Althouse: "Researchers argue that home solar panels are raising the price of electricity and reducing the need for cheaper large solar farms — making the entire transition to clean energy more expensive...."

October 17, 2024

"Researchers argue that home solar panels are raising the price of electricity and reducing the need for cheaper large solar farms — making the entire transition to clean energy more expensive...."

"Researchers say that... many states and utilities provide very lucrative deals for users of rooftop solar — often compensating owners of home panels more than the value of their solar to the grid. In states like California and Arizona... in the middle of the day homeowners might get 20 cents back for each kilowatt-hour they send to the grid. But for a grid already flooded with solar, the value of that extra energy is close to zero. The result is that richer homeowners who can afford solar get cheap electricity bills — while poorer residents see higher bills to compensate. In California alone, researchers at UC Berkeley and the California Public Advocates Office estimated that rooftop solar will add between $4 billion and $6.5 billion to customers’ bills in 2024...."

From "Everyone loves rooftop solar panels. But there’s a problem. One of the most popular methods to cut your household’s carbon footprint may be a mixed bag" (WaPo).

106 comments:

n.n said...: Obamacares deals Green with intermittent, unreliable transenergy policies and environmental blight.; 10/17/24, 8:33 AM
Howard said...: Progressive policies by their nature are regressive.; 10/17/24, 8:40 AM
Rusty said...: Everyone like getting paid retail for the electricity they put into the grid. Giant solar farms are a waste of real estate and silicon.; 10/17/24, 8:40 AM
Dave Begley said...: I'm deeply involved in all things solar and wind. This article is completely wrong. The reason why electricity is going up in places like California is because there is too much solar and wind in the grid. And without clicking through, I am confident that WaPo doesn't disclose that Big Wind and Big Solar expect to collect $1.2 trillion in free money from taxpayers by 2023.

Full disclosure. I am the Special Knox County Attorney who is fighting Big Wind in federal court. I am also the leading - and perhaps only - public critic of OPPD's net zero carbon policy.; 10/17/24, 8:40 AM
RideSpaceMountain said...: "The entire transition to clean energy more expensive..."

Get right out of town!; 10/17/24, 8:41 AM
RideSpaceMountain said...: Progressive policies by their nature are expensive.; 10/17/24, 8:41 AM
Creola Soul said...: All solar installations should be first on rooftops. Put the panels on all the warehouses, parking garages, commercial stores, etc before clearing forests or taking farmland for sites. These massive solar farms (and wind farms) are visual pollution and we are, as Joni Mitchell sang, “paving paradise to put up a parking lot “.; 10/17/24, 8:43 AM
Dave Begley said...: And we don't need to reach the Left's climate goals or decarbonize the grid.

The notion that people should produce their own electricity is nearly the same as people should live on farms and grow their own food.

The Green New Deal is all about the federal income tax credits.; 10/17/24, 8:44 AM
Leland said...: I think this is a problem for those centrally controlled states that create artificial economies. $.60 kWh is absurd. Before Biden/Harris, I was paying $.08 kWh in Texas. Now, it is up to $.12 kWh. If I wanted to pay for the most expensive plan in Texas, it is $.22 kWh. It is California that is creating a value of energy as much as $.60 kWh. And yeah, that is likely there to subsidize the rich that can afford the entry cost to become generators of electricity.

All attempts to force a transition to clean energy by manipulating market prices will make it more expensive. And it is already more expensive than not transitioning, which is why the market never moved that direction on its own. In short, this was what they wanted and they are getting it good and hard.; 10/17/24, 8:45 AM
Aggie said...: I'm an engineer in a different discipline, and I have never seen the sense of any of these schemes. I can see some of the sense of solar, it's a beautifully passive concept, but only if you're too far from the gird to afford lines. Then it's great, in small installations, considering how battery technology has advanced.

But it should be becoming obvious to all now, that nuclear is by far the best technology, in term of energy density and safety, using the military's operating structure. It has been unfairly hidebound by over-regulation. Hydrocarbons represents the next best energy-density and portability, with natural gas offering the cleanest combustion. Wind and solar fail every time on cost and consistency. There's no wind during the weather extremes of hot & cold (extreme demand times), and no sun at night. Obvious. It has all been a boondoggle to make money off the public's ignorant suggestibility.; 10/17/24, 8:46 AM
tim in vermont said...: It's like the public paid healthcare they have in in Canada, and all good liberals want it for the US. It is paid for with extremely regressive taxes, sales taxes on just about everything, sales taxes that even those working under the table can't avoid, sales taxes that take a far higher share of the income of the poor.

How many people living in apartment blocks in sketchy neighborhoods can practically own an EV? That number is somewhere hovering around zero.

