California Members: NEM3.0 impact on NEM1/2 customers and what to do?

[fafrd]

It will depend on the incremental cost of the V2G option compared to a hybrid inverter and batteries. I already have a hybrid inverter and batteries so incrementally adding batteries and more non GT solar is going to be my plan.

Yeah, that’s why I said V2L not V2G.

V2L costs basically nothing and allows you to use your EV like a generator (run an islanded AC-battery charger). The house battery just needs to be sized to cover peak period and however far you want to get into the night when the EV is not present.

You can make all of this work without a NEM agreement and with no special agreement with the utility of any kind (you just purchase a bit of electricity from them when you really need it, meaning for peak surges such as inrush current and during overcast spells in winter).

 

[fafrd]

A million homes with solar, if you can mobilize them, is pretty powerful. A million letters to the legislature, a ballot initiative, an anti PG&E media campaign.

On your side is that California wants to support green energy. If it became widely known that PG&E was killing solar energy, by what is essentially the same as if Comcast could charge people for the privilege to subscribe to Netflix, i think this proposal would die.

I would even consider a class action suit to challenge the constitutionality of the deal. It is absurd at face value that a company can charge a customer for not using their product.

I’m not getting you. The million of us with solar (NEM1.0/2.0) got off pretty light. We lost 5 years of grandfathering.

But during the grandfathering period our terms are basically not changing. NEM3.0 customers will be charged/taxed for their solar even if they consume no electricity from the grid, but not us grandfathered customers.

I’ll be surprised if a million customers ever sign up for NEM3.0 - cheaper to just offset consumption with some panels, a battery, and a hybrid inverter (and no export agreement with the utility).

 

[fafrd]

$8/kW installed PV
5.5 effective sun hours per day (my San Jose location) x 365 days/year = 2008 sun hours per year
$0.05 tax per kWh produced.

Although unpleasant, we could live with it (here, where grid electricity costs $0.20 to $0.50/kWh. Not at all acceptable somewhere that electricity costs $0.05/kWh)

$8/kW/month translates to $32kW/month or 160kWh/month at base rate for me. My consumption is only 420kWh per month, so this would be almost 40% of my non-solar electric bill.

Plus, since they are only crediting you at ~25% of base rate for whatever you export, you need a battery anyway or you need to install 4 times as much solar (increasing monthly ‘tax’ to over 150% of non-solar utility bill).

It’s going to kill grid-tied solar in California (which is what the utilities wanted).

But I suspect grid-assisted solar is goin to continue and eventually thrive once battery costs drop enough (or EV penetration grows enough).

Problem is, if we don't use the electricity during the 15 minute interval over which meter will combine production and consumption, it only earns a credit 25% of retail. We have to deliver 4 kWh during intervals with net generation to get back 1 kWh during intervals when we are a net consumer.

Sounds like you didn’t read the text of the agreement - they are going to instantaneous (1 second interval). So export is just going to make no sense (better than throttling back, but that’s about it).

Combine an array 3-4 times larger than needed to cover annual consumption with the $8/kW/month ‘tax’ and you finally see the checkmate. It only makes sense if you have a battery and store most of your unused solar rather than exporting.

The tax on the 4 kWh we deliver is 4 x $0.05/kWh = $0.20/kWh
In addition we have cost to produce power, which I put at $0.05/kWh (hardware cost amortized over 10 years), could be $0.15 to $0.20 if you paid $3 to $4/W for complete system including installation labor.

Cost of tax + PV system comes to $0.25 to $0.40/kWh, as an alternative to paying $0.20 for utility delivered power.
If you produce power at Noon and need power at 6:00 PM for air conditioning, the 4 kWh you delivered won't get you 1kWh back. You would need to deliver 10 kWh at $0.05/kWh credit (25% of off-peak retail) to receive 1 kWh at $0.50/kWh (peak retail)
That means paying $2.50 to $4.00/kWh (peak hours) for self-generated power with net metering, instead of just buying it at $0.50/kWh
All brands of batteries just became cost-effective. (top brands cost $0.50/kWh of cycle life)

Again, the only solar that is going to make sense is solar added without a NEM agreement.

