This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
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.
***
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.
***
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.
***
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.
***
“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.
***
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.
***
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’?”
***
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.
- advertisements -
OR put up some solar panels...
AND put up some solar panels...
now you're on to something
energy could have been free and clean and wireless with tesla's plan. warcliffe gets shut down by jp morgan when he realizes he can't use it to control people. they will charge you extra on your power bills if there is a mild winter and you don't use as much energy for heat, they want to get what they would have gotten otherwise. it's rigged.
You aren't given a choice in some cases. Homeowners aren't allowed to use outdoor clotheslines in many places: townships, condo associations, etc..
Yes it is more important to not use a clothes line and to use fossil fuels. How can any municipality even begin to be energy consious with these bylaws
Why would you live anywhere where you don't even have the simple choice to hang your clothes outdoors? Or are subject to the rules of a HOA?
Standard Disclaimer: Because after WWIII, you'll be washing your clothes by pounding them against some rocks in the nearest stream.
My indoor clothesline dries all but jeans and socks in about 12 hours. Those take about 18 hours. Even so, hang them outside even if it against the HOA. You COULD make a stink about it. Make them defend their pro-utility anti-environment rules.
My point is there are plenty of low-tech solutions to saving money on utilities that few are willing to follow through on. When we complicate it further by involving the government and expecting cooperation by big utility companies, is it any suprise we run into resistance? They're NOT on your side.
While I would agree that it would be typical if this were a case of corporations controlling their politicians but I think this time is indeed different.
Solar panels are actually extremely disruptive of grid stability and cause expensive remedies when they flash on and off as clouds pass in front of the sun.
So the truth is that right now non-solar energy users are indeed greatly subsidizing their solar-using neighbours.
I wish it were not but solar remains one of those myths that everyone wants to believe is cost-effective but sadly is not. Energy from the grid would be cleaner and cheaper if solar panels were not tied to the grid.
P
I disagree with this statement...
Agreed the generators must flucuate the output due to solar panaels coming into and out of the clouds, but in very sunny climates ie.desert or even in canada in the summer time this is not a problem.
I would really need to need to be convinced otherwise.
You want a fluctuation? How about about sunset for a fluctuation?
Both sides have valid arguments to offer, but I have to reluctantly agree with the power companies on this for only one reason--
If solar power is about cutting the cord, then insisting upon a subsidized sweetheart deal to sell power to the utilities on a mandatory basis is about the same as them insisting that they have a mandatory right to sell grid power to you.
"I want my freedom and I want you to pay for it" is not a rallying cry that holds any philosophical attraction for me. Cut the cord and let the fledgling industry stand or fall on its own merits rather than upon the usual tiresome financial fudging and cynical public policy maneuvers that will leave them as much of an economic slave to the system as previously.
If solar power is about cutting the cord, then insisting upon a subsidized sweetheart deal to sell power to the utilities on a mandatory basis is about the same as them insisting that they have a mandatory right to sell grid power to you.
For me, Solar power is about producing power that minimizes carbon output
and saves me money...
The Utility with a centralized model is getting slaughtered by the decentralized disruption wave.
Well said tarabel. I think people are making a mistake when they equate generating watts with a panel on their roof with everything the power company does. They provide power 24/7 at 60 Hz, with the correct voltage and reactance without regard to environmental conditions. My power comes for PNW hydro and I haven't lost power since I have lived in my house (5 years). I have looked into putting up solar myself and realized it is pretty affordable during the day, but if you have to store it or compensate for clouds the costs go through the roof. Can anyone show me that is not true? Can anyone build a small scale coal plant and compete with the power companies? Oil fired? Wind? Solar? Nuclear? Natural Gas?
The big pushers on the grid are thermal and nuclear plants. These are generally capital intensive and fuel costs are a smaller components. This means it is usually not cost effective to alter their output. You put them on the grid and load them up (Base Load). This gives you a stable, cost effective base to build from and it makes the solar and wind plans possible. I don't know of a grid anywhere maintained by solar or wind.
Also, the power companies are the ones maintaining the transmission and distribution grid and "delivering" the residential solar around the neighborhood. How do they get compensated for this if you produce an equivalent amount to your own production? So I agree with Tarabel. If the power companies are charging you an excessive rate you should be able to go it alone and just disconnect. I do wonder how they get away with charging 37 cents a kWHr in Hawaii. I think I could compete with that...
The model is changing from Switched Supply to Switched demand. When the supply takes a cloud hit,
have a controller send out a signal and shut down the A/C for 15 minutes.
When Supply is over-producing have the Fridge turn up to max and make extra-ice in the ice-maker.
THe only demand i have during the day that's critical is the internet.. The rest can cycle in and out.
I backfeed power to the grid and my power company pays me what they charge me and at time of higer output they pay me 40% less than what they sell it for..
There is a tremendous difference of rates from one company the other.
