As Frank was quoted in his Gazette story, this "subsidy" is inherent in the concept of setting an average cost for electricity. No one is paying the exact cost of their share of the grid. Instead, as a public utility, electricity is offered to everyone at the same rate, regardless of whether the utility has to string a long line or a short one to that neighborhood. The complexities of trying to estimate each nickel and dime of costs for each customer would make the book-keeping significantly more expensive than the energy, so "in the public interest" the PSC sets rates to minimize the total costs. Asking a net metering customer to assume costs for the distribution grid, without insisting that the utilities also fully analyze and incorporate the benefits that the net-metering customer offers to the grid, is a blatant attempt to restrict this renewable generation.
I'll pay my share of the distribution grid costs when the utilities incorporate the true cost of carbon emissions and other pollutant impacts in their rates. The utilities are using this grid cost argument solely to suppress a competing energy source (because
they already have a large capital investment in coal), not because they are concerned about accurately assigning costs and benefits to every customer.
JBK
Full disclosure: I expect to be a net-metering customer before Christmas, so I am biased by being one who would be expected to pay any such fees.
Sent: Friday, October 9, 2015 2:36 PM
To: Jim Sconyers
Cc: WVHCBOARD@yahoogroups.com; WVEC; WV Chapter Energy Committee
Subject: Re: [EC] [WVHCBOARD] Utilities want higher charges placed on rooftop solar customers
179 Summers Street, Suite 232
Charleston, WV 25301-2163
Tel 304-342-5588
Fax 304-342-5505
william.depaulo@gmail.com
www.passeggiata.com
You seem to have missed my point. If John Q is a net-meter electric customer, he generates part of his elec at home, decentralized etc. All good. But he also buys some of his elec from AEP or FirstEnergy, which he couldn't do unless they had the juice to send him and the means to send it. Talking here about today, why they're maybe justified in asking Mr. Q to pay for making it possible to buy elec from them.
On Fri, Oct 9, 2015 at 2:20 PM, Allan Tweddle <allantweddle@msn.com> wrote:
JimI do NOT agree. The utilities are just clinging to the 19th Century concept of large central plants and the inefficient long long lines of a power grid.It’s the 21st century.I can make the better case for generating power where and when its needed. It makes more sense financially for the economy, the efficiency of electric power generation (drastically reducing the current line losses), and obviously by dramatically reducing greenhouse gas emissions which we must do NOW...not in the future.Huge central plants are as obsolete as horse and buggies, which were the means of transportation when they were invented. They made sense then...but are a Neanderthal today.And of course we cannot transition to all clean, renewable distributed power over night, but we must accelerate that transition if we are to keep the planet from having a fatal fever...and I am committed to preventing that even though at 83 I may not see it get there...but I do not want it to for my grandchildren and theirs.And the scientific literature is quite clear...the data overwhelming...we are on a very dangerous course of climate change...or climate disruption as I prefer to call it.the utilities are pure and simple trying to protect their profits at your expense.And if you’d like to see what a progressive utility is doing, go to the SMUD* web page and link into their solar energy program...a 20+ year success story of transitioning form a large central plant concept to distributed power making their customers their partners. (*Sacramento Municipal Utility District.)From: Jim SconyersSent: Friday, October 09, 2015 1:46 PMTo: Beth LittleSubject: Re: [EC] [WVHCBOARD] Utilities want higher charges placed on rooftop solar customersI have to say I'm just slightly sympathetic to the elec companies in this one.Net metering customers DO use the distribution system with the expenses that entails.On Fri, Oct 9, 2015 at 12:04 PM, Beth Little <blittle@citynet.net> wrote:
Ooooh, so I’m subsidized. I’m beginning to feel less guilty for not going solar.
At $20 - $25 a month, my bill must be lower than the average. This is despite the fact that I have the full complement of electric appliances – freezer, fridge, water heater, washer, drier (just the motor, the fuel is propane), and various electronics (computer, printer, radios, microwave), even a 220 water pump in the well. I did get energy efficient appliances over the last few years, which lowered my bill noticeably.
The only thing I don’t have is electric heat, although I do use those oil-filled space heaters in the bathroom and office occasionally. Oh, and I don’t have a TV or a coffee maker (use a hand grinder and manual drip).
Does anyone know how this compares with the charge for hooking to the grid with net metering?
From: WVHCBOARD@yahoogroups.com [mailto:WVHCBOARD@yahoogroups.com]
Sent: Tuesday, October 06, 2015 1:06 PM
To: wvec-board@yahoogroups.com; WVHCBOARD@yahoogroups.com; 'WV Chapter Energy Committee'
Subject: [WVHCBOARD] Utilities want higher charges placed on rooftop solar customers
“To be sure, any customer who purchases less electricity than the average is ‘subsidized,’” Young wrote. “It is the average rate structure, not net metering, that shifts costs among retail customers.”
http://www.wvgazettemail.com/article/20151005/GZ01/151009735/1102
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