Most liberal policies direct resources toward stuff the affluent want for themselves, and well, just as Freder "Ayn Rand" Frederson, the poor have to take the brunt of it because there is no other way.; 10/17/24, 8:47 AM
Dixcus said...: The best part of rooftop solar is that only the rich can afford the solar panels. In this way, the poor are required to pay for ALL electricity grid costs. The rich are getting PAID to supply the electricity and the poor are stuck with the transmission costs. It's great, since we're importing an entire nation of poors who are going to pay for us.

Cloud Minders was supposed to be a cautionary tale; instead it's an instruction manual.

The rich will shortly be able to acquire Elon-bots to do all their work, while the poor must root around in our waste doing manual labor and if they resist, we can just set our Elon-bots to eliminate the resistors.

Should they somehow succeed against all odds, we rich can motor off to our new Mars colony, which of course, the poor cannot afford a ticket to.; 10/17/24, 8:47 AM
Jersey Fled said...: When you pretend that the money that pays for subsidies grows on trees, this is what you get.; 10/17/24, 8:49 AM
rhhardin said...: You have to pay for distribution (it's 2/3 of my Ohio electricity bill). If more people avoid buying kwH from the grid, more of distribution has to be loaded on other people. Distribution is a fixed cost, not depending on usage.; 10/17/24, 8:52 AM
Oh Yea said...: Who would have ever thought that Government economic incentives would distort markets?; 10/17/24, 8:54 AM
gilbar said...: often compensating owners of home panels more than the value of their solar to the grid..

and by "often", they mean: ALWAYS
if you have to buy electricity at the retail price..
and you have to buy it at times of peak production..
and you have to sell electricity at the retail price during low production..
This is a recipe for failure.; 10/17/24, 8:54 AM
HoodlumDoodlum said...: "The problem is the government is overpaying for something; there's just no solution!" I'm no policy genius but maybe try paying the actual market rate?

I assumed the angle was going to be that large-scale production is more efficient and cheaper leading to a tension between encouraging people to invest in their own production and channeling resources to the most-efficient means of energy production--that's an actual difficult balancing problem with tradeoffs and competing values at play. If the core of the problem is you're overpaying for something, just stop! There are plenty of utilities that don't pay for home generation that goes back to the grid.; 10/17/24, 8:55 AM
HoodlumDoodlum said...: Stop it!; 10/17/24, 8:58 AM
doctrev said...: Regressive policies "work" if only property holders can vote. If the poor realize how oligarchial policies disadvantage them, they rebel in numbers. It's why the working class is flocking to Trump, despite previous demographic trends. And the rich are finding it difficult to credibly fix elections.

The problem isn't "can we keep this scan going," but "what happens when we win?" Mutinous proles aren't going to be supportive of foreign wars or austerity policy.; 10/17/24, 8:58 AM
Democratic Paychecks for Perks/ Dems for Demolition of Democracy/ fake-cares 4-U said...: an - another unintended consequence of White Left Elite know-it-all-ism.; 10/17/24, 9:02 AM
n.n said...: We need a new DST deal to manage people and resources through a Green-forced rationing regime.; 10/17/24, 9:05 AM
n.n said...: Progressive affordability and availability for the majority is very democratic.; 10/17/24, 9:07 AM
n.n said...: Rooftop rationed energy is preferable to spreading the new Green blight over land, sea, and blocking blue skies. The environmentalists should be apoplectic about forcing climate change with their progressive footprint.; 10/17/24, 9:11 AM
Leland said...: More bad luck for California: Phillips 66 provides notice of its plan to cease operations at Los Angeles-area refinery; 10/17/24, 9:16 AM
Butkus51 said...: I heard they handle tornadoes well.

But ya better duck.; 10/17/24, 9:18 AM
Kate said...: I live in a lower-middle class neighborhood and we all have solar rooftop panels. This isn't a rich person problem.; 10/17/24, 9:23 AM
R C Belaire said...: HoodlumDoodlum : "... If the core of the problem is you're overpaying for something, just stop! There are plenty of utilities that don't pay for home generation that goes back to the grid."
Exactly. One chooses to install rooftop solar? Fine. Power your home and be happy, but leave everyone else out of the equation.; 10/17/24, 9:26 AM
reader said...: I remember when the State of California used to tell us we had to conserve energy use during the day. We weren’t supposed to run our dishwasher/washing machine/air conditioner during the day. The threat of rolling blackouts was during the day.

California pushed home solar hard (on the middle class). It felt like harassment and shaming if you used electricity during the day and didn’t have solar.

What’s changed? Why has peak usage switched from the day to the night. At night when it’s cooler (meaning below 90 and not running your AC).

California wants a porous border and to be a sanctuary state to a limitless number of people who will all consume water and electricity while also deciding to push electric vehicles that are being charged at night.

