It's worth noting that while net metering is helpful for bootstrapping rooftop solar, ratepayers are essentially subsidizing solar arrays on the houses of (wealthier) homeowners.
The utility company would normally pay wholesale rates for solar energy (which has an aggressive duck curve), but instead they're forced to pay retail prices to net metering customers.
California pays wholesale rates now (they're on NEM 3.0) with a fixed fee for maintaining the wires even if you don't use them a whole lot.
I didn’t think I’d see corporate utilities propaganda on hacker news but here are.
The main rebuttal to this is why are non of the public utilities (Sacramento, Santa Clara, and La power) in California trying to get on nem 3.0 if it’s such a profit loss and causing so much “unfairness”? The answer is because it’s made up and the investor utilities want to be able to sell you all the power. They would love to get rid of rooftop solar.
The primary point I was trying to make in saying that "x is subsidizing y" is that it is literally unsustainable. All net metering has to (and will) end at some point along the curve from 0% to 100% rooftop solar adoption because it becomes financially unsustainable for the utility.
Which doesn't mean it's bad policy! The solar industry needs help to grow. But this sort of thing (utilities ending net metering) is only to be expected. California switched to NEM 3.0 with only 20% rooftop solar adoption. Nationally we are at like 4-5% (but I might be out of date).
> If you believe burning carbon fuels is a big negative externality, then solar users are subsidizing everyone else.
If the energy company is paying you $0.12 to sell electricity for $0.09 - they're losing money. Not to mention, they aren't covering any of the costs of maintaining their network (which is a large chunk of the overall cost).
If they're forced to buy rooftop solar from homeowners at a loss - they are FORCED to transfer that loss onto other costumers - which means the other customers are subsidizing that.
There isn't anything tricky about who is subsidizing whom.
Your issues with "dirty" energy are entirely separate.
You are stating a common misconception. That being that solar owners should be paying for anything other than the cost to push power into the distribution grid. The grid fees solar owners pay account for that. They should not be paid for supplying power at wholesale rates bc that assumes a wholesale power flow model, which is not physically applicable to solar owners who support the local distribution grid. If you look at the portion of the grid that a solar owner interacts with, how their power flows through it, the efficiencies of supplying that power locally are clear and should be at retail + distribution fees only. It’s the solar owners that are actually (marginally) subsidizing the non-solar owners in reality.
The utilities and ISO’s do not argue against this. They want to eliminate NEM 2.0 in favor of NEM 3.0 bc the difference in rates are to then be provided by alternative incentives such as battery pay-for-performance programs.
Disclaimer: I own an energy company that does C&I and Residential energy aggregation and participates in wholesale market energy supply and incentive programs.
I'm not sure I understand how what you say contradicts what the previous poster said? Can you elaborate? I think the point implied in the previous comment was that pushing into a grid locally is much cheaper for the grid operator than distributing power from a far away power plant?
> Your issues with "dirty" energy are entirely separate.
It's not really, that's the entire idea behind economic externalities. Power generation using carbon sources brings with it a cost in the form of pollution and greenhouse gases not directly paid by the customer. That cost is effectively spread out evenly across society, so those who use less carbon intensive energy are more or less subsidizing those who use more. Or to put it another way, if the folks with rooftop solar were instead just using electricity from coal or gas plants like their neighbors, their neighbors would have an increased pollution/global warming cost even if they don't see it in their electric bill.
Of course the math may or may not actually work out since the net metering costs for rooftop solar are based on electricity rates rather than any pollution based externalities. But the idea that it's strictly an economic transfer from people without solar to those with solar doesn't seem entirely accurate. And the economic impacts of "dirty" energy are definitely not a separate issue.
Utilities already have mandates to buy X% of their power from renewable sources. They primarily do this by building/buying utility scale renewables because that is more cost effective than paying homeowners retail rates for their electricity.
Distributed generation is great because generation and consumption are next to each other, and this can theoretically reduce peak load on the grid. The problem is that the sun goes down every day at the same time, and we're back to the same peak load.
