Utilities Should Worry; Rooftop Solar Could Soon Cut Their Profit 517
Lucas123 writes A study by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory predicts that distributed rooftop solar panel installations will grow from 0.2% market penetration today to 10% by 2022, during which time they're likely to cut utility profits from 8% to 41%. Using those same metrics, electricity rates for utility customers will grow only by as much as 2.7% over the next eight years. By comparison, the cost of electricity on average rose 3.1% from 2013 to 2014. The study was performed for the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy under the U.S. Department of Energy. One of the main purposes of the study was to evaluate measures that could be pursued by utilities and regulators to reduce the financial impacts of distributed photovoltaics.
Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
And you think the utilities will suffer because of this? Here in Australia power companies have just started bringing in (opt-in for now) billing at different rates for different times of the day for all a house's power. They will simply make day-time power prices stay the same and increase prices for night-time usage, passing the loss on to customers as they always have.
Quite naive to think a company would accept the losses themselves.
Re:Really? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
We should stop pretending that there is anything like a "Law of Supply and Demand" when it comes to energy.
And if you want proof of "malicious intent"...
http://thinkprogress.org/clima... [thinkprogress.org]
http://www.tulsaworld.com/news... [tulsaworld.com]
http://www.deseretnews.com/art... [deseretnews.com]
The Koch Brothers (and others) are pushing these "solar tariff", sun tax and surcharge laws all across the country. The rationale in their advertisements has varied from place to place, but generally it's "Solar energy is costing us money so people who use solar energy should pay double, one way or the other, because screw you, that's why". And yes, it even applies to solar which is not on the grid. So if you want to set up some solar panels to augment your daytime energy use and maybe a battery for night time, be prepared to pay this new tariff because of the Koch Brothers and their representatives at Americans For Prosperity
They're determined to send a message: "If you think you can leave us and go back to your mother, think again sweetie, or maybe you'll run into another door."
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It's a law the same way "unintended consequences" is a law. Or Godwin's Law is a law. It's truth until it's not.
Economic "laws" are not like the laws of physics. Economics isn't even a science, being so soft as to be less rigorous than parapsychology. Economics is dogma, always with an agenda.
Coincidentally, here's something interesting I read today about this very subject:
https://fixingtheeconomists.wo... [wordpress.com]
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The funny thing is they are allegedly libertarian yet show time and again they are willing to take in millions of dollars from the government and in this case, prevent individuals from becoming independent.
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Or is just the concept of "de-regulating utilities" gone a little too far.
Re: Really? (Score:4, Informative)
Without some amazing break through in solar power efficiency and much lower prices we will not see 10% adoption by 2022.
I would have to pay $30,000+ for solar panels to generate the electricity I'm currently paying $200 a month for. But that fluctuates, during the winter it's $75 a month. Let's assume I average $125 a month, about $1500 a year. It would take 20 years to reach the $30,000 I would have to pay today for the solar panels, and that's assuming the panels or other equipment need no repairs for 20 years. Solar just isn't worth it yet. When 2 or 3 grand in panels can handle everything then people will consider it, but it makes no sense spending 20 years worth of electric bills all at once.
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Those prices are reasonable without government subsidies (in fact, the price is often $45,000 to $50,000 with inverters and batteries).
$30,000 is probably grid tied, no inverters or batteries.
But it is getting cheaper rapidly- the problem is that german utilities have bought up all the cheap supply for multiple years in the future.
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Look at Germany. Solar has made coal and nuclear unprofitable. They were replacing all the old coal plants with new, more efficient ones, but have now cancelled many of them and will simply reduce capacity. Even the new ones are unlikely to make any money now.
I don't think utilities can stop this happening. They will die kicking and screaming but ultimately the industry must shrink.
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Re:Really? (Score:4, Insightful)
The difference being that nobody needed buggy whips anymore. People here in Germany still need electricity at night.
Because of the way the law is written, solar cell owners are allowed to use the grid as a battery. Their electricity consumption/production is not billed instantly but averaged, so that someone with enough excess solar power during the day doesn't have to pay anything for grid power during the night.
The coal, gas and nuclear plants have to vary their production to take up the slack when wind and solar go down, which is expensive, and it becomes more expensive the more renewables there are. At some points it becomes unprofitable to build, and this is where we are now.
Re:Really? (Score:5, Interesting)
Varying the production more often and with more amplitude decreases the efficiency and increases the maintenance costs. Maybe that's a claim by the power industries but that seems to be a legit one.
Like, this stuff is not free and to just build solar and wind capacity (whose nominal megawatts/gigawatts are inflated and capacity factor overestimated) while not caring about the grid is myopic and stupid.
Wind is especially problematic as it can fall off a cliff from one hour to the next and this may happen country-wide.