We played by the rules California set, California can suck it up and deal with it.; 10/17/24, 9:28 AM
wendybar said...: Doesn't surprise me one bit. The left works for the elite who decide who gets what.; 10/17/24, 9:29 AM
Dude1394 said...: Some animals are more equal than others.; 10/17/24, 9:32 AM
Curious George said...: And hurricanes. Like Milton. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/drone-footage-shows-destruction-left-by-tornado-ripping-through-florida-solar-farm-before-milton/ar-AA1sjWwt?ocid=BingNewsSerp; 10/17/24, 9:43 AM
Limited blogger said...: An unintended consequence? Say it ain't so!; 10/17/24, 9:44 AM
tim in vermont said...: Not to worry, we are only $35 trillion in debt, or is it $36? What day is it? That doesn't count our unfunded obligations, which are maybe an order of magnitude larger. Not to worry, most voters don't even know what "unfunded obligations" and "order of magnitude" means. If they did, the Democrats couldn't win an election for dogcatcher.; 10/17/24, 9:47 AM
Scott Gustafson said...: Electricity is a service. Services are produced and consumed simultaneously. The value of additional electric power in the middle of a sunny day is now zero. Producers of such power should be paid for the value of what they produce - zero.; 10/17/24, 9:50 AM
Mike (MJB Wolf) said...: I know we have discussed this here before but perhaps in a slightly different context. This issue was a big one in California because Newsome broke a compact with ratepayers who had invested in solar panels. Actually he broke two. The first one was a tax break that offset some of the amortized payments. The second was the rate SoCal Edison and other utilities paid the homeowner for selling excess power back to the grid at peak usage times. Under the original compact the “investment in solar panels” made financial sense even given the short 10- to 20-year lifespan of the panels. But after Newsome waved his “fuck y’all” wand many homeowners were upside down on their solar payments just as Bidenflation started to take off and impose more unforeseen expenses. Progressive “offers” are always schemes that have an unknown (to the consumer) expiration date.; 10/17/24, 9:52 AM
Aggie said...: Wow, just last week Chevron - originally Standard Oil of California - announced that it will no longer invest in California (they've moved to Texas). I dream of the fast-approaching day that California's arrogant economic regulation will stop being forced on the rest of the country. Since it's expensive to manufacture two different versions of the same thing, manufacturers have been incentivized to make their goods to California's regulatory standards. It's a hidden tax to the rest of the us. Thanks California!

Mr Spam Box is Hungry Hungry Hungry today ! A lot of my posts disappearing.; 10/17/24, 9:53 AM
Wince said...: So, as it turns out, when it comes to energy, the Greens are Mr. Burns and Democrats are Smithers?; 10/17/24, 9:53 AM
Mike (MJB Wolf) said...: Well put Howard. Quite pithy as well.; 10/17/24, 9:54 AM
Dude1394 said...: I despise those wind turbines while acknowledging how easy it is for farmers to slow their install.; 10/17/24, 9:54 AM
Narr said...: Like Saxony in 2019, only worse: Belgium and northeastern France are overrun with wind turbines. My lefty traveling companions didn't appreciate it when I referred to them as "Pollution Somewhere Else" devices, even though they agreed that they are ugly.; 10/17/24, 9:55 AM
Jupiter said...: Let's look on the bright side (Heh). One or more cabals of cynical, parasitic bastards are getting rich(er) off this idiotic Californification. What's not to like?; 10/17/24, 9:56 AM
Mike (MJB Wolf) said...: You are correct and California is an extreme example as I detail below. There’s so much solar feeding the grid at peak times the state sells power to other states at a loss.; 10/17/24, 9:57 AM
Mike (MJB Wolf) said...: My west coast tale below is mostly about middle class families suckered into a bad deal by the state and panel providers, neither of which stood behind their side of the deal.; 10/17/24, 10:00 AM
Dave Begley said...: MJB Wolf: The Left never mentions negative pricing.; 10/17/24, 10:05 AM
reader said...: California pushed this on the middle class with okish credit. The scheme California pushed was 1. A homeowner was supposed to take out a loan for solar 2. Homeowner was supposed to pay for the loan using the savings from his electric bill 3. In about 5 years the loan was supposed to be paid off and the homeowner gets to enjoy the future savings.

Then California decides to promote electric cars (I think you still get rebates for their purchase? I could be wrong) that are dirty to make, dirty to dispose of, combust occasionally, and are almost impossible to extinguish when they catch on fire.

This has also created a problem with road maintenance. Electric vehicles don’t pay gas tax (a point that California used to entice ev buyers -kinda like the solar loan enticement) which funds road maintenance. California roads are awful now cuz not enough money.

