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I'm not fully sold on this reasoning. Electricity on the local distribution node has a value equal to the cost of generation plus the distribution. That's the

I'm not fully sold on this reasoning. Electricity on the local distribution node has a value equal to the cost of generation plus the distribution. That's the value of it, what we pay. So by supplying the kWh locally to neighbors, the grid costs have been avoided. But the value is still the same. Now, the T&D infrastructure has already been built, and the utility wants to get paid no matter what, but if they were a private company and not a monopoly, they wouldn't have a right to get compensated for their investment no matter what, because every company buys capital at risk. And that's for the good of the economy. There needs to be some sort of forcing function to incentivize this cheaper form of power delivery, that avoids a lot of transmission and distribution costs. And that forcing function is the price that we pay those who generate the electricity. The utility of course loses on every kWh they don't generate, because they want to sell more electricity. However, since they have a monopoly, we need other regulation to ensure that innovation that results in lower overall costs actually results in lower prices for consumers. So far, the utilities have snowed the public and the PUCs such that they get away with murder on this transition. We need a grid, but we do not need the utility. And if the utility can not come up with a business model that works as a regulated monopoly when we have local generation, then we need to change the regulatory model, most likely eliminating the monopoly. There's a lot to learn from Texas here for the rest of the country.

jerkstate 2y ago
Your excess solar power is not worth the retail power cost because it is not as reliable or plentiful as utility power. If you think your neighbor would pay you the same rate for your unreliable excess power as they pay the utility, you should start a power company! The infrastructure has not “already been built” - it is constantly under expansion and maintenance, and the bonds used to fund construction also need to be repaid. I think your mind frame is that the reason the grid is not smart enough to pay you what you think your excess unreliable power is worth (which you stated to be the entire retail cost of power, including transmission and distribution) is because of incompetence and corruption of the utility monopolies. I think that is a pretty uncharitable take. It’s a hard problem and people generally want reliable and cheap. You can’t make microgrids reliable and plentiful without a ton of diverse generation (which already exists on the macro-grid) OR a ton of storage, both of which are very expensive. It is a problem worth solving but it needs to be considered with a realistic view on what people are actually paying for when they pay their power bill.
- epistasis 2y ago
  My frame of mind is that residential solar has the potential to dramatically reduce transmission and grid costs, but there is no way to force the utilities to shift to that model, because they will make less money. And regulators are asleep at the wheel and beholden to the utilities they regulate. Grids are sized for peak, and without solar that peak is midday in most places, meaning that distributed behind-the-meter solar makes the grid cheaper. Utilities, when they argue that solar is worth less, are not arguing on the merits of the issue but only selectively advancing arguments that benefit them. They will never present the totality of the issue. It is up to others to push back against utilities' narrow views with a more complete view of the picture and what's possible.
  - secabeen 2y ago
    Peak load without solar is not midday. Here's an NYT article from 1975 about introduction of Time of Use billing describing peak rates being in the morning and evening: > Mrs. Wells changed her housework habits because for part of the year it costs her more than six times as much to use electricity from 8 A.M. to 11 A.M. and 5 P.M. to 9 P.M. as it costs during the rest of the day. https://www.nytimes.com/1975/06/29/archives/experimenting-with-timeofday-electric-rates-in-vermont-mrs-wells.html https://www.nytimes.com/1975/06/29/archives/experimenting-wi... Current CAISO data shows that overall demand still peaks in the late afternoon to early evening. I picked a day in mid-august, and demand at 7pm is 40% higher (39GW) than at solar noon of 1pm (29GW). https://www.caiso.com/todays-outlook https://www.caiso.com/todays-outlook
