Oklahoma Moves To Discourage Solar and Wind Power 504
Hugh Pickens DOT Com (2995471) writes "Paul Monies reports at NewsOK that Oklahoma's legislature has passed a bill that allows regulated utilities to apply to the Oklahoma Corporation Commission to charge a higher base rate to customers who generate solar and wind energy and send their excess power back into the grid reversing a 1977 law that forbade utilities to charge extra to solar users. 'Renewable energy fed back into the grid is ultimately doing utility companies a service,' says John Aziz. 'Solar generates in the daytime, when demand for electricity is highest, thereby alleviating pressure during peak demand.'
The state's major electric utilities backed the bill but couldn't provide figures on how much customers already using distributed generation are getting subsidized by other customers. Oklahoma Gas and Electric Co. and Public Service Co. of Oklahoma have about 1.3 million electric customers in the state. They have about 500 customers using distributed generation. Kathleen O'Shea, OG&E spokeswoman, said few distributed generation customers want to sever their ties to the grid. 'If there's something wrong with their panel or it's really cloudy, they need our electricity, and it's going to be there for them,' O'Shea said. 'We just want to make sure they're paying their fair amount of that maintenance cost.' The prospect of widespread adoption of rooftop solar worries many utilities. A report last year by the industry's research group, the Edison Electric Institute, warns of the risks posed by rooftop solar (PDF). 'When customers have the opportunity to reduce their use of a product or find another provider of such service, utility earnings growth is threatened," the report said. "As this threat to growth becomes more evident, investors will become less attracted to investments in the utility sector.''"
The state's major electric utilities backed the bill but couldn't provide figures on how much customers already using distributed generation are getting subsidized by other customers. Oklahoma Gas and Electric Co. and Public Service Co. of Oklahoma have about 1.3 million electric customers in the state. They have about 500 customers using distributed generation. Kathleen O'Shea, OG&E spokeswoman, said few distributed generation customers want to sever their ties to the grid. 'If there's something wrong with their panel or it's really cloudy, they need our electricity, and it's going to be there for them,' O'Shea said. 'We just want to make sure they're paying their fair amount of that maintenance cost.' The prospect of widespread adoption of rooftop solar worries many utilities. A report last year by the industry's research group, the Edison Electric Institute, warns of the risks posed by rooftop solar (PDF). 'When customers have the opportunity to reduce their use of a product or find another provider of such service, utility earnings growth is threatened," the report said. "As this threat to growth becomes more evident, investors will become less attracted to investments in the utility sector.''"
Something wrong at the foundation - (Score:5, Insightful)
Why do investors think they are entitled to growth?
There is a risk to returns. If the investors want no risk then they should get no gains.
Re:Something wrong at the foundation - (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know how or where this "grow or die" idea began, but it's just plain wrong. You can't have infinite growth within a finite market.
False dilemma (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't know how or where this "grow or die" idea began, but it's just plain wrong.
It's not grow or die. It's grow or lose investors. If I own a company (I'm a shareholder) and want a return on my investment the only way for that to occur is for the company to grow. In fact it has to grow faster than the rate of inflation or I will be losing money. The company has to engage in profitable activities sufficient to generate a return for investors. If the future value of risk adjusted cash flows is lower than another potential investment then the company will lose investors because they will put their money into the other investment.
You can't have infinite growth within a finite market.
I've never seen a company experience infinite growth or anything close so that's kind of a meaningless statement. You can however have substantial growth rates for a long time both for a company and for a market. There are companies that have grown by 10%+ per year on average for decades.
Re:False dilemma (Score:5, Insightful)
Not exactly the only way. If a company is profitable it can always return a portion of that profit to its investors. This is called dividends.
Re:False dilemma (Score:5, Informative)
In fact it has to grow faster than the rate of inflation or I will be losing money.
BS. the normal, supposed way of gaining money is the dividident, which is being paid to shareholders as a yearly return on their invested money. But currently, people want more and more and more money from their investment, and a way to do that is artificially boosting the price of a share, by hollowing out a company.
