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Yes the people selling solar systems all factor in aggressive future electricity increases, it's best to also see how it looks with more conservative rate incre
by glxxyz 11mo ago
Yes the people selling solar systems all factor in aggressive future electricity increases, it's best to also see how it looks with more conservative rate increases. By my calculation in a reply above with the interest free solar loan it's an 8% return over 14.3 years.
- Ekaros 11mo agoWhich to me is funny, when the electricity prices will clearly not rise when there is solar energy production from said panels. But might in other times.
- glxxyz 11mo agoI think the argument is that on average people are buying heat pumps and EVs faster they are installing solar panels but it’s not completely convincing though, power stations can be added. Further north where I am solar can only ever be a small component of total electricity generation due to the dark snowy cloudy winter months with close to zero solar generation for weeks on end.
- adrianN 11mo agoBatteries for load shifting a few hours mitigate that quite a bit and are getting cheaper fast.
- glxxyz 11mo agoThe issue for me with batteries is that in the summer I can produce in a day much more than I can use, and in winter I consume a lot and barely produce anything. This is where net metering steps in- I can ‘store’ all of my excess summer consumption in the grid in summer and get credit for it in winter. A cheaper smaller system right sized for summer consumption with a battery would have my second best option, but for me never showed any potential payback due to the fixed costs of installation and the extra battery costs.
- adrianN 11mo agoNet metering is of course nice for consumers but it’s not sustainable for the grid operators.
- glxxyz 11mo agoIt is for a fraction of consumers- power companies and governments are well aware of that.
- Reason077 11mo agoExactly. Not a sustainable/scalable policy.
- glxxyz 11mo agoThe point of my original post was that I’ve seen a much greater ROI on my own heatpump than solar, even though I don’t regret the solar installation. I wasn’t making any claims about sustainability/scalability of solar, just showing how it worked for me.
- Reason077 11mo agoMy comment was regarding net metering policy, not solar itself. Solar is great, and even better (for you) if you have net metering. But it’s not sustainable or scalable for utilities to keep offering net metering, and ultimately it creates wrong/distorted market signals: an incentive to generate more electricity when it’s abundant and to use more when it’s scarce.
- brianwawok 11mo agoI have never had a prime time surcharge so I can’t do that trick. Think it’s because my baseload here is nuclear.
- conradev 11mo agoI got solar for my parents in 2021 and the price increases were pretty aggressive recently: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/APU000072610 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/APU000072610
- thelastgallon 11mo agoResidential electricity rates have risen fast across the US—more than 30 percent on average since 2020 and almost double the rate of inflation: https://www.wired.com/story/power-bills-in-the-us-are-soaring-and-will-rise-further-still/ https://www.wired.com/story/power-bills-in-the-us-are-soarin...
- bluGill 11mo agoVery regional though - my rates have not gone up.
- thelastgallon 11mo agoElectricity prices are going up nearly everywhere. Bitcoin and AI are a wealth transfer from everyone to the crypto/AI folks. Wholesale electricity costs as much as 267% more than it did five years ago in areas near data centers. That's being passed on to customers: https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2025-ai-data-centers-electricity-prices/ https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2025-ai-data-centers-elec...
- geysersam 11mo agoThat doesn't make any sense. Bitcoin miners get wealth from people buying Bitcoin, not from electricity customers. Same for AI. It's a wealth transfer from electricity customers to electricity producers if anything. Most likely most of the increase is just temporary though. Electricity supply will increase to meet the sudden and unpredictable increase in demand.
- Spivak 11mo agoIt will be interesting to see if this will make natural gas a more attractive source of residential heating as the price has remained relatively stable over the past 20 years. The push for electrification seems like it relies on us metaphorically drowning in excess cheap electricity and want somewhere for it to go but right now the opposite it happening.
- 11mo ago