Mind you I believe I'm a pretty hard line environmentalist next to most everyone. I "hate" all those renewables because Germany has shown up what actually happens when you apply the dogmatic, simplistic no-thinking thinking. Higher costs for everyone who pays and the CO2 emissions increasing.
I believe we need new industries that can consume the intermittent surplus energy.
E.g. a place that manages a fleet of light trucks (for companies to use and for people to rent for the day), that perhaps routinely does battery swaps, where a shit ton of battery charging happens when it's the cheapest but the power use is strongly coupled to consumption goals, updated every 5 minutes and they may quickly collapse or rise back as dictated by the utility provider or some kind of regulatory structure. I'll call that a "push smartgrid".
Chemical industry with a production that can easily be scaled up/down or rather "scaled out", as per the computer jargon. Well I hope such things can be done (with "reverse fuel cells", water treatment/dessalination, or who knows what) and obviously there would be a lot of engineering and investment needed.
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That would require spending 5-10 times as much money on batteries to support the solar cells as you spent on the cells themselves.
In most places it would be cheaper to pump water up into a dam somewhere and then use a turbine to recover the electricity when needed, but that would also at least triple the cost of electricity.
The currently cheapest solution (where there's not enough hydro-power) is to have fossil fuel plants running as "spinning reserve". And that's the way it's going to be until prices of fo
Re:Really? (Score:5, Informative)
All other (non-renewable) power plants have to compete for the rest of the market, and this is shrinking due to the strong growth of solar and wind power. That is why coal power plants are shut down, and why gas power plants are barely running.
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Re:Really? (Score:4, Informative)
cite [theguardian.com]
Germany is really leading the way.
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Re:Really? (Score:5, Informative)
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And Germany pays three times what the US pays for electricity http://shrinkthatfootprint.com... [shrinkthatfootprint.com]
If the US's cost suddenly tripled, I guarantee you that rooftop solar wold take off. I looked at it, and even with a 20% subsidy from Uncle Sam, I couldn't make the numbers work. But if electricity went up even 20% in cost, it would become worth it with the 20% subsidy. Without a subsidy, electric cost would need to go up 40% to make it worth it to me.
Re: Really? (Score:2, Informative)
Obviously you are misinformed or just ignorant... Germany has one of the highest rates for electricity in the world. How do you think solar got such a foot hold ? It was paid for and still being propped up by the consumers ... Who pay out their nose just to say they are green... And just in case a tsunami hits there they will be safe since they got rid of nuclear power...
Re:Really? (Score:5, Informative)
Do you even know why?
Because I recall explaining it to you already, just a few weeks ago. Right here on slashdot. And here you are again, trolling on the subject as it it never occurred.
To those ignorant, he's correct, but the reason isn't that renewables are functional, but that legal system for selling electricity was jury-rigged to serve unstable renewables at the cost of everyone else, from customers to competitors.
Electricity in Germany, like most EU states is sold on exchanges and spot sale price is determined based on it, while long term contracts usually are at least loosely based on those prices as well.
And in Germany, there is a law that dictates that before you can sell any coal/nuclear power on exchange, ALL of produced renewable power must be sold.
In other words - when wind blows, if you're running a nuclear or coal plant, you cannot sell any of your produced electricity until your wind/solar competitors sold everything they produced. At the same time, you are not allowed to shut the plant down, because you need to sit on the grid as spinning reserve for when wind blows too hard or stops blowing to pick up the slack.
This has resulted in ridiculous paradoxes, such as the fact that spinning reserve which is mostly coal and natural gas has become unprofitable, causing bankruptcies. Not because electricity is cheap - when renewables are down, the spot price is ridiculously high, and when you count the subsidies in Germany which are pushed to building and maintaining renewables, electricity in Germany is incredibly expensive for end customers. But at the same time, when renewables do produce, coal, natural gas and nuclear plants cannot sell electricity (not because they don't produce energy, but because laws ban them from doing so!) and are forced to actually pay people who take their electricity (again, grid balance!)
Which in turn prevented renewables from being hooked to the network, because you cannot hook wind or solar to network without almost entire capacity worth of spinning reserve sitting on the network - you risk grid collapse and those rules are there for that very reason. The situation is utterly ridiculous and is a great example of just how dysfunctional the current German model is. Because the moment you remove this particular rule, electricity cost would collapse and renewables would dive deep into the red as their unstable production cycle would mean that the only times they could sell was the same time that others can sell, meaning their electricity would always be very cheap and far below levels needed to pay back for the plant.
Germany is a great example of an utter failure in terms of emissions as well. The moment is started implementing the aforementioned policy, it had to break its Kyoto targets of CO2 emissions reduction (more spinning reserve needed due to inherent instability of renewables), and after 15 years of stable yearly reduction of CO2 emissions, Germany's CO2 emissions grew for several years after implementation of these policies.
Re:Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
that legal system for selling electricity was jury-rigged
That phrase... I do not think it means what you think it means.
