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[T.S. Zarathustra]

That is an interesting twist on the situation. Other places will probably follow suit within the next 5-10 years.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-12/power-companies-to-charge-solar-owners-for-exporting-to-grid/100368588

[Richard230]

That is an interesting twist on the situation. Other places will probably follow suit within the next 5-10 years.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-12/power-companies-to-charge-solar-owners-for-exporting-to-grid/100368588

Northern California's power provider, Pacific, Graft and Explosion, is trying to do the same thing. I read recently that they made a request to the State's PUC to permit them to charge customers with solar panels $70 a month to allow them to export their power to the company's grid. They come up with new ways to screw their customers almost every month - along with starting devastating fires now and then with equipment and maintenance failures. 

[DonTom]

That is an interesting twist on the situation. Other places will probably follow suit within the next 5-10 years.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-12/power-companies-to-charge-solar-owners-for-exporting-to-grid/100368588

Northern California's power provider, Pacific, Graft and Explosion, is trying to do the same thing. I read recently that they made a request to the State's PUC to permit them to charge customers with solar panels $70 a month to allow them to export their power to the company's grid. They come up with new ways to screw their customers almost every month - along with starting devastating fires now and then with equipment and maintenance failures. 

I cannot make any sense out of that. What is " congestion on the grid" and what possible problem can that cause?

-Don-  Reno, NV

[princec]

If you dump electricity into the grid, they have to be able to deal with it if nobody wants it exactly then and there. It's not as easy as it looks, because not only do you have to deal with the raw energy, you have to also ensure that you've synced the AC phases too. So on the one hand I can see why they might be miffed at having to deal with it. On the other hand... it's free energy for them to sell at great profit. They are fools.

The workaround of course is ... never give the utility the energy. They'll only sell it back to you later for massive profits. Store it in a battery.

Cas

[DonTom]

If you dump electricity into the grid, they have to be able to deal with it if nobody wants it exactly then and there.

That is the part that makes no sense at all. Simple math proves it.  120 VAC times 0 amps of current draw is zero watts of energy they need to get rid of. Why do they have to get rid of a big nothing, regardless of how much nothing?


What is the difference between that and you not using the outlets in your house? Zero watts is Zero watts you need to  get rid of either way.


-Don-  Reno, NV

[Crissa]

The flat connect fee seems reasonable.

No longer offering net-metering when we have so few households with it is bad.  Revoking net-metering for people who installed solar under the promise of it seems criminal.

-Crissa

[Sklith]

If there's too much energy coming from customers, they should make the cost per kWh in the negatives. This way, anyone who can store that energy in their EVs, powerwalls, or whatever can get paid to balance the load.

[Crissa]

If there's too much energy coming from customers, they should make the cost per kWh in the negatives. This way, anyone who can store that energy in their EVs, powerwalls, or whatever can get paid to balance the load.

Yep.  That's being tested out now.

https://www.tesla.com/support/energy/powerwall/own/california-virtual-power-plant

https://cleantechnica.com/2020/05/29/uk-ev-owners-got-paid-to-charge-their-cars-over-the-holiday-weekend/

-Crissa

[gregj]

Seems a BIG proposition here is being overlooked.
Dealing with solar to the grid from the consumers/solar producers is quite truthfully a problem to deal with to some extent. Although some of the retoric around domestic use/load and solar pek production is smoke because the peak commercial and industrial load is during daylight hours. Overly the domestic and commercial/inductrial and the load graph is noticably smoother.
Yes consumers could go off grid and shortcircuit the power companies thieving but the smart answer from a total point of view would be for the power companies to instal giant batteries. That would make it much easier to smooth consumption and load, and store the solar grid energy extra net. They have the scale ability to maintain and use the battery setup and amortize the cast way easier than individual consumers and get a contingency power in emergency.
In fact distributed battery network could help avoid such large area blackouts. Our state has a very poorly designed concentrated network ( Queensland Australia) which means if one power station goes out tens of thousands of kilkometers goes down.
Intelligent switching and distributed battery network could reduce the area and duration of problems as well as reduce line losses which in our state are HUGE!

[DonTom]

The grid has to accept the power and send it to a user. A big power plant somewhere has to reduce their output to compensate for the solar cells putting power into the grid. That means that this big power plant is not being fully utilized and is therefore not generating the income the power company had in mind when they built it. As operator of the power plant you'd want to be compensated for being forced to run your very expensive machinery at less than full output.

Sorry, still makes no sense. For there to be ANY energy, there has to be current being drawn. The potential for the power is there, but no power until there is a load. You don't have to send the nothing  anywhere.

Why can you not  have a billion watts of available power  with a total  load of nothing as will happen when there is no current being drawn? No load, then there is no  current, no power., nothing to get rid of, but is available for use, but only when there is a load.

Volts times amps equals watts (energy in power).

Since when were UNDER-loads on ANYTHING an issue? Overloads can be a big issue, but not an underload. There is no issue drawing one watt or less from a billion watt source.

-Don-  Reno. NV

[princec]

The problem is that there is load on the grid, but the voltage levels output by solar fluctuate rapidly and across large areas. The grid is always connected and there's always somebody using it. If you suddenly get a massive voltage spike, or drop, because of a cloud going over a large solar installation, the grid management systems have to regulate that voltage or all the things that are connected to the grid will be fuxx0red righteously and explode.

Cas

[DonTom]

The problem is that there is load on the grid, but the voltage levels output by solar fluctuate rapidly and across large areas. The grid is always connected and there's always somebody using it. If you suddenly get a massive voltage spike, or drop, because of a cloud going over a large solar installation, the grid management systems have to regulate that voltage or all the things that are connected to the grid will be fuxx0red righteously and explode.

Cas

So the real problem is very poor voltage regulation from the power companies?  I also would not expect that to be much of an issue.  I now wonder what the difference in the AC voltage is from no load to max load. I would only expect a few volts at the most, but I really don't know. IAC, I wouldn't think it would be enough to cause anybody a problem.


-Don-  Reno, NV

[princec]

I think that the problem is the grid wasn't ever designed for it which is why input regulation is so underspecced, and that's why they're saying there's a problem and someone's going to have to pay for it.
Personally I think the best way to deal with it is not to give anything back to the bastards and hoard it all for oneself, in a massive battery.

Cas

[DonTom]

Interesting, but seems more flakey than I expected that they constantly have to make adjustments to keep the frequency and voltage within some spec.

Let's say there is a total of a million  (or pick any reasonable number) watts of total solar total  going back into the grid. Whatever number they claim causes a problem.


Would the problem be exactly the same if there was no solar going back to the grid and all the users  reduced their consumption by that same million watts?


I am just trying to understand the real issue of excessive solar on the grid. I wouldn't think it's possible, but I cannot claim I know exactly how it all works.


-Don-  Reno, NV