What's so bad about selling to utility wholesale?

[Hedges]

In this state with the utility companies here, you are limited to 80% of yearly usage when installing grid tie.

Early 2000's in California, I was limited to 200% (for CEC rebate).
I left the pool pump running continuously for a month, sent in that bill.

 

[Zwy]

Early 2000's in California, I was limited to 200% (for CEC rebate).
I left the pool pump running continuously for a month, sent in that bill.

When I checked on grid tie, they pulled usage up from several years and ran an average per year.

You would have to run the pool pump a long time.........

 

[1201]

Dump loads, after that who cares. We increased our electric consumption since installing an off grid system. I have choices to shift to alternatives that are dump loads. Every Kwh I can use for dump load is that much quicker payback. My house has been running off grid with utility power turned off.

In this state with the utility companies here, you are limited to 80% of yearly usage when installing grid tie. If you use 20Mwh, then you are limited to producing 16Mwh. At any time your bank is more than 2000Kwh, they get the power for free unless you have a commercial sell agreement but those all were eliminated in the last few years as power generators went with wind.

You can install grid tie sell, however you don't control the rules and those rules can change at any time to your detriment.

You can do dump loads and load shifting and still be grid tied, and then get paid some for the excess. Also is there any rule saying you can't be grid tied and have a separate off grid system?

 

[Zwy]

You can do dump loads and load shifting and still be grid tied, and then get paid some for the excess.

It is better to use that energy as the cost is basically free and you are replacing energy that carries a cost higher than what it costs for solar production.

In order to get a commercial sell agreement, they usually want either a large amount of power or one that is fairly constant.

Also is there any rule saying you can't be grid tied and have a separate off grid system?

I don't see the advantage. My brother has a 17.5Kw wind generator. He sold excess for $0.10Kwh after jumping thru all the hoops to get connected. Utility required licensed electrician install, upgrades on service panel and transformer and special liability coverage insurance. He was able to sell for about 2 years, utility coop merged with another and all the prior agreements thrown out. Net meter only and they did pay some at true up in March. Limits were put in on how large you could bank excess. He now runs the generator to build the bank, then locks it down until he runs the bank back down. Now the rules are changing again, they want the excess for free. Eventually they will have customers with grid tie and will reduce the bank size to almost nothing. It will take a long time for someone like my brother to get his money back.

Farmers around here are pissed, many installed large systems to build a bank for times of high usage such as harvest. With the latest rule changes, that large grid bank isn't allowed and they will be giving power away for free and buying power when they need it at full rate. The utility will enter into a sell agreement, then after a few years push you off into net meter with limited bank size. State utility board looks the other way.

After seeing the trend a few years ago, grid tie did not make any sense long term. We don't have the power the utility companies have. They know you will go bankrupt paying legal fees to keep a contract enforced. It is their game and playground but I took my marbles home with me and decided not to play.

 

[Mattb4]

...

Alternatively, let's have a neighborhood collective. Utility gets to charge the neighborhood based on a meter for the transformer feeding us. We allocate the bill amongst ourselves based on individual meters. Utility owns the last 100' of infrastructure, you say? Ok, let's do that for an apartment building or condo complex. Submeter the units, and utility only deals with the net consumption, we share electrons.

Last year after a major hurricane had gone through Florida on the Gulf side many lost power for sometime but there was a large solar powered community that was able to maintain their electrical and it was duly covered on one of the TV news show (60 mins?). How it survived the storm and kept the lights on was newsworthy.

 

[Hedges]

When I checked on grid tie, they pulled usage up from several years and ran an average per year.

You would have to run the pool pump a long time.........

That was then, this is now.

Loopholes change, the game does not.

I didn't get the last laugh, however. I spent $8/W to DIY a 10kW system, got 50% rebate. Over 17 years maybe I received power worth retail about what it cost me, but that was more (expensive) electric than I actually needed. Much of my consumption could have been (inexpensive) gas but because I had surplus electric credits I burned the off with a 10kW duct heater.

