They pushed solar here for a while with incentives... paid for by those of us who didn't jump on the bandwagon. The results far exceeded their goals. Now some are upset because incentives have ended.
That sounds like Holland...
Government intervened in the free market by forcing energy companies to take excess solar into the grid, for the same price as they sell it to you. Because theres all sorts of taxes and excise and grid use costs in the net price of energy, this was a bad deal for energy companies.
Meanwhile, some people thought they would get filthy rich from putting as much solar as their roofs could carry.
Now the law has changed, the mandatory price the energy company has to pay for your backfeed is gradually diminished, and companies charge a backfeed fee.
And now, those dumbasses that thought the energy company would make them rich on their surplus solar, are angry at the energy companies, saying big business is screwing them over.
I have given up explaining that when you buy a winter coat in August, you cannot expect the store to buy it back from you in May when you dont need it, for the same price: The store has storage, transport and inventory costs to store that coat for you, they have to earn some cash for the service they provide, which is keeping electric power available at all times at a constant voltage, irrespective of demand.
So many people are clueless about the jumps the grid managers have to make to keep the voltage from getting out of hand when everyone starts backfeeding into the grid, risking to fry delicate electronics...
When the voltage runs too high, the electricity grid company calls the national gas union, they get free electricity to push natural gas into our own depleted gas fields, which are used as strategic storage. It solves a problem for both companies, as the electricity company sometimes doesnt know how to keep the voltage within limits, and the gas company gets their strategic storages filled without causing a blackout.
Because so many people have solar, we are now paying not for energy itself, but for the service of maintaining a stable grid voltage by adjusting supply and demand.
Efficient plants with a gas turbine coupled to an exaust gas operated steam boiler cannot be adjusted fast enough to the woes of the sun, because these plants only reach their peak efficiency in continuous cycle: So in the evening, these gas turbines are powered up to catch the demand when the sun goes down, and their rest heat boilers arent operational untill its ready to shut them down when the sun goes up again.
The bottom line is that we arent saving any Co2 emissions at all, because less efficient gas turbines run standby mode to pick up the slack.
