Demand for rooftop solar systems dries up in California after subsidies drop. 100 contractors go out of business. Fancy that.
California Home-Solar Boom Collapses
The Wall Street Journal reports The Home-Solar Boom Gets a ‘Gut Punch’
The amount of solar power U.S. homeowners install could shrink 13% this year, as forecast by the trade group Solar Energy Industries Association and consulting firm Wood Mackenzie. More than a hundred solar contractors have already gone out of business during the past year as demand dried up, according to data tracked by Solar Insure, a company that monitors residential solar installations and helps fix problems.
The state has installed so many panels that it has a glut of solar power during the day. Last year, California implemented new rules that cut the amount of compensation most rooftop solar owners get for the electricity they send to the grid by 75% or more to manage the oversupply and soaring costs for upgrading the grid.
“It was like getting a gut punch,” says Carlos Beccar, marketing director of Fresno-based Energy Concepts, a solar installer that had to lay off more than half its 75 employees after sales plummeted as much as 90% following the new rules.
California’s solar growth is outpacing the ability of its grid to handle it. The state already supplies more than a third of its power with renewables, and it plans to raise that ratio to 60% by 2030. But because the state’s grid can’t absorb all the solar power generated during the day, it ends up throwing increasing amounts of it away or curtailing it.
Quote of the Day
When David Phippen, a third-generation almond grower in central California, first installed solar panels in 2009 to help power equipment on his farm, he recalls thinking it was “the best thing since canned beer.”
Under the old solar-compensation rules, the economics worked out. But now that those payments will be slashed, adding more solar no longer makes sense, says Phippen—even though he has more equipment and bigger electricity needs.
“We’re done with our green march,” he says.
Rooftop Solar Synopsis
California created a boom by offering homeowners a chance to sell energy back to the grid at unsustainable rates.
This year utility companies then slashed what they pay to customers by 75 percent or more.
The payback time for these systems no longer makes any sense. More accurately, if you have to subsidize something, it is not economically feasible in the first place; it just looks like it.
The boom then imploded.
Electricity Rates
Chart courtesy of EnergyBot.
It’s going to be interesting to see what California does at night and what electricity costs when the state achieves its 60 percent solar power goal.
It’s possible that electricity prices rise so much that residents will be forced to put in their own systems and buy an expensive battery storage system on top of it to escape the PG&E power costs.
How the Inflation Reduction Act Failed to Reduced Electricity Costs in Pictures
Let’s check in on the not exactly impressive energy and inflation results of Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).
In case you missed it, please consider How the Inflation Reduction Act Failed to Reduced Electricity Costs in Pictures
Biden’s energy policy has been an inflationary disaster. And make no mistake, the IRA was nothing but energy policy, more precisely, climate policy.
Biden Promotes Climate Change at the Expense of More Global Poverty
Internationally, please note Biden Promotes Climate Change at the Expense of More Global Poverty
The mad rush to deal with climate change, even if it works (it won’t), has a nasty tradeoff (more global poverty).
And returning to la-la land, please note California Restaurants Cut Jobs as Fast-Food Wages Set to Rise
I don’t give a rat’s @$$ if solar is green or not, the only reason I got it was to eliminate my electric bill (which it has). Same with the electric car I purchased, it was strictly from an economic decision. If you could drive a gas-powered vehicle with zero gasoline costs, you’d be a fool not to. Same applies to electric.
With this said, however, most people who have solar in California under NEM 1.0 and 2.0 are using the grid as an unlimited sized battery. The utility charge for this is around $10/month. I doubt this covers maintenance/upgrade costs to the utility company’s distribution systems. Somewhere between $50-$100 per month would probably be justified for grid tie solar. Most people don’t understand this and assume they should have a zero electric bill with solar (no battery).
Our line connection fee has continually gone up it’s $35 now
“California Home-Solar Boom Collapses”
As 1+1=2, every boom ends in a bust.
Speaking of busts, someone recently posted a YTube walking tour of Hollywood Blvd. A lot of empty store fronts, even in newer buildings constructed east of the Pantages Theater, where Broadway style plays are performed.
The rent is too high and Hollywood has an oversupply of homeless crackheads camped out on the sidewalks. You’d be a fool to try and operate a business there.
Speaking of busts, has anyone seen any good pix of Stormy Daniels lately?
If you look at the areas that are leading rooftop solar installations, you will see those are also the areas that see the fastest increase in electricity rates.
Part of the reason is that as people/businesses start installing panels and their energy costs go down, you have fewer people supporting the utilities infrastructure and the cost goes up for those who do not have solar.
The utility company still has to maintain those last mile connections even if that solar customer is paying 5% of what they used to pay.
Typically for a utility company the cost of electricity for a consumer is 1/3 power generation, 1/3 power transmission, 1/3 last mile.
So as people move to solar and reduce demand at the utility company, the utility company is only seeing a 1/3 drop in power generation costs and still have to maintain the other 2/3 of transmission infrastructure cost structure. But those 2/3 costs need to be their when the weather is bad….etc.
I am guessing they need to mandate batteries for solar installations otherwise people who are too poor to afford a new solar rooftop will also be the ones burdened with the cost of supporting the infrastructure for those who can buy solar panes.?
But one thing for sure is we will be installing more green energy in the future. We have been lucky to have cheap energy from cheap fossil fuels for the past 60 years.