What you could do today is install a large grid-tie system with approval, then add more cheap panels of different orientation to get more hours and Wh.
My NEM 2.0 reservations are for SB 7.7 (one or two per system). Apparently that's being obsoleted and replaced with Smart Energy Hybrid, available several sizes including 7.7 and 11.4 kW. I should at least be able to put in same wattage hybrid. I'd rather put in the 11.4 for higher self-consumption and configure it to not export above 7.7kW, but utility's language about same nameplate may disallow that.

For our NEM 2.0 reservations we were free to declare any planned consumption increase, above historical or estimated based on square footage. After all, we are encouraged to go "carbon free." One of the systems I reserved with a single SB 7.7 (so 40A breaker fits 120% rule) but 15kW of PV. PG&E challenged that so I explained neither voltage nor current over limit, and with multiple orientations its peak wattage actually doesn't exceed recommendations.

You may be able to tell them about planned heatpump or EV.

 

[1201]

It is better to use that energy as the cost is basically free and you are replacing energy that carries a cost higher than what it costs for solar production.

In order to get a commercial sell agreement, they usually want either a large amount of power or one that is fairly constant.

Does it cost you additional to tie into the grid? How much of your energy use does solar offset? If you are offsetting a large portion in the summer then in the shoulder months, no amount of dump load is going to cover all your generation so you are throwing solar away. So if it doesn't cost you more to be grid tied, that excess solar that would have been thrown away, would be bought by the utility and you would save even more money.

Bring grid tied does not prevent load management. What it prevents is strobe lights, ac soft starts, worrying about starting your well pump ,lots of money into batteries, etc etc ad nauseam.

 

[svetz]

 

[Hedges]

Bring grid tied does not prevent load management. What it prevents is strobe lights, ac soft starts, worrying about starting your well pump ,lots of money into batteries, etc etc ad nauseam.

And having a grid-tied battery in addition can provider further benefit, while retaining those.

I'd rather keep 100% net metering, help reduce burning of fossil fuels, reduce air pollution in poor neighborhoods where power plants are often located, relieve the utility of having to upgrade their infrastructure as much.

But if push comes to shove, I'll install a battery due to change in credits and hoard my own power. Works out the same to me (for one-day's storage, not seasonal) and costs me capital. PG&E and poor people won't see any benefit from this, Tesla or other battery vendors will. More money spent, no net benefit achieved but detrimental effects of new regulations mitigated.

Well, one benefit for PG&E: They get to buy power wholesale from fossil fuel peaker plants in poor neighborhoods, and sell it for a profit to poor people.

 

[Zapper77]

Perhaps. I was never a fan of forcing the utilities (which meant all the customers not using solar grid tie) to subsidize the grid tie industry. For all I care they could charge folks that want to grid tie instead of paying them. Imagine how that would change the payout calculations?

That's how my provider does it. $10 for a second meter, charge a manual billing fee, they pay solar customers 0 cents per kWh and they are trying to get PUC to approve a 6-12 cent per kWh infrastructure charge for residential solar (that they buy at 0 cents).

So for every excess kWh that the utility receives they will charge a 6 cent infrastructure fee. I would also pay the same infrastructure charge when using any banked kWh. Their argument is that the infrastructure is required for energy to travel in both directions.

End result if their desired changes are approved by PUC, I would pay 12 cents for each kWh of banked energy, a $10 2nd meter fee and a $3 manual billing fee.

 

[1201]

At that

That's how my provider does it. $10 for a second meter, charge a manual billing fee, they pay solar customers 0 cents per kWh and they are trying to get PUC to approve a 6-12 cent per kWh infrastructure charge for residential solar (that they buy at 0 cents).

So for every excess kWh that the utility receives they will charge a 6 cent infrastructure fee. I would also pay the same infrastructure charge when using any banked kWh. Their argument is that the infrastructure is required for energy to travel in both directions.