They're gonna love it.
You will be required to install enough PV capacity to produce all the kwh you consume.
You will be taxed $8/kW capacity which is $0.05/kWh produced.
Your system will mostly deliver power middle of the day when you aren't home to use it. You get a credit of $0.05/kWh produced
(Assuming $2/W installed, producing power costs you $0.10/kWh amortized over 10 years + $0.05/kWh tax, total $0.15/kWh)
After losing a net $0.10/kWh produced during the day, you get to pay $0.50, $0.35, $0.20/kWh for power consumed depending on time of day.

PG&E becomes net zero. They get the power from us and sell it to us. We over-pay for capital equipment of PV production capacity (it is half the price or less at industrial scale compared to residential rooftop.)

If the only connection you have to the utility is to use the grid as a generator when needed, you can still install enough solar to offset what you consume without entering into an export agreement or getting taxed.

Batteries will need to get cheaper and bigger before it becomes mainstream, but that is where things were already headed…

 

[fafrd]

This is worth a gander for any Californian thinking about cutting their ties with their electric utility: https://www.cailaw.org/media/files/IEL/Publications/2016/grid-detection-vol10no1.pdf

From page 6:
‘ “For solar PV installations, during the local agency project approval process the permit applicant should also contact the local utility provider to request permission to connect the solar installation to the local distribution grid. The solar PV system cannot be ‘turned on’ until approval is granted by both the local agency and the local utility.”

While this statement could be interpreted as a requirement that the system be connected, the word, “should” and the context indicates this is a recommendation for those customers who intend to connect. ‘

 

[fafrd]

I’ve been looking the CPUC’s Preliminary Decision over more carefully, and it’s not as draconian as I first thought.

First, the monthly $8/kW/month Grid Benefits Charge replaces the minimum $10/month Grid Access Charge.

Second, the 4-year ‘Glide Path’ translates to a pretty significant discount off of that new monthly fee for 10-years from hookup.

So comparing NEM2.0 to the next 4 years of successor tarrifs translates to this (using a 4kW system as an example):

NEM 2.0: $10/month ($120/year)

ST year 1: $8 - $5.25 = $2.75/kW/month or $11/month for a 4kW system ($132/year)

ST year 2: $8 - $3.94 = $4.06/kW/month or $15.75/month for a 4kW system ($189/yr)

ST year 3: $8 - $2.63 = $5.37/kW/month or $21.50/month for a 4kW system ($258/yr)

ST year 4: $8 - $1.31 = $6.69/kW/month or $26.75/month for a 4kW system ($321/yr)

ST year 5+: $8/kW/ month or $32/month for a 4kW system ($384/yr)

So at least for the first year, it’s basically little-changed from NEM 2.0 for a system this size (though worse for larger systems).

The much bigger deal is the change in export credit. It’s basically going to make no sense to install solar without a battery that can capture a full day’s production without export for use overnight from the moment the Successor Tariff goes into effect (~July 2022).

The CPUC wanted to motivate homeowners to install batteries with any new rooftop solar systems and that’s what this Preliminary Decision achieves.

As batteries and panels get cheaper, this could still pencil out, at least while the discount on monthly Grid Benefits Charge remains high (year 1 or 2).

The big issue I see in the short-term is that batteries are still so expensive that it’s hard to see a whole bunch of homeowner’s wanting to jump into the successor tariff in the first year to take advantage of the 75% discount on the new monthly Grid Benefits Charge - a 4kW system would need at least a 20kWh battery to capture the unused portion of a full day’s output, and if we take today’s approved battery list, $0.65/kW is about the lowest cost achievable today.

So an additional $13,000 dollars just for the battery, likely bringing installed system cost up between $25 to $30K ($18.5 to 22.2K after 26% tax credit).

If you consume all of the power you generate (most challenging in summer when production is high), that should mean ~5000kWh or $1000 of consumption offset per year (meaning 18.5 to 22.2 years to break-even).

So that’s a non-starter and it’s only going to make sense if the incentives they are offering to add a battery pretty much cover the full cost.

