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Socially negative impacts of solar

wattmatters said:
That term "net metering agreement" means little to me.

Here the meter does the netting of energy flows and accumulates the relevant energy register accordingly. We have no agreement as to how net metering happens. It just is and is based on a national standard.

The only agreement we have is how we are billed based on that energy meter data.

I hope this is coming across as just a discussion on different interpretations of terminology. I'm not saying one is right or wrong, just that the terminology seems to have subtly different meanings between there and here.
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In the USA net metering of export and import doesn’t usually happen unless there’s also some sort of financial agreement to go with it. so most of the time we take a short cut and call it all a net metering agreement or just net metering because one doesn’t happen without the other.
 
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Brett V said:
My net metering uses a bi directional power meter. Excess solar production that flows in to the grid is "purchased" by the utility company at the same price I pay when power flows from the grid in to my home. There is also a second meter between the output of my inverter and the breaker in my main panel where it connects. That meter records all my solar production and is used to calculate my SREC payments which are totally separate from my arrangement with the power company. SREC's are sold on a commodities market and purchased buy utilities to supplement their solar solar production requirements.
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Curious. What part of the world is this?

67King said:
I doubt many places would literally still do it that way nowadays, either. We're required to have two meters with our system. Was just simplifying the explanation, rather than meaning that is literally how it is done.
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We still have a large base of older analogue meters in service.

They will all be replaced in time - and replacement with a modern digital "smart" meter is compulsory if the old meter is faulty, or you seek a change to your supply arrangement such as installing solar PV, or want to upgrade to 3-phase or something like that. In many cases the utilities are replacing them anyway. There was a mandatory complete replacement across Victoria last decade. Everywhere else is doing it incrementally.

What tends to happen is solar PV goes up, energy retailer is notified, new meter installation is booked and within a month usually you will have a new meter installed. In that interim period you are not supposed to energise the PV system, but most people do and spin the meter backwards. As long as you ensure it does not fall below the last meter reading, then you score a few weeks of "1:1 net metering". After that you then sign up for a new retail plan and your exports are credited at the feed-in-tariff, which is typically a fraction of the import tariffs.
 
Ampster said:
I don't think any of the last few posts have any relevance to the topic of this thread.
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It relevant because how we are metered and billed when we have a grid-tied PV system makes a big difference to the social justice impacts of consumers adding grid-tied PV systems. Indeed it's integral to the whole shebang.

We are addressing that here in part by changing the tariff structures to offset the imbalances created.
 
wattmatters said:
We have no agreement as to how net metering happens. It just is and is based on a national standard.
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Agreement or no agreement, that standard is the understanding of how it is done. Whether it meets the contractual definition of a meeting of the minds is irrelevant. Someone agreed to make a standard. That agreement became the basis for how it is done in your country.
 
wattmatters said:
I think I've picked up on this before and have sometimes used the phrase "asymmetric net metering" as a way to refer to the ultimate financial balance we have in place here in terms that might make sense to our American friends.
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Keep in mind that things are vastly different across the US. Even in how we are billed, from flat rate 24 hours per day, to a very large rate (over 2X what we pay here) in the day and free power at night. Some allow no form of buyback, some buy back at market rate for that specific time (i.e you get more value at peak usage times, which typically coincides with peak solar production). So there's as much variance across America by itself as between you and us.
 
Yes, rooftop solar benefits poor communities (often people of color), because pollutant belching power plants are often built where they live, and PV reduces the need for output from those plants.
Or, rooftop solar causes poor people to unfairly have to subsidize the grid for rich people.
It just depends on who you ask.

I suppose we could offer reparations in the form of not enforcing laws against tampering with or bypassing meters.

But seriously - all we need is a way to invest in (buy shares in) utility scale solar and have the generation credits applied to our utility bill. That would be available to renters. And everyone. You could scale your personal portion of the PV system up and down as you grow in needs or become more efficient.

