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It seems that big money can overrule local government regulators at will. Here in Nevada, (Warran Buffet owned) NV Energy already has approval for a "Demand Ch

It seems that big money can overrule local government regulators at will. Here in Nevada, (Warran Buffet owned) NV Energy already has approval for a "Demand Charge" that will increase rates for everyone, and further reduce the ridiculously low amount of money that consumers get for selling their excess solar power back to the grid. The regulators didn't even resist, but there has now been so much backlash that they're finally scheduling public hearings after the fact. The announcement doesn't even mention the Demand Charge by name, and many consumers aren't even aware they they're about to be screwed. One of the more obscene things about this new charge is that people with PV arrays will pay a fee for demanding more power from their own grid-tied systems. https://www.nvenergy.com/publish/content/dam/nvenergy/bill_inserts/2026/06_jun/GRC-Consumer-Session-Notice-2026-06_1_17.pdf https://www.nvenergy.com/publish/content/dam/nvenergy/bill_i...

seany 5mo ago
One more reason to go off grid
JuniperMesos 5mo ago
As a YIMBYist who can't afford a house where I live, I actively want big money to overrule local government regulators at will, because big money developers make their big money by building houses and local regulators are responding to the NIMBYist concerns of ordinary homeowners that result in insufficient housing getting built. A local government regulator fighting for the interests of local homeowners does not necessarily do what is in my own long-term interest, and I don't necessarily want them to win against big money. > Here in Nevada, (Warran Buffet owned) NV Energy already has approval for a "Demand Charge" that will increase rates for everyone, and further reduce the ridiculously low amount of money that consumers get for selling their excess solar power back to the grid. Excess solar power generated by ordinary consumers is probably being priced correctly - excess solar power generation happens during the day when the sun is high, which means there's a glut of power because everyone with a solar panel generates a lot then. Solar power is scarcer and therefore more expensive when the sun is not shining bright, and this is not the time when customers are selling excess power back to the grid. Generous rates for buying power from customers were an effective subsidy to get people to install home solar panel systems, and that subsidy works less and less well as more and more power on the grid gets generated via solar panels and the difference in grid-wide power availability at different times based on the height of the sun becomes more and more important.
- tokioyoyo 5mo ago
  There's 'big money' and, there's also "BIG MONEY". Former doesn't always win against the government, the latter pretty much overrules anything.
- hnthrowaway0315 5mo ago
  The super riches are already winning so many times. The US is missing regulations, and at the same time over-regulate areas that it should not.
  - JuniperMesos 5mo ago
    I don't think this is particularly due to the super-rich, over everyone else in society. A lot of the bad regulations I care most about are driven by ordinary people who own their own home and not a whole lot else, and are sincerely-supported by many people I know personally.
- estimator7292 5mo ago
  [dead]
- moistoreos 5mo ago
  Hey bud, do you happen to know when the demand for power is the highest? It happens to be.... gasp.... when the sun is highest in the sky. Just take a look at ERCOT's website: https://www.ercot.com/gridmktinfo/dashboards/supplyanddemand https://www.ercot.com/gridmktinfo/dashboards/supplyanddemand
  - harry19023 5mo ago
    That's just not true. Here's the California grid from yesterday: https://www.gridstatus.io/live/caiso?date=2026-05-09 https://www.gridstatus.io/live/caiso?date=2026-05-09 Peak demand is 6 PM when everyone gets home from work and turns on the air conditioning. EDIT: Your chart shows the same thing? Demand is highest at 6 pm, not noon.
    - 5mo ago
idontwantthis 5mo ago
It’s not clear to me that the demand charge will cause bills to increase at all and, on its face, it makes sense to charge separately for peak power consumption as well as total energy consumption.
- jonhohle 5mo ago
  As someone with a demand charge, let me disagree. The worst single hour out of 60-70 throughout the month is used and in my market it’s about $19/kw demand. Turn on the AC once during that period, $80. Happen to have to have an oven or microwave going at the same time, you’re probably over $100. For one hour on one day of the month. Once you screw your month, you’re free to do it the rest of the month, but it only takes once.
  - idontwantthis 5mo ago
    What you have described is an obviously terrible system that doesn’t incentivize lower power consumption. That’s not how it’s going to work in Nevada. It will be the highest 15 minute period of each day, so if you spread out your power usage you have room to game the rates and save money. And if you have a bad day it will only cost you a dollar or two and the next day is fresh. Plus it’s not on top of the total consumption. The consumption rate is getting cut so that people should be paying roughly the same amount as before.
    - AnthonyMouse 5mo ago
      > What you have described is an obviously terrible system that doesn’t incentivize lower power consumption. Doesn't it? Suppose you have a battery system which has access to the current price, so it charges when it's cheap and discharges when it's expensive. Then you don't pay the $19/kWh, you run on batteries then -- or sell at $19/kWh. And thereby turn a profit from installing the battery system, creating the incentive to reduce consumption when the price is high.
      - idontwantthis 5mo ago
DANmode 5mo ago
> further reduce the ridiculously low amount of money that consumers get for selling their excess solar power back to the grid. Batteries are cheaper every week. Time to build kWh Victory gardens.
- anonymousiam 5mo ago
  I think a Powerwall is in my future...