Then we’d be talking $12 to 17K or $8.9 to 12.6K after federal tax credits for a break-even period of 9 to 12-1/2 years (close to the 10-year break-even period the CPUC says they are shooting for).

So the first year this might, maybe, pencil out and make sense if the battery incentive covers ~100% of additional cost. But with a fixed schedule of credits stepping down yearly rather than a volume / number-of-new-installs threshold, there is a high risk this just dries up the residential solar market by year 2…

 

[Zwy]

I’ve been looking the CPUC’s Preliminary Decision over more carefully, and it’s not as draconian as I first thought.

First, the monthly $8/kW/month Grid Benefits Charge replaces the minimum $10/month Grid Access Charge.

Second, the 4-year ‘Glide Path’ translates to a pretty significant discount off of that new monthly fee for 10-years from hookup.

So comparing NEM2.0 to the next 4 years of successor tarrifs translates to this (using a 4kW system as an example):

NEM 2.0: $10/month ($120/year)

ST year 1: $8 - $5.25 = $2.75/kW/month or $11/month for a 4kW system ($132/year)

ST year 2: $8 - $3.94 = $4.06/kW/month or $15.75/month for a 4kW system ($189/yr)

ST year 3: $8 - $2.63 = $5.37/kW/month or $21.50/month for a 4kW system ($258/yr)

ST year 4: $8 - $1.31 = $6.69/kW/month or $26.75/month for a 4kW system ($321/yr)

ST year 5+: $8/kW/ month or $32/month for a 4kW system ($384/yr)

So at least for the first year, it’s basically little-changed from NEM 2.0 for a system this size (though worse for larger systems).

The much bigger deal is the change in export credit. It’s basically going to make no sense to install solar without a battery that can capture a full day’s production without export for use overnight from the moment the Successor Tariff goes into effect (~July 2022).

The CPUC wanted to motivate homeowners to install batteries with any new rooftop solar systems and that’s what this Preliminary Decision achieves.

As batteries and panels get cheaper, this could still pencil out, at least while the discount on monthly Grid Benefits Charge remains high (year 1 or 2).

The big issue I see in the short-term is that batteries are still so expensive that it’s hard to see a whole bunch of homeowner’s wanting to jump into the successor tariff in the first year to take advantage of the 75% discount on the new monthly Grid Benefits Charge - a 4kW system would need at least a 20kWh battery to capture the unused portion of a full day’s output, and if we take today’s approved battery list, $0.65/kW is about the lowest cost achievable today.

So an additional $13,000 dollars just for the battery, likely bringing installed system cost up between $25 to $30K ($18.5 to 22.2K after 26% tax credit).

If you consume all of the power you generate (most challenging in summer when production is high), that should mean ~5000kWh or $1000 of consumption offset per year (meaning 18.5 to 22.2 years to break-even).

So that’s a non-starter and it’s only going to make sense if the incentives they are offering to add a battery pretty much cover the full cost.

Then we’d be talking $12 to 17K or $8.9 to 12.6K after federal tax credits for a break-even period of 9 to 12-1/2 years (close to the 10-year break-even period the CPUC says they are shooting for).

So the first year this might, maybe, pencil out and make sense if the battery incentive covers ~100% of additional cost. But with a fixed schedule of credits stepping down yearly rather than a volume / number-of-new-installs threshold, there is a high risk this just dries up the residential solar market by year 2…

Is there a list of batteries on an approved list? Just curious as it might be a good investment in the stock of "approved" companies, if politicians haven't already pushed the price up.

 

[fafrd]

Is there a list of batteries on an approved list? Just curious as it might be a good investment in the stock of "approved" companies, if politicians haven't already pushed the price up.

Solar Equipment List - CA Energy Commission

solarequipment.energy.ca.gov

I was interested to see this recent addition to the list:

EVE POWER CO., LTD.

LF280K

0.48 kW, 0.16 kWh, 3.2 V LFP Battery

0.896

0.896

N

 

[SkyBlue]

As fafrd writes, for the first four years the Grid Benefits Charge proposed by the CPUC won't be that bad for customers who still have at least four years to go in their 15 year grandfathered period. But I believe that those of us who installed their PV systems 15 or more years ago will get hit with the full charge immediately.

