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Solar Panels, Monthly Fixed Charges not offset by Net-Metering. :(

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tortillasoup said:
On E-6 TOU in the third tier, during peak hours in summer, rates can easily reach $0.50 per KWH. If you have Smart Rate, they reach $0.60 per KWH during the designated hours.

The only scenario I can think of when $0.035 per KWH is a reasonable price for electricity is when that electricity is produced at 7am on a Sunday. Otherwise, it's really an undervaluation for the electricity. Remember, PGE has agreements in place for solar PV generation where for every KWH produced, regardless of time of day, you get $0.20 per KWH. Should have signed up for the generator credit instead of the NEM credit as I'm a net producer.
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Their is a reason their is no more E-6 Plan, because it didn't represent true peak time. Also the 50 cents includes their profit, and they need a lot of profit. The whole sale compensation is calculated based on the weighted average wholesale cost to PG&E from 7am to 5pm, which are also the hours over 90% of solar is produced.

Also PG&E did those things because it needed to reach 20% renewable requirement under Now that it is close to meeting its 20% obligation, it doesn't need any more of those agreements.
 
DCal430 said:
Their is a reason their is no more E-6 Plan, because it didn't represent true peak time. Also the 50 cents includes their profit, and they need a lot of profit. The whole sale compensation is calculated based on the weighted average wholesale cost to PG&E from 7am to 5pm, which are also the hours over 90% of solar is produced.

Also PG&E did those things because it needed to reach 20% renewable requirement under Now that it is close to meeting its 20% obligation, it doesn't need any more of those agreements.
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That's not true. Irrespective of what rate schedule the user is on, if they over produce, they'll only receive $0.035 per KWH with a NEM agreement. That rate is set by the CPUC and has absolutely no bearing or relationship to any real world wholesale rate or anything close to resembling actual value/cost of the production of electricity.
 
tortillasoup said:
That's not true. Irrespective of what rate schedule the user is on, if they over produce, they'll only receive $0.035 per KWH with a NEM agreement. That rate is set by the CPUC and has absolutely no bearing or relationship to any real world wholesale rate or anything close to resembling actual value/cost of the production of electricity.
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I'm sorry, but that's not true. The numbers I provided earlier for wholesale energy prices last week suggest that $0.035/kWh is reasonably close to an average of actual peak and off-peak energy prices.
 
Eli said:
^^ 😀

Yeah, island protection is standard (by law) these days.



Except for the whole "sun rises in the east, sets in the west" thing... 😉

You might get 12 hours of power if you have a tracking array, but almost nobody has that luxury. Figure 6 hours of peak power...
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Yeah I am assuming a roof top install that is facing south, so it will get some light from all 3 directions, though south will obviously be at it's most efficient time.

If you have a big property for pole mount then tracker is even better. My main concern with pole mount would be wind bursts though, I wonder how well they stand up to that. You basically have a giant sail being held in place by what is probably a motor shaft or similar mechanically movable system.
 
I'd probably save more than that. From a purely financial standpoint, it makes the most sense if you use a lot of power during day....like if you run your HVAC or have a pool pump. Those damn pool pumps pull about as much power as an AC compressor it seems like.
 
PowerEngineer said:
I'm sorry, but that's not true. The numbers I provided earlier for wholesale energy prices last week suggest that $0.035/kWh is reasonably close to an average of actual peak and off-peak energy prices.
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That makes no sense, cite your sources. PGE charges like what, $0.18 per KWH for off peak usage on their new E-TOUA rate schedule. Even on their EV-TOU rate schedule for cars, they raised the rates to about $0.115 per KWH for Off-peak rates which is 11pm to 7am, the cheapest time possible.




Here is an actual break down of the cost of electricity according to PGE:


Meter Charge Rate: Meter charge rate provided in the Total Rate section above are assigned entirely to the unbundled distribution component.

