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Giant Utilities Try to Kill Solar Power
One of the main reasons that solar energy is growing so fast in California is “net metering” … i.e. crediting rooftop solar users for surplus power their systems create, which is fed back into the grid for use by other customers.
Currently, rooftop solar owners are credited at the same rate they would pay the utility for electricity.
Not only is net metering a huge incentive to buy solar panels, but it is part of a wave of decentralized energy production which could help to solve our protect against terrorism, fascism and destruction of our health, environment and economy.
But the giant California utilities – PG&E, Southern California Energy and San Diego Gas & Electric – are determined to kill net metering, because it cuts into the profitability of their centralized energy production business.
The Los Angeles Times notes:
For new purchases of rooftop solar, the utility proposals could wipe out the potential savings on power — the main incentive for buying the systems.
Lyndon Rive, chief executive of SolarCity, describes a “catastrophic” future for rooftop solar if the California Public Utilities Commission approves the proposals …
Utility proposals call for crediting solar users at about half the current rates. Utilities would also charge monthly fees, based on the size of a homeowner’s solar system.
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The proposed fees could make solar power systems unaffordable — which is exactly what utilities want, Rive and other solar proponents say.
“This is a clear indication that the utilities are trying to stop competition and the solar industry,” said Rive, whose San Mateo, Calif., company operates in 19 states.
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Utility critics point to a different motivation: Rooftop solar poses a threat to the utilities’ century-old business model of centralized power and the regulatory framework that supports it. In essence, the more utilities spend to maintain the grid, the more money they make.
The industry trade association, the Edison Electric Institute, referred to rooftop solar and its consumer-friendly cousin, energy efficiency, as “disruptive challenges” in a 2013 report.
The LA Times makes it clear that this is not just a California issue … but is a nationwide campaign:
The debate’s outcome could shape solar policies throughout the nation, as utilities seek to tinker with solar costs. Other states look to California as an innovator on solar policy. The state by far leads the nation in deployment of rooftop and utility-scale solar technology, followed by Arizona, New Jersey, North Carolina and Nevada.
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A recent assessment by the North Carolina Clean Energy Technology Center found that 16 of the 44 states with net-metering policies were considering or enacting changes. Wisconsin and Arizona recently imposed significant increases in the amounts that utilities can charge solar users.
After the Arizona policy took effect, applications for rooftop solar installations dropped from hundreds a month to a handful, said Sean Gallagher, vice president of state affairs for the Solar Energy Industries Assn.
“I think it’s clear nationally,” Gallagher said, “that the utilities are concerned about the impact on their business with customers generating their own electricity, and they’re pushing back. What California does may legitimize some of these proposals in other states.”
The Washington Post reported in March:
Three years ago, the nation’s top utility executives gathered at a Colorado resort to hear warnings about a grave new threat to operators of America’s electric grid ….
If demand for residential solar continued to soar, traditional utilities could soon face serious problems, from “declining retail sales” and a “loss of customers” to “potential obsolescence,” according to a presentation prepared for the group. “Industry must prepare an action plan to address the challenges,” it said.
The warning, delivered to a private meeting of the utility industry’s main trade association, became a call to arms for electricity providers in nearly every corner of the nation. Three years later, the industry and its fossil-fuel supporters are waging a determined campaign to stop a home-solar insurgency that is rattling the boardrooms of the country’s government-regulated electric monopolies.
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“The utilities are fighting tooth and nail,” said Scott Peterson, director of the Checks and Balances Project, a Virginia nonprofit that investigates lobbyists’ ties to regulatory agencies. Peterson, who has tracked the industry’s two-year legislative fight, said the pivot to public utility commissions moves the battle to friendlier terrain for utilities. The commissions, usually made up of political appointees, “have enormous power, and no one really watches them,” Peterson said.
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Solar’s share of global energy production is climbing steadily, and a study last week by researchers from Cambridge University concluded that photovoltaics will soon be able to out-compete fossil fuels, even if oil prices drop to as low as $10 a barrel.
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But the arrival of cheaper solar technology has also brought an unexpected challenge to the industry’s bottom line: As millions of residential and business customers opt for solar, revenue for utilities is beginning to decline. Industry-sponsored studies have warned the trend could eventually lead to a radical restructure of energy markets, similar to earlier upheavals with phone-company monopolies.