- StromFLIX 5mo ago
  In Germany its getting insane right now. A lot of the time energy at noon is negative. https://blog.stromflix.com/price-of-power https://blog.stromflix.com/price-of-power
  - JuniperMesos 5mo ago
    A price signal that noon is a great time to do AI inference. Unfortunately, people often want AI inference done at other times than noon, when electricity isn't negatively-priced because of abundant solar panels making it in broad sunshine.
    - Ekaros 5mo ago
      I am sometimes wondering wouldn't the most economic thing to be to geographically distribute AI computing. Latencies can be large, but power could be cheaper if the loads are just moved around the globe as needed. This would mean that hardware sits powered off or in very low power state for larger chunk of day, but maybe that is acceptable in some scenario.
      - JuniperMesos 5mo ago
        This is very likely already happening as customers of data centers doing various types of AI compute schedule their workloads to minimize their own costs. If data center compute usage was systematically cheaper around local noon wherever in the world that data center happens to be, customers who could tolerate high latency would move their compute jobs from data center to data center as the earth spins to keep their compute happening in the cheap solar energy zone. Or maybe this is a pricing model that doesn't quite exist yet at scale, but that data center operators will introduce where and when they can as more and more solar generation for data centers comes online. Or maybe it's not actually cost-effective because moving jobs into and out of data centers is so expensive that even the electricity/compute cost savings don't actually offset it. This is ultimately a question for the entity actually paying for the compute and responding to the price signal.
robotbikes 5mo ago
A lot of these rules happen at the regulatory level so lawmakers don't typically understand them in depth and get a lot of their explanations from utility lobbyists or the regulatory agency itself, if they even get involved or pay attention. The dramatic increases being directly linked to data centers is big enough for consumers to notice though. That's why these independent counsels are pretty important such as the Maryland agency mentioned in this article. Since utilities at least on the distribution side are pretty much monopolies people have no choice but to pay the agreed rate.
- georgemcbay 5mo ago
  > lawmakers don't typically understand them in depth and get a lot of their explanations from utility lobbyists or the regulatory agency itself, if they even get involved or pay attention. I think you are being far too charitable here and in most cases it is weaponized ignorance at best. Why dig into the minutia of the actual rules when you can just have the people donating money to you while benefiting from you not really fixing anything just tell you what you should do...?
  - robotbikes 5mo ago
    I was being diplomatic for sure, but the regulators are often also pretty much working for the utility companies, sometimes quite illegally if you look at the HB6 scandal in Ohio where the head of the PUCO Sam Randazzo took massive bribes. He never faced the charges in court because he ended his life.
Gibbon1 5mo ago
Friend of mine used to work in that space. He said there were people who were trying to do their job making sure the rate payers interests were being looked after. And people whose only interest was sucking up to the utilities in hope that they'll be rewarded by an offer to switch sides.
leonidasrup 5mo ago
It's not obscene it's economics - supply and demand. In power grid dominated by solar production the value of MWh of electricity is highest at night (because the supply from solar is zero), the value MWh of electricity is lowest at noon (because the supply from solar is maximal). So the residential grid-tied PV system is supplying power when the value of electricity is low and consuming power when the value of electricity is high. Better solution than fix rates are digital smart meters which calculate using variable rates from electricity market.
- developerDan 5mo ago
  Yes it’s economics, but that doesn’t exempt it from being “obscene” if that is how one sees it.
  - leonidasrup 5mo ago
    One could also argue that negative electricity prices at noon are "obscene". It doesn't make economic sense to push for more solar in a grid dominated by solar without additional investments into electricity storage and these investments have to be paid by someone. Rollout of digital smart meters for households makes sense, so that people can make use of cheap electricity at noon. Large customers of electricity already now buy electricity either on electricity market at variable raters or have specific long-term contracts with electricity suppliers.
AntiUSAbah 5mo ago
They are killing themselves with this ignorance. The pressure onto normal citizens will push and increase renewable energy build out (E-Car, Balcony solar/roof solar), to get away from these companies faster. Their utility will increase further, the pressure increases even more. But people like Elon Musk are also very ignorant: He populates going into space to fix the energy topic, but apparently can't do math because it would be a lot cheaper to use batteries and solar and potentially also sell the heat the DCs produce instead of doing any of it in space. It would even be easier to just buy something in new mexico, building out the energy infrastructure in a non livable area because latency doesn't matter that much with AI (not all use cases, but for that you have edge locations). The richest and smartest people (excluding here elon musk) are not able to do a fast proper buildout? ... They could even just build a whole town with DCs and combine this with other energy intensive industries and sharing the prorcess heat reuse.
eowln 5mo ago
[flagged]
dv_dt 5mo ago
Similar patterns occurred with telecom corporations and communities that setup their own internet services. In some states the community ISP service model was either shut down, or restricted from expanding further due to lobbying from large corporations.

