My solar PV thread

[freebeard]

Springfield Utility Board - Springfield Utility Board
https://www.subutil.com
Trust. Tradition. Service. Welcome to the Springfield Utility Board! SUB is a customer-owned community resource. Like other customer-owned utilities, SUB has a three-pronged mission: to provide excellent customer service, to keep rates low and affordable, and to support the community it serves.

In my location the utility brokers power from the Bonneville Power Administration.

Bonneville Power Administration - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonnev...Administration
The Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) is an American federal agency operating in the Pacific Northwest.BPA was created by an act of Congress in 1937 to market electric power from the Bonneville Dam located on the Columbia River and to construct facilities necessary to transmit that power. Congress has since designated Bonneville to be the marketing agent for power from all of the federally ...

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by thingstodo

As for costs, besides the meter ... what costs? The grid does voltage and frequency regulation, has the peaker plants, etc. I must e naive - what does the coop do?

Adding a single roof-mounted solar system to the grid has no additional costs because the amount generated is so insignificant. However, each additional intermittent electricity source (solar system) that is added to the grid adds increasing cost to mitigate the sporadic nature of those systems. Solar is a low quality type of electricity because it's non-dispatchable (does not respond to demand).

Once a certain amount of non-dispatchable electricity is introduced to the grid, it begins to increase the cost of dispatchable electricity. While the direct costs of the solar equipment alone are fixed, there are infrastructure costs that the grid must absorb.

One made up example (to illustrate the problem) is a gas generator with a 30 year operational life. The cost to construct the generator is amortized over the lifetime production of electricity. Because solar is curtailing (reducing) some of the natural gas electrical production, that fixed infrastructure cost has to be spread over fewer generated GWh. Instead of that natural gas plant being able to produce electricity for 3 cents per kWh, it now costs 4 or 5.

[freebeard]

Originally Posted by thingstodo

I have seen equipment advertised that uses your house wiring to distribute AC from your solar, but measures the incoming power at your panel to ensure that you don't export to the grid. I think that this is gorilla (sp?) as well.

There was a Jack Rikard episode [citation needed] where he discovered the utility was buying electricity from him and selling it right back at 2-3x the price, right at the meter!
_________________

Anyways, here's a thought from Answers With Joe. A return of 500% over selling it to the grid.

edit: grrr-illa.

[oil pan 4]

Yeah they can do that.
They pay you generation rate, usually 3 cents a kwh and sell it to you at 12 cents or a whole lot more.

[redpoint5]

That's not crazy because generation is only a portion of the cost of delivering the electricity to your door. Why should the utility reimburse locally generated electricity at the retail rate when you're using the rest of the infrastructure? There are zero times when my solar production exactly matches my demand, so I am constantly using the grid as a battery; sometimes to take my excess production, and usually to supply the deficit.

[oil pan 4]

The best way to screw the coop is to get more power from my panels.
I could just get bigger panels, but then I would have to redo racking, ick.
They are only west tilted, as thats what's available. So peak power is about 7.4kw out of 9.6kw worth of panels. Pointing them straight at the sun will only get about 10% to 15% more power. Tracker will only increase energy out put by a out 30%, okay maybe 40% for my sub standard install.
Man I wish I had other people's money for a budget like the government.

[oil pan 4]

The coop decided to give a stay to the 17 existing solar power systems. So no $80 up charge.
All this over 17 solar installs, out of a few thousand customers and some of these customers are massive electricity users, pivot farmers who run multiple 20 to 50 horsepower irrigation pumps 24hrs a day 7 days a week during the summer, dairies that run well pumps around the clock and lights all night and have power bills in the tens of thousands of dollars every month.

[oil pan 4]

Well I know why my coop suddenly turned anti solar. The NM public regulatory commission is trying to sell out to advagrid or what ever they're called.
Those are the butt pirates who bought out central maine power and then doubled to tripled people's electric bills.
If that happens the solar panels will become a cash cow.

If adagrid buys PNM I'm declaring war.
Sell the leaf, buy a VW oil burner, run it on Texas diesel turn up the boost and mod it to roll coal.
Get natural gas and gas everything.

[freebeard]

If you're living Leaflessly, how much solar [tracking] would you need to go off-grid completely? Would they let you?

[redpoint5]

I got a letter from my natural gas utility saying they are exceeding their goals to transition to renewable energy, and they solicited feedback on that "accomplishment".

I obliged by telling them their only duty is to safely deliver natural gas as affordably as possible to their customers, and that if we wanted alternative energy, we would get alternative energy elsewhere. If our bill increases even 1 cent because of the "accomplishment", they are in violation of their responsibility to deliver affordable energy to their customers.

Perhaps that's how we all transition to alternatives; the utilities drive prices up so high that it simply becomes cheaper to make your own power.