“One can imagine a day when battery-storage technology or micro turbines could allow customers to be electric grid independent,” said a 2013 Edison study. “To put this into perspective, who would have believed 10 years ago that traditional wire line telephone customers could economically ‘cut the cord’?”
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Two-and-a-half years later, evidence of the “action plan” envisioned by Edison officials can be seen in states across the country. Legislation to make net metering illegal or more costly has been introduced in nearly two dozen state houses since 2013. Some of the proposals were virtual copies of model legislation drafted two years ago by the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, a nonprofit organization with financial ties to billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch.
There is bipartisan support for solar. As the LA Times writes:
Frustration with utilities has led consumers to begin mounting their own fights, and it has created some unlikely political alliances among grass-roots groups.
Debbie Dooley, a co-founder of the Atlanta Tea Party, has campaigned in Wisconsin and Indiana to protect net-metering laws. Dooley helped expand solar in Georgia, and she is helping lead an effort in Florida to expand solar in the Sunshine State.
Dooley has tapped libertarians and environmentalists such as Greenpeace and the Sierra Club, in addition to conservative groups such as the Christian Coalition.
And the Washington Post notes:
In Republican strongholds, such as Indiana and Utah … anti-solar legislation came under a surprisingly fierce attack from free-market conservatives and even evangelical groups, many of which have installed solar panels on their churches.
“Conservatives support solar — they support it even more than progressives do,” said Bryan Miller, co-chairman of the Alliance for Solar Choice and a vice president of public policy for Sunrun, a California solar provider. “It’s about competition in its most basic form. The idea that you should be forced to buy power from a state-sponsored monopoly and not have an option is about the least conservative thing you can imagine.”
In other words, it’s not left-versus-right … instead, it’s you versus the giant corporations, which are in a malignant, symbiotic relationship with corrupt government officials.
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POLITICAL FUNDING
ENFORCING FRAUDS
The problem with that diagnosis is the prognosis is not good! The funding of the political processes have driven the same vicious spirals of crazy corruption everywhere one looks, to the degree that there are no feasible ways to prevent that automatically getting worse, faster, in every area that one examines. The degree to which the POLITICAL FUNDING has infiltrated every sociopolitical institution, form the basic monetary systems, on down throughout every other layer, has resulted in the notions of "democracy" and the "rule of law" becoming cruel jokes, since every institution has been systematically driven towards worse and worse crazy corruptions.
The ideals of a "democratic republic" operating through the "rule of law" are still good ideas. Indeed, I am not aware of any better ones. However, after "We the People" lose control over the public money system, then they have effectively lost control over everything else. Hence, there is nothing but runaway vicious spirals of POLITICAL FUNDING ENFORCING FRAUDS, and the only thing that happens when one learns more about THAT is the worse it becomes.
"Democracy" and the "rule of law" have been systematically destroyed by the effects of POLITICAL FUNDING ENFORCING FRAUDS, driving vicious spirals of crazy corruption everywhere one looks, such as yet another example of that in the article above, where even IF there is some temporary postponement of such changes, there will surely continue to be well-funded lobbying pressures working to still get that done!
THAT PROBLEM has become double-bind paradoxes, or Catch 22s, where it is not possible to fix any of the crazy, corrupt, political problems unless one could first fix the crazy corruption in the monetary systems. However, that is precisely what is NOT possible to actually do, since what already exists ARE the runaway vicious spirals of POLITICAL FUNDING ENFORCING FRAUDS.
It is tragic that I must agree with the point of view presented here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jQT7_rVxAE
George Carlin on American Owners and EducationRadical - I kinow you are really GW. You write just like him.
This report out of Maine indicates that the value to the state from solar is above most net metering costs.
Pages 11 and 12 of the doc indicate that societal benefits are significant. The utilities on the West Coast are most likely misrepresenting their case.
http://www.maine.gov/mpuc/electricity/elect_generation/documents/MainePU...
Unlike brainlesshorseman with his bikes, solar is actually a way to go off grid and withdraw from the degenerate, violent, anti-white male society at large. Independent power literally lets tough, hard working whites live how and where they want. Government and the communist totalitarian Jews that run the west don't like that and will move to prevent all avenues of escape from their degenerate genocide machine.
solar lasts 15-20 years (ask any experienced solar user)
Solar uses more energy to produce /install the solar cell than it will produce over its lifetime before it dies.
Solar panels are basically batteries for chinese coal factories with a party bribe .
Smitty... citations please.
