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With coal coming back, who needs solar power?
Who knew Luap was a hippie Dusty
Our elec. co. discourages you going solar.
Where we are at in Az. You are charged $23 a mo. in other fees even with solar panels. Our elec. co. discourages you going solar.
Nearly all public utility companies are happy to sell renewable electricity -- as long as they control the source and the power lines. That is, they SELL electricity. What they don't like is customers making their own electricity. If enough customers do it, the business model goes to hell.The traditional business model for a regulated utility was the cost-plus scheme: You promise the state regulators that you will make and sell electricity at the lowest possible cost, and the state utility commission lets you keep a certain percentage over that cost -- let's say that profit is 10%. You get to make a ten percent profit on any new facilities you build and any fuel you buy. So if I build a coal plant for $2 billion (paid by the ratepayers), $200 million goes to the stockholders. That's the cost for a typical 600 MW coal plant, and the plant will burn about $250 million in coal every year, meaning $25 million to the stockholders. 10% profit accrues to any transmission lines, transformers and other infrastructure I build. So if I build a solar power plant or wind farm, I make money on the sale of the electricity, and on the cost of building the resource and the transmission lines. What I forego is profit on the purchase of fuel.But if the customer makes his own electricity -- solar, wind or small hydro -- the only thing I get to charge for is a base rate connection charge to help pay for maintenance of the transmission lines. And if everybody in a neighborhood has solar, the use of the transmission lines is greatly reduced -- I don't have to build newer higher-capacity facilities and I don't make a profit on that unbuilt infrastructure.That's why utility companies have to be forced by state law to collaborate with solar-owning customers.
I thought you did
He's got a point, Luap. Who ever heard of a hippie computer geek?
Haha. In the words of George Jones, I'm no geek. "I'm a high tech redneck".
For me, where I live, there'd never be a payoff.Fay and I live in a 3200 sq foot house. Everything's electric, there's no gas lines here.A 2.5 ton heat pump for the first two floors, a 1 ton heat pump for the top floor. Electric range, hot water heater, clothes dryer.We mitigate the bill by hanging out clothes on the line when it's sunny, and burn wood we cut on the place to help keep the heat pumps off the resistance elements in the winter. I like long hot showers.Electric bill averages $170 a month from the local co-op. No point at all in going for solar at that price .....Lannis
We too have a dryer but never use it. Put our wet clothes on the back patio clothes line and let the year round sun here in Aridzona save us some electricity. Only time we really use more elec. is 2 months in the summer for AC when it gets a little over $100/month to do. But our house is 1/2 the size of Lannis's. We do have a 3 car garage full of MCs/scooters though. Our house is well insulated and we're @ 3,500'. That would be mtn. high back East wouldn't it, whereas here it's the foothills.
I thought you did Seriously though, the price of electricity in this county is atrocious. They monopolize it because we have no choice to switch carriers. We have done nothing different since building the house 10 years ago. Then, the average monthly electric bill was about $150. Inflation is killing us. It's $300 per month on average right now, and will go up to roughly $350 per month beginning in 2018. That increase came from the electric company themselves. A 150% increase in only 10 years???? Preposterous.The payments on our solar system is going to be $230 per month ($2.15 per watt), and hopefully our electric bill will be only the minimum charge of $25 per month (to stay connected to the grid). Simple math tells me to pay this sucker off in 5 years(hopefully), and have no electric bill by the age of 52. I can dig it. I wonder why If I'm the CEO of an electric company, I'm going to try and figure out how my company can sell solar systems to compete properly. Seems like I'd be in the business to sell electricity, regardless of where it comes from or who/what makes it. Profit is all that matters and when you get a certain percentage of customers downsizing, that eats profits and I'd be mad at my Operations Officer for not getting us involved in this new technology before it's too late...
utilities have successfully lobbied to eliminate all tax breaks for solar and charge homeowners with solar for hooking into the grid
Testarossa, The guys running utilities see that bigger is better. It's an inherent part of the system.
Well, it sort of has to be.When you have a huge fixed cost base (generating stations for base load), you make more money by having more customers paying into that same base.Same reason why hotel owners live or die by occupancy rates. 80% of their costs are fixed whether anyone is staying there or not. They only make money when the place is full.Hard to blame them for trying for more customers!Lannis
Lannis, I can blame them for clinging to the bigger-is-best model. There are alternative profit models that would keep them viable for the next century, but most of them insist on pushing prices ever upward, monopoly style. This will only drive customers to roll their own (called utility defection), as storage grows cheaper. See https://rmi.org/insights/reports/economics-grid-defection/
Agree with you but you miss my point. I am meaning that business types have visions of grandeur. Wanting bigger and bigger and more and more regardless whether there's a market for it in the future. The hotelier in your example would build larger hotels and more hotels just to become bigger even if the customer base doesn't exist.The future for electric utilities likely won't be simply more generating capacity, it will instead tend towards technology with "smart grid" and sustainable & hybrid generation. The thinking from the utilities is to resist homeowners' solar and protecting the "growth" model by using utility regulators to protect the status quo.
The thinking from the utilities is to resist homeowners' solar and protecting the "growth" model by using utility regulators to protect the status quo.
In Florida, a court recently ruled that it's illegal to go off-grid -- if you're not connected to city water and grid power, you're in violation of some obscure regulations regarding home maintenance and public health issues. There have been prosecutions of off-grid communities elsewhere, sometimes predicated on child endangerment.
APS is one supplier in Phoenix. July 1st new solar users will get paid less then the market rate for the electric they sell APS. Of course you will pay market rate for it when you need it back from them. The people buying leased systems after July 1st will find it harder to cost justify a lease which solar sellers claim will pay for itself and put money in your pocket.
