I'm wondering if anybody is being forced to join a demand rate (kw/time) schedule because they have grid-tied solar.
The local utility here is trying to do that, with the "justification" the usual that interconnected solar customers use the grid "for free" as a storage battery and are thus subsidized by all the other good customers who don't bother trying to conserve. They actually have said that the rates had to be adjusted higher because too many people were conserving. This is a city-owned utility that shovels money into the city treasury by the truckload, and the city commissioners who set the rates don't want to lose a penny they can grab. Oh, and the ironic thing is they've just put in 5MW of PV, with another 6MW on the way. They want the PV, they jut don't want anybody else to have it.
I can understand having a demand rate, but it should be for everybody. And now that they have installed the smartmeters, it can easily be done, they however just want to target solar customers. Also, I have been unsuccessfully searching for justification for what seems intrinsically obvious, that the demand charge should be broken up into a peak demand rate, and an off-peak demand rate at about 10% of the peak demand rate.
It just bothers me too if I'm forced to charge the LEAF on peak-times when I'm generating PV, instead of sending it back to reduce peak demand for the electric company and customers, when I'm able to charge off-peak when capacity is under-utilized. They run peak diesel generators at times, which I believe with proper management could be eliminated.
There have been some excellent postings embedded in other threads about this topic, I thought they might be easier to locate in one thread.
Thanks for the help.