The lowered rates in NEM 3.0 actually incentivize homeowners to buy batteries and load shift, which does actually help reduce peak load. Batteries are still too expensive, though, and the hope is that falling battery costs make it economical.
Externalities exist, yes, but they only matter when they get priced in. Capital moves energy markets, not vibes.
At least in New York state, they've recently tried to deal with this discrepancy while still keeping the incentive to install solar. There's a flat rate fee for all electricity customers to be hooked up to the grid to support grid infrastructure. There's also an additional fee to those that have solar panels called the Customer Benefit Contribution that is based off your generation to help fund energy efficiency projects and low-income programs.
They’re also simultaneously selling it again for $0.12 ensuring that your surplus free electricity is used by your neighbors. Conceptually it’s a wash, because they then scale down the amount of power they generate. The real world consequence is that power generation is not easily scaled on demand.
"because they then scale down the amount of power they generate"
They spend 0.12 for power that would have cost them much less than 0.12 to generate. The consequence is that they make up for it by charging other customers more.
One way of thinking about this is in terms of kWh rather than cents.
If you supply a kWh to the grid at midday and then consume a kWh overnight, what should your balance of payments be? If you're getting the wholesale rate during the day, do you also get the wholesale rate at night?
What this is really about is, how should we pay for the fixed costs of the infrastructure?
There isn't an objective answer to that. You could say that everyone pays a fixed service charge and then there is no contribution per kWh, and then the per-kWh rate for retail and wholesale are exactly equal. That's the most economically efficient thing, but then people who don't use a lot of electricity are paying a high fixed fee.
Another high efficiency thing is to use time of day metering, so that the difference between the wholesale and retail pricing is highest when supply is most outstripped by demand. That also gets rid of your problem with solar because then they can get retail, but get retail based on the time of day, so supplying power when it's cheap and using it when it's expensive isn't going to net out.
But charging retail and paying wholesale to the same customers isn't ideal, because those customers also have a choice. If they're getting paid $0.04/kWh for generation during the day but then paying $0.12/kWh or more at night in order to pay for the infrastructure, they might find it more economical to install a battery system locally and then stop buying power from the power company at all on most days. And then they're still not contributing anything per kWh to the fixed costs of infrastructure, but now you've actually made it worse, because a local battery system is going to be configured to align with the needs of the owner rather than the needs of the grid. Instead of incorporating the battery system into the grid so it can dump its full capacity during the nasty part of the duck curve and then fulfilling the lower demand for the rest of the night from baseload generators, the homeowner has the incentive to sell nothing from their batteries to the grid at 7PM (because they're only getting wholesale) so they can have it left to use for themselves to avoid paying retail at midnight.
Then the grid still has to cover its fixed costs from the other customers and can't even affect their usage with time of day metering because retail off-peak is too close to wholesale on-peak.
> they are FORCED to transfer that loss onto other costumers
How does that figure?
I won't even insist you account for second order effects of having the solar panel, just that the consumer is only paying for their net draw of energy from the grid (which has decreased).
And it's not just for maintaining the wires, but for maintaining the backup power sources for when everyone with solar and batteries suddenly needs them.
One is not just buying power from the grid, one is buying the capability of demanding that power at any time.
Rooftop solar in the US is absurldy expensive. The 30% federal subsidies alone are greater than the full buildout cost of utility scale solar. At these prices rooftop solar makes no sense.
This seems to be more about the US market than rooftop vs utility scale. Australia shows it is possible to install rooftop solar cheaply. Why can't we?
I studied this for a year fellowship, and there are lots of problems, but problems with permitting and interconnection are pretty unique in the US.
NREL, NFPA, UL, and Tesla got together and developed SolarAPP (https://gosolarapp.org). It enables instant online permitting for standard installations, and California passed a law mandating its adoption.
It's also sales. Solar is currently sold by salespeople and they need to be paid. The small solar companies contract out to the larger solar companies for crap rates because top of funnel is very hard for them. There is a YC company going after that opportunity: https://projectsolar.com/
Software providers like Aurora (https://aurorasolar.com) are used for making proposals, but they sell software to solar installers rather than vertically integrating and going after it themselves.