Energy Rates by Component ($ per kWh) PEAK PART-PEAK OFF-PEAK
Generation: Summer $0.22778 $0.10977 $0.05516
Winter: $0.08512 $0.05318 $0.05713
Distribution**:
Summer: $0.16242 (R) $0.08121 $0.01169
Winter: $0.17292 (R) $0.08646 (R) $0.01245
Transmission* (all usage): $0.02144 $0.02144 $0.02144
Transmission Rate Adjustments* (all usage): $0.00010 $0.00010 $0.00010
Reliability Services* (all usage): $0.00023 $0.00023 $0.00023
Public Purpose Programs (all usage): $0.01405 $0.01405 $0.01405
Nuclear Decommissioning (all usage): $0.00022 $0.00022 $0.00022
Competition Transition Charges (all usage): $0.00338 $0.00338 $0.00338
Energy Cost Recovery Amount (all usage): ($0.00002) ($0.00002) ($0.00002)
DWR Bond (all usage): $0.00539 $0.00539 $0.00539
New System Generation Charge (all usage)**: $0.00255 $0.00255 $0.00255

http://www.pge.com/tariffs/tm2/pdf/ELEC_SCHEDS_EV.pdf

Their offpeak (11pm-7am) generation rates are a minimum of $0.05516 per KWH.
 
NutBucket said:
I'd probably save more than that. From a purely financial standpoint, it makes the most sense if you use a lot of power during day....like if you run your HVAC or have a pool pump. Those damn pool pumps pull about as much power as an AC compressor it seems like.
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get a variable speed pool pump and run it off peak. Pool pump doesn't have to be all that expensive especially if you follow Title 24 rules about plumbing which these shitty pool builders in my area do not follow.
 
tortillasoup said:
get a variable speed pool pump and run it off peak. Pool pump doesn't have to be all that expensive especially if you follow Title 24 rules about plumbing which these shitty pool builders in my area do not follow.
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I just looked that up. Unless I'm missing something it doesn't really have much to do with efficiency other than specifying a cover (if heated) and adjustable timer. My pool was installed in the late 50's, has no heater and I can set the timer whenever I want. Before E-TOUA is/was implemented what difference does it make when I run the pump?
 
NutBucket said:
I just looked that up. Unless I'm missing something it doesn't really have much to do with efficiency other than specifying a cover (if heated) and adjustable timer. My pool was installed in the late 50's, has no heater and I can set the timer whenever I want. Before E-TOUA is/was implemented what difference does it make when I run the pump?
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Before TOU, the time of day you run the pump would be irrelevant to your bill. However, if you read the other guidelines for Title 24, it specifies the size of the plumbing going to and from the pump. It specifies one turn over for an 8 hour period with the water moving no faster than 5 feet per second. That typically means using 2.5" for the intake plumbing and 2" for the return for a 30K gallon pool. A lot of older pools use 1.5" plumbing or less and I've seen pool builders rip out old plumbing only to replace it with the exact same sized plumbing again even though title 24 called for significantly larger plumbing.

As for the pump, going with a true variable speed pump with a permanent magnet motor plus running it at the slowest speed so you achieve one turn over per day would yield the lowest frictional losses and therefore save money on electricity. Pools with leaky plumbing however cannot keep the pump continually primed at lower speeds so they cannot run at the slowest speed and so have to run a bit faster.
 
The point of alternative power should be enviromentalism not money saving. Or going off the grid because of paranoia.
 
In most cases you cannot "legally" go off the grid in a metropolitan area.

Thanks for the info tortillasoup. I guess I didn't dig into the guidelines far enough. My pool was redone within the last 5 years or so and the piping is at least 2" intake and outlet. Aside from the variable speed motor it's probably as efficient as it can be.

And turnover is one thing. We also have trees (both ours and neighbors) so unless I go out and skim daily I need the pump do it's thing too.
 
NutBucket said:
In most cases you cannot "legally" go off the grid in a metropolitan area.

Thanks for the info tortillasoup. I guess I didn't dig into the guidelines far enough. My pool was redone within the last 5 years or so and the piping is at least 2" intake and outlet. Aside from the variable speed motor it's probably as efficient as it can be.