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Is that really the only way? I think most companies sell products for a decent profit (revenue - employee/material cost). Assuming a modest profit of just 20% and assuming shareholders own 50% of the company, why can't shareholders receive 10% return/year on their shares without it growing. That's not happening because share prices are so high investors barely make 0.1%.
If the
Re:False dilemma (Score:5, Insightful)
And of course, the real issue here is that it's completely and utterly inappropriate for a regulated utility to be that kind of "growth company!"
Re:Something wrong at the foundation - (Score:5, Interesting)
And unfortunately it is not plain wrong in an economic sense.
The neo-con ideology which has pervaded most capitalist economies is one of debt fuelled growth. This is across the board including government, business and private household debt. In the US this started in earnest with Regan, in other countries it began when whatever new-breed, neo-con idealist came to power in their country.
The problem is that these economies are now (metaphorically) "negatively geared". This means that while they are growing and turning a profit they are ok and turn a profit for yourself from other people's money. But when they start to make a loss the losses are exaggerated by the gearing and the economy is in serious trouble.
e.g. How many times has it been reported around the world that even a flat GDP growth is a major problem and will have serious negative consequences and negative GDP growth will be a utter disaster? Sound like a healthy and robust situation to you?!
This is where your "grow or die" mentality comes from and it makes perfect economic sense.
Now everyone in business knows that if the total cost of a project (including interest etc) is less than the profits (after taking risk into account) then the project should usually go ahead. Funding projects with debt and allowing those with capital to benefit from the time value of their money is perfectly sane and sensible and a core part of any healthy economy.
HOWEVER
The problem with this mentality as it has been applied across the board (i.e. at a country or global level) in the modern economy is many-fold:
- The true cost of many projects is simply ignored or left for future generations to deal with. (e.g. pollution, retirement, housing, infrastructure, sustainability)
- Many of the projects are pork barrel spending and not a net positive at all
- The true cost of the DEBT itself is ignored. (e.g. The Fed handing out essentially free money to financial institutions and the accumulation overseas debt)
- The overall impact to the economy of certain projects/decisions is not taken into account. (e.g. job losses, economic stimulus)
- The positive economic stimulus of a policy/project (e.g. Bush tax cuts) is grossly over estimated.
This is what has led you to the current situation. The ONLY way out of it is through a painful correction of some sort.
e.g.
- Higher taxes of some sort to pay off outstanding debt to bring it to sensible levels
- Massive reduction in spending (probably not an actual option as the viable cuts would not amount to enough)
- Create a huge number of new exports that bring in additional money. (again, not really viable since it would probably already have been done if it was)
- Some other major macro economic change that would destabilise the market in the short/medium term.
Re:Something wrong at the foundation - (Score:4, Interesting)
There is nothing wrong per-se with debt funded growth as long as the risks are properly accounted for. For example, a year ago I bought a new car. While I could have paid cash for it it made much more sense to finance a large part of it since interest rates are so low and invest what was not spent. As long as the investment is beating the low interest rate I'm ahead. Now it's pretty easy to beat a 1.99% interest rate. Now the problem comes if that investment fails and the source of income to pay off that debt fails. In my case my investments are well diversified so even if something like what happened in 2008 occurs I will still be ahead.
The problem as I see it is when people get too greedy and things get too risky so that everything collapses if things don't go according to plan. I fault that on the loose lending practices of the bankers and the repeal of Glass-Steagall which to this day has not been addressed. It's like what happened in the 1920s where speculators were buying stock on margin with only the stock backing it up. In 2008 it was the same thing but with real estate.
In the case of the United States, it could start paying down its debt any time it wanted to by raising some taxes, especially on those at the top who are finding good ways to hide their assets in various offshore accounts. Changing how corporations are taxed would also help a lot, especially reducing taxes on the small businesses and closing all the loopholes that large corporations like Apple, GE and Google use to avoid paying taxes. Adding a very small tax to each stock transaction would also go a long way towards adding stability to the markets which are being gamed.
