Valdemar
Well-known member
There is a $240 credit on my bill since May. So far so good.
Don’t change the rate solar customers are paid for their electricity, but charge them a monthly fee based on the size of their system. The fee would gradually rise as more people go solar, starting at $2 per kilowatt per month, jumping to $5 and eventually settling at $10.
Boomer23 said:New email from SCE today saying that they're instituting a minimum of $10 a month delivery charge. This "Balance of Minimum" charge applies from Oct 1, 2015. It brings your monthly minimum charge up to $10 if your rate calculation totals less than $10 for the month.
It's not clear to me yet whether during the winter months when our monthly bills may be in positive territory, whether that will satisfy a portion or all of the $10 minimum. Anyway, I'm expecting to be paying $120 a year minimum from now on.
Bummer!
Thanks for the analysis. I agree that, at moderate levels of solar participation, it makes no sense for residential solar owners to be forced to export at $0.08/kWh only to have the utility sell to their immediate neighbors at ~$0.30/kWh or whatever their marginal rates end up being.tbleakne said:Today LA Times reported on SCE's Net 2.0 proposal for 3$/kW per month and $.08 credit per exported kWh as we have discussed. SolarCity and the other solar contractors have woken up to the fact that this could really kill their business model.
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I believe one reason the proposals are so grim is that the CPUC is requiring that the Net 2.0 proposals have No Cap on residential solar or other distributed production % participation. Net 1.0 has a 5% participation cap, which has limited the utilities financial exposure. Perhaps if Net 2.0 had a new higher 20% or 25% participation cap, a more modest change could be negotiated. This is about the level that is currently being successfully handled in Hawaii. At this participation level, your exported power would still be resold to your immediate neighbors in most cases, so only a little fraction of the grid would be used in reselling your power. I would argue that crediting our export at perhaps $.05 less than retail would fairly compensate the utility for this redistribution.
Boomer23 said:Sad news indeed, tbleakne. I had read that the head of the Nevada PUC is an enemy of solar and that a decision like this was expected.
Tesla and other providers of residential battery storage systems will likely be staking out states like Nevada as ready markets. It's unfortunate that the battery systems are still expensive per kWh of storage, but that will improve given some time.
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