California creates many of its own problems.; 10/17/24, 10:06 AM
Democratic Paychecks for Perks/ Dems for Demolition of Democracy/ fake-cares 4-U said...: One Party State CA - getting it good and hard. The Wealthy Getty-class do NOT care. They got theirs.; 10/17/24, 10:11 AM
The Drill SGT said...: and retail solar makes the grid significantly more unstable; 10/17/24, 10:17 AM
Gregory said...: I'm a lifetime green energy skeptic, and I yield to no one in my disdain for any technology where government is picking the winners and losers. But Elon is on a track to solve this problem in a bigly way. Tesla is rapidly iterating on their own solar panels embedded within roof tiles, and they will in a few years achieve 10x efficiency vs current solar panels. The Tesla solar panels will then feed energy into your Tesla Powerwall, which is refrigerator-sized battery in your garage. The Powerwall will have 10x storage capacity vs current generation Tesla batteries. When those two technology streams (solar panels + Powerwall) mature, your roof will provide 100% of your electricity needs (rain or shine), including your Tesla EV, and still have excess electricity to feed back to the grid. Here is the analogy to follow: Current solar panel tech = NASA, Tesla solar/battery tech = SpaceX.; 10/17/24, 10:26 AM
Mason G said...: "If the core of the problem is..."

The core of the problem is that solar (and wind) is not reliable 24/7/365. A backup source is needed that *is* reliable for when the sun isn't shining and the wind isn't blowing making it necessary to maintain two power generation systems, with the one progressives insist on depending on not being dependable.; 10/17/24, 10:27 AM
Candide said...: In defense of the purported "rich" solar panel owners, they did not not just glom onto the grid and started sucking profits from it. They made significant investments into purchase and installation of solar panels. And when Energy companies increase the rates to upkeep the grid, these rate increases affect all the grid users; thus even if you still profit by selling energy into the grid, your return on investment is reduced. Also, those "poor" users that continue to buy power from the grid often work either in power grid service or solar panel installation or in some other related capacity.

In short, Economics is complicated...; 10/17/24, 10:41 AM
Another old lawyer said...: Do Powerwalls use the same battery type that can't be easily extinguished if they start to burn? Are insurance companies taking their presence into account in premiums yet?; 10/17/24, 10:43 AM
Mason G said...: "Tesla is rapidly iterating on their own solar panels embedded within roof tiles, and they will in a few years achieve 10x efficiency vs current solar panels."

I've also heard cold fusion is about ten years off. I don't have anything against Elon's attempt, but perhaps it would be best to wait until the tech is available and proven functional before making plans based on its availability.

"The Tesla solar panels will then feed energy into your Tesla Powerwall, which is refrigerator-sized battery in your garage. The Powerwall will have 10x storage capacity vs current generation Tesla batteries."

Aside from the fact that not everybody has a garage, there will surely be complications once everybody starts storing large amounts of energy (with that storage system maintained in various states of repair depending on the individual homeowner) in their homes.; 10/17/24, 10:43 AM
Hassayamper said...: You can't be a leftist without open contempt for the Laws of Physics, not to mention the Law of Unintended Consequences, the Law of Diminishing Returns, statistical significance, and cost-vs.-benefit analysis. It is the ideology of the selfish child and spoiled teenager and pampered, squandering trophy wife.; 10/17/24, 10:46 AM
TJ said...: To those advocating for rooftop solar, please remember that that is generating electrical power and there is risk associated with that.

Remember, no solutions, only tradeoffs.

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/09/01/amazon-took-solar-rooftops-offline-last-year-after-fires-explosions.html; 10/17/24, 10:46 AM
Mason G said...: "They made significant investments into purchase and installation of solar panels."

How many people made a significant investment with no government subsidies or tax breaks?; 10/17/24, 10:47 AM
Bryant said...: I've seen they have been pushing this idea lately and it is a bunch of BS. I live in SoCal and I have solar panels. The only reason we got them was because SoCal Edison kept raising our rates to the point where it could be up to $1k/month during the summer. Switching to solar means we are only paying for the cost of the panels which is not only cheaper but also is the same price every month. SoCal also has tons of programs for the "poorer customers" so that they don't have to pay as much or anything in some cases. I think the only reason you're hearing about this is because they are losing a ton of money on all the giant solar farms they built because those are what compete directly with home solar.; 10/17/24, 10:50 AM
TJ said...: And batteries have their own risks that are still being worked out even by utilities:

https://www.kpbs.org/news/public-safety/2024/09/06/escondido-lithium-battery-fire-continues-to-burn-as-county-mulls-over-moratorium; 10/17/24, 10:51 AM
TJ said...: And, here in the state of Wisconsin...

