Yep, they are all different for sure. With 12 kW solar system I would have to sell back enough excess to offset the $23/mo meter charge + $60/mo so;ar charge to end up net zero. The $60 is to penalize the solar customer for the customers that aren't solar. That being said, I have no idea how to calculate my excess power per month to even know if I can end up net zero. I think that is realistically doable. The wrench in the whole thing is that they can change the rules we play by at any time. It's definately a risk but is it a risk worth taking?
I don't see it as penalizing solar customers.
Thats why distribution rates (especially in rural areas) are so much more per kwh than generation.
Look at the miles of power lines, millions of poles that need periodic maintenance, and all the employees, linemen, etc it takes to distribute. All the transformers, meters, etc etc. The distribution side is indeed a HUGE cost of our electrical grid
I agree.
This is why a power bill has two basic parts; one part is the electricity that you use, and utilities charge us the generation cost plus a little markup to cover the vagaries of changing power costs over time. Fine.
The second part of the bill is all the fixed costs associated with actually getting the power from the various places that is generated to us. That's wires, poles, towers, transformers, switches, and all of the costs of the employees to run the organization.
Even if you generate solar to cover most or all of your bills over the year, chances are that some moments you are sending power to the grid, and some moments you are taking it from the grid. For us, we are net exporters March through October, and net importers the rest of the year. At the end of the year, we are net exporters, but the payment is at close to wholesale generation rates, and less all the meter fees and certain fees not directly canceled by our exports. We have a local electrical storage system, so we actually draw nothing from the grid from March through October, but that is an unusual setup at the moment. With more electric vehicles capable of vehicle to home or vehicle to grid, it will become more common.
In the big picture, we effectively use the grid as a battery storing our summer excess for winter use.
Personally, I think it is fair for the utility to charge us for use of the grid, aka all of the part two charges above. It is often billed as meter fees, distribution fees, etc. Historically, it didn't really matter how the fees were constructed, and by making the fees per kWh, it was actually a progressive tax on the biggest users, who subsidized small users. Widespread solar is disrupting that because the per kWh billing of distribution fees breaks down. I see utilities across the world scrambling to figure out a solar compatible fee structure and at the moment it isn't quite chaos, nor exactly the Wild West, but it is unsettled and evolving.
I think that the utilities would be well served to have a fixed monthly fee for grid access, and it will be required to be connected to the grid, so that there aren't a small remaining pool of customers paying for the whole grid. I think that the uproar a single fee would generate means that there are going to be a couple tiers based on something (total import level, income, usage at peak TOU, size of your meter, etc.). It will be interesting for sure, and being large utilities that are all government regulated, I think that change will take time, a long time.
FWIW: our system was paid off in 5.5 years, though at installation the ROI timeline was 7 years. That counts not just the cost of the system against the utility bills, but also the return on investment for the funds had they been invested elsewhere. California's energy costs are high. Some might say crazy high. That has made installing solar an easy decision, even for those who financed it. With rising interest rates, but with rising inflation, and rising utility costs, I think that the decision is complex these days.
All the best,
Peter