Tesla sells online, but the online experience ends after you pay and they try to sell you too much solar. Everything, including design, is subcontracted out in my understanding.
Sunrun is a great option even though you don't own the panels. PPAs are more popular at the moment because interest rates are so high.
Oh, huh! I guess they’re not. For some reason I thought they were. Maybe because their site is orange and they’re venture-backed :P
(sibling comment got killed for no good reason – definitely talk to a real person with experience with any solar company before diving in. they can have a wide variety of outcomes)
The US solar market is extremely weird. For many installs, a majority of the money could go to dealer fees (financing charges) and sales commissions.
The solar sales industry operates on a "redline" model. The redline is a $/W minimum rate that goes to the equipment and installer, but also to the manager, dealer, district manager, regional manager, etc.
The sales people are essentially free to pitch any price they want and they collect the difference. The sales people basically make up the price on the spot based on what they think they can convince you to buy.
Many companies have tried direct sales options where customers buy direct and skip the sales commission. They still get hit with large "dealer fees" which go to the financing companies unless they're self-paying though.
It is possible to do a full self-pay, direct-buy install with certain companies, but there's a problem: The redline commission model is so lucrative that a lot of the direct-sell companies give up and switch to redline commission models to make bank while they can. There's also a shortage of installers, who get drawn to the high commission companies by their higher rates.
I think eventually the market will settle out. For now, there is so much demand from consumers who aren't price sensitive and so many expiring subsidies to create a false sense of urgency that the high priced companies can continue operating.
I find it hard to judge the expense of a solar array. I have purchased 2 in Massachusetts about 8 years apart. The SRECs I have received for the first array I would say roughly covered the costs. The second array seems to be on the same pace. I also benefit from the electricity produced.
Last year the second Massachusetts changed the electrical repurchase agreement and I just checked the bill for April. I produced 480 more kWh than used. I ended up with a $58.04 credit. National Grid pays me $.24320141 per kWh. I will be pumping just under 6,000 kWh a month into the gird until October.
I don't see solar as expensive I see it as a good value. I will always be buying electricity and it will always be rising in price. I'm happy to have the opportunity to invest to reduce these costs.
Rooftop solar is great deal for you because you are being paid over the odds for the electricity you produce. At market prices paid by the electricity company the electricity you generate during the day is worth a lot less than the electricity you consume at other times. So net metering is a huge subsidy to you from other electricity bill payers.
I don't mind subsidising renewable energy, but as a renter who is not eligible to partake in these deals I would far rather my dollars were spent more efficiently on cheap utility scale systems than expensive rooftop systems.
No doubt. If it's any consolation the building is a rental and I include the utilities in the rent. The renters get fiber optic internet and flat rate rent/utilities.
It's mostly shortage of labor: if you're willing to do the research on your setup, buy the equipment yourself, and just hand instructions+gear to a contractor, you save a bunch of money. If you're willing/able to do the installation yourself, you save even more.
This isn't specifically a rooftop solar thing, the entire construction industry in America has been bottlenecked on labor for years. You can insert your own personal hobbyhorse here about why that is (immigration, undervaluing trades, etc.), but whatever it is it sure is a headwind on solar migration.
Classic case of people not wanting to give up a subsidy.
It's not sustainable or efficient to continue subsidising solar at this point. If we paid wholesale prices for electricity generated by solar customers, incentives would shift - getting 0-5c on your solar energy would demonstrate that the grid doesn't actually need more energy during the day - the 50c+ prices in the evening would show that we need more batteries (or other dispatchable power)
A fun theory I have is that once you start seeing industry trade group sponsored lobbyists and influence marketing campaigns matching the level of spending of entrenched industries, you can probably start lowering the subsidies for said industry.
Like once we start referring to the solar industry trade group as Big Solar or Big Clean Energy...
subsidies are bad but they are there not for big solar, but for big not smart brains which need to see freaking solar panels on neighbors roof to want that too.
solar + 12 hour LiFePO storage is cheaper than nuclear TCO, in all US territories south of canada. today ( except tariffs, so... who benefits? big solar or big russia, big UAE ? ) get ......! XD
In the limit, we have a grid where people make their own power during the summer and the grid only sells during winter (and rare extended cloudy periods). Imagine what rates would have to look like in that situation.