And turnover is one thing. We also have trees (both ours and neighbors) so unless I go out and skim daily I need the pump do it's thing too.
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On a variable speed pump, they're typically 3HP pumps but since you run them at a lower speed, they use a lot less electricity. If you're running your single speed pump for more than 3 hours per day, definitely should change out that pump unless it's a 3/4HP pump which title 24 allows for. But even a 3/4HP pump uses 4 times as much electricity as a variable speed at a similar GPM flow rate which is why variable speed pumps are so cost effective. You can buy a Pentair Variable speed pump for like $600 on ebay or less if you go used on craigslist. I don't recommend two speed pumps because they're still induction motors.
 
tortillasoup said:
That makes no sense, cite your sources
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A reasonable enough request, however I get my price information from copyrighted sources. I was able to find a publicly available source that reports wholesale market prices for electrical energy trading at market hubs across the country.

http://www.eia.gov/electricity/wholesale/

The spreadsheet of market hub prices for 2016 is downloadable here.

http://www.eia.gov/electricity/wholesale/xls/ice_electric-2016.xls

You can look at the NP-15 hub starting on line 424 showing the wholesale transaction volumes and prices. You'll see that the wholesale price has been the range of $30/MWh ($0.030/kWh) for the whole year. Now I know that realtime prices do spike from time to time, but very rarely more than twice the hub price.

I suspect the meter charge rates from the PG&E tariff still include a lot of overheads beyond just the simple wholesale energy cost. And that is precisely my concern. IMHO it'd be best if these other overheads were explicitly broken out and charged appropriately rather than being "peanut buttered" on top of actual energy costs.
 
PowerEngineer said:
A reasonable enough request, however I get my price information from copyrighted sources. I was able to find a publicly available source that reports wholesale market prices for electrical energy trading at market hubs across the country.

http://www.eia.gov/electricity/wholesale/

The spreadsheet of market hub prices for 2016 is downloadable here.

http://www.eia.gov/electricity/wholesale/xls/ice_electric-2016.xls

You can look at the NP-15 hub starting on line 424 showing the wholesale transaction volumes and prices. You'll see that the wholesale price has been the range of $30/MWh ($0.030/kWh) for the whole year. Now I know that realtime prices do spike from time to time, but very rarely more than twice the hub price.

I suspect the meter charge rates from the PG&E tariff still include a lot of overheads beyond just the simple wholesale energy cost. And that is precisely my concern. IMHO it'd be best if these other overheads were explicitly broken out and charged appropriately rather than being "peanut buttered" on top of actual energy costs.
Click to expand...
Why would PGE have so much markup on generation costs if they're not suppose to be a profitable entity? How can it cost the utility so much money for generation costs if they're only paying $0.035 per KWH or upwards of $0.06KWH on high demand days (SmartRate)? I mean let's face it, they said it themselves that they base the NEM rate on a 7am to 5pm production time which doesn't really make a whole lot of sense. Why not base the rate on actual costs like they're suppose to do?
 
tortillasoup said:
Why would PGE have so much markup on generation costs if they're not suppose to be a profitable entity? How can it cost the utility so much money for generation costs if they're only paying $0.035 per KWH or upwards of $0.06KWH on high demand days (SmartRate)? I mean let's face it, they said it themselves that they base the NEM rate on a 7am to 5pm production time which doesn't really make a whole lot of sense. Why not base the rate on actual costs like they're suppose to do?
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The answer to your first question is that as an investor-owned utility PG&E IS supposed to be a profitable entity. As a regulated monopoly, the amount of profit PG&E is allowed to earn is capped by the California regulators to what they regard as reasonable.

The answer to your second question has to do with recovery of costs that PG&E incurs that are in addition to the actual incremental cost of producing another megawatt of electrical energy. These other costs includes the investment in building and maintaining power plants to be ready to generate when called on, building and maintaining the transmission and electrical systems, and all the business operating costs (e.g. billing, customer service, legal, rates, etc.). All these costs have been traditionally added to the actual cost of incremental generation (which only includes the added fuel cost and any increased maintenance costs as a result of the incremental increase in generation). The move toward explicitly collecting these other costs through separate charges (e.g. infrastructure charges) is a recognition that prorating these costs to customers based on energy consumption is no longer as fair as it once was (the big reason being the rise of customer renewable generation). This move is far from complete and not well understood (or accepted) by customers. There is still much work to be done.