    - epistasis 2y ago
      You're making a blanket statement about peak time which is incorrect. Historically in Califorinia, peak load has been in the afternoon, which I count as midday. At least, it's when solar panels are still pumping out a ton of power: https://www.caiso.com/Documents/CaliforniaISOPeakLoadHistory.pdf https://www.caiso.com/Documents/CaliforniaISOPeakLoadHistory... You're posting a random day in winter in California, where overall consumption is low even at its highest, because there's very little demand for cooling. True peak for the California grid is ~50GW, not 25GW like today. You're also omitting all the residential solar that never gets on the grid that drives down midday demand in that graph. Texas also has midday peaks, here's today and you'll see that even though its winter and very little AC is needed, peak is midday: https://www.ercot.com/content/cdr/html/loadForecastVsActualCurrentDay.html https://www.ercot.com/content/cdr/html/loadForecastVsActualC... My statement was qualified with "most places." There will undoubtedly be some places with other peaks for which solar will not shave the peak. But in most places distributed solar will shave the peak.
secabeen 2y ago
Eliminating the delivery of kWs doesn't change the grid costs one whit. Grid costs are driven mostly by the number of customers, the max demand that the grid has to support at one time, maintenance, and the distance the lines have to travel to reach you. Just like a water main or sewage pipe, reductions in demand only change the cost of distribution when they are large enough and prolonged enough to allow for smaller equipment and fewer lines. Having a residential power connection from the grid allows you to demand up to 200Amps of power, at any time of day or night, 365 days a year, with zero notice. The power company has to build the lines to support that potential demand, whether you use it or not. Over all of California, distributed solar probably has reduced the expenditures we would have need to have made on new transmission and generation facilities compared to a world without distributed solar, but that doesn't affect the baseline cost of a ubiquitous grid that serves from Crescent City to the border with Arizona at Yuma, and all points between.
Dylan16807 2y ago
> So by supplying the kWh locally to neighbors, the grid costs have been avoided. No they haven't. The grid cost is to build and maintain the wires and equipment. Your solar output isn't reliable enough for them to downsize the grid, so even though selling to a neighbor bypasses the grid it doesn't reduce the cost of having a grid. What you could do is split out the grid cost, make it be a fixed fee per location instead of per-kWh. That would drop the price of buying a kWh until it's much closer to the price of selling. But if you do that, someone with a lot of solar panels would end up with even less money in their pocket, since their reduced kWh purchases used to let them skimp on grid fees, and now that no longer happens.
- epistasis 2y ago
  If you keep reading to the next few sentences I point out that the utility has sunk costs, so I understand you point quite well already. Transmission savings are the big thing with distributed solar and storage. And transmission is the bottleneck for most projects looking to connect to the grid right now. Not only is it expensive, it's slow to build.
  - Dylan16807 2y ago
    > If you keep reading to the next few sentences I point out that the utility has sunk costs, so I understand you point quite well already. It's not that they have sunk costs, it's that they have ongoing costs. The grid cost does not drop when you send excess solar to a neighbor. To actually avoid grid costs you need to reduce your max watts in a way that the power company can rely on. > Transmission savings are the big thing with distributed solar and storage. And transmission is the bottleneck for most projects looking to connect to the grid right now. Not only is it expensive, it's slow to build. Storage can save on transmissions but it has to be set up the right way. Solar and storage working together can do even better, but also have to be set up the right way. Solar by itself doesn't make a big difference in peak transmissions.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