Edison designs their bill to make it very hard to tell what you are paying per kwh, but I think I'm paying between $0.20 and $0.30 depending on time of day.
That table is pretty accurate. I'm a commercial account in Massachusetts and the price listed is within a penny of what I got paid last month for a kWh.
I wish this article recognized that there is a cost to maintaining the grid, both in transmission infrastructure, but also in maintaining the dispatchable generation capacity to smooth out solar's variability. As frustrating as this policy change sounds for consumers, I can see the case that the utility has variable && fixed costs related to net metering that warrants a sub-retail rate of exchange. In point of fact, roughly the rate that Dominion is willing to pay for solar energy in commercial PPAs.
The SREC situation is more complicated. I'm not familiar with Virginia's program, but I could see a case that Dominion doesn't deserve those credits... or one that says if they're building/operating their grid around accepting rooftop solar, some of those tax credits should accrue to their operations. I don't know. I wonder if commercial PPAs also transfer credits in exchange?
Wow. I don't think we've had net metering in Australia basically ever (maybe if you DIYed decades ago, the analogue counter would have simply spun backwards... not sure if that was ever legal though). If you have solar, there's always two one-way metres with seperate rates (and now real-time smart meters with the optional capability to use a provider that offers time-of-use wholesale rates - so you can profit in energy trading/arbitrage if you have a battery).
Depending on how much solar gets installed, it may not be swinging far enough.
Eventually, homeowners will be charged for the capability of drawing power from the grid, even if they don't use that capability. Take-or-pay pushed right down to the individual residence.
Building your house to NOT waste as much energy as possible is not virtue signaling.
( What your house loses thru chimney/flue is same amount of energy my house needs to let me be in luxurious west comfort. and if disaster happens, and power gets cut, my house will not fall under 29C/67F for three days without power.... in coldest of days overcast. so i have 3 days before i have to put hoodie on, to find energy to keep my house going, one tenths of amount of energy you need, at least 1/10 if not more. while your children start to cry because they are cold next morning. we do not talk in same language. it is different universe. my house needs same energy to heat as you lose thru chimney. i need less energy for heating than for hot water. with PV my hot water is 85+% of year 100% from solar (PV!), 5%-99% from sun rest of the year. only hot water PV got paid in 5 years, what is expected life for PV? so it is 1/2 or 1/3 or 1/4 "TCO" vs net metering ? )
use subsidies to renovate your house. google/ask AI what is difference between "passive" and "net zero" house standard. so you do not get scammed again.
leverage - bank loan.
opportunity cost with houses can be tricky, i admit but it is also - what can i achieve in properly designed and properly built house vs in house where im constantly nervous, ill etc?
1/10 of energy for comfort + 50% of that 100% from own roof per year... virtue for your wallet.
It's worth noting that while net metering is helpful for bootstrapping rooftop solar, ratepayers are essentially subsidizing solar arrays on the houses of (wealthier) homeowners.
The utility company would normally pay wholesale rates for solar energy (which has an aggressive duck curve), but instead they're forced to pay retail prices to net metering customers.
California pays wholesale rates now (they're on NEM 3.0) with a fixed fee for maintaining the wires even if you don't use them a whole lot.
I didn’t think I’d see corporate utilities propaganda on hacker news but here are.
The main rebuttal to this is why are non of the public utilities (Sacramento, Santa Clara, and La power) in California trying to get on nem 3.0 if it’s such a profit loss and causing so much “unfairness”? The answer is because it’s made up and the investor utilities want to be able to sell you all the power. They would love to get rid of rooftop solar.
I’m not sure it makes sense to pick one spot in such a complex system and say “x is subsidizing y”
If you believe burning carbon fuels is a big negative externality, then solar users are subsidizing everyone else.
When the utility puts up capital to build a plant, they are promised a return on that investment over time.
The primary point I was trying to make in saying that "x is subsidizing y" is that it is literally unsustainable. All net metering has to (and will) end at some point along the curve from 0% to 100% rooftop solar adoption because it becomes financially unsustainable for the utility.