A fair solution would be to charge occasional green energy users of electricity a monthly connect fee. It the average person uses $150 a month, 100 of that cost is support transmission costs. Thus the occasional uses should pay a fee of a minimum of $50 for the last mile upkeep and some type of sliding rate scale on for the transmission lines.
I agree with most of what you said and I think we should add to it. Rural located people require additional infrastructure to bring power to their homes compared to urbanized areas, so if you live in the middle of nowhere you should be paying more for the delivery part of your monthly electric bill.
We could still be using cheap fossil fuels for the next 60 years. This pain is self-inflicted. Alternatively nuclear power is always an option, clean and unlimited.
Clean nuclear? How ’bout you let us use your back yard to store the waste that has no safe storage places with a half-life of radioactivity of 500,000 years.
There is allot of misinformation in this article and serious bias. First of all the people who already had solar are grandfathered in with the old metering so that farmer is lying. Secondly, the only reason you have extra power is because you have a system that is too big, just use them properly sized system. Third, for you dummies that don’t know what batteries are, that is how solar still provides energy at night. Bottom line, my homes power bill went from 300 to zero with a full payback in 4 years. You don’t want solar don’t get solar, but you do t need to misinform people who are interested.
It seems you did not read correctly.
The farmer says he needs more power and will not go green.
And if people really are grandfathered in, everyone else will suffer for something like forever.
Individuals spent their money to generate electricity for their own needs and share their excess to the grid at no cost to the grid for that infrastructure, only paying, supposedly, a fair cost to that customer to purchase energy that the grid will sell at a retail price to other customers for a profit. That is, locally generated clean, renewable energy that does not have to be transported over expensive long distance transmission lines which are big profit-makers for the investor owned utility monopoly share holders and executives is contributed to/sold to the grid. In previous agreements, that local, clean, renewable energy was sold to the grid at a reasonable rate and their owners could benefit from their purchase. The reason that California is seeing an 80% reduction in solar adoption is not at all because there is a glut of solar in the grid, but because profit-driven investor-owned utilities have convinced the agency that is supposed to protect the public, the California Public Utilities Commission, to side with them, in agreeing to the historically record-breaking, exorbitant profits those monopolies achieve each year. This has been accomplished by unfair 85% slashing of remuneration to the energy generators, the customers who purchased their rooftop solar systems with their own money. Those customers are now blamed for placing the burden of grid maintenance onto poor folks which falsely directs attention away from where are the real burden lies which is the record profits to the utility. There are local, state and federal emissions reductions targets that these solar customers contribute to solving without the grid and it’s customers having to pay for it. That is not placing burden on poor customers! And there are solutions to the fortunate amount of solar energy captured during peak solar, such as load shifting, i.e. encouraging high usage activities during daytime such as EV charging and clothes drying, and, what has already been stated, filling stationary battery storage as well as the battery storage in the EVs which will increasingly become available with bi-directional charging in all EVs to their homes and grid during evening hours when the sun don’t shine. This article is inaccurate and misleading.
PG&E is on the verge of bankruptcy
Biden and States forced utilities to use windmills to discover they are unprofitable without more subsidies or rate hikes. Wind is not constant and sunlight operates only in the day.
There is no infrastructure in place in the grid or chargers for Biden’s mandates.
Are you getting your information from Elizbeth Warren?
Batteries will last for 8-10 years for the best lead acid. For more expensive lithium, 10-15 years. Then what? Where do all those go, and what about the expense of their replacement that often? That time goes by faster than you think, believe me, I’m tired of dealing with batteries at my off grid place. They are the biggest pain to deal with as they die and need to be hauled to recycling and replaced.
Rates have been going up in San Diego county the last few years. I’d be surprised if the avg kwh is <$0.50.
There are ballot measures getting written to make San Diego gas and electric a public utility.
We just put solar, battery and a new roof on our small house ($20k after fed rebate). We’ll see if that was smart. Gas and electric has been $250-350/month for us. Let’s see how much that drops. There are lots of fixed fees on the bill that also keep increasing and depending on the politics, they could go up significantly. I believe it is against the law to disconnect from the grid. With a very expensive solar plus battery system it would theoretically be possible to cut the wires connecting you to the grid, but you’d still get charged all the fixed fees.
Before roof panels were a thing I recall the actor Ed Begley on his reality show constantly cleaning his panels. He’s in his mid 70’s now. I seriously doubt he’s getting up there and cleaning them if he even still has them.
I’m not bashing solar panels but there is something to be said about adding more things that need constant maintenance as people age and why downsizing is on the rise.
Add to it scores of these companies going out of business, another strong devil’s advocate point to consider with stuff like this. I would not want to be spending my golden years messing around with solar panels, rotten wood fences, pools, lawncare and the latest new trend on my house.
Just from the physics standpoint, a bunch of solar panels trying to get energy of the grid needs a lot of rectification. It cycles differently and it’s actually a pain in the butt to get this excess voltage, at wrong wave, on the grid. A lot of voltage is shed off the grid during day. And that voltage shedding is probably HEAT
Yup, generation frequency must be maintained within tight tolerances or fail safe breakers begin to trip leading to blackouts. In my view, there’s just to much output variation to account for with renewables, unless you have a giant battery farm storing energy for release when needed.
