California slashes residential solar feed-in rates

OVERKILL


What's a 10GW nuke plant cost?
Depends on the unit design, lol. AP1000's SHOULD be cheaper now, with Vogtle basically complete and that experience gained. Probably cheapest is the Korean 1,400MWe units that were just built in the UAE, the Barakah NPP. Despite there never being one built there before, the cost is less than Vogtle for more than double the capacity:

$24.4 billion for 5,380MWe; or, per your query, $48.8 billion for 10,760MWe.
 
Yeah, I understand totally why you'd want that option, I was just pointing out that the math CAN work, even using wholesale pricing.

So, you guys can't go off-grid completely? IIRC, we have some similar regulation here for some locations, but it is not universal.

Nope not in cali, if there is a pole on site you are forced to connect.
Grid defection is illegal - gotta keep those payments coming to pay for everyone else's problems and freebies.
 
Nope not in cali, if there is a pole on site you are forced to connect.
Grid defection is illegal - gotta keep those payments coming to pay for everyone else's problems and freebies.
We apparently don't have that here, so you can go off grid if you want (there may be some local laws that prevent it, but provincially, it's legal).
 
Wow! That I do not know. But it’s for your own good, so that’s OK…🤫

Lets discuss. I have a nem2 contract so the nem3 deal doesn't apply to me but it's worth discussion about whats going to happen.

Shouldn't a capital investment I make benefit me? Or one you make benifit you?

If we continue the discussion from the first page CKN doesn't want to subsidize me - (understandably)

Why should I In turn subsidize him?

Why should I commit my personal capital simply to sell power at 5C so that the power company can mark it up to 40c and sell it to everyone else ?

The power company gets the benefit of cheap daytime power devoid of ANY capital investments to build plants.

They want to take the simultaneous position that my power isnt worth much, but yet they force me to sell it them.

Now they want people to invest in storage for them as well - at some point after me spending all that money - I just dont need them anymore.


I do believe some balance can be struck.
 
Lets discuss. I have a nem2 contract so the nem3 deal doesn't apply to me but it's worth discussion about whats going to happen.

Shouldn't a capital investment I make benefit me? Or one you make benifit you?

If we continue the discussion from the first page CKN doesn't want to subsidize me - (understandably)

Why should I In turn subsidize him?

Why should I commit my personal capital simply to sell power at 5C so that the power company can mark it up to 40c and sell it to everyone else ?

The power company gets the benefit of cheap daytime power devoid of ANY capital investments to build plants.

They want to take the simultaneous position that my power isnt worth much, but yet they force me to sell it them.

Now they want people to invest in storage for them as well - at some point after me spending all that money - I just dont need them anymore.


I do believe some balance can be struck.
The short answer is that it's unreasonable to force you to connect to the grid, that should be a choice as to whether you want to act as a wholesale participant or not.

One point of contention, most ISO's don't own the generating assets producing the power. They (the generators) are contracted resources who participate in the market with the intention of making money. They are typically privately owned, funded by private capital, and what they receive is what their power is worth, regardless of what the energy board, utility or ISO pads that with or how they average it to resell to consumers.

The primary disconnect appears to be that retail customers, who also want to be generators, seem to think that their power is worth more than other wholesale market participants, and this has been promoted by ISO's, utilities and the like, through subsidies, in an effort to increased and encourage solar uptake. So, the elimination or dramatic reduction in these incentives has, understandably, led to confusion and in some cases, outrage, but it's truly just a natural (and long overdue) evolution of the system.

So, ultimately, you should not be forced to participate in the market if you don't want to. But, if you do choose to participate in the market as a generator, you should be compensated just like another other market participant, who has also made a capital investment and are simply looking to make a profit on it, but are at the mercy of what the market pays. Disproportionately over-compensating some market participants beyond what their power is worth; perverting the market system, ultimately just drives up retail rates and system costs, which then burdens everybody else (primarily the retail ratebase).
 
With sparse adoption, the excess from someone's solar will be used immediately at a nearby non-solar house. This power is worth more than at a power plant because there is less loss in the grid. It could sometimes be worth more than the retail rate if it prevents the utility from needing expensive topping sources.

What is to stop someone "forced to connect to the grid" from leaving the circuit breaker open and having the meter stay at zero every month?
 
The short answer is that it's unreasonable to force you to connect to the grid, that should be a choice as to whether you want to act as a wholesale participant or not.

One point of contention, most ISO's don't own the generating assets producing the power. They (the generators) are contracted resources who participate in the market with the intention of making money. They are typically privately owned, funded by private capital, and what they receive is what their power is worth, regardless of what the energy board, utility or ISO pads that with or how they average it to resell to consumers.