Not trying to be a dope... just trying to figure out the truth.
you are kidding....the utilities love solar and wind...they get to jack up prices and do less. There is NO WAY that solar is going to be a main suppiler of power...now the utlities get an all of the above, solar, wind nuclear, nat gas, etc and get rid of coal the lowest cost source of power. It is genius way to raise prices....they are a cost plus business...and we are mandating the highest cost!
The electric companies are threatened by newer technologies that enable individuals to be net positive power generators 24/7 at much lower cost than solar.
Rosch Displacement
Keshe Magrav
and many more described at PESN.
SIRIUS Disclosure broke the chains of enslavement.
and many more described at PESN.
SIRIUS Disclosure broke the chains of enslavement.
Face it, until TPTB decide to allow "free energy" technologies into the public domain the world will be dependent on conventional power generation. Since the time of Tesla TPTB and/or their government minions have ensured that any promising development in this area is quickly hidden from the public and the inventor is either bought off or murdered and their lab and research documentation destroyed. Until someone invents something relatively simple in this area and gets it into the public domain immediately nothing is going to change.
Ref: "Until someone invents something relatively simple in this area and gets it into the public domain immediately nothing is going to change."
Yes, that is exactly what is so useful about the KesheFoundation Magrav Blueprint
http://blueprint.keshefoundation.org/blueprint.html
Anyone can download the plans and build their own very cheaply. Granted, the current blueprints could use some improvement, and you will need to study their videos. Hopefully, future plans and instructional videos will be better, so individuals can build units in less time.
I estimate $200 in materials, and from 20 to 300 hours of study (depending on where you start), are needed to build your own unit.
Yea but Keshe is complete bullshit. At least Rossi got a real US patent on the E-Cat.
I agree Keshe is hard to listen to, but that does not make his concepts bull. Rather than depend on patent protection from a hostile government, he has used the Open Source method. Anyone is free to download the plans and build an inexpensive home size power unit for themselves using not much more than copper wire and caustic. Try being open minded and patient for about two more months as shipped production units arrive in the homes and labs of people who ordered them, and as Do-it-Yourself types replicate the plans in their own homes.
Keshe Magrav Plasma energy is very different from our typical 120V 60 Hz AC power. Actually, it is a totally alien, form of energy, but it can be used to power things like HVAC units, and electric Automobiles. The units are very cheap to produce. Material cost is about one kilogram of copper wire, and not much else.
This energy has some characteristics that are very different from our common power systems. For example, it takes three weeks to startup a new unit attached to a new load. Once turned on, it is best to leave the power supply and load on, and not turn it off. This is a very different way to use energy than we are accoustomed. It will require some changes in our operations. The UpSide is that it is totally non-polluting.
No carbon based fuels are consumed during operation, so operating cost is extremely low.
Give them two more months to prove the technology before passing judgement.
Anyone is free to download the plans and build an inexpensive home size power unit for themselves using not much more than copper wire and caustic.
The device you are referring to is useless as a power source. The output power of the "soda bottle" generator is in the low milliamps range (10-50 milliamps) - you can almost get the same amount of power by holding a bare wire in the air.
The device I am referring to produces 3kw.
Any confirmation by other scientists/engineers?
Any confirmation by other scientists/engineers?
No. And what leads everyone to be skeptical of Keshe's claims is he talks like a salesman and uses very non-conventional terminology in describing his "invention". To my knowledge, to date he has not released sufficient details on his device to allow 3rd parties to try to duplicate it. FWIW I am an engineer.
sirius...you mean the pay $20/mth where you used to get radio for free? Really?
No, not sirius the radio company.
SIRIUS Disclosure
http://www.siriusdisclosure.com/
In cooperation with The Disclosure Project
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwwtxHEI0Wc
'
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The age of decentralizing everything, information, jobs, security, power, is coming with the internet and technology.
The footstompers in power, in control, want it all shut down, the toothpaste back in the tube.
If they can't do it nicely, while we sleep, they will do it by force.
Mark. My. Words.
•?•
V-V
Actually it's the giant Socialist corporations packed with ex-government hacks pushing solar financialization on consumers with an electrical distribution cartel.
more solar = higher electric bills for consumers and lower profits for utilities
Take for instance green energy giant Abengoa whose board includes Jamie Gorelick, AlGore Bill Richardson and 2 Harry Reid staffers, they own the CA green-idiot franchise.