Your utility can install a new natural gas power plant and generate power at $0.02/kWh. Why in the world do you think it's "reasonable" they should have to buy your intermittant solar production at a higher cost?
Buy yourself a Tesla home battery and use your own excess power. Oh, uneconomic? I understand, you want the rest of us to pay for your choices.
if NatGas power were really 2 cents/KWH, nothing could compete.
But Natgas power fully loaded is a lot more then that...
NYMEX trading around $2.30/dth
Combined Cycle Unit 7.4 MWh/dth
That's $17/MWh which is $0.017/kWh.
The wholesale generation in Texas has been averaging $20-30/MWh for years with very few and occasional exceptions when it spikes for a few days then settles right back down.
"If solar power is about cutting the cord, then insisting upon a subsidized sweetheart deal to sell power to the utilities on a mandatory basis"
Yea, but when you sum all the production from thosands of rooftops going back on the grid -- thats electricity the utility doesn't have to buy or produce via capex. So its actually very capital efficient for the utilities to buy electricity via net metering. That said, the utilities have literally hundreds of years of not producing/distributing electricity that way and of course, the long time system suddenly is taking money out of parts of the industries pockets and they will try and kill solar because of that. The "peaker premium" of selling spot electricity at rates some times 1,000% higher for short periods on extremely hot days is basically over in California (the battlefront ground zero) due to solar and the entire utility industry is shitting themselves of the prospect of solar plus storage (batteries) because that will erode their most profitable times of early to mid morning and ~5-8PM in the evening.
How is it efficient to pay net-metering which is more than capex? If the utility makes a profit selling you electricity that it buys through capex, how can it make a profit buying your solar back at a higher rate than capex? Selling to you = profit. Buying from you = loss.
I can answer myself. It is more efficient because the utility is actually paying NOTHING to the solar customer. It is a credit for power produced and no $ was paid or recieved by either party.
John has no solar. Uses X Kwh. Pays $$$$ to utility.
Tom has solar. Solar provides Y Kwh. Tom uses X-Y Kwh. Pays $$ to utility.
unless the utility can re-sell my power.. Buy power from me. Resell to someone at peak...
Markup... Profit...
Treat resi power producers just like any other generator. IOW, price solar-generated electricity at wholesale rates and see what happens. Utilities should not be required to buy power at full retail price, because it allows resi generators to recoup distribution costs that they never incurred. Let the ITC expire, put the two on an even economic playing field, and see who wins.
I am in this industry nearly a decade now, and I am confident that regardless of any utility efforts home produced solar, at least in CA will be the dominant form of energy in the next decade. Prices are faling 15% a year, and battery technology prices is falling even faster.
If they try to legislate required utility fees regardless of you using their power, I guarantee you that an intiiative will pass that cripples the utilities.
In fact a natural gas/solar/LED home that also powers your car is how it will look like.
10 years, I think it will happen over the next 5 years...
In australia, people with Home Solar PV and Electric Hot Water Heaters are setting timers to
let the hot water heaters run at full power during solar noon, then turn off. They have enough hot water
and the tank is well insulated to make it to do dishes and have a shower in the morning.
Bingo!
It simply can't be stopped now. When you have everybody from Samsung to Daimler Mercedes jumping in to carve out a piece of the ~$2 TRILLION anual energy market, this thing is going of the rails at break neck speed. I completely agree on the future makeup of residential energy production/consumption (unless of course some new outlier technology such as synthetic biology artificial photosynthesis that creates hydrogen suddenly leaps out)
i disagree. (disclaimer i use SDGE and i have solar). the utilities are under a lot of pressure from the other than solar energy users who feel the utility is subsidizing solar users and they are the ones who are paying for it. not every home qualifies for solar, and i don't think the utilities saw the offshoot of this would be solar panel underwriters who capture most of the benefits and only pass along a small portion of the savings to customers.
importing electricity is an expensive problem and solar relieves the utility of the need to do this, since environmental and citizen groups show up to oppose new power plants.
the availability of solar still depends on the location of the house, and the weather. solar is not a universal solution by any means.
utilities can apply to the PUC for rate hikes when needed but maintaining the delivery system is a lot less expensive than building new power plants and importing electricity on the grid. if the utility makes too large a profit the PUC will reign them in. this is mostly customer protests over what they see as the solar put, under the electricity market and the fact that not everyone can use solar.
Not true, the utilities can build enough solar in the desert just outside of L.A. that can produce all that is required at $.055/KWH, falling to to $.033 in the next decade. This is thermal solar which helps with shoulder production into the evening. There is massive distributed liquid battery technology that can bridge the morning shoulder. Time to step up.
