CJF said:
Hello xtremeflyer,
As was previously stated, this is a very small part of the big picture and I recognize that fact and fully appreciate the "good deal" of TOU for those of us that have solar. But the "big picture" is the sum of all the small parts and this is one of those small parts that I just don't understand and I'm honestly still looking for someone to help explain it to me.
I don't know that I can agree with your rationalization of this line item: <<It's actually very simple and makes perfect sense.. This portion of the bill is "Delivery Service".. so even though you Generated the electricity, it still costs SCE money to Deliver that energy and is passing that small cost on to you. At the end of the day the generation costs/savings are so much higher that doesn't really matter in the long run.>>
If your rationale is correct for the less than .01% of SCE customers that are net producers of electricity, then the reverse must also be true for those that only consume electricity. So that would mean the majority of consumers that operate under this pricing tariff are actually being paid for the delivery of their electrical service. Does that pass the sniff test?
While I wouldn't go as far as xtremeflyer and say "it makes perfect sense", I can see that there is a contorted logic behind it. Your electricity is, at least in theory, going through their transformer and down their wires. Later it may go through another transformer and out to another house. Both those transformers and all those wires need maintenance, and they usually go bad in the middle of a terrible storm. Maybe they should call it a "pickup and delivery charge", but there is potentially a cost to them for your generation and also for the other customer's use.
Now, once we get past the "in theory" and "potentially" and start looking at "in reality", I suspect none of the electrons spewing out of your meter onto their line ever get as far as a transformer. Instead they end up in your neighbor's house, metaphorically* speaking. So I think in practice it is a stupid charge. But if you had a large open field in your back yard, and covered it with solar panels, you could indeed turn the theory into reality, and the utility wants to be covered for that case.
Ray
* metaphorically, because the EEs would probably point out that this is AC, so most of the electrons are just bouncing back and forth 60 times a second and not going much of anywhere.