SDGE EV meter removal

[iPlug]

Sagebrush,
It's no problem to add a storage battery. I don't have one yet, but am thinking about it.

The thing that many people may not realize is that the NEM rules in California are based on renewable energy being the source. It gets a little more complicated with batteries...You're not supposed to export non-renewable energy back to the grid and get paid for it...

Here's a web page that explains how it works here in San Diego...

https://www.sdge.com/residential/solar/ ... gy-storage

The CA stuff would not be and issue for Sagebrush as he lives in another state.

A good place to start to get information about NEM rules, Federal Investment Tax Credit (ITC), State and Local Energy Incentives, and California's SGIP Program:

https://www.tesla.com/support/energy/po ... incentives

[smkettner]

Your solar installer should be able to sort this out or at least connect the evse to the main house meter.

My installer (SolarMax) wouldn't help; they said from the onset they don't handle that. Other solar contractors I talked to during the quoting process said the same. Apparently having two meters is different/weird enough that they don't want to deal with it.

I find it hard to believe a solar installer will not connect an evse.
Any electrician will do it. Yes SDGE would need to come and collect their meter.
Solar City did my install and offered to take care of everything and anything inside to home too.

[SageBrush]

@iplug is right -- CA does not personally affect me, although the policies utilities like SDG&E force on consumers certainly may arrive some day.

Regarding SDG&E my thought was the following:

Battery to cover evening and early morning use. It gets cycled up to twice a day: once from PV during the day for evening use, and once at night from the grid for early AM use.
PV to cover sunlight hours and to charge the battery for evening consumption
Nightime grid use for the battery charging and and EV charging

[iPlug]

Sorry for contributing to thread drift a bit here, but would also like some day to add home batteries with cycling use in a similar fashion.

At the moment, home batteries still seem to be relatively high hanging fruit, mostly due to initial capital/install cost and dismal utility reimbursement rates beyond net zero metering. Utilities will always be able to do this substantially cheaper than a home resident, though may not pass that savings on to the customer. Shocking, right?

Even if they did, there is still a potential value to being able to decouple from the grid, such as during natural disasters when power could be out for hours to days to weeks. Right now, all of our solar is useless in a power outage as it has auto shut-off to protect line workers on the grid.

There could also be a bit of TOU arbitrage fun in the future if/when advanced TOU plans and metering sufficiently advance to allow electricity to be bought and sold by the second.

[ybitz]

...There could also be a bit of TOU arbitrage fun in the future...

doesn't work in CA per Randy, right, since you can't get paid for exporting to the grid from battery?

[iPlug]

doesn't work in CA per Randy, right, since you can't get paid for exporting to the grid from battery?

Not legally. But even if one found a way to still do this, it's a pretty bad idea (economically). PG&E for example, California's largest utility, only pays to the resident ~$0.02-0.03/kWh for electricity net generation.

[SageBrush]

...There could also be a bit of TOU arbitrage fun in the future...

doesn't work in CA per Randy, right, since you can't get paid for exporting to the grid from battery?

The utility does not want to buy its own dogfood back at a higher rate than it charged, but nothing prevents you from being credited peak rates for PV generation, and then using that credit for non-peak kWh at a lower rate.

[SageBrush]

doesn't work in CA per Randy, right, since you can't get paid for exporting to the grid from battery?

Not legally. But even if one found a way to still do this, it's a pretty bad idea (economically). PG&E for example, California's largest utility, only pays to the resident ~$0.02-0.03/kWh for electricity net generation.

The idea would be to send e.g. a kWh of PV generation to the grid during peak and then collect ~ 2 or 3 kWh at night from the grid

[iPlug]

The idea would be to send e.g. a kWh of PV generation to the grid during peak and then collect ~ 2 or 3 kWh at night from the grid

Would imagine on a hot summer day, after the sun went down, residential AC units still running hard, the utility would likely be interested to buy residential battery stored electricity above wholesale rates, maybe at something like $0.10-20/kWh (or whatever spot price is at the moment) then turn around and sell it to ones neighbor at $0.467/kWh (current max rate on my plan).

[Randy]

doesn't work in CA per Randy, right, since you can't get paid for exporting to the grid from battery?

Not legally. But even if one found a way to still do this, it's a pretty bad idea (economically). PG&E for example, California's largest utility, only pays to the resident ~$0.02-0.03/kWh for electricity net generation.

iPlug,
I can't speak for PG&E, but down here in San Diego you get full retail pricing credit for exported solar energy, based on the pricing plan you're on and at the time of export (if you're on a TOU rate). This policy is good up to the point where your annual generation equals your annual consumption. If you generate above that amount, during your annual true-up you will get the wholesale energy price for all energy ABOVE your annual consumption. So for the bulk of most people's generation, you're getting full retail pricing credit.