Which doesn't mean it's bad policy! The solar industry needs help to grow. But this sort of thing (utilities ending net metering) is only to be expected. California switched to NEM 3.0 with only 20% rooftop solar adoption. Nationally we are at like 4-5% (but I might be out of date).
https://americanexperimentnd.org/stealing-with-solar-how-wea...
I think a rational and fair thing to do is offer clear binding rules up front for new installs, time limited. 10-15 years should be enough.
> If you believe burning carbon fuels is a big negative externality, then solar users are subsidizing everyone else.
If the energy company is paying you $0.12 to sell electricity for $0.09 - they're losing money. Not to mention, they aren't covering any of the costs of maintaining their network (which is a large chunk of the overall cost).
If they're forced to buy rooftop solar from homeowners at a loss - they are FORCED to transfer that loss onto other costumers - which means the other customers are subsidizing that.
There isn't anything tricky about who is subsidizing whom.
Your issues with "dirty" energy are entirely separate.
You are stating a common misconception. That being that solar owners should be paying for anything other than the cost to push power into the distribution grid. The grid fees solar owners pay account for that. They should not be paid for supplying power at wholesale rates bc that assumes a wholesale power flow model, which is not physically applicable to solar owners who support the local distribution grid. If you look at the portion of the grid that a solar owner interacts with, how their power flows through it, the efficiencies of supplying that power locally are clear and should be at retail + distribution fees only. It’s the solar owners that are actually (marginally) subsidizing the non-solar owners in reality.
The utilities and ISO’s do not argue against this. They want to eliminate NEM 2.0 in favor of NEM 3.0 bc the difference in rates are to then be provided by alternative incentives such as battery pay-for-performance programs.
Disclaimer: I own an energy company that does C&I and Residential energy aggregation and participates in wholesale market energy supply and incentive programs.
Do you have a source for "The grid fees solar owners pay account for that"?
If you look into e.g. PG&E's financials, their expenses are dominated by operation and maintenance of the grid, not what they pay for electricity.
You appear to be claiming that the grid fees cover this cost entirely, but they're not high, e.g. $15/mo on some plans.
You're obviously very knowledgeable about the space, but I suspect you may be talking your book a bit here.
I'm not sure I understand how what you say contradicts what the previous poster said? Can you elaborate? I think the point implied in the previous comment was that pushing into a grid locally is much cheaper for the grid operator than distributing power from a far away power plant?
It's not an outright contradiction, just an explanation of why I doubt their claim. I am not myself making a claim.
Given that they are correcting a "common misconception", I think it's entirely appropriate to ask for a source.
> Your issues with "dirty" energy are entirely separate.
It's not really, that's the entire idea behind economic externalities. Power generation using carbon sources brings with it a cost in the form of pollution and greenhouse gases not directly paid by the customer. That cost is effectively spread out evenly across society, so those who use less carbon intensive energy are more or less subsidizing those who use more. Or to put it another way, if the folks with rooftop solar were instead just using electricity from coal or gas plants like their neighbors, their neighbors would have an increased pollution/global warming cost even if they don't see it in their electric bill.
Of course the math may or may not actually work out since the net metering costs for rooftop solar are based on electricity rates rather than any pollution based externalities. But the idea that it's strictly an economic transfer from people without solar to those with solar doesn't seem entirely accurate. And the economic impacts of "dirty" energy are definitely not a separate issue.
Utilities already have mandates to buy X% of their power from renewable sources. They primarily do this by building/buying utility scale renewables because that is more cost effective than paying homeowners retail rates for their electricity.
Distributed generation is great because generation and consumption are next to each other, and this can theoretically reduce peak load on the grid. The problem is that the sun goes down every day at the same time, and we're back to the same peak load.
The lowered rates in NEM 3.0 actually incentivize homeowners to buy batteries and load shift, which does actually help reduce peak load. Batteries are still too expensive, though, and the hope is that falling battery costs make it economical.
Externalities exist, yes, but they only matter when they get priced in. Capital moves energy markets, not vibes.