Germany is in the middle of the transition. There are still 10 years to go. Things can get a bit extreme at times, but it's basically working really well. Short term price increases (still not the most expensive in Europe) and increased CO2 in exchange for being nuclear free, down heavily on coal and gas, and up massively on renewables by 2024. It also makes Germany the world leader in renewables, so German companies are getting all that business overseas too.
Luckyo, you seem to have either not understood or ignored my reply last time, or maybe you just feel butthurt that your cool nuclear tech is being pushed out in favour of hippy windmills and solar panels. I'm sorry you feel that way.
Re:Here we go again (Score:5, Interesting)
This is standard modus operandi for three local trolls: angelsphere, dblll and amimojo. Use the arguments that look like they make sense to a layman, advance them with yellow press-style arguments and finish off by questioning the intelligence of anyone who dares to point out flaws.
Here dblll relies on relative ignorance of most people of how grids and grid stability actually works. Instead he simplifies the model to make it look feasible to a layman - grid is essentially a pool after all, and surely if there's input somewhere, it would balance out the lack of input at another location?
In general, that is indeed correct, and how grid is generally balanced. But as with all engineering problems, devil is in the details. And details make his model utterly ridiculous and completely unfeasible. The problems here is DISTANCE and LOCALIZATION OF PRODUCTION.
Most of German wind power is located in the North. Most of the consumption is in the South-West. This means that power must be pushed over large distances, with a lot of transformers and substations balancing the flow. And when the supply suddenly dies, it takes a while for automation to switch back. At the same time, the sheer volume that tends to go offline at once is quite large, as production is concentrated in certain regions. As a result, if you do not have spinning reserve in the producing regions, by the time switching brought you power from the South, your grid in the North is already down and you have countless transformer fires if you tried to keep it up regardless.
Nuclear has the exact same problem actually. We here in Finland are currently building a 1.6GW unit in Olkiluoto. As nuclear is far more reliable, we need much less than that capacity of installed spinning reserve, so if his hypothesis of "distance doesn't matter" was true, we could just increase our imports from Russia, Sweden and Estonia to make the shortfall. We have very good connections to all of these countries and routinely both import and export power.
In real world on the other hand, we had to build a 300MW power plant in Forssa, about half way between the new plant in Western Finland, and major consumption centres in Central Finland and Helsinki to provide the spinning reserve for this new unit. Because distance matters.
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True, it's not entirely simple, yet somehow Grandpa did the job with a telephone. It's gotten a lot easier since. Having a huge number widely distributed of DC power sources on people's roofs that can produce AC with whatever timing you want has made it easier again. With the huge number of mostly idle gas turbines all over the place it's almost trivial today, even more so if there's some hydro.
I wish you wouldn't make up a
One last thing (Score:4, Insightful)
So you are arguing against widely distributed small generators on that basis? They provide LOCALIZATION OF PRODUCTION by their very nature, so I suggest you be a bit more honest about your reason for objecting to them.
It's a base load solution with a large capacity and is very expensive to turn off and on for peaks where you need a bit more capacity. Anybody who raves on about "one true energy" whether it is solar, wind, nuclear or coal is either selling something or has been conned - the answer is a mix of energy sources. It's cheaper to fire up a gas turbine (or several) than an entire coal or nuclear base load unit if you don't need the full capacity of a base load unit. Although wind has a lot of drawbacks it has a niche. Although photovoltaics are very expensive they now also have a place and are making a positive impact.
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Actually, that's incorrect. Pump storage is completely incompatible with modern renewables because of the way it's designed to work. Turbines and pumps cannot be directionally switched easily, so the process for switching directions is designed to be done twice a day - pump water during the night, flush water through turbine during the day. It's a predictable cycle, so directional shifting can be planned in advance and executed.
Renewables would require near instant mode switching. Which is incompatible with
Not a point source (Score:4, Insightful)
I've never had anything to do with windmills and don't even like them much but I'm sick of all the politically motivated bullshit attacking anything in power generation that is seen as remotely "green", and that's why I called the GP poster to task for his bullshit.
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France, just across the border from Germany, get about 70-80% of energy from nuclear. So much for "tarnished reputation" being a factor in producing power.
And frankly, it's not a "fantasy". The concept of wind power providibg significant amount of energy is feasible. The problem is the technology required, which we do not possess yet. My problem is that instead of investing in the technology, Germany invested into massively implementing technology not yet ready for the mass implementation. Almost all of the
Not so.... (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, the cost of subsidizing solar and wind has doubled the cost of power in Germany. Not only is that inflicting pain on consumers, German manufacturing is finding it hard to compete with countries where energy is cheaper. Politicians are quickly backtracking.
And Germany's power industry is increasing the amount of energy generated with coal. That's because coal power is the cheapest and they need some way to keep down those skyrocketing prices. Absent the need for that, many of those companies could afford more expensive but cleaner sources such as natural gas, using gas either from Russia or from fracking to create a domestic supply.