And I agree that installing batteries to store surplus power our PV systems generate might make more sense than giving it to our utility companies for 5 cents per kW, especially if battery costs and installation costs drop considerably. However, the proposal reads:

"The charge will be a fixed monthly charge based on the number of kilowatts installed in a residential customer’s system."

I expect PG&E to interpret the phrase "residential customer's system" to include storage, since batteries are part of the larger system. If so, the 20 kWh of storage capacity needed to capture the unused output of a 4 kWh PV array would add $160 in Grid Benefits Charges to the customer's PG&E bill each month.

 

[fafrd]

As fafrd writes, for the first four years the Grid Benefits Charge proposed by the CPUC won't be that bad for customers who still have at least four years to go in their 15 year grandfathered period. But I believe that those of us who installed their PV systems 15 or more years ago will get hit with the full charge immediately.

Yes, I believe NEM 1 customers who are already past the 15 year mark are going to get moved to the successor tarrif immediately.

Remains to be seen whether they get the same 75% discount on Grid Benefits Charge for the next 10 years as do new customers activating in year 1.

Whether you need to add a battery to get that 10-year discount or you can disconnect and then reconnect a ‘new’ system (at least including new batteries and probably also a new hybrid inverter) remains to be seen.

And I agree that installing batteries to store surplus power our PV systems generate might make more sense than giving it to our utility companies for 5 cents per kW, especially if battery costs and installation costs drop considerably. However, the proposal reads:

"The charge will be a fixed monthly charge based on the number of kilowatts installed in a residential customer’s system."

I expect PG&E to interpret the phrase "residential customer's system" to include storage, since batteries are part of the larger system. If so, the 20 kWh of storage capacity needed to capture the unused output of a 4 kWh PV array would add $160 in Grid Benefits Charges to the customer's PG&E bill each month.

You raise a good point, but I doubt your interpretation is correct.

The CPUC has taken the ‘easy’ way out and based the Grid Benefits Charge on peak output capability rather than actual energy produced or consumed.

For a string-inverter-based system, that translates to peak kW output from the string inverter, from a Microinverter-based system, that corresponds to the peak output of the set of Microinverters, and in a hybrid-inverter-based system it is highly likely to be based on the peak output power of the hybrid inverter (and have nothing to do with how big the battery is).

If I’m correct, it means you’ll have a large incentive to get by with the smallest-powered hybrid inverter you can get away with.

So for example, it will cost you half as much to have a hybrid inverter sized up only cover 100% or 150% of average load instead of 100% or 150% of peak load (surge).

This means you’ll rely on the grid to supply motor inrush currents (for example) and rarely-used very high-power loads and you will only be able to power a portion of all house loads when in off-grid backup mode.

But it’s going to cost you a pretty penny to power the whole house like normal when in off grid mode.

Using my situation as an example, average load is only 350W, so I could easily supply 90% of my annual load with a 1kW hybrid inverter (8760kWh annual maximum output).

That 1kW hybrid inverter would only cost me $8 per month (without discount), or 80% of what I’m paying now under NEM 1.0.

My electric oven consumes 3kW when the element is on and if I add a few other loads to that including inrush current when the main fridge turns on, I’d need at least a 4kW Hybrid Inverter if not a 5kW Hybrid inverter if I want to use the electric oven during an outage.

That would mean monthly Grid Access charges of $32 or 40 per month, 3-4 times higher than I’m paying now (and ~half of my annual electric bill from before I installed solar).

My current system is 3.5kW of Microinverters, so if I was to do the easy thing and connect a 3.5kW AC-coupled hybrid inverter in year 1, my non-discounted rate would be 3.5 x $8 = $28/month but after applying the first year discount, it would only be 3.5 x ($8 - $5.25) = 3.5 x 2.75 = $9.625 or ~4% less than I’m paying now…

If I was already past 15 years and facing the full undiscounted successor charge, I’d probably elect to decommission and install a ‘new’ system with a hybrid inverter and a battery.