At least in New York state, they've recently tried to deal with this discrepancy while still keeping the incentive to install solar. There's a flat rate fee for all electricity customers to be hooked up to the grid to support grid infrastructure. There's also an additional fee to those that have solar panels called the Customer Benefit Contribution that is based off your generation to help fund energy efficiency projects and low-income programs.
They’re also simultaneously selling it again for $0.12 ensuring that your surplus free electricity is used by your neighbors. Conceptually it’s a wash, because they then scale down the amount of power they generate. The real world consequence is that power generation is not easily scaled on demand.
"because they then scale down the amount of power they generate"
They spend 0.12 for power that would have cost them much less than 0.12 to generate. The consequence is that they make up for it by charging other customers more.
One way of thinking about this is in terms of kWh rather than cents.
If you supply a kWh to the grid at midday and then consume a kWh overnight, what should your balance of payments be? If you're getting the wholesale rate during the day, do you also get the wholesale rate at night?
What this is really about is, how should we pay for the fixed costs of the infrastructure?
There isn't an objective answer to that. You could say that everyone pays a fixed service charge and then there is no contribution per kWh, and then the per-kWh rate for retail and wholesale are exactly equal. That's the most economically efficient thing, but then people who don't use a lot of electricity are paying a high fixed fee.
Another high efficiency thing is to use time of day metering, so that the difference between the wholesale and retail pricing is highest when supply is most outstripped by demand. That also gets rid of your problem with solar because then they can get retail, but get retail based on the time of day, so supplying power when it's cheap and using it when it's expensive isn't going to net out.
But charging retail and paying wholesale to the same customers isn't ideal, because those customers also have a choice. If they're getting paid $0.04/kWh for generation during the day but then paying $0.12/kWh or more at night in order to pay for the infrastructure, they might find it more economical to install a battery system locally and then stop buying power from the power company at all on most days. And then they're still not contributing anything per kWh to the fixed costs of infrastructure, but now you've actually made it worse, because a local battery system is going to be configured to align with the needs of the owner rather than the needs of the grid. Instead of incorporating the battery system into the grid so it can dump its full capacity during the nasty part of the duck curve and then fulfilling the lower demand for the rest of the night from baseload generators, the homeowner has the incentive to sell nothing from their batteries to the grid at 7PM (because they're only getting wholesale) so they can have it left to use for themselves to avoid paying retail at midnight.
Then the grid still has to cover its fixed costs from the other customers and can't even affect their usage with time of day metering because retail off-peak is too close to wholesale on-peak.
> they are FORCED to transfer that loss onto other costumers
How does that figure?
I won't even insist you account for second order effects of having the solar panel, just that the consumer is only paying for their net draw of energy from the grid (which has decreased).
And it's not just for maintaining the wires, but for maintaining the backup power sources for when everyone with solar and batteries suddenly needs them.
One is not just buying power from the grid, one is buying the capability of demanding that power at any time.
Rooftop solar in the US is absurldy expensive. The 30% federal subsidies alone are greater than the full buildout cost of utility scale solar. At these prices rooftop solar makes no sense.
This seems to be more about the US market than rooftop vs utility scale. Australia shows it is possible to install rooftop solar cheaply. Why can't we?
I studied this for a year fellowship, and there are lots of problems, but problems with permitting and interconnection are pretty unique in the US.
NREL, NFPA, UL, and Tesla got together and developed SolarAPP (https://gosolarapp.org). It enables instant online permitting for standard installations, and California passed a law mandating its adoption.
It's also sales. Solar is currently sold by salespeople and they need to be paid. The small solar companies contract out to the larger solar companies for crap rates because top of funnel is very hard for them. There is a YC company going after that opportunity: https://projectsolar.com/
Software providers like Aurora (https://aurorasolar.com) are used for making proposals, but they sell software to solar installers rather than vertically integrating and going after it themselves.
Tesla sells online, but the online experience ends after you pay and they try to sell you too much solar. Everything, including design, is subcontracted out in my understanding.
Sunrun is a great option even though you don't own the panels. PPAs are more popular at the moment because interest rates are so high.