Mandating expensive and unpredictable power sources such as solar and wind, is making German power generation more coal-based and thus dirtier. Closing nuclear plants is having a similar impact on the more stable sources of power.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-04-14/coal-rises-vampire-like-as-german-utilities-seek-survival.html
Note this:
"The result: RWE now generates 52 percent of its power in Germany from lignite, up from 45 percent in 2011. And RWE isnÃ(TM)t alone. Utilities all over Germany have ramped up coal use as the nation has watched the mix of coal-generated electricity rise to 45 percent last year, the highest level since 2007."
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Actually, the cost of subsidizing solar and wind has doubled the cost of power in Germany
Sure, although even now it isn't the most expensive in Europe. The cost will be high for a while, and Germans seem to accept that. Change costs money, but the end result is worth it.
And Germany's power industry is increasing the amount of energy generated with coal.
It's reducing the amount of coal burnt: http://energytransition.de/201... [energytransition.de]
Re: Not so.... (Score:3)
Forcing your local power company to buy your excess electricity at retail prices is a subsidy, is that going away?
Are people paying full retail for their rooftop solar arrays? That is the measure of 'subsidies going away' - taking a 50% subsidy and dropping it to 40% isn't an example of subsidies 'going away'.
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Re: Really? (Score:3)
Yeah, Germany has it all figured out...
According to the New York Times (9-19-2013) [nytimes.com], not so much:
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Also, your utility co will soon contact you to rent roof space.
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Catch is even that has limits. Once battery technology is there and you can combine wind with solar and can store at least 48 hours average use, than it is all over for the except for supplying medium and high density housing together with commercial and industrial but the residential market will go solar with battery storage.
Re:Really? (Score:4, Interesting)
The largest solar-thermal plant yet built, Ivanpah, at 400 MW capacity, is on the same transmission lines as Hoover Dam. Both are near Las Vegas. It doesn't need thermal storage because the dam effectively does the job. When Ivanpah is running, Hoover can save the water for other times of day.
When you look at a grid as a whole, instead of individual plants, you find synergies like this you can apply. Detractors of renewable energy tend to ignore that most plants are grid-connected, and power demands vary by time of day and season. Thus Ivanpah is well matched to Las Vegas. Peak demand happens when it is sunny and everyone is running air conditioning. Sunny is exactly when that plant is pumping out electricity.
Solar, however, is a poor match for the Pacific Northwest, because it is cloudy much of the time. Instead, hydroelectric and nuclear are the main sources up there. Lots of rain and mountains make hydro easier to build. Detractors will point to Germany and say solar sucks. Well, Germany is far north, and not very sunny. Italy and Spain are better suited climatically. Just because it doesn't work that well in one country or region does not mean it cannot work in better locations. The opposite example is Chile, which is rapidly installing solar. The high Andean plateau is not only exceedingly dry, it is cold and high altitude, both of which improve performance of solar panels.
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The world has changed.
In general, utilities are now split between load serving and generation. It's not a complete transition, but it is happening. If your area isn't like this yet, it will be. Even semi-red nations are seeing the increased efficiency and going to power pools, despite much gnashing of teeth from the public utility unions.
Load serving utilities will not go broke, that is true. But pure generators are on their own. Solar system owners are guaranteed a rate, but IIRC that rate is dropping
Here We Go Again . . . (Score:2)
One of the main purposes of the study was to evaluate measures that could be pursued by utilities and regulators to reduce the financial impacts of distributed photovoltaics
Another effort by the government to prop up an industry that could be be obsoleted, or at least significantly diminished, by technology.
Oh dear - money grows on trees... (Score:5, Insightful)
When a new development comes along that destroys their business model, one of two things will happen; they will increase their prices, or they will go out of business. Note that 'the government taking them over' is a subset of 'they will increase their prices'. The service that they provide; a reliable baseload supply and a safe network to distribute electricity HAVE TO BE PAID FOR. At the moment those costs are hidden in the average cost of a kWh. If private solar power reduces the average demand some of the time, the average cost of a kWh will have to be increased, or the other features be recognised and paid for.
Ladies and gentlemen, there is no such thing as a free lunch, despite politicians pretending otherwise for several thousand years.
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The problem is that renewable tech is still not there yet. To try to run the utility grid with renewables is unworkable at this time so how do you manage to integrate them with old reliable coal and nuclear? The choice of most of the green segment seems to be to pass the costs to all the other customers of the electric company and drive power costs higher. Understandably this will upset the other customers who have a finite amount of money to spend.
Re: Oh dear - money grows on trees... (Score:5, Informative)
All the utilities have been privatised in the UK. One thing that didn't happen was prices going down. In fact they've been rising way beyond the rate of inflation ever since.