jerkstate 2y ago

Your excess solar power is not worth the retail power cost because it is not as reliable or plentiful as utility power. If you think your neighbor would pay you the same rate for your unreliable excess power as they pay the utility, you should start a power company! The infrastructure has not “already been built” - it is constantly under expansion and maintenance, and the bonds used to fund construction also need to be repaid. I think your mind frame is that the reason the grid is not smart enough to pay you what you think your excess unreliable power is worth (which you stated to be the entire retail cost of power, including transmission and distribution) is because of incompetence and corruption of the utility monopolies. I think that is a pretty uncharitable take. It’s a hard problem and people generally want reliable and cheap. You can’t make microgrids reliable and plentiful without a ton of diverse generation (which already exists on the macro-grid) OR a ton of storage, both of which are very expensive. It is a problem worth solving but it needs to be considered with a realistic view on what people are actually paying for when they pay their power bill.

epistasis 2y ago
My frame of mind is that residential solar has the potential to dramatically reduce transmission and grid costs, but there is no way to force the utilities to shift to that model, because they will make less money. And regulators are asleep at the wheel and beholden to the utilities they regulate. Grids are sized for peak, and without solar that peak is midday in most places, meaning that distributed behind-the-meter solar makes the grid cheaper. Utilities, when they argue that solar is worth less, are not arguing on the merits of the issue but only selectively advancing arguments that benefit them. They will never present the totality of the issue. It is up to others to push back against utilities' narrow views with a more complete view of the picture and what's possible.
- secabeen 2y ago
  Peak load without solar is not midday. Here's an NYT article from 1975 about introduction of Time of Use billing describing peak rates being in the morning and evening: > Mrs. Wells changed her housework habits because for part of the year it costs her more than six times as much to use electricity from 8 A.M. to 11 A.M. and 5 P.M. to 9 P.M. as it costs during the rest of the day. https://www.nytimes.com/1975/06/29/archives/experimenting-with-timeofday-electric-rates-in-vermont-mrs-wells.html https://www.nytimes.com/1975/06/29/archives/experimenting-wi... Current CAISO data shows that overall demand still peaks in the late afternoon to early evening. I picked a day in mid-august, and demand at 7pm is 40% higher (39GW) than at solar noon of 1pm (29GW). https://www.caiso.com/todays-outlook https://www.caiso.com/todays-outlook
  - epistasis 2y ago
    You're making a blanket statement about peak time which is incorrect. Historically in Califorinia, peak load has been in the afternoon, which I count as midday. At least, it's when solar panels are still pumping out a ton of power: https://www.caiso.com/Documents/CaliforniaISOPeakLoadHistory.pdf https://www.caiso.com/Documents/CaliforniaISOPeakLoadHistory... You're posting a random day in winter in California, where overall consumption is low even at its highest, because there's very little demand for cooling. True peak for the California grid is ~50GW, not 25GW like today. You're also omitting all the residential solar that never gets on the grid that drives down midday demand in that graph. Texas also has midday peaks, here's today and you'll see that even though its winter and very little AC is needed, peak is midday: https://www.ercot.com/content/cdr/html/loadForecastVsActualCurrentDay.html https://www.ercot.com/content/cdr/html/loadForecastVsActualC... My statement was qualified with "most places." There will undoubtedly be some places with other peaks for which solar will not shave the peak. But in most places distributed solar will shave the peak.

secabeen 2y ago

Eliminating the delivery of kWs doesn't change the grid costs one whit. Grid costs are driven mostly by the number of customers, the max demand that the grid has to support at one time, maintenance, and the distance the lines have to travel to reach you. Just like a water main or sewage pipe, reductions in demand only change the cost of distribution when they are large enough and prolonged enough to allow for smaller equipment and fewer lines. Having a residential power connection from the grid allows you to demand up to 200Amps of power, at any time of day or night, 365 days a year, with zero notice. The power company has to build the lines to support that potential demand, whether you use it or not. Over all of California, distributed solar probably has reduced the expenditures we would have need to have made on new transmission and generation facilities compared to a world without distributed solar, but that doesn't affect the baseline cost of a ubiquitous grid that serves from Crescent City to the border with Arizona at Yuma, and all points between.

Dylan16807 2y ago

> So by supplying the kWh locally to neighbors, the grid costs have been avoided. No they haven't. The grid cost is to build and maintain the wires and equipment. Your solar output isn't reliable enough for them to downsize the grid, so even though selling to a neighbor bypasses the grid it doesn't reduce the cost of having a grid. What you could do is split out the grid cost, make it be a fixed fee per location instead of per-kWh. That would drop the price of buying a kWh until it's much closer to the price of selling. But if you do that, someone with a lot of solar panels would end up with even less money in their pocket, since their reduced kWh purchases used to let them skimp on grid fees, and now that no longer happens.

epistasis 2y ago
If you keep reading to the next few sentences I point out that the utility has sunk costs, so I understand you point quite well already. Transmission savings are the big thing with distributed solar and storage. And transmission is the bottleneck for most projects looking to connect to the grid right now. Not only is it expensive, it's slow to build.
- Dylan16807 2y ago
  > If you keep reading to the next few sentences I point out that the utility has sunk costs, so I understand you point quite well already. It's not that they have sunk costs, it's that they have ongoing costs. The grid cost does not drop when you send excess solar to a neighbor. To actually avoid grid costs you need to reduce your max watts in a way that the power company can rely on. > Transmission savings are the big thing with distributed solar and storage. And transmission is the bottleneck for most projects looking to connect to the grid right now. Not only is it expensive, it's slow to build. Storage can save on transmissions but it has to be set up the right way. Solar and storage working together can do even better, but also have to be set up the right way. Solar by itself doesn't make a big difference in peak transmissions.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]