Social Security could be fixed just by removing the cap, which is basically a tax cut at those earning above the cap.
Sadly I don't see any progress being made, especially with the republicans who fight tooth and nail over any reforms no matter how badly they're needed.
Re:Something wrong at the foundation - (Score:4, Insightful)
Obama a socialist?!
And I suppose all those ex-goldman sachs employees on his staff are closet socialists also??
There are some retarded people in the world....
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Size? Potential size?
you mean in square feet?
Wrong units (Score:2)
Size? Potential size?
you mean in square feet?
No, no -- he's clearly talking in terms of coconuts to sparrows.
:-P
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Money is constantly being printed and people are constantly being born. So, no.
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I don't think slaves get paid
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Then you're (hopefully) not currently a wage slave. Instead of slaving for a place to live and food to eat, you can slave for money to barely pay for a place to live and food to eat! It's capitalistic! It's slaverrific!
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"You can't have infinite growth within a finite market."
Re:Something wrong at the foundation - (Score:5, Interesting)
This is the flip-side to regulated utilities. When your profit is determined by the government, you always turn to the government to increase or maintain your profits, which in turn means you become quite expert at that game. [smbc-comics.com]
I don't object to a fair "base rate" that actually covers the maintenance overhead; seems fair to pay that even if you're a net seller to the utility. This may become another case where the "last mile" maintenance costs should be separated from the "content provider".
Re:Something wrong at the foundation - (Score:5, Insightful)
Regulatory capture is a symptom of lack of democracy. The solution isn't to eliminate democracy entirely, but to improve the democratic process.
The baby-with-the-bathwater reductio is elimination of the entire justice system because some powerful guys are good at manipulating it a bit. And, having been brought up at the tail end of a fascist state, I guarantee that you don't want to live in a country with an impotent judiciary.
Lay off the Freedom Loving Punch (Score:5, Informative)
The last time I looked, the flip side to a regulated utility was a deregulated utility. Deregulated utilities end up as monopolies.
The other last time I looked, business interests of all kinds turn to governments to maintain their profits, and raise barriers to competition. And spare me the "The problem is bad regulation." That's not the problem.
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Deregulated utilities end up as monopolies.
So do regulated utilities. You need some way to distinguish between the two.
The other last time I looked, business interests of all kinds turn to governments to maintain their profits, and raise barriers to competition.
So you disagree that there is a stronger incentive to turn to government to enhance your business model when the government is the primary factor determining how profitable you are?
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Re:Something wrong at the foundation - (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't object to a fair "base rate" that actually covers the maintenance overhead; seems fair to pay that even if you're a net seller to the utility.
That much is perfectly fine, but why should a customer who decreases his electricity consumption by, say, 5 kWh per day by means of installing solar batteries be treated differently than a customer who decreases his electricity consumption by 5 kWh per day by means of buying more energy-saving home appliances?
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Well, charging different customer differing base rates doesn't sound fair to me, unless there's legitimately some significant infrastructure build-out cost the utility faces to support net power generation at the endpoints (no clue if that's so).
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But they still demand that the grid be there when the sun ain't shining or the wind ain't blowing and many of them want a situation where the utility is forced to buy their excess so the analogy comes close.
On the latter point it is kind of like a fisherman brings his boat to the dock and demands that the restaurants build roads and buy trucks and come to get his fish or the farmer demands that the grocer come and pick the corn.
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Why do you say regulatory capture? With the exception of nuclear power, I don’t see a lot of regulatory capture in the electric market. Regulatory capture normally happens when the regulations are narrow and complex. Most of the current issues surrounding electric generation tend to be old, well settled issues, which results in open debate – or at least where I live.
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This is the flip-side to regulated utilities. When your profit is determined by the government, you always turn to the government to increase or maintain your profits, which in turn means you become quite expert at that game. [smbc-comics.com]
Which is not a problem, if the legislators, governor and regulators are working for the public. The public needs a grid and base generation capability, and the utility is guaranteed a safe and reasonable profit if it provides these things.