https://wisconsindot.gov/Pages/about-wisdot/newsroom/news-rel/021624evsticker.aspx; 10/17/24, 10:55 AM
Leland said...: Imagine if Democrats did hold an open convention and Newsom became the candidate.; 10/17/24, 11:01 AM
Ampersand said...: Rich people in Los Angeles have highly subsidized solar installations with huge batteries that give them a cushion of 3 days if the grid goes down. The whole scheme is a system to tax the middle class to give money and comfort to the rich. Peak progressivism. Harris voters applaud.; 10/17/24, 11:01 AM
n.n said...: It's a niche solution in a basket of solutions to address diverse issues. All of which increase your environmental footprint and thereby your anthropogenic climate change forcing. The problem is that diverse distortions by special, peculiar, liberal, and corporate interests undermine proper assessment of fitness.; 10/17/24, 11:07 AM
Mr. Sheufelt said...: As someone who owns a condo with solar panels in Southern California, that “might get $.20 per kWh should read” get $.08 per kWh, while paying a retail rate of $.40 for electricity used. We send, depending on time of year 300-500 kWh per month more into the grid than we use, and pay every month. (Essentially for storage?) If batteries continue to improve, at some point we’ll just drop off the grid.
And if the utilities are so solar flooded, why did ours build a large solar farm a couple of miles away a few years ago?; 10/17/24, 11:09 AM
n.n said...: The drivers are affordable, renewable, and green, but the converters have progressive costs in a subsidized climate.; 10/17/24, 11:10 AM
Yancey Ward said...: Exactly.; 10/17/24, 11:18 AM
Lazarus said...: I thought it would be a good idea to turn the bankrupt malls into solar farms, but if you leave the building standing, you still have to pay taxes on it and find tenants (which can be hard nowadays) and if you tear the building down you've just got another ugly solar array. But yes, we shouldn't be wasting our farmland, forests, and open spaces on solar and wind generation.; 10/17/24, 11:20 AM
Yancey Ward said...: +1.; 10/17/24, 11:20 AM
Yancey Ward said...: I am in the process of having a new home built and will look into the possibility of adding home solar. I don't know that I want the panels on the roof and I don't yet know about insuring them properly (this is in an area where tornados and hail are fairly common over 20 year span of time.; 10/17/24, 11:28 AM
BUMBLE BEE said...: Drink more cadmium!
https://www.americanexperiment.org/the-environmental-disaster-of-solar-energy/; 10/17/24, 11:36 AM
Joe Smith said...: If you're getting your solar power from a 'farm' the power is owned by someone else. If you own your own panels you own the energy. Unless, of course, the state/government rigs it so it goes back to the grid.; 10/17/24, 11:41 AM
BUMBLE BEE said...: Seems we had to "conserve" so the invasion could work.; 10/17/24, 11:41 AM
Hey Skipper said...: Actually, less than zero. On sunny and windy days, CA pays neighboring states to take its excess power.; 10/17/24, 11:42 AM
rehajm said...: The result is that richer homeowners who can afford solar get cheap electricity bills — while poorer residents see higher bills to compensate.

Gosh, what a fuck up. It’s almost like liberals are stupid or something…; 10/17/24, 11:46 AM
chuck said...: They just need to figure out a way to tax the power.; 10/17/24, 11:50 AM
Yancey Ward said...: This is exactly what is going to happen eventually. You will be expected to pay a special tax monthly/yearly for the panels themselves.; 10/17/24, 12:14 PM
Hassayamper said...: I've also heard cold fusion is about ten years off.

That's been true for at least 40 years.

I was a physics major at the time of the first round of cold fusion hype of the late 80's. Boy, were we students excited. Thought we were all going to be working lucrative jobs in cold fusion power plants.; 10/17/24, 12:24 PM
Big Mike said...: @Rusty, not only are giant solar farms a waste of real estate, they’re also very vulnerable to hail, tornadoes, and other weather events.; 10/17/24, 12:26 PM
Big Mike said...: I was made to feel a bit unpatriotic for not signing up to mount solar panels on my large, south-facing roof. Glad I resisted.; 10/17/24, 12:28 PM
Tina Trent said...: We have plenty of open spaces for solar.

Rooftop solar is a tax credit to the rich, paid for by the middle class, as the poor are subsidized anyway.

It's like oligarchs buying up previously public companies and making free cash off them while everone else's costs rise.

It's Soviet, and chi-com economics.

Easy enough for you to understand, dolt leftists?; 10/17/24, 12:31 PM
Tina Trent said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 10/17/24, 12:36 PM
Darkisland said...: In Puerto Rico the generating arm of the electricity utility publishes outputs and price paid in real time at https://genera-pr.com/data-generacion Some of that is their own plants, mostly burning bunker oil. Also peaker gas turbines, that are only used intermittantly but also privately owned Coal, Combined-Cycle (A/K/A Cogeneration or CHP)

The 450MW coal plant in Guayama is typically paid 4-5 cents/kwh. The 500mw Eco Electrica Combined Cycle plant is typically paid 8-10 cents. Wind and solar (perhaps 125mw actual capacity) are paid 18-22 cents.