> There is a YC company going after that opportunity: https://projectsolar.com/
Are you thinking of a different company? I can't find anything online linking Project Solar to Y Combinator.
Oh, huh! I guess they’re not. For some reason I thought they were. Maybe because their site is orange and they’re venture-backed :P
(sibling comment got killed for no good reason – definitely talk to a real person with experience with any solar company before diving in. they can have a wide variety of outcomes)
[dead]
> Rooftop solar in the US is absurldy expensive.
The US solar market is extremely weird. For many installs, a majority of the money could go to dealer fees (financing charges) and sales commissions.
The solar sales industry operates on a "redline" model. The redline is a $/W minimum rate that goes to the equipment and installer, but also to the manager, dealer, district manager, regional manager, etc.
The sales people are essentially free to pitch any price they want and they collect the difference. The sales people basically make up the price on the spot based on what they think they can convince you to buy.
Many companies have tried direct sales options where customers buy direct and skip the sales commission. They still get hit with large "dealer fees" which go to the financing companies unless they're self-paying though.
It is possible to do a full self-pay, direct-buy install with certain companies, but there's a problem: The redline commission model is so lucrative that a lot of the direct-sell companies give up and switch to redline commission models to make bank while they can. There's also a shortage of installers, who get drawn to the high commission companies by their higher rates.
I think eventually the market will settle out. For now, there is so much demand from consumers who aren't price sensitive and so many expiring subsidies to create a false sense of urgency that the high priced companies can continue operating.
I find it hard to judge the expense of a solar array. I have purchased 2 in Massachusetts about 8 years apart. The SRECs I have received for the first array I would say roughly covered the costs. The second array seems to be on the same pace. I also benefit from the electricity produced.
Last year the second Massachusetts changed the electrical repurchase agreement and I just checked the bill for April. I produced 480 more kWh than used. I ended up with a $58.04 credit. National Grid pays me $.24320141 per kWh. I will be pumping just under 6,000 kWh a month into the gird until October.
I don't see solar as expensive I see it as a good value. I will always be buying electricity and it will always be rising in price. I'm happy to have the opportunity to invest to reduce these costs.
I agree that the system is not fair...
Rooftop solar is great deal for you because you are being paid over the odds for the electricity you produce. At market prices paid by the electricity company the electricity you generate during the day is worth a lot less than the electricity you consume at other times. So net metering is a huge subsidy to you from other electricity bill payers.
I don't mind subsidising renewable energy, but as a renter who is not eligible to partake in these deals I would far rather my dollars were spent more efficiently on cheap utility scale systems than expensive rooftop systems.
No doubt. If it's any consolation the building is a rental and I include the utilities in the rent. The renters get fiber optic internet and flat rate rent/utilities.
I'm trying to be as generous as I can.
I certainly wouldn’t want to blame individuals for making the most of the subsidies available. It just seems such an inefficient system.
It's mostly shortage of labor: if you're willing to do the research on your setup, buy the equipment yourself, and just hand instructions+gear to a contractor, you save a bunch of money. If you're willing/able to do the installation yourself, you save even more.
This isn't specifically a rooftop solar thing, the entire construction industry in America has been bottlenecked on labor for years. You can insert your own personal hobbyhorse here about why that is (immigration, undervaluing trades, etc.), but whatever it is it sure is a headwind on solar migration.
Classic case of people not wanting to give up a subsidy.
It's not sustainable or efficient to continue subsidising solar at this point. If we paid wholesale prices for electricity generated by solar customers, incentives would shift - getting 0-5c on your solar energy would demonstrate that the grid doesn't actually need more energy during the day - the 50c+ prices in the evening would show that we need more batteries (or other dispatchable power)
A fun theory I have is that once you start seeing industry trade group sponsored lobbyists and influence marketing campaigns matching the level of spending of entrenched industries, you can probably start lowering the subsidies for said industry.
Like once we start referring to the solar industry trade group as Big Solar or Big Clean Energy...
subsidies are bad but they are there not for big solar, but for big not smart brains which need to see freaking solar panels on neighbors roof to want that too.
solar + 12 hour LiFePO storage is cheaper than nuclear TCO, in all US territories south of canada. today ( except tariffs, so... who benefits? big solar or big russia, big UAE ? ) get ......! XD
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/apr/24/elon-musk...