seany 5mo ago

One more reason to go off grid

JuniperMesos 5mo ago

As a YIMBYist who can't afford a house where I live, I actively want big money to overrule local government regulators at will, because big money developers make their big money by building houses and local regulators are responding to the NIMBYist concerns of ordinary homeowners that result in insufficient housing getting built. A local government regulator fighting for the interests of local homeowners does not necessarily do what is in my own long-term interest, and I don't necessarily want them to win against big money. > Here in Nevada, (Warran Buffet owned) NV Energy already has approval for a "Demand Charge" that will increase rates for everyone, and further reduce the ridiculously low amount of money that consumers get for selling their excess solar power back to the grid. Excess solar power generated by ordinary consumers is probably being priced correctly - excess solar power generation happens during the day when the sun is high, which means there's a glut of power because everyone with a solar panel generates a lot then. Solar power is scarcer and therefore more expensive when the sun is not shining bright, and this is not the time when customers are selling excess power back to the grid. Generous rates for buying power from customers were an effective subsidy to get people to install home solar panel systems, and that subsidy works less and less well as more and more power on the grid gets generated via solar panels and the difference in grid-wide power availability at different times based on the height of the sun becomes more and more important.

tokioyoyo 5mo ago
There's 'big money' and, there's also "BIG MONEY". Former doesn't always win against the government, the latter pretty much overrules anything.
hnthrowaway0315 5mo ago
The super riches are already winning so many times. The US is missing regulations, and at the same time over-regulate areas that it should not.
- JuniperMesos 5mo ago
  I don't think this is particularly due to the super-rich, over everyone else in society. A lot of the bad regulations I care most about are driven by ordinary people who own their own home and not a whole lot else, and are sincerely-supported by many people I know personally.
estimator7292 5mo ago
[dead]
moistoreos 5mo ago
Hey bud, do you happen to know when the demand for power is the highest? It happens to be.... gasp.... when the sun is highest in the sky. Just take a look at ERCOT's website: https://www.ercot.com/gridmktinfo/dashboards/supplyanddemand https://www.ercot.com/gridmktinfo/dashboards/supplyanddemand
- harry19023 5mo ago
  That's just not true. Here's the California grid from yesterday: https://www.gridstatus.io/live/caiso?date=2026-05-09 https://www.gridstatus.io/live/caiso?date=2026-05-09 Peak demand is 6 PM when everyone gets home from work and turns on the air conditioning. EDIT: Your chart shows the same thing? Demand is highest at 6 pm, not noon.
  - 5mo ago

idontwantthis 5mo ago

It’s not clear to me that the demand charge will cause bills to increase at all and, on its face, it makes sense to charge separately for peak power consumption as well as total energy consumption.

jonhohle 5mo ago
As someone with a demand charge, let me disagree. The worst single hour out of 60-70 throughout the month is used and in my market it’s about $19/kw demand. Turn on the AC once during that period, $80. Happen to have to have an oven or microwave going at the same time, you’re probably over $100. For one hour on one day of the month. Once you screw your month, you’re free to do it the rest of the month, but it only takes once.
- idontwantthis 5mo ago
  What you have described is an obviously terrible system that doesn’t incentivize lower power consumption. That’s not how it’s going to work in Nevada. It will be the highest 15 minute period of each day, so if you spread out your power usage you have room to game the rates and save money. And if you have a bad day it will only cost you a dollar or two and the next day is fresh. Plus it’s not on top of the total consumption. The consumption rate is getting cut so that people should be paying roughly the same amount as before.
  - AnthonyMouse 5mo ago
    > What you have described is an obviously terrible system that doesn’t incentivize lower power consumption. Doesn't it? Suppose you have a battery system which has access to the current price, so it charges when it's cheap and discharges when it's expensive. Then you don't pay the $19/kWh, you run on batteries then -- or sell at $19/kWh. And thereby turn a profit from installing the battery system, creating the incentive to reduce consumption when the price is high.
    - idontwantthis 5mo ago

DANmode 5mo ago

> further reduce the ridiculously low amount of money that consumers get for selling their excess solar power back to the grid. Batteries are cheaper every week. Time to build kWh Victory gardens.