Bunker plants are paid from 10-25 cents/kwh depending on plant, demand and other factors.

So Solar/wind cost 5-6 times the cost of coal, 2 times the cost of natural gas combined cycle and about the same as bunker. I keep hearing how cheap wind/solar are. Who should I believe, the folks that tell me that or the dollar figures from the invoices?

For reference I pay, based on last month's bill @23 cents/kwh standard residential rate.

John Henry; 10/17/24, 12:38 PM
Tina Trent said...: The poor don't pay their utility bills. The middle classes and working classes do.; 10/17/24, 12:40 PM
Darkisland said...: I can't read the article but it is good to see that somebody finally willing to say out loud what a scam "Net metering" where the utility buys residential solar at the same price it sells residential utility power.

In the first place, it assumes, falsely, that juice is juice. Intermittent, non-rotational, fed into the grid unpredictably at hundreds of thousands of connections, is the same quality as electricity generated in large rotating generators. (I'll call that base load).

It is not even the same quality as large, multi-MW windfarms. Both are low quality, but the smaller the installation, the lower the quality.

Dealing with this low quality electricity imposes a significant cost on the grid. That cost has to be passed on to the other rate payers.

Then the is the cost of inbound vs outbound electricity. Of the 23 cents I pay, I would guess that 15 cents or so is fixed cost. That is, it costs the utility that much to be connected to me regardless of how much electricity is generated. The utility has to pay the capital expense of the plant as well as the operating expense of staffing it, maintaining it, maintaining distribution and transmission lines and switchgear, sending out bills, collecting money and admin and all the other costs. All of these costs stay the same regardless of how much or how little electricity I buy.

It is not hard to figure out what the solar juice is worth to the utility. As the article states, at times is is worth less than nothing. At other times, it might be worth a nickle. At other times, when there is a high demand and low supply, it might be worth 50 cents. I suspect most of the time it will be worth closer to a nickle.

Utilities should pay what is called "avoided cost" which is roughly similar to market rate.

Anyone installing solar should be required to install at least 2, maybe 3-4 hours of battery backup instead of using the grid, effectively, as their battery at no cost.

John Henry; 10/17/24, 12:54 PM
One Fine Day said...: "...why did ours build a large solar farm a couple of miles away a few years ago?"

If you were to investigate, I would wager you will find a substantial amount of government incentives with a mix of tax breaks, direct subsidies, loan guarantees, and a promise to ease off on some regulations. And probably straight-up bribes, but those would not be on the record.; 10/17/24, 12:54 PM
gilbar said...: why did ours build a large solar farm a couple of miles away a few years ago?

because the California State Government ORDERED them to; 10/17/24, 1:00 PM
One Fine Day said...: At the heart of all these schemes - and "green" schemes in general - is central planning that assumes it knows better than the market. Inevitably all such schemes are based on some form of price controls.; 10/17/24, 1:05 PM
loudogblog said...: "In states like California and Arizona... in the middle of the day homeowners might get 20 cents back for each kilowatt-hour they send to the grid."

That's only true in California for people who got solar before 2022. In 2022, California switched from Net 2 metering to Net 3 metering and Net 3 a much worse deal for people with solar. I also take issue with the "might get back 20 cents" claim. 20 cents per KWh is not a lot of money per KWh. Southern California Edison has a complicated rate structure where there are two types of plans. With the the Time-of-Use plan, they charge different rates for different times of the day (and what day of the week it is) and charge people through the nose for using electricity at peak hours in the afternoon. (The lowest rate is .27 cents per KWH and the highest rate is .58 cents per KWh.) With the tiered plan, you are charged 33 cents per KWh for under the baseline usage and 41 cents per KWh for usage above the baseline.

Plus, even though they haven't done it yet, California will soon be switching over to a system where half of your electric bill is based on your power consumption and half of your bill will be based on your household income.

I'm grandfathered into Net 2 solar metering, and with the number of solar panels I have, I generate about what I use (on average) for the year, so I don't have to pay a power bill....yet. (But I will when they shift over to basing half your bill on your household income.) But I also have a 20 year loan on the solar panels that I have to pay every month. (California doesn't have any tax credit for getting solar panels, so I only got the Federal tax credit which only covered 30% of the panels.)

When I got the solar, it was a good deal, but it might not be in the future because they keep changing the rules on us to make home solar less cost effective. (I saw that in Australia they've actually started charging solar owners for putting power back in into the grid. So now they're paying more for electricity than before they got the solar panels.); 10/17/24, 1:10 PM
Darkisland said...: A couple of people have pointed out how much land, with trees, shrubs, crops or even just weeds is lost to solar. To meet our need for all solar in PR we need 10,000mw (nominal) of panels. That is about 80 square miles of land on which pretty much nothing can grow. I agree with others here that this is an ecological disaster.