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If the utility gets a better return from optimizing their lobbying than their infrastructure, that's a problem. People respond to incentives. People need a communications infrastructure maintained too, but that doesn't excuse Comcast.
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Re:Something wrong at the foundation - (Score:5, Insightful)
Unless you are at the end of the line the line must be maintained if you are there or not, in order to reach the next customer, so that is not a cost to keep you connected.
This sort of thinking has the cost of the line be $0 every customer but the last one, who's charged millions. Not all that practical. It's much easier to look at the cost of the line* and divide by the number of customers. I'd say it's more fair as well. If you really want, consider that you're paying for the run from your neighbor up the line to yourself. Your down-line neighbor picks up his share, etc...
The next step is to consider the base cost of a line with theoretical zero capacity, and charge each customer that ($10 or so), while building in a standard rate into the cost for building the line with the necessary power capacity(1k amps, 2k amps, etc...), including all associated equipment like transformers, switching stations, etc...
Add another $10 or so into the fee above for billing, support, and other paperwork, and you have the general situation for most power billing in the USA.
*Well, really the network.
Re:Something wrong at the foundation - (Score:4, Informative)
Because their profits are (kind of) regulated.
Electric Utilities are heavily regulated. I am not sure about Oklahoma, but in many states the rate that utilities can charge is tied back to the cost of electric production, Since electric production tends to be capital intensive, that means their cost of capital, and that ties back to the health of the utilities earnings, both in terms of growth and stability (i.e. risk).
Feeding electricity back into the grid is not a free lunch for the utilities – there are costs involved. (and I am sure that electric utilities will whine loudly in an exaggerated fashion as they fight a rearguard action.)
Re:regulating in their favor, allergic to paying (Score:4, Informative)
> Most backed electricity is wasted because control systems designed to balance
>the grid cannot cope with thousands of variable intermittent sources
Nah, they've had software for this for years. You should google the IBM page on this they track clouds as they move by their effect on output on panels and they project that forward in real-time to forecast production over long periods.
> causes negative electricity prices where the power company pays users to waste excess electricity
Another tired old canard. The power company also makes money by selling power at a profit, and in every single example I have ever seen, the balance is *always* positive. And yes, I work in the industry.
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People are afraid of deflation, layoffs, reduction in force, etc. But it's sad because it's a failure to realize sometimes that maybe technology has brought us to the point where we don't need those jobs. We could staff fewer people and pay them all more and free up other people for more interesting jobs. I mean really, we should have a TON more robots right now.
But we have this feeling everyone has to work; you gotta do what you gotta do and all that bullshit. So we pay people less, work them more and peop
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Capitalism is a failure.
Correction: Crony capitalism is a failure. Finest example of this is in Germany and Ontario with "Feed in Tariffs" for all the "green energy producers" where we pay excessively high prices including to pay them to not to produce energy. And that can be as much as $0.70/KwH.
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Peak During the Day? (Score:4, Informative)
Obviously this varies from region to region, but I was always led to understand that in hot locales, peak was late afternoon, when houses began to cool down, and businesses were still cooling. ...part of the reason why large solar plants are moving to molten salt -- to keep providing power in the early evening when the sun isn't directly overhead.
Re:Peak During the Day? (Score:5, Informative)
Afternoon is still considered 'day' by most people, if you're in an area where the sun hasn't set yet.
Of course, that assumes summer time -- if you're in an area where many people rely on electicity for heating, in the winter the peak may be closer to sunrise. (with a second peak in the evening, as people get home & heat their homes & start cooking).
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Even in your example, my point remains.
The times when residential solar systems are generating the sort of power that they can sell back to the grid -- they're the times that the grid (generally) needs it the least.
Oklahoma is a *highly* coal and gas fired grid, so you'd think any semi-predictable amount of residential solar overflow would help. *shrug*
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You and I have more power available to us at peak because our solar/wind neighbor is only drawing half of peak. "The Grid" is healthier. I agree 100%.