Re: Oh dear - money grows on trees... (Score:5, Informative)
That's because energy companies in the UK struggle to make a profit on residential business - take the bill I have in front of me from EDF Energy, it breaks down the £57.85 charge for gas and electric covering the period of 01/08/2014 to 08/09/2014 as follows:
Electricity: 5% VAT, 12% Environmental and social obligations, 17% Operating costs, 24% Network costs, 42% Wholesale costs, 0% Profit.
Gas: 5% VAT, 5% Environmental and social obligations, 16% Operating costs, 20% Network costs, 54% Wholesale costs, 0% Profit.
Their electricity sources are broken down as: 17% coal, 73.7% nuclear, 8.3% renewable, 1% other.
What people fail to realise (or just outright ignore) about pre-privatisation is that the costs were hidden and subsidised by the Treasury.
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Pre-privatisation they didn't charge VAT on fuel or for environmental and social obligations and the network was also owned by the state rather than by the Germans so you can remove all those from your calculation. What costs were hidden and subsidised? From what I remember the utilities made quite a lot of money for the state and should not have been sold off at all, or at least for a great deal more money than they were.
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What you seem to have missed from my original point is that I specifically said "on residential business". EDF made money last year from its commercial business (selling to high consumption businesses) and selling power from its generation side to the grid.
If they lose money in the residential market, why shouldn't residential rates go up? That was the point of the post I replied to - rates going up.
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exactly, because market competition 99 times outta 100 increases efficiencies, and all that energy chasing capital, in the end, keeps your monthly bills down.
where are those incentives when government takes over? that a bunch of nameless faceless bureaucrats who have no skin in the game are concerned about costs?
how does that work?
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Re: Oh dear - money grows on trees... (Score:4, Informative)
I don't know about the UK but in the US we have a curious blend of government and private public utilities companies. They are supposedly private but they are government regulated complete with a monopoly over their assigned area. The amount of profit they are allowed to make is also regulated. If they make too much then that money is refunded to customers and if they come up short that money is levied against the customers. Not really capitalism at all.
Re: Oh dear - money grows on trees... (Score:4, Informative)
The world has changed. Power pools. Generators bid (typically incremental cost) power into the pool which stacks up the bids and tells the cheapest to run and everybody else not to. They all get paid the price of the highest bid run that period.
This is a vast oversimplification. Long term deals from ratebase (the old way) are still honored with exceptions (usually transparent incestous deals to shift profit from regulated utilities to pure open market utilities. e.g. PG&E is banned from long term deals because they just aren't trustworthy, and ran out of second chances, no matter how many drinks they buy.)
I was involved in writing trading/dispatch floor software for many of the players in these pools.
It's a decent compromise between regulated monopoly and an open market. Highly regulated and transparent market. Not a huge burden on small players. There are no tiny players.
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Actually it's far worse. Right now, users on the same electric grid as the solar user are directly subsidising the solar producer through higher utility payments. This is due to inherent instability of solar production and spikes this causes, which require more complex grid management to keep the grid stable. Which means more costs, which are paid through price on delivered electricity, which is lower to the solar producer.
This is already the case in Australia, where this has been decried as a direct subsid
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And their is great unfairness of the residential solar subsidies. Lower income people can't participate, because they can't afford them without either taking
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Equal? All those government loans for big nuke and thermal coal projects dwarf just about everything outside of defence.
Re:It's energy and there are pockets in Washington (Score:4, Insightful)
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Subsidy of solar tends to pay for itself. In the end we all have to pay for new capacity, be out through energy bills or taxes. Solar more than pays for itself, reduces pollution and tends to encourage the owner to be more efficient.
Also, often the subsidy is actually a loan.
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Tax shifting (Score:2)
Re:cut utility profits from 8% to 41% (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, but the peak determines network design (Score:3)
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I have read TFA.
The assumption for reduced profit due to increased PV usage was 8% for a specific northeastern utility company, 15% for a specific southwestern one.
That "up to 41%" number came from "using certain other assumptions" for the southwestern utility.
In other words, TFS is, at best, misleading as hell.
solar plan for canada (Score:3, Interesting)
cost to install 600,000 homes - about 3.4 billion per year
emplyment to install 74,000 workers at 20 dollars a hour - tax about 45%+hst ( 13 more percent )
3 billion of the 3.4 billion of course ( of which the above taxes are extracted ) 1.4billion +hst (200 mill more)=1.6 billion
so above 3.4 billion -1.6 billion cost = 1.8 billion 1st year
600,000 homes not paying electricity save 10000 dollars and that equates to 1300 ( HST ) x 600,000
780 million per year
cost first year about 1.1 billion
NEXT year think 1.2 million homes and that 780 million X2
so inside 2 years the govt is gaining in taxes and the people have begun gaining but at a sustained rate new wealth....
this goes on 20 years and cause they last 20 years you have a perpetuating industry
YET NOT ONE OF THE TOP 3 PARTIES WANTS THIS FOR ITS PEOPLE.