That’s why we attach batteries to solar now🤯 why have a giant battery farm when we can utilize the a 4ft section on the side of each home😂
In Cold Ocean, Hot Sun areas like Socal, locally powering AC is far and away the low hanging fruit for rooftop solar. The dorking around with grid connectivity is just more of the same old “pretend to be, like, technomelogical” excuse for inefficient, crass subsidies and wealth redistribution to connected dimbulb classes.
Sooner or later, the Nimby instinct will trump the PC one, though (The two pathologies are massively overlapping): Rooftop solar is bloody annoying for anyone stuck blinded by the bright reflections they throw off. Musk can hardly look in the general direction of UCLA from his private hillside anymore, without sporting the darkest of shades…..
China’s actions on coal fired power plants totally negate any environmental benefit gained by U.S. actions. So effectively, all the disruptions and costs imposed on U.S. citizens is meaningless relative to the global climate. Meaningless!
Exactly. And not only the US, but Europe too. The CCP falsifies its green credentials to cover their growing coal usage and reliance and the (neo)liberals in the west lap it up like useful idiots.
A report by Global Energy Monitor found that net coal capacity grew by 48.4 GW in 2023, with China accounting for about two-thirds of new coal plant capacity. China started construction on 70.2 GW of new coal-power capacity last year, almost 20 times the rest of the world’s 3.7 GW.
China promised climate action. Its emissions topped US, EU, India combinedBeijing’s heavy reliance on coal plants has cast a shadow over the global efforts to tackle climate change.
Only put Solar on your rooftop if you also install batteries and store power for your own use. I don’t care what state you are in. Once grid tie home solar moved into mass deployment, it was doomed to fail.
In Texas solar plans cost a third more than the cheapest alternative plans. So your savings are reduced dramatically.
It’s because the government and the powers companies taking the power for themselves. Most solar clients are democrat supporters. Big government is never for the people
Are you familiar with HDM Capital and the plan they have for this?
The reason isn’t a glut. It’s because of NEM 3 (Net Energy Metering 3). The power companies got too power hungry and changed the rules for how much they would pay to purchase the excess energy produced by residential solar and the hard to understand different rates during different times of the day. Bottom line is it has to make sense financially to the buyer. Legal actions are in place to get PG&E, SDG&E, etc to reverse thIs. The drop in sales happened after April 2023. But there are times it still makes sense to go Solar. Just do your due diligence.
The issue is the uncertainty in net metering rates when the government, especially the ‘equity’ focused super majority wokesters running the CA government, can abuse its monopoly position of power to arbitrarily reduce the rates provided on a long term project without any flexibility after the go, no go decision has been made that pushes out the payback period and greatly reduces the net present value of this solar project to the homeowner.
Whew! Kinda long. See my comment above.
What does due diligence matter when, after you’ve done the diligence and you’ve invested in solar, the utilities move the goalposts?
Trust me, the check’s in the mail.
I see SCE is charging 76 cents per kWh from 4 to 7 pm, that is OUTRAGEOUS! We pay 10 cents in Huntsville.
As far as solar going out of business, not good for the consumers. When we lived in SoCal, solar salesman would come over and tout their 20 year warranties on their systems….I asked what about some of the other companies that were already out of business and this was back in 2019.
All these people that had installs by now defunct companies are hanging out to dry.
Stupid California.
I have a buddy who works for the government giving out those rebates to businesses who want to install solar.
One company that installed Solar Panels 10 years ago has applied again for a grant. They asked why do you need to redo the solar installation. They claim the output has dropped 50%? Not sure if that is true or they are just trying to cash in on the IRA bill.
Let’s get real, even with Biden: HE and his Admin TAKE $$$ from Solar and Power Companies and who ever pays the MOST gets the subsidies and tax breaks (Corp Taxes).
Left out in the cold: WE, the consumers. America is a Corporatacracy.
CASE CLOSED. WE DO NOT COUNT. WE ONLY BLINDLY VOTE FOR LIARS who promise THIS and deliver THAT. WAKE THE HELL UP.
I do not mean you, Mish, but your reader Citizens.
I know that YOU know how the system works, but I do read comments here that seem to indicate that we have VOTERS here who actually believe what they hear during the run-ups to Erections (Sorry: eLections).
The Cycle: 1) Read Electorate for hot buttons (created by them, Greens, Make America Great [again, as IF]; MIC>>>Ukraine/Israel/Homeland Sec – – you know, all the SELF-DEFENSE BULLSHIT. Wall Street Shenanigans. Health Care and Pharma – – 2) Make Promises for “Change you can Count on.” 3) Get Erected. 4) BREAK all of the Promises IN REALITY while waving White Flags admitting that they did not mean it after all.
DH
It corrupt crony capitalism. Thats why I liked Vivek Ramawhatever, he blatantly pointed this out. We have the best government money can buy. The sheep will never wake up until the bread and circus’s go away.
If you still bother to vote it means you haven’t been paying attention and have too much time on your hands.
And the GOOD NEWS just keeps pouring in!!!
The best part of this … is that this is just the beginning… it’s gonna get worse as the word spreads about these pathetic, expensive Coal, Gas and Nuclear charged rolling fire prone clunkers.
link to electrek.co
Yo yo yo … Jeff Green… have you put your fleet of EVs up for sale yet? Get ahead of the curve mate… cuz if you cling to the hopium…. you’ll be stuck with worthless vehicles.