anonymousiam 5mo ago
I think a Powerwall is in my future...
StromFLIX 5mo ago
In Germany its getting insane right now. A lot of the time energy at noon is negative. https://blog.stromflix.com/price-of-power https://blog.stromflix.com/price-of-power
- JuniperMesos 5mo ago
  A price signal that noon is a great time to do AI inference. Unfortunately, people often want AI inference done at other times than noon, when electricity isn't negatively-priced because of abundant solar panels making it in broad sunshine.
  - Ekaros 5mo ago
    I am sometimes wondering wouldn't the most economic thing to be to geographically distribute AI computing. Latencies can be large, but power could be cheaper if the loads are just moved around the globe as needed. This would mean that hardware sits powered off or in very low power state for larger chunk of day, but maybe that is acceptable in some scenario.
    - JuniperMesos 5mo ago
      This is very likely already happening as customers of data centers doing various types of AI compute schedule their workloads to minimize their own costs. If data center compute usage was systematically cheaper around local noon wherever in the world that data center happens to be, customers who could tolerate high latency would move their compute jobs from data center to data center as the earth spins to keep their compute happening in the cheap solar energy zone. Or maybe this is a pricing model that doesn't quite exist yet at scale, but that data center operators will introduce where and when they can as more and more solar generation for data centers comes online. Or maybe it's not actually cost-effective because moving jobs into and out of data centers is so expensive that even the electricity/compute cost savings don't actually offset it. This is ultimately a question for the entity actually paying for the compute and responding to the price signal.

robotbikes 5mo ago

A lot of these rules happen at the regulatory level so lawmakers don't typically understand them in depth and get a lot of their explanations from utility lobbyists or the regulatory agency itself, if they even get involved or pay attention. The dramatic increases being directly linked to data centers is big enough for consumers to notice though. That's why these independent counsels are pretty important such as the Maryland agency mentioned in this article. Since utilities at least on the distribution side are pretty much monopolies people have no choice but to pay the agreed rate.

georgemcbay 5mo ago
> lawmakers don't typically understand them in depth and get a lot of their explanations from utility lobbyists or the regulatory agency itself, if they even get involved or pay attention. I think you are being far too charitable here and in most cases it is weaponized ignorance at best. Why dig into the minutia of the actual rules when you can just have the people donating money to you while benefiting from you not really fixing anything just tell you what you should do...?
- robotbikes 5mo ago
  I was being diplomatic for sure, but the regulators are often also pretty much working for the utility companies, sometimes quite illegally if you look at the HB6 scandal in Ohio where the head of the PUCO Sam Randazzo took massive bribes. He never faced the charges in court because he ended his life.

Gibbon1 5mo ago

Friend of mine used to work in that space. He said there were people who were trying to do their job making sure the rate payers interests were being looked after. And people whose only interest was sucking up to the utilities in hope that they'll be rewarded by an offer to switch sides.

leonidasrup 5mo ago

It's not obscene it's economics - supply and demand. In power grid dominated by solar production the value of MWh of electricity is highest at night (because the supply from solar is zero), the value MWh of electricity is lowest at noon (because the supply from solar is maximal). So the residential grid-tied PV system is supplying power when the value of electricity is low and consuming power when the value of electricity is high. Better solution than fix rates are digital smart meters which calculate using variable rates from electricity market.

developerDan 5mo ago
Yes it’s economics, but that doesn’t exempt it from being “obscene” if that is how one sees it.
- leonidasrup 5mo ago
  One could also argue that negative electricity prices at noon are "obscene". It doesn't make economic sense to push for more solar in a grid dominated by solar without additional investments into electricity storage and these investments have to be paid by someone. Rollout of digital smart meters for households makes sense, so that people can make use of cheap electricity at noon. Large customers of electricity already now buy electricity either on electricity market at variable raters or have specific long-term contracts with electricity suppliers.

AntiUSAbah 5mo ago

They are killing themselves with this ignorance. The pressure onto normal citizens will push and increase renewable energy build out (E-Car, Balcony solar/roof solar), to get away from these companies faster. Their utility will increase further, the pressure increases even more. But people like Elon Musk are also very ignorant: He populates going into space to fix the energy topic, but apparently can't do math because it would be a lot cheaper to use batteries and solar and potentially also sell the heat the DCs produce instead of doing any of it in space. It would even be easier to just buy something in new mexico, building out the energy infrastructure in a non livable area because latency doesn't matter that much with AI (not all use cases, but for that you have edge locations). The richest and smartest people (excluding here elon musk) are not able to do a fast proper buildout? ... They could even just build a whole town with DCs and combine this with other energy intensive industries and sharing the prorcess heat reuse.

eowln 5mo ago

[flagged]

dv_dt 5mo ago

Similar patterns occurred with telecom corporations and communities that setup their own internet services. In some states the community ISP service model was either shut down, or restricted from expanding further due to lobbying from large corporations.