I thought my late nem 2 contract was a good balance of what they paid me for what I sent them. It's not as phat as what Jeff gets though. They mark it all up and resell it without generation cost involved. Pretty good deal for them, sure it's thinner than bare cost, but they dont have to supply the load during the day.
Energy is worth whatever the market is willing to pay for it when it is produced. When you don't have much solar on the grid, that price is driven by, typically, single cycle gas peakers, which will bid in until demand is met. Unlike a gas peaker, solar isn't dispatchable, it's going to generate when it generates and that's highly dependent on the time of year and the weather. On top of that, it's correlated, so it all shows up and disappears at once.
When you have little solar, its value correlates well with those gas peakers. As you add more solar, you drive that value down until you hit your saturation point, where you don't need the gas peakers anymore. Any additional capacity added beyond that point simply drives down the value, because it's surplus. At the same time, you are now creating new peaks: the morning/evening ramp periods, where those same peaker plants now have to run for short periods, and so the value of that generation is very high. Batteries, which are also paid exuberant sums, are replacing some of this capacity currently, but these are now the highest value hours.
Unless PG&E owns the peakers, they aren't paying those generation costs either, it's all handled by the market. It's the contracted solar, which is paid whatever that fixed rate is, that screws the market up, because this stuff is displacing market demand, but isn't bidding in, as it's compensation is being netted out with the consumer after the fact.
On too much solar - I remember when solar wasnt a player in Cali- peak loads were simply at different times. Peak load was 1-4 but they really didnt have the ability to bill TOU then, they resorted to rolling blackouts during high heat days and I remember hollywood going dark multiple times times one summer.
That's still happening, you had rolling blackouts last year or the year before. And yes, with too much solar, now the peaks are at different times, we've just moved them around and made them more costly, because the operator is now compensating for huge volumes of energy being paid retail, which means the volumes being purchased from other plants will be at higher rates. They can demand more due to scarcity, and they need to, because they are being displaced by these NUG's.
Some companies allow arbitrage others do not - you may not be able to "sell after hours" at a higher rate- this is all over the map and not consistent from company to company.
Yes, the lack of consistent and coherent policy in the state is a huge issue, no disagreement from me there.
If I'm to be considered a "generator" why shouldn't I be able to choose to withdraw from the system altogether?
You absolutely should be able to, that's another issue I have with this solar mandate.
No other "generator" is forced into a business with a contract decided by one party.
Feels like Im being forced to pay for the power companies poisoning people and burning whole towns to the ground.
A contract makes sense if you are going to be selling energy into the grid. But you should, as you lament, be able to also sign a contract opting out of that participation.
I wish we had benevolent well run entities here like you have in Canada.
I mean, we had some wind and solar idiocy here in Ontario, and we just got a bit more of it with some new contracts signed for a small amount of wind capacity that's being paid about double what it's worth. I'm hopeful that these contracts don't have curtailment compensation clauses, but those details aren't being disclosed. On the plus side, the solar part of the signing was at an average of 8.7 cents, which, since it will be displacing peaking gas, is pretty darn good.
My router UPS tracks power hits, this is the number of disruptions I've had in the last 15 months. The guys on the ground are awesome.
The guys in the office - not so much.
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I've got a server downtown that's fed from what must be old service and I get event warnings weekly, I've probably had as many, if not more, than you. So that's not a Cali only thing. On the other hand, things are very stable at my house, only a few blocks away