California proves that in the end the only green that matters is the color of money.
Just like OJ proved. BTW his son did it, joking… Kind of
Is California still part of the United States??
The laws of economics are still undefeated. Even in California.
Since there is only one sun in the sky, there must be only one solution for solar power on the blue marble. Some states with the lowest sunlight hours have pushed hardest to adopt solar via, you guessed it, generous subsidies. Rational decisions? Grid shmid, we can only move back to nuclear during the crisis of grid failure! Crash the grid and we will come out stronger! Europe had WWII to destroy itself ad rebuild, we have to rely on ourselves to do this! It will create jobs! Well, government jobs. Rule by crisis and lies, which of course help to create crisis. Ah, buts its always sunny in Philadelphia, at least we have that.
Green energy was designed to fail. The grid (supply side) should have been the first part of the infrastructure built, not EV’s (demand side).
Ah, the Grid of Dreams.
If you built it they will come.
I pay residential SDGE $.30648/kWh of Electric Delivery and $0.08275/kWh to Community Choice Aggregation (CCA) for Electric Generation Charges (March 2024) That’s basically $0.49/kHh. I’m not sure where “Energy Boy” gets its info. This cabal/cartel of electric providers needs a wake-up call!
Oh my Gosh!! All that Extra Solar Power is so terrible! Whatever will we do about excess energy?!?!
If ONLY there were some way that California could SAVE that energy and use it when it’s needed?!?!
“ Calpine’s billion-dolllar Nova Power Bank near Los Angeles will be among the largest in the world when it comes online later this year. According to Reuters, the plant is built on the site of a failed gas-fired power plant and “will be able to power about 680,000 homes for up to four hours when charged.”2 days ago”
“ The Edwards & Sanborn solar-plus-storage project in California is now fully online, with 875MWdc of solar PV and 3,287MWh of battery energy storage system (BESS) capacity, the world’s largest.Jan 24, 2024”
Yeah, this discussion will be absolutely silly in 5 years or less. Every single year we see more and more of “The World’s Largest Battery Storage Systems” coming online.
The false narrative that Solar won’t be able to supply electricity to the masses or that it will result in massive blackouts is just another Fossil Fuels FUD scam propagated by people who love burning toxic fossil fuels and really want that cancer smoke to continue.
If you already have contracts with the power companies, they typically run for decades. You’re probably not impacted by these changes. As more batteries are scaled up, more batteries are available to store excess electricity produced both for home and commercial uses, including EVs. But let’s scream like we’re dying because gas stations are going away!! Let’s panic because more people are buying EVs and NOT buying gasoline. By all means let’s keep pretending that NOT sucking in poison fumes from tailpipes and NOT getting Volatile Organic Compounds in our bodies and lungs is a big catastrophe!
When the Fossil Fuels FUDsters are done poisoning themselves and their families and their friends and neighbors with their ICE engines, we’ll all breathe easier.
Cheers!
What are these batteries made of? Where do the component materials come from? Is it like manna from heaven? What happens to the batteries when they run down and fail? Just like solar panels, wind turbines etc.
Probably lithium, iron, phosphate, graphite, and a bit of aluminum. Google LFP.
Nobody wants to discuss where all these batteries are supposed to go.
Four hours! Amazing. If only a technology existed that could generate electricity 24/7… if only…
Do you know when Calpine is planning to spend another billion-dollars (inflation adjusted) to replace the Nova Power Bank batteries? Will they be adding that cost to the online supply costs? Or just be caught in surprise in a few years.
Asking for a friend.
Why doesn’t California simply cut back on non-renewable power generation during the daytime? If you are not burning fuel 10 hours of the daytime, prices of electricity per kilowatt should go down, right?
Ha! Tell us you are not an engineer without saying you are not an engineer. Tell us you have no grasp of finance without saying so.
if you knew anything about power generation, you would know it takes AT LEAST two hours for a fossil fuel boiler to come up to temperature and generate enough steam to drive turbines. Even if you use natural gas to turn on “instantly”, the issue is the water reservoir that needs to boil and turn to steam. Two hours is if anything an significant underestimation.
They cant turn off fossil fuel generators at dawn, because solar won’t work well until the sun is above the trees / mountains / over buildings. They can’t wait until dusk to fire up boilers because it takes hours for them to heat up. This assumes there is no issue with restarting the boilers – al those steam pipes are going to cool down (shrink) and then reheat (expand), which causes massive leaks.
You obviously failed engineering 101. Or operating a furnace 101. You certainly illustrated that you are not qualified in basic HVAC.
And then, dear college “grad” social justice warrior, there is the issue of paying for the “night time” fossil fuel plant. it costs the same amount to build the plant (but you are pushing for much higher maintenance costs). You propose to spread those costs across half as many hours; so the financing cost per hour of operation doubles.
Did you take math class in your college? How badly did you fail?
Need the coal and gas ( and nuclear) plants for base load and use the unreliable or intermittent wind and solar for both daytime and evening demand with any excess to be either battery stored or used to pump water uphill into the hydro reservoirs. Hydro works well to meet power surges as it takes but minutes to get to full output and the system can at any time use excess power to refill the reservoirs ( here in Australia that usually happens late at night using excess electricity from our coal fired plants).
But whatever system is used it needs to be economic without one user subsidising another.