End result if their desired changes are approved by PUC, I would pay 12 cents for each kWh of banked energy, a $10 2nd meter fee and a $3 manual billing fee.

Darn. That's rough. I wouldn't even consider grid tied in that scenario.

 

[1201]

And having a grid-tied battery in addition can provider further benefit, while retaining those.

I'd rather keep 100% net metering, help reduce burning of fossil fuels, reduce air pollution in poor neighborhoods where power plants are often located, relieve the utility of having to upgrade their infrastructure as much.

But if push comes to shove, I'll install a battery due to change in credits and hoard my own power. Works out the same to me (for one-day's storage, not seasonal) and costs me capital. PG&E and poor people won't see any benefit from this, Tesla or other battery vendors will. More money spent, no net benefit achieved but detrimental effects of new regulations mitigated.

Well, one benefit for PG&E: They get to buy power wholesale from fossil fuel peaker plants in poor neighborhoods, and sell it for a profit to poor people.

Yes. For my use case, it makes sense to have a small battery for backup purposes and to self consume more of my production, but it's half or a third of the size it would be if I don't grid tie

 

[sunsurfer]

Brilliant plan really. Get everyone on board with grid storage and hype the no monthly power bill then change the rules in your favor.

Wash, rinse, repeat. Same old scams.

 

[wattmatters]

You can already do this in Australia. There is one energy retailer, Amber Electric, which provides a wholesale price pass through plan. They then add a fixed monthly fee of A$15.

The billing is then a direct pass through of all the network, distribution and other grid connection costs plus the spot wholesale price of the energy traded during each interval.

If you have grid-tied PV only, then you'd be completely nuts to do such a thing as for large chunks of time the spot wholesale price during solar PV production hours is lower than the standard feed-in tariff or even quite negative. IOW you can be charged to export. If you can prevent your system from exporting and have large dump loads, and if the spot price is negative enough to offset all the network charges then you can be paid to import.

For grid-tied PV the primary benefit is through reducing grid imports. We do get credit for exports but that is at a much lower rate akin to the average wholesale price during the day, since all the network costs are applied to imports, not exports.

In reality this sort of wholesale pass through plan is only feasible if you have a grid tied battery which can be programmed to export at times the grid wholesale price is high enough to be worthwhile, or import when it is worthwhile. You won't be doing this with a DIY system here, it would need to be installed by accredited installer. We also have export power limits so there is a cap.

I did a detailed model based on my 5-minute interval data and it was clear I would have much higher bills using such a plan. Meanwhile the costs of installing a grid-tied battery are stupidly high and mean the chances it makes for a rational financial choice are slim. There are a handful of people who are able to program their battery to respond to grid price forecast data, but even that is fraught due to the disconnect between forecast and actual, and the difference between system intervals (5-min) and residential retail intervals (30-min).

 

[Zwy]

At that

Darn. That's rough. I wouldn't even consider grid tied in that scenario.

I'm quite certain that is the direction everything is heading for grid tie. Someone here stated recently this is year grid tie dies, it probably is a correct assessment.

Legislation mandated alternative energy and caught utilities off guard, so they offered sweet deals in order to get compliant while building the infrastructure to force grid tie out and also lobbied for the government handouts to do it. I'm in an area with wind farms already and currently another 66 towers are going up within 15 miles of me with another 100 or so in next few years. Big money is getting involved and will stomp out the little guy.

 

[1201]

I'm quite certain that is the direction everything is heading for grid tie. Someone here stated recently this is year grid tie dies, it probably is a correct assessment.

Legislation mandated alternative energy and caught utilities off guard, so they offered sweet deals in order to get compliant while building the infrastructure to force grid tie out and also lobbied for the government handouts to do it. I'm in an area with wind farms already and currently another 66 towers are going up within 15 miles of me with another 100 or so in next few years. Big money is getting involved and will stomp out the little guy.