My point is only that excess residential solar has little value, since it's generated when it's least needed. [Because if it was needed, houses wouldn't be generating extra.]
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I'll just install a lazy susan on my house...
Point is, solar is most efficient at times when the grid least needs the electricity from it. [Obviously, since the times residential systems have excess is when residential electricity demand is low.] If everyone had a solar system that produced more than it needed at peak input, there'd never be anyone to sell the excess to.
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Solar may peak at the top of the Sun's path, but it still provides plenty of juice for hours afterwards...when the grid is specifically taxed quite hard.
Go outside at 2-3pm on a hot sunny day...it's still pretty damned strong.
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Suck It Up! (Score:5, Insightful)
'When customers have the opportunity to reduce their use of a product or find another provider of such service, utility earnings growth is threatened," the report said. "As this threat to growth becomes more evident, investors will become less attracted to investments in the utility sector.''
Suck it up princess!
I know you're going to fight tooth and nail to get legislators to protect your business model but the writing is on the wall. Feel free to look up buggy whip manufacturers if you want to see how this story is going to end in the long run.
Oh, and if you think we, the public, are going to feel any sympathy for you as your business model gets replaced by newer and better technology, trust me when I say you're wrong. No sympathy. Adapt or die.
I know you think legislate or die are the options on the table but I assure you, it's adapt or die.
Re:Suck It Up! (Score:4, Interesting)
Or, in Star Trek words...
We, the collective, believe your technology is not even worthy of being considered. You will adapt to service us. Resistance is futile.
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And I am sure that that some tax breaks or subsidies helped them get their grid up to begin with.
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BTW, similar trick was pulled off successfully in Spain, where the Sun is shining most of the year.
Solar power gets taxed more and you will be fined 30K EUR, if you do not comply.
You must not be from around here... (Score:2, Insightful)
You obviously are not familiar with Oklahoma.
Oklahoma is a firm Republic state, and past experience tells me this will be legislated.
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I havn't done any buggy whip research, but I assume they shifted focus and moved from making whips for horses into S&M whips. I bet they loved what that 50 shades of grey book did for their sales.
Re:Suck It Up! (Score:4, Insightful)
It is the utility company's responsibility to gain as much profit for their shareholders as they can. Since it's a monopoly, it's the government's responsibility to keep them in check. The problem is that the utility is succeeding at their responsibility to their shareholders, but the government is failing at its responsibility to its citizens. People always point out how evil the utility company is but fail to point out that the government who is supposed to be regulating them is who is truly evil.
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Interesting hat it mirrors the electric car issues (Score:3, Insightful)
If you take off your "Electric Companies are TEH EVIL" hat for a second, it's pretty interesting that they have the same issue that states do with paying for roads in relation to electric cars. That is, someone generating electricity or using an electric car is making use of a resource where the cost of access is subsidized by something you are no longer consuming.
I think the electric companies have a pretty good point that they still have to pay to maintain lines to your house even though you are now consuming a fraction of what you would have.
Re:Interesting hat it mirrors the electric car iss (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly this. They shouldn't charge solar customers a higher base rate, they should make the pricing more transparent. Charge everybody a monthly connection fee. That goes to maintain the lines. Then you charge for electricity consumed by their plant. They have two businesses going, generation and distribution. Their pricing should reflect that.
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Further, they should go to charge you based on "time of use" for that Kw/H.
Personally, I think the electric company should *pay* (at a discount) the Solar customer for each Kw/H the customer provides based on their current cost on the wholesale market and not pay at the customer's current retail price. Yes, customers may get more or less than they pay depending on when the power is supplied to the grid, but this would more closely reflect the utilities actual costs and benefits.
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Exactly. That is how I pay for my natural gas, a monthly service fee and charges for BTUs consumed. In the summer my service fee is typically more than my charges for the fuel but in the winter the fees are a fraction of the total bill.