Many utilities have peaker plants… LM6000 or LMS100 generating units. Quick start, 10 minute to 50 or 100 MW. Combined cycle units (combustion engine generators paired with a steam generator) 225 MW to 550 MWs, are often cycled daily to follow the solar energy curve throughout the day. If utilities are lucky, they can keep the combined cycle units on throughout the day (usually these units cannot turn down that low so they have to come offline). Solar can be so cheap/abundant that they have to pay utilities to use it. Peaker plants come on as solar wanes at the end of the day and the combined cycle units come on to power through the night. This does wear out the units faster, combined cycle units were not designed for daily cycling.
The Best Base load generators are coal, nuclear and hydro-electric. (Note: Hydro is also the best stand by because it needs no warmup time.)
Every home that has solar on the roof should have a chemical battery in the basement. They should have a natural gas powered back-up generator in the backyard. And pay a monthly fee to the power company for the right to plug into the grid in an emergency.
If YOU can’t afford to live off the grid 99% of the time then why should WE pay to take your excess power when you have it and provide for your power needs when you don’t? BS-ME & MBA
Please stop confusing well-meaning folks with basic physics.
Don’t even think about mentioning latent heat or enthalpy.
This article makes my day.
Where is Jeff Green? Jeff … if you need a suicide hotline number I am standing by to assist
Monthly fixed/minimum bill for electricity some day….
…because CA has sooo much solar power, the utilities are losing money on their long-term high-capital power-plant investments only fully running 3 hours per day (5-8 PM) so the utilities talked to the uni-party who may introduce a monthly fixed charge. How much? Well, how much do you make?
Looks like it won’t become reality for a while … but eventually….
link to calmatters.org
This would drive people off the grid to solar/batteries. Hope the battery lithium is from the Salton Sea…what could be greener?
Plus, the CA-IRS (known as the FTB), will supply income data to the utility companies. Next up, high food prices for those who can afford it!
The fuckery in CA is bigger than y’all can imagine and soon nationwide ….ok, I’ll spill the beans .. you know about the Newsom/AOC ticket in August. (AOC is 35 y/o a month before election).
Happy Sunday!
Those comments and concepts are why my Wife and I FLED Cal. Plus, Governor Dracula. SCARY MOFO. HE could be Pres. SCARY MOFO, I am telling you.
He is as corrupt as Mayor Daley was in Chicago.
Which Daley?
Or both?
I have a 5000 Sq ft house in California and the last couple of months my electricity bill has been the lowest it has ever been in 11 years. These new hvac units are amazingly efficient. I’m improving the insulation this summer to seal things up a bit and expect not to feel the pain of increasing rates by my city provided power. With private companies providing power the rates are 1.5 to 2x more. Amazing what you can get when utility company does not have to pay shareholders and private investors first.
New HVAC – inverter?
I have a variable stage (inverter) heat-pump. I like it. It keeps the temp and humidity very consistent. In high or low temp extremes it runs almost constantly, albeit at 40%-50% capacity.
The major downside is the price. They are very pricey. My setup was $12k (replaced a 20 year old 2 stage heat pump system).
I would also add that since they are more complex the repair costs are quite high. The 1st condenser unit, after install, died after a few months of use (compressor).We had all kinds of problems with that 1st unit before it died. Still under warranty so I got a free replacement condenser. No issues with the replacement.
I probably wouldn’t buy another one. Price needs to come down.
How many people can afford that and live in a 5000 square foot house? You are the 1%
5000 Square Feet means that he is a BADGE wearer. He hangs his SELF-WORTH on having “cool shit” and MORE ROOM than he could ever need – – even IF they are a family of four or more. This is CALIFORNIA THINKING (OR NY, MIAMI, PARIS, HAMBURG). I know these people because I and my wife were THEM.
It was IMPORTANT for me to LOOK RICH because we ARE RICH and yet it is HOLLOW. In the end, we down-sized and dumped all of that shit that we had because of the WORK of owning that much shit to maintain. THE POOR FOOL has not grown up yet mentally and neither (possibly) in years….but, he is like my Pal who has his kids employed and is in his 60’s and STILL wants Lexus and Mercedes SUV’s in his driveway and his badge of honor is FLAUNTING his income.
He is sick. He will die RICH and HOLLOW.
Yeah, so how do you play badminton indoors?
“Cry ‘HVAC!’, and let slip the dogs of solar.”
1) Are you full of shit?
2) Are you used to $750 a month in the CA “winter” and are now only paying $625 and openly celebrating that?
3) You realize “lowest in 11 years” is wildly random and gives zero sense of magnitude right?
4) Your “politics” and opinions certainly belong in CA. Never leave that communist utopia and never travel outside PLEASE. We don’t need you infecting anyone else
I wonder what I should do with my excess solar power and damnit how am I going to charge my electric car?
There’s gotta be a solution there somewhere but I just can’t figure it out.
San Francisco is a city overflowing with software millionaires and billionaires. They all claim to be super duper left wing “progressives” (proving they don’t understand what that word means).
SF is also the homelessness capital of the USA.
You might think a city full of “progressive” lefties with way too much money in their bank accounts could write a check and solve their homeless problem in an instant.
California is a state filled with academics who claim to know everything in *theory*, but they have proven themselves incapable of applying most of that theory in the real world.
