What ist your span between buying and selling electrical power?

[rin67630]

Here in Germany Northrhine-Westphalia, electrical power is sold to 0.33 € per KWh and bought back to only 0,07€ per KWh.
All are fixed prices, not load or time dependent.
I find the huge span to be a bit abusive isn't it?
Because my exported power will be immediately fed to my neighbours, who pays it full price !

And on the top of it, should you feed-back more than 1000KWh a year, you have to pay income taxes on your ridiculously low "sales", irrespective of the quantity of power that you have consumed (on which you have to pay taxes + VAT as well)

How does it look for you in your region?

 

[Ozark Tinkering]

Here in northern Arkansas I'm paying $.10 and being paid $.10 ...sounds like you are getting bent over.

 

[sunshine]

Here in Germany Northrhine-Westphalia, electrical power is sold to 0.33 € per KWh and bought back to only 0,07€ per KWh.

Imagine how the Sun feels.....giving it out for free and you selling it for 0.07!

Similar all around the world with the size of the margin being determined by the political leaning of those setting the price. It has little relevancy to actual market forces and energy is usually only a small % of the price we pay to a retailer.

 

[timselectric]

In my area the utilities company charges $ 0.17 and pays $ 0.11 (as a credit to be applied to future use)
But, they're trying to lower it constantly.
It doesn't matter to me. Because I'm not giving them any of my electricity, and I don't want any of theirs.

 

[wattmatters]

It's possible (but I do not know) that in Germany the way the costs for supply of electrical energy are charged is similar to Australia.

Here the cost of retail electrical energy you purchase is made up of:
- the cost of the energy generation
- the cost of transmission and the distribution network
- the cost of the management of the network and market(s)
- the cost of carbon (if any)
- the cost of taxes (general consumption tax)
- profit margin (which ain't large here, it's a pretty heavily regulated sector)

In Australia the cost of energy generation only makes up about 25-30% of the total retail price of energy purchased from the grid. The biggest cost components are the transmission and distribution costs.

In Australia, all the above costs are included in the price of electrical energy you purchase, but most not all applicable to any energy you sell back to the grid. If they were, then yes you might be paid a similar price for exported energy as you pay to import it but you would also be expected to pay for all the other costs such as access to the transmission network as well as all the other charges, and ultimately what you would receive is just the generation value of the energy.

As a variable generator/supplier of energy to the grid, your energy is worth about the same as the spot wholesale electricity price in the market, and the daytime wholesale spot price at that. That's what the retailer would normally pay for it. When a retailer charges a customer here for energy, out of that the retailer then has to pay for all of the other costs to the transmission network providers, govt etc. Those charges don't apply to energy they purchase (IOW those tolls only apply in one direction, and are measured on the retail meter import register).

Most people on retail electricity supply contracts don't of course receive the variable spot price for their exports, much like they don't pay the spot price for energy they import (although there are some plans where this is possible if you so choose).

Retailers smooth out their export tariff in the same way they do for energy you import from the grid.

As a rule of thumb, export tariffs here are going to be about 1/3 to 1/4 of the import tariff. Often lower because daytime energy here is typically abundant (lots of solar PV) and is cheaper than say energy in the evening when supply is more reliant on more expensive fossil fuel generation.

 

[BentleyJ]

In the Peoples Republic of Southern California we are paying $0.27 per KWh for Tier 1 Base Line usage, and get 1:1 NET metering credit for excess electricity that can be used at night or later during the 12 month billing period. But if you do have excess production for the month it triggers a minimum $10 charge. Here is the real disincentive, any excess production at the end of the year accumulation cycle is purchased for 3 cents per KWh. Total rip off. At this time most customers are being transitioned to Time-of-Use metering. Summer rates from 5pm to 8pm weekdays is 66 cents per KWh and rates at other times of the day are 30+ cents per KWh.

 

[Maitake]

No business can buy retail and sell retail. The power company is a business.
PV solar wholesales in the USA for about 3-4 cents/kwh.
If you don't like selling cheap to them stop selling. If you don't like buying from them stop buying. You know how.

 

[45North]

In the early days of solar people were paid a preferential rate to encourage green power generation.

 

[45North]

But as the market matured the rates were reduced to reflect the actual costs of the power production and the distribution infrastructure which still had to be available for everyone. In some countries the market for grid tied solar is saturated so they're not buying ANY!

 

[timselectric]

Residential solar production is a hassle for the grid. It comes at the wrong time of day.

 

[wattmatters]

In the early days of solar people were paid a preferential rate to encourage green power generation.

As was the case here in Australia. But these were/are subsidies funded by governments.

No such scheme has existed for new entrants since FY 2016/17. Some people are still receiving their preferential feed in tariff for the few remaining schemes which haven't yet reached their sunset date. But they represent a small minority of solar PV systems, are are typically smaller PV systems (~2-5 kW).