I have no problem with having to pay for the utility to maintain the connection to the service separately to the services provided. If these people want to have the utility buy their power then someone has to pay for the connection. One might assume the utility should pay
Re:Interesting hat it mirrors the electric car iss (Score:5, Interesting)
I think the electric companies have a pretty good point that they still have to pay to maintain lines to your house even though you are now consuming a fraction of what you would have.
I don't know about Oklahoma, but my bill is split into two parts: a fixed per-day customer charge, plus a separate charge per kWh. Presumably, the charge per day covers the lines and administrative overhead. (The per-kWh charge is further divided into separate fuel and generation charges, and the fuel rate changes frequently.)
If Oklahoma uses this system, then the utility is being fairly compensated for the power lines no matter how little electricity the customer actually buys.
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If Oklahoma uses this system, then the utility is being fairly compensated for the power lines no matter how little electricity the customer actually buys.
OG&E certainly does not do this, but that would certainly be a fair way to do it. Of course, then you run the risk of pissing people off with your complicated and proliferous line item charges,
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>I think the electric companies have a pretty good point that they still have to pay to maintain lines to your house even though you are now consuming a fraction of what you would have.
Which is why I, as a solar customer, pay $12 a month to PG&E to maintain the grid.
It's interesting that OK thinks that it's OK to change solar customers higher *power rates* instead. This means that it will penalize people for having smaller solar installations, and still not recover any extra tariffs from large instal
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It's true that the vast majority of damage to roadways is from trucks, but there's also an opportunity cost of roads to which every road user contributes.
In other words, if you could magically remove a portion of users from the roads without affecting commerce, you could reclaim some of the lesser-used road lanes for taxpaying businesses and thereby improve that land's cost effectiveness to the city.
An obfuscation layer, how nice... (Score:5, Insightful)
Infrastructure doesn't build and maintain itself, so if you want to maintain your connection, it's only logical that you'll pay something for that. If you try to bundle the distribution costs into the energy cost, though, you just get a bit of a mess since the amount a given person is paying for infrastructure can vary wildly and you end up having to field requests like this. Even here, they make a somewhat arbitrary distinction between users who do feed to the grid and those who don't (who presumably also use less power but just aren't easy to identify). Just break out the two items and call it a day.
Koch Brothers (Score:5, Informative)
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Perhaps this is all a part of the vast right-wing conspiracy against green energy [salon.com]. Can't let the hippies win!
Nice to see someone at least trying to look past the smokescreen.
This was a law pushed on us [digitaljournal.com] by the corporate right-wing legislation factory ALEC. Actually, "pushed" is a bit strong. It would probably be more accurate to say the Oklahoma legislature goes to ALEC and asks, "what laws would you like us to pass today"?
Those of you who've been here a few years know the drill with ALEC: their avowed reasons for a law are almost always a cover, so arguing over the validity of their reasoning is pointless. The r
Shortsighted stupidity (Score:4, Insightful)
Oklahoma has some fantastic wind & solar resources and adjoins the Texas Panhandle where there are many wind turbines and therefore a reasonable transmission infrastructure.
Even if they didn't need the wind & solar, Texas can make very good use of it. They should be investing in those resources and they could probably get Texas to pay for a big chunk of it.
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Meant to say "investing much more heavily in those resources and streamlining the process instead of introducing more obstacles"
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Oklahoma has some fantastic wind & solar resources
Especially when the wind comes sweepin' down the plain. Plen'y of air and plen'y of room, plen'y of room to swing a rope! Plen'y of heart and plen'y of hope!
.
Keeping Our Priorities Straight (Score:5, Funny)
It's about time that power companies realize that their most important goal is not in providing customers with a quality source of electricity, but in making investors as much money as possible.
Generating your own electricity .. (Score:2)
How does generating your own electricity subsidize other customers? Isn't this just a way of the utilities to gouge more revenue out of people who use less of their expencive electricity.