California is full of BADGE wearing fools, who think that they should let everyone know how rich they are and will run for cover the moment the shit blows up and then the POOR FOLK will be breaking down their doors. These rich imbeciles are NOT armed.
How gulable are Californians? Could it be possible this article is taken from the PG&E playbook of excuses. Check and see if CA buys energy from other states it might just do that. Still it claims the ultimate Californian Residental GREEN Solar movement is overlading the grid.
Rather than killing GREEN RESIDENTAL SOLAR if there really is an energy oversupply why not build storage facilities for nighttime delivery of the “so called excess” rooftop solar energy. Could it possibly be the CPUC just a touch on PG&E’s side and not sufficiently oriented toward the needs of the people of California? Is this simply one of a number of actions taken to limit the residential GREEN solar movement thus benefiting PG&E? I will leave the decision to you as I do not know for certain. Is the CPUC continuing to concentrate power and profits for CA public utilities companies or might it be a few politions or both?
Public utility is used loosely as these are public for profit companies listed on public stock markets. Could it be true in 2023 PG&E may just have had its most profitable year in it’s history yet in 2024 Califorians will face massive rate increases. I encourange each of us to read, and investigate the facts and then decide.
Where is this $0.29/kWh average in CA coming from? I live in a standard single family home in the bay area, and my power costs $0.68/kWh and it’s going up to $0.88 in a few months.
Holy crap.
Here in Florida, my electric provider is FPL and they charge around $0.118/KWh (11.8 cents). I can’t believe you are about to pay almost 8x my cost!
IN Fla, where we had a home in Siesta Key: you run your A/C in summers in a 24-hour cycle. THAT is why FPL can keep their rates low. We dumped our Mansion with the stupid Elevator (believe it or not, we had Glass Enclosed Elevator that faced the Gulf)…..we got the hell out of Real Estate and now live full time in an RV with Solar.
That mansion with the glass elevator facing the gulf sounds awesome by the way.
I recall a few articles (weeks?) ago you mentioned buying the million dollar RV and cruising the US. That sounds pretty cool too but obviously only a tiny fraction of people will ever be able to afford to do that. I asked back then (don’t recall seeing an answer) about your insurance to drive the RV. Especially since based on it’s cost literally no one (or their insurance company) could afford to fix you if there was an accident. Curious how much you pay for it.
Ya but you have to live in Florida
How much is a kWh in Los Angeles?
Los Angeles area households paid an average of 28.5 cents per kilowatt hour (kWh) of electricity in February 2024, higher than the 27.1 cents price per kWh paid in February 2023. I live in SCE service area and my kWh rate is $0.33
I pay about .26/kWh Euro all taxes included in France for my electricity.
You forgot to include the subsidies France gets from issuing bogus “CFA francs” to former African colonies.
You forgot that France pays less than market prices for the uranium ore that you take from those same former African colonies.
Don’t worry. The Sahelim belt is in revolt, and the new leaders of those countries are aligning with Russia and China. Don’t know if it will work out for them or not… but France will be forced to pay for its own electricity, without African subsidies, very soon.
You forgot your brain in your other purse.
Smirk… you can’t dispute that France relies on immoral subsidies from its former African colonies, so you reverted to a low brow insult.
Sahel Africa has invited in Russian and Chinese advisors (both) to counter balance each other, because Africa remembers how France treated them for the last couple centuries.
France will soon be forced to pay full price, without African subsidies.
Massachusetts rates are currently around 35 cents (not even including the monthly service charge) and I’m sure California is higher than what is shown in the table.
Meanwhile, Conway AR charges 6.4 cents per KWHr. How do they do it? Public owned utility. Same as all of Nebraska.
The table is an Artificial Intelligence fiction.
Once had a 4 sq feet solar panel-battery combo for camping. The time to charge the battery from the panels was about 10x longer than from the power outlet. The panel area has to be substantial to make it useful.
You mean a large flat area? Like a Roof??? Wherever will we find a place like a roof that’s large and flat to put Solar???
Maybe you camp where the government has provided you with a roof to hold your panel, but most people think that robs the camping experience of being outdoor in nature they go camping to get.
Tough to take a large roof camping
Economic pricing and news tells information to those who listen. One possible conclusion is that you, I and people should be load-shedding when the sun goes down. We should have smaller refrigerators and freezers. We should shut off the air-conditioning when the sun sets. Our cooking on electric appliances should be completed before the sun sets. And so forth. As the saying goes = “Make hay while the sun shines.”
This is all to save the planet and us from climate disaster, they tell us.
why the down vote? dave is getting to the point. the energy use is 4-9. they call it the duck curve. I see two TOU rate time frames in northern california. 4-9 and 5-8. To carry solar generation to those periods, it requires expensive battery installations. what do you all think?
Most Batteries are not expensive compared to most California Real Estate.
This solution is NOT complicated. And Not everyone needs to have a battery, because the ones who do can use their batteries as a VPP – Virtual Power Plant during the Peak Demand and provide energy / electricity back to the grid, while having more than enough electricity for themselves.
Batteries were over half a years income. We only got them because of a grant and being without grid power for days a few times a year. During storms with little sun they run out in a day if trying to cook much. Wood heat only during winter outages. But great for freezers, frig, and lights and internet. Cheaper batteries at a cabin needed replaced in 6 years.
I don’t have AC, but it seems timers on AC to over cool while the sun is out would help a lot. Laundry can be done IF someone is home during the day. But for people getting home from work at 4-6 PM, maybe cooking and water heating with gas/propane makes more sense than electricity.
