The shocking cost of Electricity

[Dzl]

In my country, you have no right to store "fluids" (meaning hot water you could produce with solar during the day, used at night for heating the house for example).

Weird, what country are you in, and what is the justification? Are you not allowed to have hot water heaters or radiant floor heating? Seems pretty hard to enforce.

in some, included USA, you could have situation where it is forbidden to be off-grid, so your are obliged to pay the tax, even if your local production cover all your needs and even more.

This is often true and it irritates me, but in the cases I'm aware of, this has to do with local and regional building codes and city ordinances, and overbearing planning departments. Though I wouldn't be surprised to learn there that there is pressure or lobbying by the utilities companies to mandate grid connection.

 

[Dzl]

I heard on a podcast the other day that California is going to start taxing the watts that solar users input to the grid. Insane.

I tend to agree with @downshifter,

Maybe some wires got crossed. This sounded too crazy so I googled "california tax on solar sold to utility" and this is what I found:
"California passes law that prevents cities from taxing energy generated by solar rooftop projects"

California passes law that prevents cities from taxing energy generated by solar rooftop projects

California Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law last week financial protections for consumer investments in rooftop solar energy. The law, AB 1208

www.solarpowerworldonline.com

The exact opposite of taxing solar. So there are a lot of podcasters out there that are much crazier than the government, and they have a strong incentive to be that way because crazy sells -- just look at Alex Jones.

in this day and age youtubers, podcasters, and pundits make money off hyperbole and making things sound more extreme and righteous and black and white than they truly are.

Can you point to an actual law, or a reputable source reporting on this?

I spent about 10 minutes searching and couldn't come find any indication that this is the case (but sometimes my google skills are lacking). Many a podcaster has got rich reporting on the supposed laws of California to out of staters who don't know any better and love to hate on the state, more often then not its just hyperbole and misinformation sometimes with a seed of truth sometimes totally fabricated (That's not to say we don't pass some silly legislation from time to time). As an example, my great uncle was absolutely convinced that California had outlawed gender pronouns, and that California had straight up banned straws.

 

[rjbuckley]

I never thought of it before, but being grid-tied is a bit like socialism. Somebody else is getting the benefit of our investment, and we are not adequately compensated or possibly taxed? the Outback Skybox can give me the best of both worlds, but it's a little pricey. Battery and Grid, no selling.

 

[svetz]

Regardless of where you live, it's easy to see that as more people go energy independent (or grid-tied) fewer are paying to support the utilities and they lose their economy of scale (most have guaranteed investor returns no matter how mismanaged). As battery prices fall this trend will rapidly escalate as more become energy independent.

In a free market, public utilities would just increase the costs to their subscribers to make up the difference. Unfortunately, those non-energy-independent can't bear the costs so government must step in with a tax to subsidize the utility and the energy-independent homes will have to bare that cost. That's what we're seeing in a lot of countries today.

 

[svetz]

At some point, it will be cheaper to just give non-independent homes systems rather than to sustain a "public" utility and the taxes and the situation will correct itself. But utilities are a sweet deal now, so expect a lot of fighting to make that stretch out as much as possible.

In a way, the market place is already moving that way in the US at least. For example, I buy power from FKEC. They don't generate power themselves, they buy it from FPL. What they do is to maintain the local lines. In some areas, consumers have a choice of who they buy power from. Competition is good, ideally we all want to go with the power distribution company that figures out the optimal way to deliver power (e.g., best performance and lowest price) rather than someone with guarantees and has no motive to improve. I also think it makes sense to keep local energy co-ops like FKEC to handle extended periods of inclement weather.

 

[nosys70]

if you can make sure the extra money you pay is really going to line maintenance.
i think many companies are just letting the network collapse (fires in Califormia ?) until they really had to do something.
Then they can claim they need more money or sale the company.

 

[Dzl]

if you can make sure the extra money you pay is really going to line maintenance.
i think many companies are just letting the network collapse (fires in Califormia ?) until they really had to do something.
Then they can claim they need more money or sale the company.

its not a binary thing, think of the massive scale of a power grid in a state the size of California. It can be simultaneously true that PGE is spending massive amounts on maintaining and building out the grid (which they do) and still be true that they are not spending as much as they should (which may be true).

One thing that is often overlooked is the fact that with grid tied one of the primary benefits is that you can pull from the grid when your panels aren't producing (saving you the cost of expensive batteries), meaning most grid tied solar users are still dependent on the grid and grid delivered power (often at peak times), and that utility companies still have to design for this peak demand. Paying only for grid maintenance still wouldn't be fair, as the utilities still have to budget for you being a consumer not a producer at peak evening demand time, and throughout the night.