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I guess if you generate more than what you consume, you pay nothing. You pay nothing towards the maintenance of the power grid but enjoy the benefit of effectively using it as a battery of infinite capacity. The utilities still need to provision capacity for your peak demand, when the sun goes down and you turn on your oven, stove, hot water cylinder and electric heating all at once in winter, pulling up to 10kW, the same time as everyone else in your area.
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And this electricity is fed back into the grid and being sold on to the other consumers. I just wonder what bull session came up with the idea that generating electricity was the same as consuming other peoples electricity.
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You're billing wrong. (Score:5, Insightful)
Do Oklahoma power companies not charge separately for connectivity and power consumption?
I thought it was common sense to be charged a fixed daily rate and an additional rate per kWh.
The fixed rate is supposed to pay for transmission lines, maintenance, billing, customer support etc. The kWh rate pays for generation.
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You do get only billed by the power generator but the distribution part is a separate charge.
Wow (Score:5, Interesting)
This is a higher BASE rate. Not what they get charged for power. Since the customers are generating power and possibly even getting paid by the power company to do so, they are paying far less than most of us. But they still use the most expensive part of the utility, the lines. Green energy doesn't make power lines any cheaper.
When customers give power back, often the utility is required to pay them for that power. But wind and solar do not provide power to the grid continuously. When the wind picks up or the sun is out, suddenly all these people are providing power at the same time... and not when the power company needs it. The power companies methods of generating power do not ramp up or down easily. For example, coal burning plants operate very inefficiently when they are not running at full capacity. So every watt contributed by wind and solar actually make a coal plant even less efficient.
Shit like this is what will sink green energy. Turn it into a subsidy like Ethanol and it'll never get anywhere.
Re:Makes more sense than you give them credit for (Score:4, Insightful)
want to figure it out BEFORE most customers pay $0 (Score:3, Insightful)
They say they want to start working out a solution BEFORE it becomes a big problem.
A solar customer could sell lots of power to them around noon, and use about the same amount at night. This customer would have an electric bill of $0, because they put as much energy into the grid as they took out. In 10 or 20 years, if a million customers are doing that, you have the power company trying to run on a budget of zero - no money to pay salaries, no money to fix equipment, etc. Obviously that doesn't work, t
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Where I live a large number of summer homes are unoccupied the majority of the year, to get around zero charges for empty homes (which still require system maintenence to keep connected) the utility charges a daily connection fee, coupled with slightly lower per KWh charges.
This change in billing structure could easily solve the $0 solar customer problem.
However the proposed changes, raising the base rate, will also encourage energy conservation.
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Re:want to figure it out BEFORE most customers pay (Score:4, Informative)
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Obviously that doesn't work, the power company would go broke and no-one would have power, except while it's sunny.
So why don't they fix their broken model and charge a fixed fee for everyone that is connected to the grid. Oh wait, they already do that (albeit a nominal fee).
The "fair" solution is to set a fixed fee so that their grid-maintenance costs are covered. Then they can reduce their tariffs to reflect the true price of generating (not delivering) the electricity.
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Re:Makes more sense than you give them credit for (Score:4, Insightful)
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Assuming the maintenance costs are built into the cost of a kilowatt-hour and your budgeting process assumes a minimum usage to recoup each customer's share, customers that dip below the minimum would necessarily need to pay more.
The real question is why they feel the need to change the base rate (the most politically difficult route, as you have to convince the Public Utilities Commission of your state) instead of adding a "co-generation fee" or something similar to make up the difference.
A co-generation fee would only make sense if it was extra work for them. The baserate is the correct place to do it but not the way they are doing it.
They shouldn't charge a different baserate to different customers. There should be a "connection fee" and a "per kilowatt" fee. The "connection fee"
should be the same whether you use 0kw, 1kw, 100kw, or negative kilowatts. Whether and how much you should get credited on the "per kilowatt"
side if you go negative should be the only thing being debated. On
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I've talked to one of our utility boards and sat in on their meetings. Around here, you pay for the box that measures the electricity going both ways instead of the usual one way box. Other than that, you get paid the normal rate for sending power to the grid, despite some people wanting to scam a premium for renewables.