Since I’m 5 years in and the CPUC has reduced my original remaining 15 years to only 10 additional years, the 10 year runway I’d get on being a ‘new’ solar customer under the ST and the 10 year runway I have remaining under NEM 1.0 are identical, so I’ve convinced myself I ought to track how these transition to ST rules work as they get rolled out…

It’ll really come down to what degree of ‘newness’ PG&E requires to get a ‘new’ agreement under the successor tariff.

If you can qualify for a ‘new’ agreement under the ST (with year-1 discounts) by merely replacing your current string inverter with a hybrid inverter + battery, it’s probably a no-brainer (at least if the Utilities’ battery invectives cover most all of that cost).

If they won’t allow you to reuse your existing solar array, panel prices have gotten so cheap versus 15 years ago and panels have gotten so much more powerful over the past 15 years that replacing your old array with a new array which can likely be more powerful while utilizing less than 1/3rd of the number of panels (but reusing racking system, home run wiring and junction boxes) may still be an attractive option (again, it the battery incentives largely cover the cost of the battery).

I can see a rush of past-15-year and near-15-year NEM 1.0 customers jumping on the 66% year-one discount to upgrade to a new hybrid-based system (assuming the battery incentives are attractive and the rules allow NEM 1.0 customers a pathway to being ‘new’ year-1 ST customers.

If the rules don’t allow any pathway for NEM1.0 customers reaching the 15-year mark to avoid the full non-discounted ST fees, hard to see why any of those customers impacted would be in any rush…

 

[Hedges]

With NEM 3.0:

If your PV system costs $4/watt including installation, you make power for $0.20/kWh (amortized over 10 years.)
Federal tax credit reduces that about 25%, so $0.15/kWh.

PG&E taxes you an additional $0.05/kWh.
That applies to kWh you feed into the grid,
to kWh you use immediately,
to kWh you could have made if the sun was shining, but didn't because of clouds.

All power you produce (or fail to produce) cost you $0.20/kWh including the PG&E tax.

If you feed it into the grid, PG&E credits you 25% of retail, which is probably $0.20/kWh for most of the productive day.
i.e., PG&E gives you $0.05/kWh, after previously charging you $0.05/kWh.
PG&E takes any power you give them for free, resulting in $zero net benefit for you to apply to consumption. And it cost you $0.15/kWh to make it.

If you use the power when you make it, you avoid paying $0.20/kWh. But it cost you $0.20/kWh. You get $zero benefit.

If you store your produced power in a battery, you can use it during peak time instead of paying $0.50/kWh.
Can you buy a battery and inverter for no more than $0.30/kWh? If so, you break even.
In that case, skip the PV, skip the net metering. Just charge a battery during off-peak to use during on-peak.

With the PUC proposal for NEM 3.0, you get zero benefit from grid-tied PV and net metering.
(Only if PV installed costs < $4.00/W and you use power while it is produced can you come out at all ahead.)

 

[fafrd]

From page 185:

‘Existing NEM 2.0 tariff customers who voluntarily transfer to the net billing tariff adopted in this decision, within four years from its inception, are eligible to receive a $0.20 per watt hour storage rebate. The storage rebate is available for a total of four years but will decrease by 25 percent a year over the subsequent four years. Customers are eligible for the storage rebate in the year they transition to the successor tariff. Customers must claim the rebate within three years of their transition to the net billing tariff by submitting proof of an energy storage system installation.’

$0.20 per watt is less than 1/3rd of today’s cost for batteries on the approved list, so really nowhere close to being enough to make adding a battery worthwhile at today’s pricing.

Also, the only language about transitioning to the ST is from NEM 2.0. Nothing at all about transitioning from NEM 1.0.

So maybe you first need to transition from NEM 1.0 to NEM 2.0 before transitioning to the ST but if that does not reset the start date under NEM 2.0 to the transition date, it’s not going to buy you anything…

 

[fafrd]

With NEM 3.0:

If your PV system costs $4/watt including installation, [b{you make power for $0.20/kWh (amortized over 10 years[/b].)
Federal tax credit reduces that about 25%, so $0.15/kWh.