But rooftop solar is not the answer. Especially not residential rooftop solar. It costs 10-20 times (per KW) what building in a field does.

1) Building on a roof, especially a residential roof, is inherently more dangerous and difficult than building on a flat field.

2) Building on a roof requires a lot of structural modification to mount the panels. Not cheap. A large flat commercial roof is cheaper but there is still a lot of penetration, reroofing, routing around machinery and obstructions and so on. Commercial or residential, every install is custom.

Building in a field just requires a bunch of footers. Makingthese requires a posthole digger and some concrete. You could probably do an acre in a day. Compare that to building even simple mounts on a house. A thousand square feet might take a week or more.

3) each rooftop will require electrical runs, tie ins, inverter box and so on in addition to the physical panels.

10 acres of panels will too, on a larger scale, but much simpler to do and only needs to be done once. So on a per KW basis, perhaps 10 or even 5% of the cost of rooftop

4) power comes to my subdivision at 13KV. It drops to 4.8 KV under the streets then each 10 or so houses has a transformer to drop this to 220/110V to go into the house.

If 1-2 households send power back, probably not a capacity problem. It eveyone tries, the system can't handle it.

I could go on but wont

The only solution, and I am fine with solar under these conditions, is to have variable pricing. Utilty buys power at their avoided cost. Equally important, every installation have a battery backup. 2-4 hours at a guess but maybe more or maybe less when you actually pencil it out. Power back to the utility to be dispatched by the utility at need.

The problem with that is that then solar becomes WAAAAAYYY more expensive.

Hurry up Elon!

John Henry; 10/17/24, 1:14 PM
Darkisland said...: A bit off topic but not completely is the cost of nuclear 5 years from now.

One of the problems with generation, nuclear or fossil, is caused by the regulatory structure. Greatly simplified, the state utility regulators allow a fixed rate of return based on costs. For simplicity, let's say 10% of the cost to build a plant.

If a plant costs $1bn, the company can get a return of $100mm/yr. If the company spends $2bn on the same plant, and can convince the utility that this is legit, it can get $200mm/yr. This is reflected in the rates they charge.

So every incentive to inflate rather than control costs.

Microsoft is buying TMI, Google is building some Gen 4 plants, Oracle(?) is taking over a nuke in Michigan and there are others.

They are building these plants for their own use, to generate power for data centers. Not to sell to consumers. They will have an opposite incentive. They will want to reduce their costs. If the plant costs $1bn, they will be looking for ways to build them for $750mm and pocket the difference.

That will put downward pressure on new and existing utility plants. Also on the regulators. "Well, Mr Duke Power, you say this plant is going to cost $2bn and want the rates to reflect that. But Acme just built a similar plant for $750mm. Why is yours more than twice as much and why should we approve it."

And if they do approve it anyway, rate payers, consumer groups and others will raise hell.

Still, come on Elon. Faster please with space based solar. Make Nikola proud.

Caveat: I would expect that the non-utility plant and the utility plant will comply with all safety requirements. No corner cutting.

John Henry; 10/17/24, 1:28 PM
Darkisland said...: the home with the rooftop panels probably paid little or nothing for them. The solar company installs them for "free" and shares the savings.

There is a hook in the contract though I forget what it is. Under certain circumstances the homeowner can get hit for thousands of dollars.

But you are right, anyone can have solar panels in most parts of the US. Little or no money out of pocket.

Because of the impact on the grid and costs, it is still a poor, middle and rich class problem.

John Henry; 10/17/24, 1:33 PM
Marco the Lab said...: The solution is simple: you can't run your power meter backwards when solar produces more than your house uses. Power companies were forced to buy back your excess power at retail rates. Otherwise there would be very few grid tie installations. A caveman could figure that one out.; 10/17/24, 1:34 PM
Darkisland said...: There are plenty of utilities that don't pay for home generation that goes back to the grid.

Can you name any, Hoodlum?

These are the states that required net metering or net billing as of 2023
(list of 47 states) Net billing means they have to buy your solar power but only pay the wholesale, not retail rate.

These states did not require it. That's easier

Alabama
South Dakota
Tennessee

https://www.yellowlite.com/blogs/net-metering-explained-states-that-offer-it-in-2023/

And just because the state does not require it does not mean the utilty is not doing it.; 10/17/24, 1:41 PM
Darkisland said...: +2; 10/17/24, 1:45 PM
Richard Dolan said...: The only bit of news about this WaPo article is the fact that it appeared in WaPo and is reporting what's been well known in other quarters for quite some time. The Green-New-Deal crowd has always preferred to deny reality in favor of their narrative (Climate crisis! Net Zero Now!). It's a good thing that WaPo and similar usually lefty organs are starting to report the realities, but there is a long, long way to go.; 10/17/24, 1:45 PM
Darkisland said...: I first heard of fusion power in 1968 when I was studying nuclear power at Rickover U. It was expected by the mid 70s then.

