It’s time for rooftop solar to compete with other renewables [California]

[Nicodeamus]

Residential rooftop solar photovoltaics (PV) systems produce electricity at a cost of 15–22 cents per kWh, while large-scale solar farms do it for 3–4 cents and even mid-scale “community solar” costs 6–9 cents. So why is about 40% of California’s solar capacity on rooftops? Because the state’s Net Energy Metering (NEM) policy creates massive subsidies for residential PV, which don’t exist for larger solar or wind power generation. Those subsidies are the issue in California’s current NEM proceeding at the California Public Utilities Commission. California residential customers pay among the highest retail electricity rates in the country, about twice the price in any other western state. Over half of California rates go to paying for fixed costs, including system costs and state programs like grid infrastructure and hardening in response to climate change, growing costs of vegetation management, early investments in new renewable energy sources, and subsidies for low income customers, rooftop solar, and electric vehicle (EV) charging stations. These costs don’t decline when a solar customer buys less electricity from the grid or gets paid the retail rate for injecting power into the grid.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-022-01015-8.epdf

 

[Nicodeamus]

signs of a new debate, perhaps grid scale is the way to go?

 

[Paul_S]

What is shocking is that our electricity has become so expensive in South Africa even without solar subsidies or retail feed in rates that it still makes financial sense to install solar PV.

I can borrow R200K out of my bond at a cost of less than R2000/month to finance a solar system which will save me R2300/month in electricity and will break even in year 7. Having no more power outages is just a bonus.

 

[itareanlnotani]

signs of a new debate, perhaps grid scale is the way to go?

Not really a new debate, this is the old "those evil solar users aren't buying enough of our product, so we're making less outrageous profits than before. Those fixed fee's we had to cover infrastructure etc really only cover that, so we'll obviously need to increase those to sustain our profit margins."

Here we're already past that - our fixed fee's go up regardless "to cover infrastructure costs". Yeah no, now those are to cover theft, BEE, overemployment, most of the country not paying bills, etc etc, and they still aren't enough. It's literally cheaper to say F all that, and self provision. They won't let you though., and they want that pound of flesh regardless.