AND yes the math is not exact here this is a quick example, now imagine the usa and germany doing this
imagine china and india
WHACKO MATH ERROR (Score:3)
Canada has winter for 7 months of the year or more. Snow covers PV panels. So does frost. Shorter daylight hours occur just as demand peaks due to heating demand. We also have cloudy days, rainy days, foggy days.
And how does this work for tenants in apartment buildings? Or co-op owners in a high-rise? Roof space per occupant is a lot lower.
YET NOT ONE OF THE TOP 3 PARTIES WANTS THIS FOR ITS PEOPLE
AND yes the math is not exact here this is a quick example, now imagine the usa and germany doing this
Of course none of the parties want this - your numbers don't add up, and you ignore the reality that the backup storage costs and days/weeks/months when power can'
Predictions for 2030 (Score:2)
A whopping 10% of new buildings will have had their shingles replaced by 'smart' shingles which incorporate solar cells. Freakin' solar roofs! Then in a devastating flurry of bank foreclosures, rent-to-own house flippees and general financial ruin, leaks, hazardous conditions and owner angst, replaced again with... shingles. There will be at least one (1) closet full of corroded electronics, taped off wires in the main panel that used to go to "that thing". And in the kids' bedroom a silent panel on the w
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Don't ruin the beauty of the thing with reality.
Utilities Fighting Back (Score:5, Interesting)
As the Economist notes, due to German and other European solar government incentives, European utilities face an existential threat [economist.com] to their investment future and business model. Utility giants the world over have seen this and decided to fight back against Net Metering [berkeley.edu] and other means whereby homeowners can feed back into the electric grid excess energy production from rooftop solar. Barclays, the British multinational banking giant, agrees that rooftop solar and net metering [businessinsider.com.au] represent a threat to centralized electric production utilities.
The problem utilities face is that solar tends to maximize output at mid-afternoon, exactly the same time spot prices have traditionally been at maximum. So their solution is to lobby government the world over to reverse net metering laws and end solar subsidies.
OK, time for me to get on a soapbox. I think this is shortsighted. The real problem here is that government and electric utilities have agreed on a price structure and investment plan to build out gas powered and coal powered plants that now appear to be unsustainable due to disruptive shifts in the market from technical innovation in the renewable field. As is noted in TFA, solar is - or will soon be - already cost competitive even without government subsidy.
Market fundamentalists would argue, 'let the utilities die. Their investors bought into a dying technology, the market will decide their fate.' Except that they have an endless stream of money to buy lobbyists and legislators to warp law in their favor. Further, they have a good argument that intermittent renewables will only meet partial demand. You still need baseline generation capacity from central utilities. So the problem - from their perspective - is excess production by renewables.
Except: when has excess energy production ever been a problem?
The real problem is twofold: We want to move off of fossil fuels due to global climate change and they want to maximize their vast infrastructure investments. A real policy solution would meet both needs.
Rooftop solar should be maximized. During periods of excess, gas powered plants should funnel their energy to local raw materials ore processing facilities and manufacturing. This has the benefit of distributing labor where it's needed near mining sites, rather than shipping raw materials where labor is cheapest for exploitation as well. And it keeps utilities running for the next thirty years to generate a viable expected ROI. And government policymakers could then plan a rational transition period away from fossil fuels without the economic dislocation of utility giants imploding worldwide.
Thoughts?
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"Market fundamentalists would argue, 'let the utilities die. "
No, market fundamentalists would argue, let the mandated subsidies to solar etc. die first.
Re:Utilities Fighting Back (Score:5, Informative)
For the most part, they already have.
US Solar subsidies in decline:
http://www.pv-magazine.com/new... [pv-magazine.com]
Australian subsidies in decline:
http://www.theaustralian.com.a... [theaustralian.com.au]
China cuts solar subsidies:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/... [bloomberg.com]
And yet it hasn't stopped solar deployments. Because even without subsidies, they're now cost competitive. Utility companies can't use the canard of government subsidized energy any longer. Yet they've invested - as the Economist notes - half a trillion in fossil fuel plants worldwide. I'm proposing a solution that at least prevents a utility meltdown during the transition period.
Or utilities could take solar more seriously (Score:2)
I know that the idea of cooper
Headline and summary completely wrong (Score:5, Informative)
A study by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory predicts that distributed rooftop solar panel installations will grow from 0.2% market penetration today to 10% by 2022
That is not what the study shows at all. They did an analysis of what the revenue impact on utility companies would be at various hypothetical levels of PV installation between 0.2% and 10%. It ignored total costs of PV (including installation and maintenance).
Most importantly, the study does not predict that PV installations will grow to 10% or any other level. It is just a "what if" analysis.
Re:Headline and summary completely wrong (Score:5, Funny)
Guys, bring the pitchforks : someone RTFA!
