Arizona Utility Fees for Solar Power Grid-tie

[97prizm]

Not to get political, but It seems every time something comes along, the Gov't has to intervene. My parents live in Arizona and due to the awful heat, most solar panels are only living half of their 30 year life span before kicking the bucket. I guess 117f will do that to just about anything, except scorpions,and cockroaches. Solar tax

 

[MrQuackers]

Beam me up Scotty.

 

[zloveraz]

Originally Posted By: 97prizm
Not to get political, but It seems every time something comes along, the Gov't has to intervene. My parents live in Arizona and due to the awful heat, most solar panels are only living half of their 30 year life span before kicking the bucket. I guess 117f will do that to just about anything, except scorpions,and cockroaches. Solar tax


It's not the politicians this time, it's the utility company what a surprise. OMG I just read that horrible editorial, "50% of the power generated is from Coal" only if you live on the Indian Reservation and those are super small plants...

The majority is Natural Gas and then Hydroelectric and of course we have the largest Nuclear plant in the USA.

 

[daves87rs]

Wow..

 

[gathermewool]

Originally Posted By: 97prizm
Not to get political, but It seems every time something comes along, the Gov't has to intervene.

Are AZ utilities government-run now???

 

[97prizm]

Maybe I shouldn't have said gov't intervened, but intervened by someone or some entity.

 

[Kuato]

Shameful.

 

[morepwr]

Same as anything else. Find a new technology that saves energy and then companies want to keep that revenue up so they find a new way to charge you.

 

[JHZR2]

Looks like it is the utility, not the government.

Honestly, this may be a step in the right direction. Why? Because all these systems, and the government programs set up to finance them, are way large and super expensive.

Most solar retailers know that the government rebates exist and that they can charge higher prices, and they do.

Ive long said that the best solar system is not these $40k monsters that take up an entire roof and sell so much power back on the grid (which is a transient response which is tough for stationary plants to deal with, and thus is a far bigger challenge than just "putting electric back on the grid") are really a dumb idea. We are much better off just offsetting our worst offenders when they are doing their most load.

If the max heat is middle of the day, I know that my refrigerator and maybe my AC will be running a bit more, even if I set the temps higher. So if I offset my refrigerator by, say, 500W (two panels), and my AC by half (1500W or three panels), then I am at five panels and 2kW. 260W panels are around $300 a piece, and conversion is less than $1/W.

So youre looking at $3500 plus some installation cost, as opposed to these $40k systems which then the government incentivizes and a select few benefit from while others are stuck on a waiting list and cant even cashflow it because the retailers are charging too high a price.

Small, practical systems to make the grid load much lower but not make a home net zero is, IMO the way to go. The retailers around here actually hurt solar penetration, because if they cant sell you a many, many kW system that is really big and expensive, they wont even talk with you. Id love to put a 500 or 1000W system on my roof, just a few panels. Nobody is interested. Why should they be when they can be bidding 8kW systems that the government will write them a rebate check for?

So nixing the net metering will reduce that element of it, and let more people operate more, smaller solar systems, which IMO is better for everyone, and puts less transients on the grid, and thus less requirement for storage and/or spinning reserve.

 

[JOD]

Easy fix: don't read Yahoo "news". That is the most disjointed, biased "news" story I've ever seen. They aren't taxing solar power, they're charging a fee for using the grid. How exactly isn't that reasonable? Don't like it, simple-don't use the grid. They aren't taxing the sun, or solar power.

 

[d00df00d]

Can we get a mod to fix the title of this thread? It's false, and provocative in a bad way...

 

[MrMeeks]

Md. now has a tax on rainfall.

 

[Lead Shoes]

Great way to boost solar power by setting an example and taxing its use. -.-

 

[JimPghPA]

Originally Posted By: JHZR2
Looks like it is the utility, not the government.

Honestly, this may be a step in the right direction. Why? Because all these systems, and the government programs set up to finance them, are way large and super expensive.

Most solar retailers know that the government rebates exist and that they can charge higher prices, and they do.

Ive long said that the best solar system is not these $40k monsters that take up an entire roof and sell so much power back on the grid (which is a transient response which is tough for stationary plants to deal with, and thus is a far bigger challenge than just "putting electric back on the grid") are really a dumb idea. We are much better off just offsetting our worst offenders when they are doing their most load.

If the max heat is middle of the day, I know that my refrigerator and maybe my AC will be running a bit more, even if I set the temps higher. So if I offset my refrigerator by, say, 500W (two panels), and my AC by half (1500W or three panels), then I am at five panels and 2kW. 260W panels are around $300 a piece, and conversion is less than $1/W.

So youre looking at $3500 plus some installation cost, as opposed to these $40k systems which then the government incentivizes and a select few benefit from while others are stuck on a waiting list and cant even cashflow it because the retailers are charging too high a price.

Small, practical systems to make the grid load much lower but not make a home net zero is, IMO the way to go. The retailers around here actually hurt solar penetration, because if they cant sell you a many, many kW system that is really big and expensive, they wont even talk with you. Id love to put a 500 or 1000W system on my roof, just a few panels. Nobody is interested. Why should they be when they can be bidding 8kW systems that the government will write them a rebate check for?

