Electric company has it figured out

[Ampster]

Only a matter of time

Also known as the death spiral. A similar thing happened in Hawaii, when the utilities delayed approving solar. People just installed solar and batteries and self consumer their power. My brother did that in Maui.

 

[hwy17]

In my location, with wood heating, 95% of the winter is pretty easily done with off-grid solar. Gotta fill that last gap with diesel genset, or fall back on the grid.

Yes I'm half and half wood heat and heat pump and keep enough cords to go all wood heat if we need to. But I think it's worth pointing out there isn't enough wood supply for everyone to do that. Iceland used to be all forest and they wiped all of it out that way, completely converted their landscape.

As for generators, that's the crux of the defection problem. Generators make off grid possible and economical but there is a widely recognized public health interest in not allowing everybody to run on generators in populated areas. The smog in some inversion prone metro areas when a winter solar famine hits would be apocalyptic.

 

[Brett V]

My monthly connection fee is $10 and the price from Met Ed is 11.3 cents/kWh. You can do better on the kWh rate by choosing an alternate supplier but most don’t honor net metering. Over the past few years my usage has gone up because I now work from home and set up a decent home office in the basement with a mini split heat pump, lighting, an oled television running 8-10 hours a day and multiple computers going 24/7. The grid tied system wasn’t big enough anymore and I’ve been offsetting the extra consumption at about 75% with the off grid system. Planning to add another 3.3 kw of PV this summer to hopefully get back in the green. The power companies recently made a big push to curtail Pennsylvania’s net metering but the PA Supreme Court beat them back…for now. I have no doubt they will be back in a few years. Eventually they’ll succeed and I hope to be able to go off grid by then.

 

[hwy17]

Also known as the death spiral. A similar thing happened in Hawaii, when the utilities delayed approving solar. People just installed solar and batteries and self consumer their power. My brother did that in Maui.

Hawaii grids are endlessly fascinating because each island is literally islanded. They can't play tricks with spreadsheets like California and South Australia to pretend like their DERS grid is hunky dory.

Hawaii has one big oil turbine and they freewheel it for flywheel reactive power when it's not burning.

 

[Supervstech]

I got a phone call from co-op asking if I had solar, since my usage had basically gone down to zero. I confessed I did, but explained that the system was isolated from the grid, connected like a backup generator. Guy from the co-op said that's fine, but I couldn't connect an inverter to the grid at all under any circumstances (even if no backfeed) without jumping through all their grid-tie rules. Engineered drawings, state inspection, the whole 9 yards. He said they'd want to come inspect my interlock used to isolate the system, but haven't followed up after all this time.


In my location, with wood heating, 95% of the winter is pretty easily done with off-grid solar. Gotta fill that last gap with diesel genset, or fall back on the grid. I pretended the grid wasn't there, but nearly failed, since the diesel generator was needed when temperatures were close to 0ºF, and the fuel had gelled. I find summer off-grid is actually more difficult than winter, though, with A/C units running overnight...

You had fuel oil gel in winter temps of 0f? That isn’t right… it should handle -20F without issue… or were you using summer road fuel?

 

[Supervstech]

My houses are 100% electric… rates just jumped from .11 to .14, and connection went from 10 to 14, plus the state sales tax, that makes my 0 kWh rate at 29.00 or some such. I don’t have any solar powering anything yet, but I will start next weekend installing panels on my garage, and see how long it takes the utilities to notice something is up.

 

[740GLE]

Yes I'm half and half wood heat and heat pump and keep enough cords to go all wood heat if we need to. But I think it's worth pointing out there isn't enough wood supply for everyone to do that. Iceland used to be all forest and they wiped all of it out that way, completely converted their landscape.

As for generators, that's the crux of the defection problem. Generators make off grid possible and economical but there is a widely recognized public health interest in not allowing everybody to run on generators in populated areas. The smog in some inversion prone metro areas when a winter solar famine hits would be apocalyptic.

Iceland is a volcano, trees were never flourishing there even 800 years ago, it didn’t take much to clean it up.

But the statement is tree. The Black Forest isn’t much of a forest these days.

Sadly New England still a has massive massive amount of standing timber, sadly the market for using it outweighs the corporate interests of “carbon sequestration” where active wood lots are being bought up to keep forested so others can pollute and then brag about being carbon neutral.

NH Tackles Loss of Timber Tax From Shift To Less Logging With Carbon Credit Programs - InDepthNH.org

With the potential loss of hundreds of thousands of dollars in timber tax revenues for North Country communities and county government because of a shift from logging trees to saving them for carbon credits, lawmakers are beginning to turn their attention to finding replacement revenue.

indepthnh.org

 

[Consumerbot3418]

You had fuel oil gel in winter temps of 0f? That isn’t right… it should handle -20F without issue… or were you using summer road fuel?

It's a DC Solar trailer. I filled the 100 gallon tank with off-road (dyed) diesel in summer. Added a preservative later, but not sure if it mixed well. Meanwhile, a close family member manages a fleet of commercial trucks, and had major issues with gelled fuel during that "polar vortex" event. Generator ran, but Sunny Island kept disconnecting when it tried to charge--we could hear the RPM dropping, then rising after SI disconnected. Rinse and repeat. I went out and dialed back the SI charge power from 8kW to 2kW, and then it ran fine. After it warmed up again, I increased the charge power back to what it was, and it ran fine--so I feel like it had to have been a fuel flow issue.