I’m generating 5000kWh annually from a 3500W array, so by your math, $14,000 for 50,000 kWh over 10 years or $0.28/kWh.

I don’t see how your figuring on a cost of $0.20/kWh. Are you getting 2kW/year from each W of installed solar?

(I’m making out OK because I had an installed cost of only $2.86/W for a cost of $0.20/kW, exactly aligned with your scenario).

PG&E taxes you an additional $0.05/kWh.
That applies to kWh you feed into the grid,
to kWh you use immediately,
to kWh you could have made if the sun was shining, but didn't because of clouds.

At your rate of 2kWh/W/year of solar, the full $8/month/kW translates to $96/2000kWh or $0.048/kWh

At my production of 1.43kWh/W/year, it’s more like $96/1430kWh or $0.067/kWh.

If you are just connecting as a new solar customer on year 1, the monthly Grid Benefits Charge is discounted to only $2.75/kW/month or $33/kW/year, meaning $0.0165/kWh at your productivity or $0.023/kWh at mine.

All power you produce (or fail to produce) cost you $0.20/kWh including the PG&E tax.

Or $0.1665/kWh to $0.173 if you connect to ST in year 1.

If you feed it into the grid, PG&E credits you 25% of retail, which is probably $0.20/kWh for most of the productive day.
i.e., PG&E gives you $0.05/kWh, after previously charging you $0.05/kWh.
PG&E takes any power you give them for free, resulting in $zero net benefit for you to apply to consumption. And it cost you $0.15/kWh to make it.

I think we are in complete agreement that any export to grid at all under the ST is bone-headed (being credited $0.05 for something that cost you ~$0.17).

If you use the power when you make it, you avoid paying $0.20/kWh. But it cost you $0.20/kWh. You get $zero benefit.

In year 1, and for 10 years, you are saving ~15% (and you are locked-in for 10 years against rate increases).

If you store your produced power in a battery, you can use it during peak time instead of paying $0.50/kWh.

Charging is 90% efficient (at best) as is running an inverter off of battery energy.

So you pay $0.20/kWh off peak (actually $0.22/kWh once you include taxes) but cost increases to $0.22/$0.24 after charging and to $0.247/$0.272 after inverting.

So at peak rates of 0.45/$0.495 per kWh during peak window, you’re only saving $0.223 per kWh…

Can you buy a battery and inverter for no more than $0.30/kWh? If so, you break even.
In that case, skip the PV, skip the net metering. Just charge a battery during off-peak to use during on-peak.

Battery has to be at least 111% to account for 90% inverter efficiency, Plus, it should be sized to only use 80-85% of full rated capacity. So to generate 1kWh, you need 1.3 to 1.4kWh of battery capacity.

But you are saving that $0.223/kWh each and every time you are cycling the battery.

Our peak period lasts 122 days per year, so that’s savings of $27.21/kWh per year or $272.10/kWh over 10 years.

Putting that into the context of a 5kWh battery to primarily cover peak usage, you’d be talking about saving of $136 per year or $1360 over 10 years.

Buying a 5kW battery for $1360 would be a cost of $0.27/Wh which is less than half the cost of the least expensive batteries on the approved list, but at least we’re down to single digits in terms of crazy (only ~10% more than what Signature Solar’s (as yet) unapproved offering today).

But there is the $0.20/Wh incentive in year 1 to add a battery. That would cover $1000 towards the cost of a 5mWh battery, getting total breakeven budget up to $0.47/Wh which is ~75% of the least expensive battery on the approved list today and 157% the cost of Signature Solar’s 5kWh offering today.

Not totally ridiculous is the only point I’m trying to make (at least for new customers in year 1).

With the PUC proposal for NEM 3.0, you get zero benefit from grid-tied PV and net metering.

Agreed.

(Only if PV installed costs < $4.00/W and you use power while it is produced can you come out at all ahead.)

For year 1 ST customers, you’ll save ~15% versus retail rates for 10 years if you can use your energy without export for an installed cost of $4.00/W (which may be an insurmountable challenge including the battery you’ll need, even with the $0.20/Wh incentive).