Hmmm... maybe they meant the mid 2070s.

John Henry; 10/17/24, 1:52 PM
Ralph L said...: People with panels but no storage should be pushed ("incentivized") into running their A/C non-stop during the day instead of all but shutting it off while they're at work as I used to. So the house is a bit chilly when you get home, you won't be buying much energy at the late afternoon peak.; 10/17/24, 1:54 PM
Mason G said...: "That's been true for at least 40 years."

Exactly. That's why I mentioned it when the topic of "on the horizon" massive improvements in storage capacity was brought up. Not that that storage won't ever happen, just that it would be imprudent to count on it.; 10/17/24, 3:16 PM
Martin said...: Non-dispatchable power at grid scale is a bad idea. It mostly lets power companies receive subsidies to build unnecessary generation capacity. It doesn't reduce CO2 as much as many people think because other than gas turbines you can't shut gas and especially coal plants down for a day and then heat them back up over and over without massively reducing lifespan and increasing maintenance costs.; 10/17/24, 3:56 PM
Gospace said...: If you have the standard state mandated contract for feeding solar power to the grid- you are essentially using the utility as a giant free battery that you're not paying for.

The grid is a complicated system. And there are hidden subsidies in any rate paying system. I live in ruralville, and now that the bils are broken down into distribution costs and electrical costs- I'm paying the same for distribution as a city or town dweller. With, for example on my street, 5 customers per mile instead of 20 down in the village, of who knows how many in a city. And further out into ruralville there's <1 customer per mile.

But then in cities that require underground utilities- their costs are huge to install compared to overhead lines. And if something goes wrong- much more expensive to repair.

And then depending on where you are, there's right of way clearing costs. I remember reading about a national conference where someone from the northeast was comparing line clearing costs with a utility from the southwest. "We're supposed to be using monthly costs for comparing line clearing- not weekly." "Um, that's my yearly cost..." Lots of trees and bushes vs. virtually none.

And not clearing lines because the environmentalist in government don't want you to cut down precious trees leads to fires. Ask Hawaii and California about that.

There's a lot more to electricity then just the electricity. And it all adds up. Even if producing it were absolutely free- it would still cost money to get it.; 10/17/24, 3:58 PM
Scott Patton said...: Is that one of them negative externalities the green goobers are always on a bout?
Even if they mandated solar panel redistribution, poor folk don't have much roof to stick 'em on anyway.; 10/17/24, 4:07 PM
n.n said...: Asynchronous contributions are a costly addition short of shared responsibility through progressive prices ("inflation") with benefits.; 10/17/24, 7:05 PM
John said...: Martin said...
Non-dispatchable power at grid scale is a bad idea. It mostly lets power companies receive subsidies to build unnecessary generation capacity. It doesn't reduce CO2 as much as many people think because other than gas turbines you can't shut gas and especially coal plants down for a day and then heat them back up over and over without massively reducing lifespan and increasing maintenance costs.

This is absolutely correct. I've been looking at Alberta data as it has both the "merit order" data (i.e., the bid amounts ordered from lowest to highest) and the generation mix data. Alberta restricts the price to be between zero and $1000. But the interesting fact is that in September, they had over 60 hours where the price was zero. Now the merit order data is at at 60 day lag, so I can't say this for positive, but looking at older merit order data, the thing I expected to see was that it was wind and solar that caused the zero prices. True to an extent, but a lot of coal plants (back in the day) and gas plants today offer blocks of generation (i.e., quantities of MW production for the hour) at zero price. Why? Because of what Martin says, it costs too much to shut it down even though the price is zero and they are paying for gas to keep it running.; 10/17/24, 8:53 PM
Rusty said...: Really sharp flying debris. "It aint the tornado that kills ya.It's the stuff in the tornado that kills ya."; 10/18/24, 8:27 AM
Rusty said...: In California neasly all those rooftop solar panels go back into the grid. Those solar panels were sold to residents by promising that they would be paid the retail price for the electricity.; 10/18/24, 8:34 AM
Rusty said...: But John Henry, It's a really inefficient way to produce electricity!; 10/18/24, 8:37 AM
loudogblog said...: "Building on a roof, especially a residential roof, is inherently more dangerous and difficult than building on a flat field."

But roofing is a major occupation in the United States and OSHA has regulations in place to prevent roofing injuries. You need to get your facts straight.; 10/18/24, 4:00 PM
Kirk Parker said...: "Non-dispatchable power at grid scale is a bad idea."

Non-dispatchable stable power at grid scale is perfectly fine, said every coal-fired plant in existence.; 10/19/24, 8:47 AM