Boomer23 said:
Thank you for bringing this news to our attention tbleakne. I also read much of SCE's actual proposal.
There is much to think about and decipher.
For the SCE case, there are at least three concepts whose impacts on a customer's rates are not clear to me.
a) The $3 per kW - month GAC (Grid Access Charge).
b) The 8 Cent payment per exported kWh.
c) SCE's insistence that it is essential that "netting" be eliminated from the rate plans. (i don't think that this was mentioned in the Green Tech Media story.)
a) The first one is relatively simple. SCE says that the monthly GAC will be calculated based on the nameplate AC capacity of the customer's solar installation. For my home system of about 5.2 kW DC, this would be about 4 kW AC. Is the calculation simply $3 per month times my 4kW AC generation capacity, that is $12 per month, every month? Or is it more complicated? SCE mentions "kW - month". Is this an actual unit like kW hour? And does the calculation change each month based on seasonal insolation and number of days per month?
b) How is the 8 cent payment calculated? Will they look at the net kWh used or sent to the grid by the customer and credit the customer 8 cents per kWh net sent to the grid at the end of the month and add that credit to the cumulative bill for the year that is accumulating? Or for every hour or quarter hour will they credit the customer 8 cents for each kWh sent to the grid and charge the customer the specified rate for every kWh pulled from the grid? They say something about the customer being able to use their generated power first, but I'm not sure what that means. Do we get to use all of our power generated in the month to offset all of our usage in the month? Or during periods when we have high solar generation and little household power usage and therefore we are sending power to the grid, do we get a credit of 8 cents for each kWh sent to the grid, but then later in the evening, when we are pulling power from the grid, we pay the specified rate? If the latter, we would have a net charge for the day even though we might have a balance of power generated and used for the day of zero,
c) If "netting" is eliminated in the new programs altogether, will we see no accumulation of credits from the summer months to offset our higher usage during the winter months, and no end of year "true up".
I hope that we'll be able to learn more about the answers to these questions.
I have not read SCE's actual proposal, but here are what I believe about answers to your 3 important questions.
Qa) Yes, kW - month is a unit. It means that you will be charged 4kW * 3$ = 12$ per month, each and every month. The intent is to impose a grid infrastructure charge that scales with the size of your system, which sets the maximum of a demand-type charge. This infrastructure is static, and does not vary by the season. Although your usage of the grid will vary by season, to keep it simple this fee is fixed so it really is an annual fee divided by 12.
I said I was OK with this fee, but upon reflection it is pretty high. My array is about the same size as yours, but not oriented as well. At $.08/kWh, it would take 150 exported kWh to pay for $12. 150/30 = 5 kWh per day is about 1/4 of my daily summer production, and a larger fraction the rest of the year.
Qb) I also thought of the ambiguity you describe. My TOU bill currently shows total exported and imported kWh for the month separately for each TOU period. The magnitude of these values lead me to believe they are based upon the 15 min resolution, but I don't have proof of that. The current Net Metering rule means the price we pay or get credit for now is based only the monthly difference of export vs import, so the resolution does not matter now.
I totally agree that it would be much "fairer" to let us ="net meter" for at least 24 hours before applying the different prices, but if they are truly committed to "netting" being totally eliminated, it would seem this is a false hope. Perhaps the PUC will invite comments, which would allow us to lobby for such modifications.
At least this is not as bad as the SD&G proposal option that would require you to pay a retail price about twice the credit price even for generated kWh that you consume "behind the meter." SCE is not proposing to track solar kWh consumed when generated behind the meter.
Qc) I believe it might still be possible to carry over credits and settle up on an annual basis, but the total net amount in $ would be the same whether the settlement was monthly or annually, so they are not focussing on that question right now.
The Green Tech story says TOU is TBD except that everyone is going to be put on TOU at some point. Did you see any mention of TOU in the SCE filing?
It seems likely that this kind of thinking is going to encourage us to charge our EVs behind the meter during the daylight hours. Not good for working folks who have their EV at work during the day. If they were serious about wanting EVs to charge at times when emissions for generation are least, they would set the TOU price and period to encourage charging mornings, when solar and wind now take the biggest bite out of natural gas generation.