 

[Nobodybusiness]

Eventually, as pricing for solar and battery keeps dropping, and as utilities keep hiking prices, the "richer" people will completely go off grid and the everyone else will be paying some hellacious prices.

Only a matter of time

I don’t disagree with this except for people trapped in a city regardless of their socioeconomic status..

 

[mgdean]

My houses are 100% electric… rates just jumped from .11 to .14, and connection went from 10 to 14, plus the state sales tax, that makes my 0 kWh rate at 29.00 or some such. I don’t have any solar powering anything yet, but I will start next weekend installing panels on my garage, and see how long it takes the utilities to notice something is up.

With my electrical company I had to let them know I was adding solar or they would have disconnected me. It cost $150 for the application fee and another $350 for the electrical company to do their final inspection, of coarse that was after the all the state fees and hoops I needed to jump through to make the state inspector happy. So when it was all said and done under my agreement I can not exceed 20kW in solar. I can sell all the power I want back at .02 a kW, but it is added up and deducted off my bill in July and January. If the total number of kW for the those 6 months periods exceeds that months bill the electrical company is not obligated to grant any more credits. But lets be honest with my current system just to cover the connection fee I need to generate 2250 kw of energy. I may have a shot in the spring and summer, but it is a pretty fair guess I will not come close in the fall and winter. I burn wood in the winter supplemented by propane furnace and electric heat. I have an electric water heater powered by solar and a back up propane water heater and by next winter I will be heating water with my wood burner. I have propane backup Gen and a grid connection. My goal is is to reduce the propane and electrical grid usage as much as possible. After losing power for two weeks a few years back I realized it was up to me to make sure that never happened again. This is how I started down the path I am currently on.

 

[Hedges]

Yes and California is in a financial grid death spiral because of the perverse pricing incentives.

By "Perverse pricing incentives", are you referring to charging $0.60/kWh when utilities in other states charge $0.12/kWh?

 

[hwy17]

By "Perverse pricing incentives", are you referring to charging $0.60/kWh when utilities in other states charge $0.12/kWh?

I'm referring to not charging a fixed fee for service that covers the fixed costs of service.

 

[Nobodybusiness]

By "Perverse pricing incentives", are you referring to charging $0.60/kWh when utilities in other states charge $0.12/kWh?

Are you really paying $.60 kWh?

 

[Supervstech]

By "Perverse pricing incentives", are you referring to charging $0.60/kWh when utilities in other states charge $0.12/kWh?

Wow, I am grumpy my utilities just jumped to .14!!! I couldn’t imagine my bill at .60

 

[Hedges]

I'm referring to not charging a fixed fee for service that covers the fixed costs of service.

Fixed cost of service like mailing a bill?
Or maintaining the wires which drop from pole to house (or go through underground conduit), in either case about 50' of wire?

Or, do you mean allocating the cost of grid maintenance evenly across all customers (rather than across kWh delivered or peak kW demand)?

 

[rhino]

Are you really paying $.60 kWh?

Compare California Electricity Rates (2024 Best Prices) (2024) - EcoWatch

Looking to lower your electric bills in CA? Learn how to choose the plan with the best energy rates in California to bring down your energy costs.

www.ecowatch.com

or

Compare Electricity Rates by State (2024 Energy Suppliers)

Are you overpaying for electricity? Click to compare the best electricity rates in America and learn more about how to choose your own energy provider.

www.ecowatch.com

 

[Hedges]

Are you really paying $.60 kWh?

Let's see if I can even figure it out.

Delivery charge:



Generation charge:



I think the Generation Credit from PG&E is just slightly less than generation Net Charges (before tax) from Ava, so per kWh is approximately $0.52566 + 7.5% + (7.5% tax on 0.15614) = $0.577/kWh.

Just shy of $0.60/kWh on 2nd tier for Oakland (no PV).




$0.53002 on-peak + 5% = $0.557/kWh

Couple cents less for on-peak net metering San Jose.

 

[Supervstech]

Compare California Electricity Rates (2024 Best Prices) (2024) - EcoWatch

Looking to lower your electric bills in CA? Learn how to choose the plan with the best energy rates in California to bring down your energy costs.

www.ecowatch.com

or

Compare Electricity Rates by State (2024 Energy Suppliers)

Are you overpaying for electricity? Click to compare the best electricity rates in America and learn more about how to choose your own energy provider.

www.ecowatch.com

Some people pay over .65!

 

[Hedges]

Compare California Electricity Rates (2024 Best Prices) (2024) - EcoWatch

Looking to lower your electric bills in CA? Learn how to choose the plan with the best energy rates in California to bring down your energy costs.

www.ecowatch.com

or

Compare Electricity Rates by State (2024 Energy Suppliers)

Are you overpaying for electricity? Click to compare the best electricity rates in America and learn more about how to choose your own energy provider.

www.ecowatch.com

"Energy deregulation increases competition in the industry, which drives down prices and provides you with more options for sourcing your electricity. According to the Energy Information Administration (EIA), the average cost per kWh in California is 26.71 cents, which is far above the national average and second-most expensive after Hawaii.1 However, you could pay anywhere from 8.27 cents to 65.46 cents per kWh, depending on which supplier you select."

 

[Hedges]

Some people pay over .65!

Perverse. Just like Hwy17 said.