Solarman, this is crap. No one can produce thermal solar at a cost less than 2x a combined cycle natural gas plant, and your $0.033 is "in the next decade." It's been the "next decade" for several decades now. There is no such thing as a "massive distributed liquid battery technology" that is even close to economic. These things exist, but they're damn expensive which is why you don't see them everywhere. Texas, unlike CA, has a fully competitive energy supply market. You can buy 100% green power here. You can get your electric supply from a hundred different retail electric providers. We have many times more MW of wind power than any other state and if you and a group of investors want to step up and drop $25 million on a thermal solar project, the Public Utility Commission won't stand in your way.
Or do you prefer to MANDATE the MONOPOLY utilities do it at the EXPENSE of ratepayers?
I thought so. Open up competitive electricity markets across the U.S. like Texas, let the market work.
Seriously, do you live in TX? I do, and deregulation has been an UNMITIGATED DISASTER for the consumer, now paying $.14 a Kwh for what used to cost $.05 or $.06.
Now we get to pay for marketing, we get to pay for a third party grid maintainer, we get to pay for all the costs associated with maintaining what are mostly just virtual providers. How is this a win?
"Free markets" never have worked very well for anything that is not a discretionary purchase, despite what the universal boosters say.
Just curious, do you consider food, clothing, housing, and transportation "discretionary" purchases?
No way in hell you should be paying $0.14/kWh. I'm in the 7's. Do yourself a favor and visit www.TexasPowerClub.com. I found it more reliable than the highly gamed power to choose website.
"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."
Every month I get a paper/mailed report from the electric utility comparing my electricity usage to supposedly that of my neighbors including the 10 flats across the street. They do not really say it, but by calling the people in the 1 bedroom apartments my "most efficient neighbors", they seeming want me to cut back on power consumption.
Honestly, I would love to put solar on my roof and would if it would get me a credit and I would not get hassled from the village. But see, the whole energy thing is a fraud. They don't really want people using less energy from the utility (created with hydrocarbons). They want control over our lives and they want us to feel as if we are doing something wrong all of the time.
Many utility companies are under state mandates to produce a certain percentage of their power from renewable resources. This is why they engage in these vast "use less power" campaigns. It's much cheaper to reduce demand to where they already meet those percentages with the resources on hand rather than pay to develop new sources to meet rising demand.
We live in a twisted world run by lawyers and accountants. Away with them all.
you both seem to have a problem with the new world order (which looks a lot like the older era of trusts, etc. prior to teddy roosevelt): "you versus the giant corporations, which are in a malignant, symbiotic relationship with corrupt government officials."
Very typical . . . when large corporations can't compete with new players in their markets or their profits are threatened due to changes in technology they go to their bought and paid for politicians to legislate the problem away for them.
West led by the United States built a model of a society in which 98% of all the wealth of the world, owns only 2% of the population.
This is not a model of world order. It is a model of global slavery.
This model is an unstable structure.
Therefore, to save this flawed model, the US constantly has been using power of the military-police force inside the country and abroad.
They can not stop. They want to have the poor even poorer, but the rich even richer.
I can say with 100% guarantee that this model is the most unjust is doomed to death.
It is a parasite on the body of the international community. The only question is whether our world to destroy this parasite and not die in the fire of nuclear war.
“The only question”
Good one
It looks to me like this effort is on collision course with the whole climate change global collectivization push.
This might be a good way call the state out for flagrant hypocrisy.
On second thought, they are quite comfortable being blatant hypocrites.
Given that alt-energy is heavily subsidized, do utilities need to do anything to "kill" it?
I'm sure you do understand that the utility companies have always been heavily subsidized, right? The entire fossil fuel industry is subsidized even it is long term unsustainable and is killing us slowly with growing pollution.
subsidies are tricky things. what is the subsidy that china for instance pays the coal fired plants' operators by letting them dump their combustion products into the air for free until it is unbreathable?
what was the subsidy that japan paid tokyo electric power by letting them build that lower bulkhead next to the pacific?
It's ironic that author G.Washington says utilities want to kill net metering to protect their centralized business structure. Net metering REQUIRES a centralizing utility authority to work. Solar panel are already subsized, HEAVILY subsidized. But forcing utilities to buy back the energy at the "bundled"l utility rate (which includes investment in the transmission and distribution infrastructure) is adding yet another massive subsidy. Worse, it pushes the cost of that subsidy on to "rate payers," i.e., buyers of electricity from the monopoly utility (which includes pretty much everyone except the over-subsized owners of solar).
You want a solar panel? You want enough solar to go off-grid? Go ahead, George, just don't force me to freaking pay for it. Utilities won't stop you and you don't need net-metering to do it today. All net-metering does is FORCE (isn't that something you rail against every day george?) FORCE your friends and neighbors to subsidize your ass.
Sorry, George, I don't want to pay for your solar panels.
coal is heavily subsidized... What was the cost when "Freedom Industries" poisoned the water
supply of Charleston WVA for three days? Who paid for bottled water for 3 million people for a week?
Why I believe it was the Taxpayers....
Who is paying to clean up the coal ash spill Duke made in North Carolina?