The primary disconnect appears to be that retail customers, who also want to be generators, seem to think that their power is worth more than other wholesale market participants, and this has been promoted by ISO's, utilities and the like, through subsidies, in an effort to increased and encourage solar uptake. So, the elimination or dramatic reduction in these incentives has, understandably, led to confusion and in some cases, outrage, but it's truly just a natural (and long overdue) evolution of the system.

So, ultimately, you should not be forced to participate in the market if you don't want to. But, if you do choose to participate in the market as a generator, you should be compensated just like another other market participant, who has also made a capital investment and are simply looking to make a profit on it, but are at the mercy of what the market pays. Disproportionately over-compensating some market participants beyond what their power is worth; perverting the market system, ultimately just drives up retail rates and system costs, which then burdens everybody else (primarily the retail ratebase).

We're aligned.
 
With sparse adoption, the excess from someone's solar will be used immediately at a nearby non-solar house. This power is worth more than at a power plant because there is less loss in the grid. It could sometimes be worth more than the retail rate if it prevents the utility from needing expensive topping sources.
This is reflected in capacity value. At low penetrations, solar has high capacity value. As penetration increases, that value diminishes and once it starts to cut into clean baseload or drive-up high emissions peaker demand, drops off a cliff. This is somewhat reflected in the progression (decline) of these incentives. Early uptake incentives were insane (up to $0.80/kWh up here) declining as time went on and adoption increased. Cali is seeing the same thing with the transitions from NEM1->NEM2->NEM3 with NEM3 basically being just an average of wholesale rates.
What is to stop someone "forced to connect to the grid" from leaving the circuit breaker open and having the meter stay at zero every month?
Other than it being illegal, I assume nothing? I'm not sure if they would send somebody to come check on you if your meter perpetually reported zero to their system, but it's possible I suppose, and then you'd likely be fined.
 
I would venture that everyone that went with solar did so under some sort of expectation of an ROI.

Unfortunately they went dancing with the government. What the government giveth, the government can taketh away. Those are the strings of subsidies and grants.

If you have a contract you are honored to obligate it.

If you went in without - you get what you get.
 
With sparse adoption, the excess from someone's solar will be used immediately at a nearby non-solar house. This power is worth more than at a power plant because there is less loss in the grid. It could sometimes be worth more than the retail rate if it prevents the utility from needing expensive topping sources.

What is to stop someone "forced to connect to the grid" from leaving the circuit breaker open and having the meter stay at zero every month?

What stops that is gear that is designed not to operate unless connected, and or a sign off from an electrician on your config if you want to be covered by your insurance company.

I'm not sure what the escalation of punishment looks like and from whom it heralds.
 
I think these are all short term problems. In the long term, with time of use rate decided by the market, and scheduled appliances like laundry dryer, EV charging, and ice storage based air conditioning, we will be able to let the grid charge EV, dry clothes, freeze and melt ice for AC, to soften the blow and make things stable.

With enough consumption and flexibility of time, production side can be more flexible.
 
I just got a letter from ComED stating with the deregulation of IL energy, I can choose to get my energy from 100% renewables at a cost of $16.30/kWh. Wow.....I pay $0.08/kHw before fees to a tune of $0.16/kWh after fees and taxes (1/2 energy 1/2 delivery.) This month's 255kWh/$40 energy bill would end up being over $4,000. Guess who's not signing that authorization letter?
 
Nope not in cali, if there is a pole on site you are forced to connect.
Grid defection is illegal - gotta keep those payments coming to pay for everyone else's problems and freebies.
You sure about that? I disconnect my meter from PG&E all the time when a house is vacant for a few months. You don't have to pay when you are disconnected during that time.
 
With sparse adoption, the excess from someone's solar will be used immediately at a nearby non-solar house. This power is worth more than at a power plant because there is less loss in the grid. It could sometimes be worth more than the retail rate if it prevents the utility from needing expensive topping sources.

What is to stop someone "forced to connect to the grid" from leaving the circuit breaker open and having the meter stay at zero every month?
A handyman who may or may not show up to work depends on the weather is not someone I would pay a lot for, vs someone I can count on who will always be there when I call, and will often pay a bit more so he can sit around waiting for my work between a few hours of nothing to do.
 
You sure about that? I disconnect my meter from PG&E all the time when a house is vacant for a few months. You don't have to pay when you are disconnected during that time.

Pretty sure.
It's a hot topic with all the solar installers.
I dont suspect anything temporary is an issue.

Id love to hear Im wrong on this as being forced to do anything grates on me.
 
You sure about that? I disconnect my meter from PG&E all the time when a house is vacant for a few months. You don't have to pay when you are disconnected during that time.

Last info I got was - Section 110.10 of the energy code in Cal title 24 is the still the holdup.

It requires you to maintain an "interconnection pathway" if one is available.

IF you arent on grid - you dont have to pay to bring in a pole/line, if you are you have to connect.
 
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