that the power lines and local power (e.g. Alameda Municipal Power) be taken over by the state itself and be made responsible for their maintenance and funding? Or are you suggesting that California taxes be used to fund the California Independent System Operator (which also operates in Nevada, but not Northern California which is part of WRAP along with southern and central Oregon, south eastern Washington, and a tidbit of Idaho. As it stands, the electric utility is private - not public. A public takeover of a private company (and multiple private companies) would likely be distasteful to many.

outside1234 2y ago

With NEM3 this has largely been fixed - you only get paid for the "replaced generation" not retail rates for new solar installations.

francisofascii 2y ago

> (the value of being connected to the grid) for nothing PG&E has a Minimum Delivery Charge of $10.12. If a customer uses 0 KWH for a month, they pay $10.12. Is that not the value of being connected to the grid?

dgfitz 2y ago
This comment needs more attention. 47 people have suggested this be done, and it already is, in fact, being done
- s1artibartfast 2y ago
  I think the idea is that this number would have to be much larger
- vel0city 2y ago
  This $10 isn't nearly enough for actually maintaining it. For customers without net, it's not just $10. It's $10 plus some per-kWh cost to try and scale it based on your actual load on the grid equipment. If it was a flat rate for all customers it would have to be a good bit more than $10.
hot_gril 2y ago
That's probably the value of being connected to the grid in case you need power, but not the value being able to sell your excess energy back.
yuliyp 2y ago
There's a fixed cost and another cost that scales with usage. For instance, the California E-1 rate (non-time-of-use) is about 42 cents per kwh. Of that, 25 cents is transmission (long distance lines) and distribution (local lines), and 17 goes toward generation (if someone switches to another electricity provider, it's this 17 cents that would go to that other provider. Scaling the cost of the grid with usage serves as a price signal for people to conserve power, as opposed to it being jumbled behind a more comprehensive tax or a larger flat fee.

nostrademons 2y ago

The root problem here is that the market structure for energy should change to adapt to new technologies and new climate realities, but we have a century of regulation, infrastructure, and entrenched incumbents that have a vested interest in preventing the change. I could believe that we need some form of a grid to smoothe out demand across consumers, and some form of time-based demand pricing. It is probably not the grid that PG&E owns, and it is probably not the rate structure that CPUC approves. Renewables generally have much smaller economies of scale than fossil-fuel based generation - you can craft and install solar panels in much smaller modules than a single power plant that services tens of thousands of homes, and you have much more flexibility where you put them. At the same time it's becoming much riskier and more expensive to run transmission lines through tinder-dry forests and burn down another city every few years. I think the future is microgrids and municipal grid defection. We'll still have electric grids and electric companies - but they will likely service and be owned by the city-states that they serve. To the extent that we have a rural population, they'll setup their own rooftop & community solar, and back it with generators and iron-air batteries. The grids won't interact much - people in say San Jose are unlikely to want to subsidize the tree-clearing needed to run wires out to say Petrolia. We also need much more transparent time-of-use pricing, to encourage demand shifting back to daylight hours. You actually don't need huge battery setups: well-built homes with energy-conscious owners draw only a couple hundred watts at night, vs. several kilowatts during the day. You do need a couple things that have passed under the radar screen so far: 1) workplace EV charging, so all your vehicles get charged during the day, and 2) better insulation, so you run your heat pumps during the day. Shift those loads from nighttime to daytime and you'll end up consuming 90% of your energy usage while the sun shines.

stale2002 2y ago

So you are saying that net gives people a financial incentive to switch to renewable energy? Yes, absolutely! And this sounds great to me!

luhn 2y ago

> or changing the rate model altogether by charging separately for "hookup" vs. "power" line items Earlier this month the utility commission approved a $24 flat fee. https://www.cpuc.ca.gov/news-and-updates/all-news/cut-residential-electricity-prices https://www.cpuc.ca.gov/news-and-updates/all-news/cut-reside...

Gibbon1 2y ago

Net metering was always a subsidy to kick start the solar PV industry. It feels kinda kick started. Myself I'd be interested in a map of the cost per customer for PG&E. Because I suspect customers in dense to medium density area's are heavily subsidizing Potemkin rural customers. Meaning very low density pretend rural suburbs where the cost per connection is high, the power delivered is low and the risks are high enough they bankrupted PG&E twice.