But what is true regardless of the tariffs is that a kWh of excess solar generation that a customer feeds back into the utility is really only worth the wholesale energy price at the time (and place). For the most part, these prices for PG&E are in the $0.030/kWh range.
 
cyclohexane said:
Monthly charges are bullshit. Money grab from the power companies
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If you are hooked up to the infrastructure, whether to buy power at peak usage , or sell power at peak generation, it doesn't matter. It shouldn't be up to "normal" rate payers to haul your full freight for only half the time you pull power.
 
They use 7 to 5 since that is when 90% of solar is produced.

Also the mark up is high do to their gross profit margins. Seriously private utilities bills average 30 to 70% more than municipal utilities.

Compare PG&E in the valley to SMUD, in July if someone used 800KWh with SMUD their bill would be about $115, compared to $182 with PG&E. At 1000Kwh it is worst $140 vs $260. So yes private utilities add tons of profit.

I am now OK with my utility fixed rate, and decided to just keep paying $5 a month to my Utility for guarantee 100% green energy.
 
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edro said:
You're wanting to pay $15,000 to save $800/year?
That... doesn't seem logical.
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Depends how often the hydro rates keep going up. If they keep going up by 10% each year it may be worth while.

Though yeah, $800/year is ridiculously cheap for hydro. We pay almost double that here in Ontario. Then there's people crazy enough to heat with electricity, they pay that in a month or two.

I keep pondering on alternate energy, but solar is not enough for here, due to the short days for the majority of the year. Would work great in summer, probably even enough to power central A/C, but the rest of the year it would only be able to produce for a few hours per day. Even a super big battery bank would not cut it, as it would not have enough time to charge fully unless I have like a 30kw system, which I don't have room for. I have room for maybe 2kw. (roof size/shape/trees etc limit where I can put panels)

One thing I've considered is wood stove + steam - need the heat anyway, and wood is renewable, but I don't know anything about machining nor have the tools for it. I could MAYBE manage to do a tesla turbine but those are not that efficient from what I understand. Though because of how simple they are I wonder if you can boost efficiency by just having more of them. Would add redundancy to the system too.

So basically you have these turbines and solar injecting power into a charge controller which is then hooked up to a battery bank, and inverters. You would have to stoke the wood stove regularly, but the newer ones can run for like 12 hours+. Imagine being able to run the house on just wood, would be ridiculously cheap, especially if you get the wood yourself. Good work out to split it and move it too. You'd probably want two wood stoves too for redundancy and to be able to take one offline for cleaning.

Of course there's probably some law that would stop you from doing that because of people complaining of the smoke or whatever. Companies can do what they want but minute a civilian does it...
 
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DCal430 said:
They use 7 to 5 since that is when 90% of solar is produced.

Also the mark up is high do to their gross profit margins. Seriously private utilities bills average 30 to 70% more than municipal utilities.

Compare PG&E in the valley to SMUD, in July if someone used 800KWh with SMUD their bill would be about $115, compared to $182 with PG&E. At 1000Kwh it is worst $140 vs $260. So yes private utilities add tons of profit.

I am now OK with my utility fixed rate, and decided to just keep paying $5 a month to my Utility for guarantee 100% green energy.
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<sigh> No, not "tons of profit".

The difference between rates charged by investor owned utilities and by government-run utilities has a lot more to do with taxes (which the latter do not pay), with bond interest rates (lower for the latter because the interest paid is not taxed), and preferential access to power generated by federal agencies (e.g. WAPA and BPA). Investor-owned utilities are also subject to state mandates, such as California's requirement to move toward 50% of the energy to customers produced by renewable resources (i.e. solar and wind) which the municipals like SMUD can ignore.

Yes, the investor-owned utilities are allowed by their state regulators to earn a reasonable rate of return on the capital that has been invested, but usually nothing on straight operating costs.

What would iPhones cost if Apple had its profits regulated as utilities do?
 
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