Hell, let's just go back to having a publicly traded company that owns both generation and distribution. Anybody can simply buy shares of stock and receive cash dividends for its profit. Spend however you like, maybe on your utility bill. What does anything have to be more complicated than that, with incentives, rebates, and all that?
 
timselectric said:
Over the next 30 years (maybe less). Everyone will leave the grid behind. The last customers left will have to bear the cost of keeping it going.
Don't be in that group.

Just my opinion. Everyone should come to their own conclusions.
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Totally correct Sir…..it’s already starting… the talk and awareness is everywhere and will indeed increase exponentially …it’s coming for sure…….30 years is an overly generous timeline for massive increases in solar use by the public.
This is not to say all people will have that luxury or ability as no society ever sees that occur with its populous ,with the tech ( or stuff) that is available at that time.. That has never happened in history.

About 10-15 % always get the “ good stuff “ and get it early … another 50 or 60% finally fall into position to benefit at some point… 20 to 30% will always be dragging behind ,if ever getting onboard at all, due to various reasons.
It’s just the way life works .. some things never change.

Just my humble opinion…
 
Hedges said:
Yes, rooftop solar benefits poor communities (often people of color), because pollutant belching power plants are often built where they live, and PV reduces the need for output from those plants.
Or, rooftop solar causes poor people to unfairly have to subsidize the grid for rich people.
It just depends on who you ask.

I suppose we could offer reparations in the form of not enforcing laws against tampering with or bypassing meters.

But seriously - all we need is a way to invest in (buy shares in) utility scale solar and have the generation credits applied to our utility bill. That would be available to renters. And everyone. You could scale your personal portion of the PV system up and down as you grow in needs or become more efficient.

Hell, let's just go back to having a publicly traded company that owns both generation and distribution. Anybody can simply buy shares of stock and receive cash dividends for its profit. Spend however you like, maybe on your utility bill. What does anything have to be more complicated than that, with incentives, rebates, and all that?
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I'm going to make some assumptions about you.

1. You have never been poor.

I'll summarise your post as, "The opportunities to make money are there for all, so if they haven't done it, they are obviously stupid or lazy".

Most people see prosperity and opportunity as being directly linked. Thing is, they are in feedback with each other. Similarly fortune and income are related and in feedback with each other.

A lot of people then see this as a scale of degrees of "how high up" the ladder you are. "How well you did"

What not a lot of people, unless you have stood on both sides realise, it's not a scale of 0-100. It's a scale of -50 to 50.

When you reach a certain low point your opportunities start to diminish. Doors close. Entry rungs on ladders are out of reach. You "look poor", you "live in the wrong nieghbourhood", "You don't have a car". The scale goes negative.

When your fortune falls to £-3.51 that first month out of work and the bank slap a £30 fine in... then another £30 at the end of the month, your £65 welfare check gets swallowed. You have no income, so nobody is going to lend you money. Basically credit is only provided to those who don't actually need it.

So these basic "available all opportunities" are not in fact open to all. That is the illusion the rich and here we call them "Tories" believe. Most are just too out of touch with the real world.

When I was 16 I recall toasting dry bread on a single electric bar fire. It was 12*C inside. I wasn't meant to be using the fire, but ... I was the only one in the house and when the 50p coin slot meter ran out, I could just play cards, it was daylight. Mum would come home soon, she would have found a tenner for some food and electric, she always seemed to manage it, borrowing, working herself to death, etc. etc. On pay day she paid everyone back and bought us a chinese take away for dinner. By Monday it was back to borrowing and sitting in the cold and dark again.

Today I work in tier 1 investment banks writing software. I passed £60k a years ago. I now move pay rises into pension to save tax.

So I have sat on both sides of that 0 point. I understand the currents. I swam against them, but I was lucky, I had a gift and i was lucky I landed one or two opportunities without which I would still be living back with my Mum and Brother. They are better today, but not by much. I never ask for it back when they ask to borrow.
 
What world are these people living in? Utility companies have powerful lobbies, and they will be just fine. You can see the trends already. The net metering in my state, which used to be OK, has now changed so that you are never paid a nickel, even if you pump a gigawatt per second into the grid. You get only "energy credits" that are zeroed out every year. And if you are connected to the grid at all, even if you do nothing but send power to it, you pay $50 a month in connection fees and the like.

