Just when you thought you had the labels all worked out...political libertarians, including some Tea Party members, tend to support net metering because it permits and encourages individuals to produce their own power
This is not always the case. Wholesale prices can and do sometimes exceed what utilities charge customers. This was a major factor in the California electricity crisis of the early 2000's.For example, in centralized markets, a utility can buy all of its power needs at the wholesale rate. This rate will always be less than the full retail rate it would have to pay to buy the same power from a customer.
Yes, there obviously has to be some sort of cost associated with using the grid which I don't think most people are opposed to. The challenge comes when defining that cost, as most proposals utilities have had have not appeared very fair.JeremyW said:Net metering is a challenge, and probably is not sustainable in it's current form if say everyone that could have solar has an array. The spiraling effect of more people getting solar as rates increase due to the increase of solar is a serious issue that we are looking at. I believe we will go to a fixed infrastructure charge and TOU net-metering with super-on-peak starting near sunset. Get enough people with solar and high noon becomes off peak. :shock:
Yeah, I noticed that there seems to be another 100 MW of solar added to the grid every month or so it seems lately. I expect that we'll see over 3 GW peak of utility scale solar online by the end of the year.JeremyW said:There's also been a massive build out of utility scale plants, with the CA ISO peak output around 2,800 MW as of yesterday. From just past 9am to about 4:30pm we get more power from utility solar plants than nuclear in California (Diablo Canyon, ~2,200MW). That will eventually increase to an hour after sunrise till an hour before sunset in short order.
This is correct. I wish it was caused by solar. I have worked two consecutive days where one was clear skies and the other hazy, and sure enough load was higher on the hazy day. The solar peak from "behind the meter" is probably more broad then that little dip and I'd imagine more systems are set up to be southwest facing, getting more of the afternoon sun. I would guess we (CA ISO) have about 2,000MW of behind the meter solar.siai said:When I used to watch demand, the noon dip used to be because many small and medium sized shops (factories) shut down their machinery for lunch. The highest demand was just after lunch when they started back up tapering off until a big drop at 5:00. Then you would pick up a little as people got home from work and started dinner, turned on lights, A/C, TV's, etc. I don't think that it is as pronounced as it used to be as many of those small shops are gone---outsourced to the Pacific rim countries.
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