Net metering is pretty much dead this year but grid tie is not, and afaik the utilities must pay at least avoided costs . Of course as solar proliferates, avoided costs will trend lower but battery prices will also trend lower, making it easier to self consume 100%

 

[Zwy]

Net metering is pretty much dead this year but grid tie is not,

So if they change the rules where grid tie is now a case of 2:1 it still isn't dead? Or 3:1? 4:1?

Utilities don't want to be your battery anymore, they will get the rules changed for their advantage.

and afaik the utilities must pay at least avoided costs

That is not occurring in this state. Letters went out recently with one local coop utility where any excess still available at true up in March will not be paid out.

. Of course as solar proliferates, avoided costs will trend lower but battery prices will also trend lower, making it easier to self consume 100%

Possibly or we could actually be in the golden age when it comes to PV systems with batteries, especially with DIY. It doesn't take much to convince sheep they need to put in regulations to "protect" the sheep from themselves by enacting and enforcing battery regulations.

If you believe otherwise, you are being naive. Those with the big money are entering the arena and they will get what "they want".

One of the major reasons I installed my off grid house system now was after successfully installing a system on my truck camper, I could see there is a strong possibility that not only energy costs will rise, but because there is shift to alternative energy. Wall Street (and others including politicians) stand to rape your pocketbook one way or the other. They will do this with increased regulation, oversight and enforcement to push the little guy out and only have "approved" systems installed, which of course, they have an interest in and will gain financially. Another aspect is control of the populace, essentially as long the government can control your energy generation and your finances, they own you and you are a slave to government and will do as they tell you to do.

 

[1201]

So if they change the rules where grid tie is now a case of 2:1 it still isn't dead? Or 3:1? 4:1?

Utilities don't want to be your battery anymore, they will get the rules changed for their advantage.

That is not occurring in this state. Letters went out recently with one local coop utility where any excess still available at true up in March will not be paid out.

Possibly or we could actually be in the golden age when it comes to PV systems with batteries, especially with DIY. It doesn't take much to convince sheep they need to put in regulations to "protect" the sheep from themselves by enacting and enforcing battery regulations.

If you believe otherwise, you are being naive. Those with the big money are entering the arena and they will get what "they want".

One of the major reasons I installed my off grid house system now was after successfully installing a system on my truck camper, I could see there is a strong possibility that not only energy costs will rise, but because there is shift to alternative energy. Wall Street (and others including politicians) stand to rape your pocketbook one way or the other. They will do this with increased regulation, oversight and enforcement to push the little guy out and only have "approved" systems installed, which of course, they have an interest in and will gain financially. Another aspect is control of the populace, essentially as long the government can control your energy generation and your finances, they own you and you are a slave to government and will do as they tell you to do.

Lots of ifs and doomsday predictions here.

If the government wants your solar panels they will come and take those too, no?

 

[Zwy]

Does it cost you additional to tie into the grid?

Yes. My brother's windtower is a prime example. It was done about 10 years ago and NEC code was probably 2008 yet still in this state but the state did increase the State Fire Marshall department to now include inspectors. Requirements of the utility were any electrical interconnection was by a licensed electrician (our cousin was at the time), had to be inspected, he paid for an upgrade to service and the special liability policy which he is still paying for today.

I installed my off grid system myself, I didn't need to upgrade the service or hire a licensed electrician, didn't need any permits and I don't need ongoing costs of a special liability policy.

How much of your energy use does solar offset?

My house is 100% run off grid. The only time I switch to utility is when I need to work on the system which is rare once I installed the LV6548's that replaced the EG4 version. If I didn't have the utility, I could easily use a generator for those short periods.

The property has electrical service to other buildings.

If you are offsetting a large portion in the summer then in the shoulder months, no amount of dump load is going to cover all your generation so you are throwing solar away.

Right now I am using all I'm generating and just get to 100% SOC some days about the time the sun is NW of the array.