The expense all depends on where you buy your battery solution from! Buy it from Asia and it’s 10% of the cost here in the states!! Oh wait, you have to buy American to support our economy and if you don’t then you are on American.
Check this out … North Sea oil production has collapsed… and they blame it on high taxes hahahahaha link to archive.md
Or just have a battery to store MORE than enough energy for the peak energy usage times.
Good points (David C and D. Olson). What worries me is the tesla home battery packs only have a 10 year warranty. Unfortunately, time flies. 10 years is not long. I’ve poked around and looks like 2 packs, with installation would be around a a bit over $20k.
Put your food in a hole in the ground where its cool, like a root cellar. Only cook at night over an outdoor fire. Only get your food from hunting, foraging, growing, bartering. That way its fresh. Boom, planet saved. Well, for some of us.
Exactly. The two simplistic variables to effect climate change are a) carbon output per person x b) number of people. Reducing a is the preferred option, but one wonders who is working on reducing b.
If you want to decarbonize the power system, solar won’t really do the job. It might do 20-25% of the job. Add storage to maybe do 50-70% of the job.
Only nuclear, geothermal, and hydropower can do 100% of the job.
Solar does more of the job than ALL other forms of energy combined. The ONLY reason that the Earth isn’t a frozen ball of ICE and rock barely above Absolute Zero is that Solar provides more energy to the Earth every single day than we use as humans in a year. Hydro, Wind, etc. all rely on The Sun to function and it literally makes life possible.
Using unsafe Nuclear Energy, which could be struck by missiles or bombs anytime the next whackadoodle with Drones or Missiles wants to take out a Nuclear plant. Or the fact that the world does a pisspoor job of disposal of nuclear waste because it stays DEADLY for longer than Human Civilization has been in existence. Or the fact that Mother Nature laughs at structures like Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant and Earthquakes and Tsunamis and other disasters can and DO happen is going to result in future disasters and not all of them will be able to be handled.
Solar and wind and Hydropower including Waves & Tides and some Geothermal will continue to grow as a percentage as most of the population of the world lives in areas that have Solar and / or Wind and / or Hydropower, etc. available for development.
Gee, I wonder if the sun has anything to do with climate variation over 6-8 billion years. Oh yeah, sorry. Ever wonder that since you are a carbon life form what decarbonization might actually refer to?
What(how many) is the body-count for Nuclear Power Plant failures?
Only two years ago (three?) there was less rain and snow than ‘normal’, and the rivers and lakes that feed hydroelectric plants in western Canada, Washington state, and Nevada … that actually supply California.
Lake Meade almost dried up. Hoover dam was producing less electricity. The problem was widespread.
Hydro only works when it rains. Solar only works when there are few clouds. Wind only works when there is wind (and no birds or people with hearing).
Geothermal requires a big lawn / yard / garden (which means its useless in a city) and even then it needs electricity to power the pumps most of the time.
Nuclear power was killed in the USA and Germany (and many other places) by ignorant eco-terrorists and “feel good” nonsense.
We can’t solve our energy problems by taking advice from people who failed basic middle school science class
Hawaii implemented these changes years ago. It’s pretty basic physics. Every independent analysis has seen it coming for a decade or more.
If you don’t like it, install a battery.
People in California are “woke”, meaning they failed physics. They think heat equations are a white mans micro aggression, and they get triggered by James Watt.
There is a reason these people majored in anthropology, history as edited by feminists, and social justice… they aren’t smart enough to handle STEM subjects
Kauaii’s electricity is generated How?
Your statement that “,,, This year utility companies then slashed what they pay to customers by 75 percent or more …” is somewhat misleading. While some customers did see a reduction, others didn’t. The determining factor was when one’s solar contract was signed, and its remaining term. One of our contracts runs until 2032, and the other until 2041, and both provide enough of a rebate that the payback period, including the federal 30% tax credit, was under 7 years for both systems.
New solar customers may be disadvantaged, but time of use (TOU) rates are high enough that investing in a battery storage system is a significant incentive. For example, our TOU rate increases from 25 cents/kwh to 54 cents/kwh between 1600-2100 Pacific time, daily. During that time our systems cuts over to our 3 x 13.5 Kwh Tesla Powerwalls and we run off power generated earlier in the day by our solar panels. The Powerwalls and solar system also generated sufficient power for us to be unaffected during an unplanned 5-day SCE outage in our area shortly after it was installed in Jan 2022.
So, solar and battery storage systems may not be for everyone, but if you have a “legacy” contract with one of SCE, PGE or SDG&E, they’re great. I haven’t paid SCE anything for the past two years and have also been able to charge my 2021 Mustang Mach-E at home, all from our solar panels and batteries.
Who the F has time to make all these calculations and read the contracts? Good for you if you do … I feel like a sucker is born every minute and I’d rather not be one so am not solar (yet). The upfront costs are killer….
And remember the push to move CA (of course!) to income based electric rates.LOL
It didn’t take a lot of time and we were assisted by a broker that found the best panels, installer, configuration, etc.
As far as income based electric rates, it’s not going to happen. CPUC will change the rates to move more of the fixed charges to customer bills, but it’s expected to be a flat rate depending upon the utility. Electricity rates are also expected to fall.