As to the infrastructure, it costs the same whether you are using it or not, the big cost is the power, especially at peak. It's very e
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Last I checked Oklahoma was not growing at such a fast pace that electrical services are in an "expanding" phase. More like "run and maintain" phase.
Nope, we are pretty much maxed out on power. Thus they are pushing out some programs to highly incentivise (by a factor of 10) to move power consumption out of peak time. They are putting in expensive smart thermostats that communicate rates to you that can change from on day to another depending on the temperature. they have rolled out smart meters that report back every 15 minutes on the usage. Basically, they know they need to build another plant but they are delaying as long as possible because it is a
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Just because the current technology isn't good enough doesn't mean "solar power" is going to be bad forever. That's like comparing a Ford Model T with an IBM Model M.
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At its core, Solar is solar and it all suffers from one glaring problem, it's extremely difficult (i.e. impossible) to accurately project how much power you will get from an installation at any single instant. Power grids must always have excess capacity available or risk going down and most industrial sized power plants take hours to throttle up while usually providing very little storage capacity. So you have to schedule hours in advance how much fuel to burn which means you have to know how much power y
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It's too bad they couldn't store that energy in another way for long term usage in batteries. Are the windmills too efficient?
This is NOT about efficiency, it's about availability. With wind and solar there are unpredictable variations in the power provided. The problem here is that this variation in power output effects the stability of the power grid in a number of ways. The most basic issue is that the electric providers must schedule power generation literally *hours* (and sometimes days) in advance. This means you order capacity to cover the possible variations from all these solar and wind power sources. But capacity cost
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Short term throttling of power is possible for short terms, but most large scale plants throttle average power output in terms of hours not seconds. There usually is some stored potential form the heat already in the boiler. But that's for plants which are actually generating power right now and it is limited because it takes time to throttle up most burners and actually get the heat into the water. Plus, most plants will be operating near capacity anyway, which is where they are the most efficient.
Cold
this is nothing to do with the free market (Score:2)
The utilities were already required by law to buy customers' solar power at full retail price. That eliminated any free market angle right then.
This just modifies the laws.
If you are a huge free market fan, would you agree that removing the regulatory requirements on these utilities and letting them determine what to pay for customer-generated solar power would restore the proper order?
We all know that wouldn't work. With only one way to sell their solar power (through the utility) the utility would just re
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As a free market fan, I absolutely favor privatizing their state -supported industry. Let the entire network be split up into parallel systems, give every residental owner an equal number of credits towards buying the stock of any particular line, set up a transmission bidding clearinghouse, and let everyone with credits bid on the stock. Then, with the profits already pocketed by the electric companies, turn around and install MORE parallel networks wherever there isn't much of a choice, and let the public
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That is exactly what has been happening to the US provision-of-electricity industry since 1994, with three successive "market reform" acts getting closer and closer to the University of Chicago ideal. The results have been absolutely disastrous for the consumer (both household and any business smaller than an aluminum smelter) and I would argue are driv
that's an empty threat (Score:2)
These customers currently (using OGE, one of the utilities for Oklahoma as an example) get to sell power during the day at $0.14/kWh and buy it back at night at $0.0027/kWh. They are using the grid as a 500% efficient battery.
If they go to using an actual battery, will have to increase the size of their array many times in order to reach the same level of monthly bill reduction they currnetly have. And they have to buy a battery.
The current plan is an enormous subsidy to solar customers. That's why they wil
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That doesn't mean you have to use it. That's why they make transfer switches. And if you ever want to sell your house, you can be damned sure you'll get a better ROI if it's hooked to the grid.
Here's a juicy tidbit for those not familiar with the Codes: Builders and Fire Marshalls are not the only ones writing the codes. The mortgage underwriters and the insurance companies also have their hands in the pie (in addition to all the manufacturing special interests, like sprinkler manufacturers and hurricane st