In Australia over the past 3 years FITs have gradually declined as the wholesale value of daytime energy has declined. There has been a short term pick up in prices this year and FITs may go back up a little. In future it will be a bit up and down depending on how smoothly the fossil fuel generation fleet is retired and replaced with renewable energy sources.

The annual average weighted wholesale price for rooftop solar PV in the National Electricity Market in Australia in recent years has been:

Year    FIT ($A) 
2017    10.8 c/kWh
2018     8.8 c/kWh
2019     7.7 c/kWh
2020     4.2 c/kWh
2021     2.9 c/kWh
2022YTD  8.3 c/kWh

Source: OpenNEM.org.au

 

[wattmatters]

Residential solar production is a hassle for the grid. It comes at the wrong time of day.

That very much depends on the nature of the grid. For the most part it is welcome here and indeed without it we'd be in some deep do do.

 

[Ampster]

I have been on TOU rates for ten years with solar in California. Earlier I was being paid $0.50 per kWh for most of my generation and buying it back for $0.13 to charge my EVs. Those days are gone. The rate differentials are narrower and the peak rate time period has been reduce to 5PM until 9PM when only a little solar production takes place in the summer. In addition I now pay $0.025 per kWh to buy back the energy I stored on the grid. Needless to say, my philosophy has changed and I have invested in batteries so I can self consume most of the solar I produce. I now charge my EVs from solar produced during the day to avoid the tax on using the grid as a battery. Nevertheless I installed solar on a home I purchased a year ago and it is still a good hedge against increased cost of energy.

 

[timselectric]

I'm all for solar. Just not grid tied.
I make what I need.

 

[Shimmy]

I'm all for solar. Just not grid tied.
I make what I need.

Problem is if your demand does not follow generation you end up with a lot of excess unused capacity. It's a shame to not put that to good use.

 

[time2roll]

So far in California USA with Southern California Edison the price to buy and sell is the same. Although I do have time of use and I make an effort to use less in the afternoon when price is high. Some is sold at the high price but not as much as it used to be. The one for one exchange is only good for net users. Net production in excess of use at the end of a year is paid at much lower wholesale rates. I am a net consumer.

In the OP example those look like typical wholesale vs retail rates in my area also. Utility scale power is close to 7 cents USD per kWh and the retail price of 33 cents USD per kWh. Although half of the retail rate is for transmission charges... not just energy.

Regulators are battling to balance the needs of the utilities and the home solar producers. Rates could change soon.

 

[PeSCaLo]

It comes at the wrong time of day.

Unless your an Office building.. It would be perfect timing

 

[rin67630]

No business can buy retail and sell retail. The power company is a business.
PV solar wholesales in the USA for about 3-4 cents/kwh.
If you don't like selling cheap to them stop selling. If you don't like buying from them stop buying. You know how.

I perfectly know that. I just wanted to know which rates other utilities apply. Not more. Just for my own information.

Personally I have stopped selling solar energy at these prices because the ROI for my small guerilla hardware would have been 27 years.
I have a very tiny steady base consumption, so my rate of own use is minimal, around 5%
When I use power, it overshoots my own production >10 times, the rest of the time, either I don't produce anything relevant, or on sunny days it flows into the grid for peanuts.

Your mileage varies, of course.
P.S. the wholesales power prices vary in Europe pretty heftily, to peak production times, the price can even be negative !

 

[rin67630]

Problem is if your demand does not follow generation you end up with a lot of excess unused capacity. It's a shame to not put that to good use.

That is precisely, what i am considering for the next project: an optimizer to adjust (within limits) the power consumption to the own generation.
One can switch ones laundry or dish washing on to times, where solar power is available, the fridge can be stopped for a couple of hours while these are running without consequences, water heating as well...
So try to spread the household consumption over the day to avoid peaks and hence maximize the rate of own usage?
What about that concept?

 

[wattmatters]

So try to spread the household consumption over the day to avoid peaks and hence maximize the rate of own usage?
What about that concept?

It is a normal strategy to move as much discretionary consumption to solar production hours, and for the rest of the time to either use stored energy or buy from the grid, whichever makes economic sense where you happen to live.

Here storing energy in a battery isn't economic compared with importing from the grid, but solar PV most definitely is. Which is why 3 million homes have rooftop PV but very few have home batteries.

I recently installed a smart solar PV diverter for our hot water storage system. It monitors solar PV production and diverts only the available power so as not to import from the grid. Most appliances are operated during the daytime. One can also use daytime energy production to pre-heat or pre-cool their home, like a thermal battery, so that imports from the grid can be avoided, or at least reduced during peak tariff periods.