So nixing the net metering will reduce that element of it, and let more people operate more, smaller solar systems, which IMO is better for everyone, and puts less transients on the grid, and thus less requirement for storage and/or spinning reserve.


---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Modern refrigerators do not draw that much power. Our 20.6 Cubic Feet Frigidaire that we purchased new a couple of years ago draws a brief surge of 11 Amps when starting the compressor, but when running it draws 110 Watts. Now a whole house AC can be a real energy hog.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The compan(y/ies) that installs the infrastructure to bring electric power from the power generations source(s), to your house, building, and or business has a very big overhead. The huge high-voltage transformers that are used in substations can cost over a million dollars each. The high-voltage breakers, the high voltage instrument transformers that reduce the high voltage so that each high voltage line can be watched, the huge stack of wet cell batteries (usually 60 batteries (each the size of about 5 or 6 car batteries) tied in series to make 120 DC to run the huge breakers and all the instruments in the substation when there is a power interruption, the instrumentation in the substations, the wires to connect the substations information and control signals to the main control room (often called systems), the computers and controls at the main control room, the crew that main control room, the men that repair problems when there is an outage, ALL of these are overhead to maintain the ability to supply power from the generations sites to the customers. If too many of the customers reduce the amount of power they are using but still want the connection to the grid to always be there, then the companies that supply the grid connection have to restructure the way they bill so that the cost of maintaining the grid still gets paid for.

 

[Merkava_4]

People in Arizona are gonna have to go off the grid while they're using their
solar power. An electrician should be able to figure out how to do that.

 

[rshaw125]

Remember utilities are government enforced monopolies. Zero competition.They did not want to purchase excess electricity from people's solar roof tops. They were forced to.
Our utility was just purchased by another. Rubber stamped by the 'regulators'. First order of business? Raise rates by10%+. To pay for? The grid infrastructure. The grid has already been paid for. In Arizona they want to charge customers again. Because they can.

 

[The_Eric]

Originally Posted By: JimPghPA

The compan(y/ies) that installs the infrastructure to bring electric power from the power generations source(s), to your house, building, and or business has a very big overhead. The huge high-voltage transformers that are used in substations can cost over a million dollars each. The high-voltage breakers, the high voltage instrument transformers that reduce the high voltage so that each high voltage line can be watched, the huge stack of wet cell batteries (usually 60 batteries (each the size of about 5 or 6 car batteries) tied in series to make 120 DC to run the huge breakers and all the instruments in the substation when there is a power interruption, the instrumentation in the substations, the wires to connect the substations information and control signals to the main control room (often called systems), the computers and controls at the main control room, the crew that main control room, the men that repair problems when there is an outage, ALL of these are overhead to maintain the ability to supply power from the generations sites to the customers. If too many of the customers reduce the amount of power they are using but still want the connection to the grid to always be there, then the companies that supply the grid connection have to restructure the way they bill so that the cost of maintaining the grid still gets paid for.



Wouldn't the cost of grid maintenance be offset by lower energy production costs? More solar input from home owners would mean less power they have to produce. If they have to buy it (from other utilities), I could see where that would have an affect on them.

 

[JethroBodine]

The city I live in has formed it's own group of local citizens who have banded together to negotiate better utility rates. This took off so well and saved so much that now the whole city is in the group. We save about 33% over what we would be charged as individuals. So, if your utility is charging you a fee for nothing....ditch them for another or change the local utility laws and hit them with a $200 per user "surcharge" for the right to do business in your county. Then seize their grid through eminent domain.

or charge them "service entrance fees" to maintain the easements to their grid.

 

[HerrStig]

Originally Posted By: zloveraz

Not to get political, but It seems every time something comes along, the Gov't has to intervene. My parents live in Arizona and due to the awful heat, most solar panels are only living half of their 30 year life span before kicking the bucket. I guess 117f will do that to just about anything, except scorpions,and cockroaches. Solar tax


It's not the politicians this time, it's the utility company what a surprise. OMG I just read that horrible editorial, "50% of the power generated is from Coal" only if you live on the Indian Reservation and those are super small plants...

The majority is Natural Gas and then Hydroelectric and of course we have the largest Nuclear plant in the USA.
Where do they get the water to cool that baby? BTW, battery cars may be paying a "fuel tax" in the People's Republic soon. After all, they DO wear the roads, just like their combustion powered counterparts.

 

[HerrStig]

I have long beileved that envirowweenies want everyone but themselves to freeze in the dark to "save the planet". Any system advanced to replace fossil fuel is soon declared to be just as bad. "Ooooooooooh no, we couldn't POSSIBLY use THAT" is a common refrain. A Boston communist rag recently published a letter from an anti windmill "environmentalist" which in some convoluted way claimed that more diesel fuel would be used to consrruct a windmill than the windmill would save. There were gross errors of fact and wild assumptions contained therein, but the conclusion was clear... "freeze in the dark" folks.