We always need more power during the day ...
There's huge swing between day-time (think AC and factories) usage and night-time (people sleeping ...).
https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=42915
Install enough solar and that stops being true.
In the limit, we have a grid where people make their own power during the summer and the grid only sells during winter (and rare extended cloudy periods). Imagine what rates would have to look like in that situation.
120% of price of nuclear electricity (unless they will sell heat too, but not gonna happen in USA where district heating sin nonexistent)
and check my profile links for more of that 120% energy price. SEASONAL.
Glad I am not a Dominion customer anymore. I will happily stick with my coop and pay $0.12/kwh and keep my 1:1 metering.
Edison designs their bill to make it very hard to tell what you are paying per kwh, but I think I'm paying between $0.20 and $0.30 depending on time of day.
.12 kWh sounds great where is that.
Many states have rates in that range. https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.ph...
That table is pretty accurate. I'm a commercial account in Massachusetts and the price listed is within a penny of what I got paid last month for a kWh.
I am on svec.coop, and have been much happier with them than I was on Dominion.
It seems like SVEC caps residential solar at 20kw vs 25? Am I reading that right in their docs?
I wish this article recognized that there is a cost to maintaining the grid, both in transmission infrastructure, but also in maintaining the dispatchable generation capacity to smooth out solar's variability. As frustrating as this policy change sounds for consumers, I can see the case that the utility has variable && fixed costs related to net metering that warrants a sub-retail rate of exchange. In point of fact, roughly the rate that Dominion is willing to pay for solar energy in commercial PPAs.
The SREC situation is more complicated. I'm not familiar with Virginia's program, but I could see a case that Dominion doesn't deserve those credits... or one that says if they're building/operating their grid around accepting rooftop solar, some of those tax credits should accrue to their operations. I don't know. I wonder if commercial PPAs also transfer credits in exchange?
Wow. I don't think we've had net metering in Australia basically ever (maybe if you DIYed decades ago, the analogue counter would have simply spun backwards... not sure if that was ever legal though). If you have solar, there's always two one-way metres with seperate rates (and now real-time smart meters with the optional capability to use a provider that offers time-of-use wholesale rates - so you can profit in energy trading/arbitrage if you have a battery).
This swings too far. 1:1 Net metering is not sustainable for utilities, this is too punitive to homeowners.
I’m an executive at a non-VA residential solar EPC.
Depending on how much solar gets installed, it may not be swinging far enough.
Eventually, homeowners will be charged for the capability of drawing power from the grid, even if they don't use that capability. Take-or-pay pushed right down to the individual residence.
net metering is virtue signaling.
using solar on site is not virtue signaling
Building your house to NOT waste as much energy as possible is not virtue signaling.
( What your house loses thru chimney/flue is same amount of energy my house needs to let me be in luxurious west comfort. and if disaster happens, and power gets cut, my house will not fall under 29C/67F for three days without power.... in coldest of days overcast. so i have 3 days before i have to put hoodie on, to find energy to keep my house going, one tenths of amount of energy you need, at least 1/10 if not more. while your children start to cry because they are cold next morning. we do not talk in same language. it is different universe. my house needs same energy to heat as you lose thru chimney. i need less energy for heating than for hot water. with PV my hot water is 85+% of year 100% from solar (PV!), 5%-99% from sun rest of the year. only hot water PV got paid in 5 years, what is expected life for PV? so it is 1/2 or 1/3 or 1/4 "TCO" vs net metering ? )
use subsidies to renovate your house. google/ask AI what is difference between "passive" and "net zero" house standard. so you do not get scammed again.
leverage - bank loan.
opportunity cost with houses can be tricky, i admit but it is also - what can i achieve in properly designed and properly built house vs in house where im constantly nervous, ill etc?
1/10 of energy for comfort + 50% of that 100% from own roof per year... virtue for your wallet.
> 29C/67F
I think you meant 20C/67F?