Flip a light switch in CA on and AL Gore gets a cut and the revenues are a "jobs program" for immigrants.
Is Jamie Gorelick the one that served under Janet Reno?
go solar and drop your connection to the grid, then live with the results..until solar is 24/7 solution, somebody must pay..both sides in this are fucking selfish pigs..sorry GW you are never pig like, but really?
4 little pigs want non solar families to pay them for being solar good al goreian citizens..like al gore they consume everything for the good of the planet you know..wonder how many of those down votes live next to gore's beach side home?
make that 5 little pigs which had roast beef?
They should just unbundle the utility rates. There's the energy cost, then there's the transmission and distribution and ancillaries for reliability. I mean what are you really "selling back" to the grid? The energy. Not the fixed costs of reliable power delivered to you instanteously in the frequency you need it.
My electric bill already unbundles the cost for production from the cost for delivery and sorted State taxes/costs. Last bill -$24.24 for purchasing power; $23.26 for other costs
Solar cost about 50 cents per kilowatt. With taxes, a coal power cost around 7 cents per kilowatt. That is why China and Germany are expanding coal power plant production.
Solar cells are pin diode and are made of the same stuff computer chips are made of. Solar is not a great energy source unless you believe the world should run on batteries.
actually the brain trust Mexican mafia that runs the CA legislature passed a battery mandate on the CA electrical grid.
>> Solar cost about 50 cents per kilowatt. With taxes, a coal power cost around 7 cents per kilowatt.
Let me fix that for you.
Solar power costs about 50 cents per peak watt.
With taxes, energy from a coal powered power station costs around 7 cents per kilowatt-hour.
Solar generation - mostly one time capital cost.
Coal generation - mostly consumable fuel cost.
Excellent points. But remember, the power the utility buys back via net metering is power the utilities don't have to pay capital costs to generate. Solar has basically killed the peaker premium (witness the duck curve) and the providers are unhappy about this.
The utilities need to get on board ASAP because storage is coming and they will be royally fucked if they fight it -- because they can't -- and they will go bankrupt. Seriously.
Seriously, you have no clue what you are talking about. There is no magic storage solution coming to save solar energy. The utilities know this, but you don't
Battery is getting cheaper in Volume. The price drop per doubling of volume is about 21%
in battery.
Actually, 3 students from China have developed a rechargeable battery that can hold severals times more than current systems, rechange in less than 1/2 the time of current systems. Problem, getting production on them though. Their batteries will change everything, again. Just don't know when they will be produced.
alpha, hope your "because storage is coming" is right, but i fear it will come with tax breaks outta of tax serfs pocket. and mega corps will just buy the storage co's if it does work.
Oh it's coming alright. Everybody and their brother is jumping all over this because the global energy market is ~$2 TRILLION per year and people smell blood in the water re the "old utility model". There is no way to put this toothpaste back in the tube now. The idea of corporations buying it into oblivion just won't work this time because there is far far too much money to be made by creating new opportunities.
For example. Mercedes / Daimler is jumping in with both feet as are about 20 other global conglomoreates.
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World's largest second-use battery storage unit prepped for grid connection
Nov 9 2015.
This is a role that's partially played by fossil-fuel power plants at the moment, so Daimler says the battery system will help to "speed up the energy revolution and eliminates the cost of expanding the grid and building new power plants."
As electric cars come towards the end of their life, they create a set of problems that you simply don't get with petrol cars - namely, getting rid of the batteries. Automotive giant Daimler is doing its bit to tackle the problem by partnering with The Mobility House, GETEC and Remondis to create a 13-MWh battery storage unit out of second-life battery systems from electric and plug-in hybrid cars.
The battery storage unit will be connected to the grid in early 2016.
Daimler's used battery farm is stupid. The first time a lithium fire starts with hundreds of batteries going up in flames makes it a major terrorist target. All the terrorist need to do is add water. Huge fail...
Lets not talk about the amount of heat it will give off because it will burn down everything within a 1 mile radius.
Even the small fire that just happened in Ellwood is still burning... No thanks
Battery storage is very expensive and batteries do not last. I think we are a long ways off of having affordable battery storage, long way off!
The most cost-effective energy storage is pumped hydro. You pump water up to a reservoir with cheap power and drop it when rates are high. Some examples are Bath County pumped hydro and and Taum Sauk. One of the latest is a combination hydro reservoir and solar farm in China. The problem with this scheme is it is not cost effective for long term storage, meaning most of these are cycled daily to recoup the infrastructure cost.