This sounds all sweet and pretty, but, fact is, someone else is subsidizing you against their will. You are a Leech. It may all be in accordance with state and federal law but that is what you are. Yeah, you were able to game the system, but please don’t brag about it.. Just sickening…
What on earth are you talking about? How is using a battery back up and solar panels “gaming the system”? Also interesting that your ignorant vitriol is aimed at consumers not the utilities that rig the system in their favor and then whine about how much it cost to produce electricity.
Nope. What’s truly sickening is the fumes your production puts out and the poison spewing from your tailpipes and the massive pollution that comes from you. It’s LITERALLY sickening and causing increased deaths and diseases including cancer and lung disease and respiratory illnesses and cardiac problems from ground transportation air pollution.
Yeah, BIG OIL will eventually get the Shite Sued out of them for knowingly lying about the bad effects and what could have or should have been done to prevent these massive health problems…but that will be much later and they will try and weasel out of it. Although if DieselGate is even a small harbinger of what’s to come, if will be massive costs for them.
Time to get OFF the ADDICTION to BIG OIL and understand that the world is changing rapidly and won’t support your crap much longer. The largest auto market in the world hit almost 50% EVs last month. The US will need to convert just like everyone else as the Economies of Scale starts to go AGAINST the ICE vehicles and China STOPS producing as many ICE vehicle parts as the industry continues to dwindle.
Cheers!
And despite China selling 50% EV’s their carbon footprint continues to grow. You know what else continues to grow too? World oil demand.
China is adopting EV’s to reduce smog in cities. That makes sense for them based on population density. That same density isn’t here in the US other than in a very few areas. So there is WAY less need to go to EV’s for health reasons.
Please spew more nonsense! I don’t know where you get your data from but China has cut their carbon footprint in half in the last 5 years. Something we as a nation are not doing!
Are you drunk?
link to macrotrends.net
T-R-I-G-G-E-R-E-D
A leech? No. Savvy consumer? Yes. I took advantage of a program available to everyone willing to invest in their own homes, etc. I’m not bragging but sharing our experience with electric rates. If you didn’t, snooze, lose.
I did the same with my Mercedes EQE 3 year lease, subsidies cut $19,400 off the price, 2 years Free level 3 hypercharging, free home charger, reduced PG&E rates, free HOV lane. I thank my fellow taxpayers.
you do know that the lease subsidy, the free charging and home charger are on Mercedes, right? That the taxpayers aren’t on the hook for those? Also, PG&E is a for profit company, not a municipally owned utility. In other words, your facts and your understanding of how these things work is woeful.
Did you get this all wrong because mercedes misinformed you, or did you just assume all of this and got it all wrong?
Technically, you’re both savvy and a leech. Nothing to be proud of, son.
I’ve had several door-to-door salesmen come by over the past few months trying to sell panels. They always say “we just installed your neighbor!” and wave vaguely behind them, which is BS since no one in the area has installed since the rate change. There used to be guys at Costco also pushing, but they seem to have dissapeared.
Even before the rate change I never planned to stay in CA long enough to recap the investment, then you never know what roof problems you might end up with, then if you do sell, typically they try to pass the contract/payments over to the buyer, which basically lower the price of your home (or you have to buy out the contract before you sell).
Or even worse, at least here in Florida is that very often the lifetime warranties don’t transfer to the new owner. So if something goes wrong they are out of luck so taking it over is a huge risk for the new owner.
ORRRR like MOST people with a Brain, they realize they get the Solar ALREADY installed and don’t have to worry about getting it added. Lovely fictional universe you live in though. Hope your new place in OILmageddon is chock full of other people who don’t understand the hazards of Air Pollution or other detrimental effects to your health and safety.
Imagine, there’s all this free energy coming from the sun, but once you learn how to harness it, it makes the entire electricity situation WORSE for the average person. Only the government could accomplish this feat.
The good news is that the winter weather in CA won’t actually kill you.
“… winter weather in CA won’t actually kill you.” // Except at Donner Pass. 🗻 🔦✝️
Or for that matter, anywhere that might receive 12 feet or more of snow in a day or two, as happened to some communities in the San Bernardino Mtns in 2022-2023 winter that resulted in several fatalities. It took many, many days to clear all of the snow.
Supposedly, that was a “La Niña” winter that was to be cool and dry, not wet. Hey Al Gore, where’s my “global warming”??
San Bernardino county is 100 people per sq mile … minimal GDP or taxes from you folks, so, duh, CA doesn’t care if you’re in the hinterlands … suggest you move to Wyoming.
Is that where you live? Whyoming?
I was thinking of temperature, not snowfall. The Donner party starved, not froze.
The only part of CA that counts are the Coastal Elites where winter means ~50F. No need to use Donner Pass since the 1880s….try a Gulfstream….
We’d partition and get rid of East CA except don’t want two more Republican Senators … gesh Kevin Kiley and other inlanders might move up to the Senate in that case.
Note: About 68 percent of California’s population resides in coastal counties and they generate more than 80 percent of the state’s GDP.
source: link to calstate.edu
it’s where the homeless attack, defecate in front of kids, carjackings occur, car breakins occur, where most of the worst schools are located, where property is absurdly expensive making it impossible for the working to live anywhere near where they work….. Yep, coastal CA is the happiest place on earth.
Plus one can poop in the streets, there is that advantage.