As for electric cars, same thing. Texas enacted a law just this week charging EV owners a $200 per year fee. You say that makes up for the gas tax that they don't pay, but is needed to maintain highways? Nice theory, except that the average ICE car owner pays only about $70 a year in gas tax.

Better buy your stuff before the next election. The tax credits will be repealed if the WH changes sides.
 
I am not talking about trying to achieve energy "equity" by false incentive.

I'm talking about a charity scheme or regulation that prevents the double win on one side and the double lose on the other.

In terms of myself, I am happy using what I can generate, if I end up with excess that I can't store I would be more than happy to donate it. I already won with the generation/storage, I don't need to win twice, that's just greedy.

In wider terms, just so you know where "I" am at. I hate "this political ideology versus that political ideology". In my opinion it takes most or all types of govenment and political paradigm. A mix. On economics, captialism is fine, however, there are things in a society, for it to be a society and for it to be civil that simply cannot and should NEVER be for profit. Justice for one. Health and medical care. Public transport. Basic "essential" utilities, electric, gas, water.

I'm not saying they should be entirely state owned and run, that has issues. I am talking about providing a concrete foundation in society were people do not get to fall below. Where the country itself as a country can support the "bottom end" of their society such that while it won't be a brilliant quality of life, it will be livable and at least some of those doors will remain open when the others shut.

I'm not saying give the poor free electric. Let them use as much as they like. No. But, give them a limited, minimal and necessary basic needs amount of electricity. The incentive is still there, you just aren't letting the economy grind families into suicide, hunger and crime.
 
venquessa said:
Not sure if anyone has seen "Technology Connections" on YouTube.

He voiced a concern about "roof top" solar going forward which I personally had not considered much.

Basically his point, if I may butcher it a bit, is... The electrical grid needs to exist. Without it normal roof-top solar doesn't work. The electrical grid needs to be upgraded because in many places it is under equipped to deal with houses generating many times what they are consuming.

Net effect, the electricity companies and distribution network operators have to invest into the grid infrastructure not only to keep expanding it to meet expanding demands, but also sureing it up for more and more micro-gen roof-top solar = more and more money.

At the same time however, more and more people who "can afford it" are putting 3-5kW of solar on their roofs and slashing their electrical bill massively and in many cases actually netting an income!

So, people putting engineering pressure on the grid are also putting financial pressure on the grid.

Here is the catch. Only those people who can afford solar have a way out from the rising electrical costs caused by those who can afford solar. It's a self perpetuating problem and without any intervention will result in massive "fuel poverty" for those who cannot afford solar.

Here is my attempt at a solution, which, honestly I would sign up to myself.

We fund and organise a charity electrical retailer. (locality specific probably). That retail operator buys and sells electricity just like all the others. However, this one gets it's incoming electricity by donation and gives that energy in units to a pool which is distributed out to other electrical retailers to reduce registered "fuel poverty" suffers bills.

Explained differently. If/when I have 3-4kW on my roof and I am over-producing. The net export units, instead of netting me about 4p per unit, instead get donated for free to this retail charity. My certificates of micro-generation are donated to this charity. When reconciled they amount to a number of "kWh" units of electricity, normally paid for in a feed-in tarif. The stream of these coming in, can be exchanged for actual electrical units from other retailers and go against poor peoples bills.

It's a very communist, socialist and "communal-energy" based.

But... you know what? I would far, far, far rather the over-production from my panels goes towards the 41p per unit electrical costs of present instead of the electrical retails insulting me with something less than 10p a unit in feed in.

It would take government intervention to prevent retailers from only paying out 4p or something for those generation units. It would work perfectly well if it was unit for unit. Or even unit for unit - transmission and distribution losses (which are normally paid by the retailer).
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right off of the bat... the grid was subsidized by the US government when it first came out... the utility companies have raped the average US citizen for how many years? they can pay for it. end of discussion.. they have fed at the trough long enough.
 
I think the power companies make plenty of profit and can afford to take the hit , share holders and CEOs will still get huge end of year bonuses
 
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