>> But the giant California utilities – PG&E, Southern California Energy and San Diego Gas & Electric – are determined to kill net metering, because it cuts into the profitability of their centralized energy production business.
They have a valid case. The wholesale price of electricity varies mostly according to the time of day. The sun does not shine at night and at other times of high wholesale prices. It would be entirely reasonable to supply electricity at retail and buy it back at spot wholesale price at the time of delivery.
Alternatively, maybe the scientists could fix this problem of the sun not shining at night.
Yes but historically when is demand highest? During the day. 2 PM when every Air Conditioner is
roaring away at 100% in July, trying to keep office workers cool....
It's going to become a lot harder to make money as a utility selling power in the evenings
then during the day. I don't know about you, but 11PM- 7 AM my power demands are a little
for the fridge, a security light and some fans... An A/C for the Bedroom...
But the sun does shine at night, just not where we can see it?
Some scientists think we could have solar array in geo-stat orbit that could 'beam' power to a collector and power a country.
dionosphere?
"Alternatively, maybe the scientists could fix this problem of the sun not shining at night."
They are. It's called batteries. And its coming like a freight train. If the utilities don't get their shit together, they will be bankrupt a hell of lot faster than anyone thinks.
"Alternatively, maybe the scientists could fix this problem of the sun not shining at night."
We could just chrome the moon.
giant orbital solar collectors would be the way to go
I think the centralized power folks have the gov in their pocket. For a number of reasons: So far, I talk to people near me who have decorated their roofs to the tune of about 40 grand. They tell me no payback for at least 35 years. For one, they say the utilities don't want your power. If they take it, they give you next to nothing for it. You can't pipe it to your neighbors either without going to jail. The utilities got a big reprieve when Obama signed a bill to tax Chinese solar panels 35%. (Even though Solyndra had already tanked, who are you protecting now?). Also, some areas of the country won't allow you to disconnect from the utility company, even if you figure out how to live without their power. (Cuz a lot of TAXES are included on utility bills - they wouldn't want you to get away with not paying those taxes!). If enough people went solar, they'd probably include some kind of socialist tax for the utility companies (for Christ's sake, man! It's a national security issue! Can't have a weak, underfunded central power grid, can we?) In conclusion, I wouldn't worry too much about the utility companies. At least not in the near future.
I have a small solar array on my roof that has been up there for nearly a decade now. In my deep south state I get paid exactly the same rate for my excess power that I pay for my power, i.e. net metering. In my service area a kW of power always costs the same, regardless of time of day, grid demand, availability of supply, etc. However, in some places such as Texas and California, the cost of electricity varies depending on when it is used, i.e. more during times of high demand (summer afternoons, winter nights), less during lower demand periods. This is exactly as it should be, and any claims by the utilities that they shouldn't pay out similarly to small generators is just pure hypocrisy. In fact, small solar is actually very useful to grid utilities because its generation is often highest during peak demand (i.e. summer afternoons).
In our case, because our system is fairly small it is seldom that we produce more than we use (a few hours a month, when the heat/air isn't on and the weather is about perfect), the net-metering meter I had to pay for out of pocket, and the local utility company charges everyone $23 a month whether they use a single watt of power or not (just for the priviledge of being hooked up, which is a requirement of an occupyable structure, much like having running water is).
Basically, my personal experience has been pretty much identical to Silverer outlines above. My system should pay for itself in about another 30 years, at current kW rates.
The solar system on my roof is guaranteed to generate 300KwH/month but it usually produces 350-400 depending on the weather, so that's an extra $15-30 of free electricity. Other than the monthly bill of $22 to the electric utility and $105 to the solar provider, there is no up front cost to pay back; and I will still own the system after 10 years. BTW, the cost of electricity is $0.33/KwH here so the payback is much sooner for those that choose to buy the solar system themselves.
$0.33/kWh, holy crap!
Wah wah wah.
Quit using your clothes dryer, shut off all that luxury electronic crap in your home (like televisions, routers, and computers), and go to bed when it gets dark (or read using a single 60 watt bulb). In short, QUIT CONSUMING SO DAMN MUCH. The vast majority of us 1st World consumers could easily cut our consumption by 1/3 an STILL live in comfortable luxury compared to richest of only 100 years ago.
Might even save a few bucks in the process.
Or blame the utility companies. Whatever.