Moving the goal post on folks is kind of a dirty move but the way your power agreements and utility billing works I can kind of see why it is necessary for the well being of your grid. I mean I'm in Texas so I shouldn't really say much about the well being of a grid but here we get charged separately per kWh for delivery (which pays for the grid infrastructure) and then we get charged for every kWh of electricity for the actual power.
I personally think net metering was a good idea to get people going but it is not sustainable long term going forward. Once you hit critical mass and everyone is producing solar during the day but everyone wants to use power at night, the system breaks down. Having said that, Australia works just fine on solar and wind: https://reglobal.co/a-grid-dominated-by-wind-and-solar-is-possible-a-case-study-of-south-australia/
I think in home self consumption will be the true name of the game. I don't mind paying the $5 monthly fee to have grid access and pay for the electricity I use from the grid including the delivery charge but $8/month/kWh sounds unsustainable. At $0.20/kWh that would require you to export 40 kWh/kW/month just to break even. That's 1.3 kWh/day for every kW of PV. in Texas at my location I can estimate to be producing about 3.4 kWh per kW of PV per day on average. That is a 38% tax on PV production at that point and makes it non-viable.
Home consumption will alter the snake oil salesmen's tactics as they will not be able to sell people on the idea that everything they produce will automatically offset their consumption. With no net metering, the bets are off and you have to do the math for yourself.
I don't even have my PTO in place but with my inverter I can just limit my PV to home consumption only and that is not something they can stop me from doing. I think this will be the future of solar production. My system is set up to be 94% self consumed with my usage/PV size and battery whether I have free nights or not. With free nights my math changes so I only self consume 66% and export 34% because I have no need for the daytime electricity if you give me free power at night. My contract with my REP (retail electricity provider) is for 24 months, after that they can re-evaluate and offer something different or I am free to choose a competitor if I want to.
As for EVs, I have one with a 93 kWh battery but I only charge about 12 kWh/day with the mileage I drive. I would not want to use my expensive EV as a home battery anyway, Lifepo cells for the house are still way cheaper than full battery replacements in EVs. Sure, for emergencies it'd be nice to have an additional 93 kWh storage that I could dip into but for normal use I'd never want to cycle that battery for my home power needs.
I personally think net metering was a good idea to get people going but it is not sustainable long term going forward. Once you hit critical mass and everyone is producing solar during the day but everyone wants to use power at night, the system breaks down. Having said that, Australia works just fine on solar and wind: https://reglobal.co/a-grid-dominated-by-wind-and-solar-is-possible-a-case-study-of-south-australia/
I think in home self consumption will be the true name of the game. I don't mind paying the $5 monthly fee to have grid access and pay for the electricity I use from the grid including the delivery charge but $8/month/kWh sounds unsustainable. At $0.20/kWh that would require you to export 40 kWh/kW/month just to break even. That's 1.3 kWh/day for every kW of PV. in Texas at my location I can estimate to be producing about 3.4 kWh per kW of PV per day on average. That is a 38% tax on PV production at that point and makes it non-viable.
Home consumption will alter the snake oil salesmen's tactics as they will not be able to sell people on the idea that everything they produce will automatically offset their consumption. With no net metering, the bets are off and you have to do the math for yourself.
I don't even have my PTO in place but with my inverter I can just limit my PV to home consumption only and that is not something they can stop me from doing. I think this will be the future of solar production. My system is set up to be 94% self consumed with my usage/PV size and battery whether I have free nights or not. With free nights my math changes so I only self consume 66% and export 34% because I have no need for the daytime electricity if you give me free power at night. My contract with my REP (retail electricity provider) is for 24 months, after that they can re-evaluate and offer something different or I am free to choose a competitor if I want to.
As for EVs, I have one with a 93 kWh battery but I only charge about 12 kWh/day with the mileage I drive. I would not want to use my expensive EV as a home battery anyway, Lifepo cells for the house are still way cheaper than full battery replacements in EVs. Sure, for emergencies it'd be nice to have an additional 93 kWh storage that I could dip into but for normal use I'd never want to cycle that battery for my home power needs.