Generation and distribution (Score:5, Insightful)
Utilities actually have two businesses: Generation and distribution. We pay one bill and conflate the two. Solar just makes it clear they are different.
With home solar increasing, utilities will just invest less and less in generation. The transition is pretty gradual, so they can adapt just fine. Profits from generation will decline ... life will go on. But only if we accept that distribution also needs to be paid for.
If and until home power storage also becomes economical, homes are still going to need to connect to the grid. That infrastructure will need to be paid for. It's going to be tacked onto the utility bill. In the past, we subsidized small users by paying by the kwh. Now we have to decide if connection fees are more appropriate. That's what the debate is going to turn into.
Re: Generation and distribution (Score:2)
Re:Generation and distribution (Score:5, Informative)
Here in Houston, our generation and distribution are separate. We have over 30 different electricity retailers (and 2 generators), each of whom has a zillion different plans. You should see it. And they all have these fancy names like RateLocker, RateProtector, NightHawk, etc that give you all sorts of different rates depending on what you want. There's one that gives you free power on Sunday. There's one that charges less at night than during the day.
I really hope the rest of the country doesn't end up this way. It's a pain in the ass. You thought cell phone contracts were bad? Try an electricity contract. Yes, it's a contract of fixed length (12 months, 24 months, etc.) and if you cancel, you pay a fee. One I looked at was a 5 year contract that cost $150/year remaining if you wanted out! (If you move out of their service area and can prove that, they do let you out free, fortunately.)
mostly the grid (Score:2)
In any case, the incumbents are clearly show mass
The industry will NEVER allow you free energy... (Score:3)
I too have off-the-grid dreams as a house-owner, but the power companies always find a way, same thing with the electrical car that could run on water. Lobbyist will manipulate (read: FORCE) politicians into their direction, so you'll be depending on them one way or the other. The Politicians won't have a hard time accepting this as they need their energy tax income.
Taxes are like drugs, once you're hooked - it's very hard to get off, like addicts...politicians will find a way to make you pay either way. It's now getting to be environmentally sound? Fine...that's part of what I wish for too, but even though - we won't be off the hook that easily, government and companies that had enjoyed family power for centuries won't give up without a bloody fight, that I can pretty much guarantee you.
The general customer isn't that wise, they have no clue how anything affect our environment and politicians can pretty much tell them any half-truth to make them believe the complete lie. Half-truth is a classic, and widely used within leadership: Say...you purchase a new and better battery, but the management is taking losses on that purchase, it's environmentally sound - but they want the less eco-friendly solution because it earns them MONEY (and government profits on higher taxes as well), so they will tell you that YOUR SOLUTION isn't any good because of "insert-some-dubious-chemical-and-its-production-environment-here" and use that as a legitimate excuse. Nevermind the fact that it's actually a LOT more eco-friendly than the previous product, half-truth folks, it's a winner every time.
You as the consumer just need to educate yourselves a little bit more, stop accepting every thing imposed onto your lives by your elected politicians, demand scrutiny and don't just trust everything you hear. Be skeptical.
Or they will simply get it banned or restricted (Score:4, Informative)
In some areas of the US (especially the south eastern states where cheap dirty coal rains supreme) state governments have banned the kind of solar fiance schemes and loans that have allowed people in the west or in the north east to get solar panels on their home without the huge up-front cost. Yes the solar company makes money from the deal but the home owner still comes out on top in that they aren't paying anywhere near as much in power bills.
Also utilities have attempted to restrict (and in numerous cases succeeded in restricting) the amount of power allowed into the grid from small scale generation (including grid-tie solar) or have reduced or eliminated feed-in tariffs in way that make solar less viable.
Plus there are cases of outright bans on some kinds of solar setups (I cant find a cite right now but there have been cases where people have wanted to install solar panels and a battery bank or whatever and completly disconnect from grid power but have been prohibited from doing so by state and local laws)
Re:Or they will simply get it banned or restricted (Score:4, Insightful)
Plus there are cases of outright bans on some kinds of solar setups (I cant find a cite right now but there have been cases where people have wanted to install solar panels and a battery bank or whatever and completly disconnect from grid power but have been prohibited from doing so by state and local laws)
What happens if you don't pay your power bill and they come and disconnect you themselves? If they come and see the solar and have been instructed by company brass to forgo the disconnection in those cases, let the poor (that DO get disconnected) and their advocates know... won't take long before that changes.
Re: (Score:2)
I'd love to see the citation where people are forbidden from installing solar on their own property. I'm finding that hard to believe. Unless it's some of these rich bitch subdivisions that have draconian rules governing what you can do with your home. In that case though you agreed to be their bitch when you bought the place.
Re:Or they will simply get it banned or restricted (Score:4, Informative)
I'd love to see the citation where people are forbidden from installing solar on their own property.