But I'm only using half of the array. I could use the shop as a dump load for the other half, the air conditioning in there takes a huge amount of power for some reason.

If you are so obsessed with every Kwh an array can produce, you should go to the direct DC mini split threads where the members install a large array to power a mini split and leave yield potential unharvested...........

So if it doesn't cost you more to be grid tied,

But it does cost more to be grid tied.

that excess solar that would have been thrown away, would be bought by the utility and you would save even more money.

Like I said, I can always divert to other uses. It isn't hard for me to do so.

Bring grid tied does not prevent load management. What it prevents is strobe lights, ac soft starts, worrying about starting your well pump ,lots of money into batteries, etc etc ad nauseam.

My well starts fine, large battery bank and inverters that can run it. No more strobe lights after installing the LV6548's. We live normally other than not running very large draws at the same time such as electric dryer with microwave, washing machine and dishwasher all at the same time. https://diysolarforum.com/threads/yeee-haaa…-finally-….64836/post-811088

Battery cost is $0.02/Kwh. That's easily recovered compared to the utility getting free Kwh.

 

[Zwy]

Lots of ifs and doomsday predictions here.

No ifs about it, they want control in order to profit from it. It's all about "the money".

If the government wants your solar panels they will come and take those too, no?

They sure can, make it illegal to generate your own power.

But first they have to get thru the concertina wire, then the minefields and the booby trapped mustard gas system. Nevermind the mortar fire raining down on them in the approach.

 

[1201]

They sure can, make it illegal to generate your own power.

But first they have to get thru the concertina wire, then the minefields and the booby trapped mustard gas system. Nevermind the mortar fire raining down on them in the approach.

Ahhh. The illusion of security.

 

[LydMekk]

@Zwy:

I play in my head with setting up 4 automated guard towers in on my property with double .50 cal in each tower all controlled with an AI in my basement ^^. SAMs in dug down bunkers around the plot.
/drool... :D :D

 

[wattmatters]

Grid tied net metering here in Australia exports to the grid earn a credit valued at about 1/5th to 1/8th of the import tariff. Even so people can't get solar PV up fast enough because it's not exports they are concerned with, it's reducing their imports. And it still recovers its cost inside 5 years.

 

[1201]

Grid tied net metering here in Australia exports to the grid earn a credit valued at about 1/5th to 1/8th of the import tariff. Even so people can't get solar PV up fast enough because it's not exports they are concerned with, it's reducing their imports. And it still recovers its cost inside 5 years.

5 year cost recovery is great. So do people close grid tied or off grid systems?

 

[Hedges]

At that

Darn. That's rough. I wouldn't even consider grid tied in that scenario.

So you hadn't heard about the Photon Tax?

I suggested we should similarly be charged for raindrops that fall on our heads. It's unfair! Rich people get to have their large yards watered by the gods of the heavens, but poor people who live in apartments without yards have to buy water for their potted plants. And rich people still use the infrastructure poor people pay for, when the rains don't come.

So if they change the rules where grid tie is now a case of 2:1 it still isn't dead? Or 3:1? 4:1?

I'm happy with 2:1 or 3:1
GT PV costs me $0.03/kWh, and cheapest batteries I know of are $0.05/kWh (plus an inverter).
If less than 1:1 is still as economical as batteries might eventually reach, but requires zero capital, I'll take it.

Battery cost is $0.02/Kwh. That's easily recovered compared to the utility getting free Kwh.

Less than half my estimate, which is based on either server rack claimed 6000 cycles or individual cells 3000 cycles. I guess if you do get 6000 cycles from home-built battery.

But given the track record from 3rd party cycle tests, only 5% of assembled battery brands reached spec life; all others failed long before.
So I wouldn't bet on more than 25% of claimed life.

But first they have to get thru the concertina wire, then the minefields and the booby trapped mustard gas system. Nevermind the mortar fire raining down on them in the approach.

And finally electrified PV frames. May I suggest 480Vrms?