It’s still grim, but just a bit less grim in the first year than you’ve concluded…

 

[Hedges]

I don’t see how your figuring on a cost of $0.20/kWh. Are you getting 2kW/year from each W of installed solar?

From insolation calculator (haven't tracked my actual),
5.5 hours sun x 365 days/year = 2008 hour equivalent full sun per year. So yes, 2kWh/year per W PV.
20 kWh in 10 years. Hardware costs $1/W so $0.05/kWh DIY (free labor).
If $4/W installed, $0.20/kWh

It’s still grim, but just a bit less grim in the first year than you’ve concluded…

I'm an optimist. But also a cynic.

Let's hope somebody gets the message that PG&E should pay more than zero for the power we provide.
i.e. they can credit at a discount, and the can charge for power we consume from grid, but they can't tax us for production especially not at 100% of the meager credit they give us for power.

Otherwise, zero-export and thermal storage are in my future.
Actually, I'll just go back to burning natural gas for heat.
Generating electricity for $0.05/kWh in the summer and getting 100% credit for it in the winter had made resistance heating reasonable.
Maybe my global-warming contribution will reduce the amount of heat I need in the winter. Summer air conditioning needs match my production, so no trouble getting by without grid power for that.

 

[Zwy]

Solar Equipment List - CA Energy Commission

solarequipment.energy.ca.gov

I was interested to see this recent addition to the list:

EVE POWER CO., LTD.

LF280K

0.48 kW, 0.16 kWh, 3.2 V LFP Battery

0.896

0.896

N

Interesting list. The Stored Energy Inc near the bottom of the list are stackable units, a quick search of the part numbers leads to https://www.homegridenergy.com/

Spec sheet for the stackable battery: https://static1.squarespace.com/sta...30749a/1632189315079/Stack'd+SERIES_SPECS.pdf

Might be a big seller in CA.

 

[fafrd]

Interesting list. The Stored Energy Inc near the bottom of the list are stackable units, a quick search of the part numbers leads to https://www.homegridenergy.com/

Spec sheet for the stackable battery: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/60dfb9b2e239537df08db4ca/t/61493b82e959d6423f30749a/1632189315079/Stack'd+SERIES_SPECS.pdf

Might be a big seller in CA.

Yeah, I think we’re going to see a massive decrease in average cost of batteries on the approved list over the coming year or two.

I been doing some analysis about my situation (10 more years on NEM1.0) and I’ve come to the conclusion that jumping to the successor tariff in year one would not make any sense.

10 years from now the product offerings are going to be so much better / smarter than what’s available now (or on the horizon).

Those already past 15 years on NEM1.0 are in more of a bind. Cost per year whether they continue under the ST or decommission and go back to paying full retail for their electricity work out to be roughly equal.

Really need to understand what the rules are governing how long you need to go back to paying full retail before you can again add solar as a ‘new’ customer under the ST…

 

[fafrd]

My system is around 17 years old now. Expected to be put on NEM 2.0 in a couple years, looks like I'm past due for NEM 3.0, they'll probably backdate my transition two years.

I feel for you, man.

I’ve pretty much convinced myself that I’ve got no better option than to squeeze out the remaining 10 years they’ve left me in my NEM 1.0 system.

If I was in your shoes and facing an immediate transition to the Successor Tariff by ~mid next year, I’m not sure what I’d do.

I’m assuming the ‘Glide Path’ will not be available to NEM 1.0 customers, in which case the first thing to understand is what rules govern decommissioning a NEM 1.0 system and whether there is any pathway for decommissioned NEM 1.0 customers to sign up again for treatment as ‘new’ solar customers under the ST.

The ST actually looks modestly attractive for those new solar customers that sign up in year 1 - you lock in your electric rates for 10 years and assuming you have 10 years to break-even, at least you are paying off a battery-based system with off-grid capability, an upgrade over the class of systems existing when NEM 1.0 started. And after 10 years, you’ll be able to keep covering your electrical needs for ~33-50% of what it would otherwise cost (assuming your equipment lasts that long).

If there is no pathway for NEM 1.0 customers for any continued solar plan other than the raw ST without Glide Path discounts, I’m not sure what the best path is.