It's not installing solar on their own property that's forbidden. It's installing sufficient solar and battery backup to power the house and then disconnecting from the grid that's forbidden.
Many parts of the country have what's called an occupancy permit. You may not live in a building that hasn't been issued that permit. The conditions for getting that permit are pretty simple, but they were written a little too specifically. For most of them, the building is required to have running water plumbed indoors, corresponding sewage plumbed out (and that sewer line must terminate in a septic tank, anaerobic digester, or sewage system, not an open holding pond), and finally, the building must be connected to the electrical grid. That's the way many of them are worded. They do not say "must have electrical power available". They specify the grid. So you can install all the solar panels and batteries you want, but if you disconnect from the grid, your occupancy permit can be revoked.
One hopes the various levels of government that have the excessively specific wording will fix it, but for the time being, it's a real thing, and a problem.
TFA False Premise (Score:5, Interesting)
The TFA uses a false model for computing profits. In the USA nearly all electric utilities are regulated monopolies. The government grants them a monopoply for a particular service area. The utility fronts the capital investment (historically up to 20% of all capital investment in the whole country!!! They must raise the capital in the private markets and convince investors to invest in utilites instead of Apple or Alibaba. High returns are needed to attract that money.). The pubic service commission is obligated to allow rates that guarantee the utility a defined return on investment profit. In real life, there is a lot of wiggle room and lots of politics in rate setting, but competitive pressure is not a factor. TFA ignores this.
We could, as a matter of public policy, decide to revoke the monopoly. That would open the door to any competitor, but it would also allow the utility to charge any rate they like without asking permission, and would remove any obligations regarding reliability and quality of service. (Think daily brownouts for anyone who doesn't pay for "premium service" on the hottest day of the year.) It would also open the door for another set of poles and another set of wires running down every street; one set per competitor. NYC was like that in the 1890s, and some places in Asia are like that today with hundreds of wires on every pole and laying over every rooftop.
But a death spiral in which rising rates paid by the remaining non-solar customers drive more and more customers to generate their own power could still be possible. But it would not directly affect utility profits as the TFA claims. The regulated utility business model would be challenged, not the profits of utilities that remain regulated. Those profits are guaranteed by law.
We should also recognize that lots of the population lives in high rise apartments and do not own enough rooftop or yard square feet to use solar panels.
Re: (Score:3)
What will happen is that utilities will realize that they are not recovering their investments in electrical distribution networks from customers who just use them to trade power back and forth. nd they will change their tarifs to reflec the new useage pattern. Customers will be charged an energy charge for net power consumed pr paid for excess power fed back in. But the utility system investment will be recovered by a charge for power exchanged in either direction. In other words, you will pay a certain am
Re: (Score:3)
One could carry it to the logical extreme. Expect everyone to supply their own power, but charge only a fixed fee to serve as a backup source.
Even in thst extreme case, the public service commission is required to grant rates which proved the utilities a guaranteed return in investment. Investments in transmission and distribution are huge. Return on those investments does not depend on them actually delivering energy all the time.
A death spiral would occur if too many people go completely off grid. Bu
37% increase this year (Score:2)
Gas price (Score:2)
ash (Score:2)
I wonder what will happen when some big volcanoes spew ash over most of the planet and solar energy production can't keep up with demand and the old, reliable energy production is gone? It's not like that has every happened, well 1816 sure, but it won't happen again.
Blowback for Enron etc (Score:4, Interesting)
Increasing price gouging has driven fees up while the capitial costs for consumers to generate their own electricity has gone down, with obvious results at the crossover point.
Private Solar becomming illegal (Score:5, Interesting)
Hell To Pay (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Which would drive more people to alternative energy. Vicious cycle. Energy companies can also cut costs by closing power plants and tightening supply. They can also diversify into manufacturing and supporting alternative energy installations. Ok well that last point will need less dinosaurs in the corner offices.
Electric rates going up 37% in Massachusetts now (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I don't know why you've been downmodded. This is for real.
Re: (Score:2)
While I too get frustrated with some of the things going on I have to say your description of reality is vastly twisted to the negative. Things largely are not so dire.
Re:Smoke Screen (Score:4, Insightful)
Wood stove for heat, cooking.
That wood stove is generating more pollution than 100 grid-connected houses, I wager. If every home had one, the forests would be gone and the air quality worse than China.
Re: (Score:3)
For those not familiar with this, in the US (at least, not sure of other markets) power companies buy your unused power you put on to the grid at a price that is above the retail price your neighbors will pay for their electricity from the utility.
I know of no part of the US market that requires that. At worst (for the power company), the law requires paying retail price. In many states, the law only requires paying the wholesale price. The utility is not required to pay the retail price to a homeowner in those states. And in quite a few states, there is no law requiring the utility to pay at all. Net metering does not exist and any excess power generated by a homeowner is a dead loss. The power company takes it without even a thank you.
The US