Electric company not going to be happy :)

[Overtaxed]

Actually, the electric company WANTS you to do solar and sell it to them. Their other option is to build a new power plant. That is not an option they want. It is much cheaper for you to build the power plant and sell them electricity. Yet, IDK why they make selling solar power so difficult, they are greedy and trying to take all they can take and show no gratitude.

Only if you sell it below the rate that they can produce it themselves. And with solar, they can produce power really, really cheap during the day. You see 11c/KWH (or whatever you pay); during the day, when their panels are producing, the cost to create that electric trends much closer to 0 than 11c.

What the power company would really like is for you to put in a massive battery and sell to them at wholesale rates overnight. That's where they actually are paying $$ for generation. Also happens to be entirely uneconomic to do that, hence the reason they aren't doing much of it themselves.

 

[rpdom]

Only if you sell it below the rate that they can produce it themselves. And with solar, they can produce power really, really cheap during the day. You see 11c/KWH (or whatever you pay); during the day, when their panels are producing, the cost to create that electric trends much closer to 0 than 11c.

What the power company would really like is for you to put in a massive battery and sell to them at wholesale rates overnight. That's where they actually are paying $$ for generation. Also happens to be entirely uneconomic to do that, hence the reason they aren't doing much of it themselves.

I get a fixed £0.15 ($0.19) per kWh exported. My import price varies half-hourly based on market rates. If I wanted to cheat my supplier I could fill my batteries on one of the really cheap nights (£0.05 to £-0.10 /kWh), then export it back, then charge again. Ok, I would only make a $1 or so on a good night, but I don't think there's anything in the T&Cs against it, and it would cut my monthly bill even further.

 

[Overtaxed]

I get a fixed £0.15 ($0.19) per kWh exported. My import price varies half-hourly based on market rates. If I wanted to cheat my supplier I could fill my batteries on one of the really cheap nights (£0.05 to £-0.10 /kWh), then export it back, then charge again. Ok, I would only make a $1 or so on a good night, but I don't think there's anything in the T&Cs against it, and it would cut my monthly bill even further.

You're lucky to have a plan like that. Most of us are looking at export rates far below the cost of consumption. In my case, even without a TOU plan, the cost to import power vs what's paid for exported power is a 5X swing.

What you're proposing would actually help the power company, they'd like to use you as a battery; those are expensive and don't scale well. They have little interest in the power your generate, they can make it cheaper than you/I can themselves, but battery, that's a different story.

 

[0truck0]

They still like you having solar. That reduces demand which means the power generators they have are sufficient. It takes you off the grid. There is a point as customers/demand increases that they will need a new power plant or to expand what they have, and this is not what they want to do. The whole selling power back is a game, but the key take away is that solar on houses reduces demand. In any other industry this would be bad, but here it is good. So many regulations on power companies...

 

[rpdom]

You're lucky to have a plan like that. Most of us are looking at export rates far below the cost of consumption. In my case, even without a TOU plan, the cost to import power vs what's paid for exported power is a 5X swing.

What you're proposing would actually help the power company, they'd like to use you as a battery; those are expensive and don't scale well. They have little interest in the power your generate, they can make it cheaper than you/I can themselves, but battery, that's a different story.

I don't mind them "using" me like that if it saves me money. There are tariffs where I could make more, but due an administrative issue with my meter I can't use those. There are some occasional sessions where the effective export rate is between $3 and $5 per kWh for an hour or so, but I can't use those - yet. I could have saved about $20 last month if I could get that.

 

[rhino]

So this is really odd.. From the utility companies website; why is the utility meter reporting like this? There is only a couple lights on meter still and they are used a little bit every day. And if you add both columns that are grouped together it is always exactly 1kWh.

 

[ksmithaz1]

So this is really odd.. From the utility companies website; why is the utility meter reporting like this? There is only a couple lights on meter still and they are used a little bit every day. And if you add both columns that are grouped together it is always exactly 1kWh.
View attachment 188689

Granularity

 

[mgdean]

And just got bill for last month where they stated they will be raising the base monthly fee from $37 to $43 even if you use no power. On top of that they say the "smart meter" system they were using is no longer being supported so they will spend another $1.2M replacing all of them. If that wasn't enough they are happy the power plant where they get their power from (Minnkota Power) will be implementing a $350M government funded "carbon capture" project near the coal power plant.

Yep that's what just happened to me, went from $30 to $45, just to be connected. The connection fee is currently 3/4 of my expected electric bill this year.

 

[Nobodybusiness]

Yep that's what just happened to me, went from $30 to $45, just to be connected. The connection fee is currently 3/4 of my expected electric bill this year.

Mines been $45 a month for the 3 years I’ve been in this house.