Whether you keep operating your system or decommission it, your annual electricity costs are going to be roughly equal, so what reason is there to keep operating your long-in-the-tooth NEM 1.0 system?

Eventually, the cost to ‘refresh’ your fully-amortized system with a battery and hybrid inverter should be more attractive (meaning getting to a 10-year breakeven and possibly even less if you can recycle your existing array and home runs).

But who knows how long that will take?

Using your decommissioned NEM 1.0 solar system to power specific appliances with a separate off-grid ‘island’ may be the most sensible path but it is unclear whether an off-grid system can be permitted and approved without getting permission from the utility. And if that permission triggers the same Grid Benefits ‘tax’ being applied to your electrical bill, what’s the point?

The one possible exception is if you throttle max output levels all the way back to somewhere between minimum usage levels and average usage levels.

Let’s say you use your old NEM 1.0 array to charge up a battery which you use to generate 1kW of electricity for self-consumption 24/7 (fridges, etc).

You’d be generating 8760kWh of electricity annually for a Grid Benefits cost of only $8/month or $96 per year ($0.011/kWh).

1kW of consumption 24/7 might be tough to achieve but even if you average ~350W like I do and export the unused energy @ $0.05/W, the Grid Benefits charge would be $0.011 on 3066kWh and effectively $0.044 on the remaining 5694kWh for a blended cost of $284.26 for 8760kWh or $0.03245 per kWh.

So a very-modestly powered hybrid inverter may be the way to go to optimize benefits under the ST and if I’m right that a 1kW Hybrid inverter will only trigger a Grid Benefits Charge of $8/month ($96/year), I suspect we’re going to see a great deal of interest in lower-powered Hybrid Inverters…

 

[Hedges]

I refreshed GT inverters recently with new-old-stock models, and added battery inverters and 14 kWh usable capacity AGM.
That could deliver 1kW 24/7 but only about 2 years before batteries are worn out (at cost of $0.50/kWh).
Prefer to just use them for backup during failures as originally planned.

I think all I have to do is change Sunny Island setting from "Grid" to "Grid Charge" and it is zero-export.
This would connect when grid is needed to charge, disconnect when PV exceeds usage and charging needs. But I don't know how much it would cycle batteries.
I'd rather it remained connected 24/7 but reduced PV output for zero export. Presently frequency-shift, maybe zero export by RS-485 communication is possible (might record some export with 1 second meter intervals due to 1200 baud RS-485)

 

[Ampster]

and if we take today’s approved battery list, $0.65/kW is about the lowest cost achievable today.

I am not sure I understand your math or the units you are using?
My DIY batteries cost less than $150 per kWh. That would be $3,000 for a 20 kWh battery. Perhaps a UL Approved battery could cost $650 per kWh and that would be $13,000 for a 20 kWh battery. Does that sound like what you were saying?

 

[Ampster]

So a very-modestly powered hybrid inverter may be the way to go to optimize benefits under the ST and if I’m right that a 1kW Hybrid inverter will only trigger a Grid Benefits Charge of $8/month ($96/year), I suspect we’re going to see a great deal of interest in lower-powered Hybrid Inverters…

Or install a 4 or 8 kW hybrid inverter behind the meter and just get a building permit and no PTO. You could install 10 to 20 kW of solar and configure it for non export. Use the grid as backup up to charge the batteries when the solar can't charge them. That is my plan when my existing NEM agreement expires in 14 ½ years. I actually have most of the components installed per my signature. I don't think I need a larger inverter but I might add more solar and limit export to the amount in my PTO. The only thing I have to figure out is how to cancel my NEM agreement in 2036 so I don't have to pay $57 a month.

 

[fafrd]

I am not sure I understand your math or the units you are using?
My DIY batteries cost less than $150 per kWh. That would be $3,000 for a 20 kWh battery. Perhaps a UL Approved battery could cost $650 per kWh and that would be $13,000 for a 20 kWh battery. Does that sound like what you were saying?

I meant $0.66/W, not kW.

So ~$1700 for a 2.55kWh battery…