About 1.4 million customers in Arizona will be paying more for electricity now that regulators have approved a rate hike proposed by the state's largest utility.
Just to play a bit of devils advocate, power companies have to be ready for maximum demand scenarios, so they have to build all their generators to handle extreme cold and cloudy days/nights, as well as very hot cloudy days/nights where solar isn’t effective enough.
Generating power is a big balance act between creating too much or too little, and due to clouds being unpredictable, power generation for the correct amount becomes harder. Undershoot and you have to fire up less efficient generators. Overshoot and you may be wasting it. With wind/solar it isn’t quite as simple as you use less overall, so so pay that much less.
If you want that, build/buy your own battery storage system and enough solar panels to cover all your electrical usage year round and disconnect from the grid.
None of that justifies charging those who use solar panels more than other customers. Especially when you consider that solar can actually provide power to the grid when there is excess power produced in a household.
I agree with the idea behind your message. But keep in mind that in many places you aren’t allowed to disconnect from the grid. I ran into that problem a lot when searching for a property to build an off-grid house, many counties simply require that you are hooked up to utilities if they are available within a certain distance of your house. Be it electricity water or sewer you just don’t have a choice
You do realize that in some states those privately owned battery systems are offered up to help with peak demand events, right? Owners sign up to be part of a virtual power plant, allowing the utility to send power from the batteries to the grid when needed. The utilities pay the owners for that power, and limit how often they can do it. And owners can opt out at any time.
A rate charge increase targeting solar customers is fucking horseshit.
Should they pay for infrastructure? Absolutely, but the same flat rate that all customers pay, that are tied in.
That the rate scale was passed without any real review by the elected officials is fucking egregious. Can’t even do their fucking jobs.
Just to play a bit of devils advocate, power companies have to be ready for maximum demand scenarios, so they have to build all their generators to handle extreme cold and cloudy days/nights, as well as very hot cloudy days/nights where solar isn’t effective enough.
Generating power is a big balance act between creating too much or too little, and due to clouds being unpredictable, power generation for the correct amount becomes harder. Undershoot and you have to fire up less efficient generators. Overshoot and you may be wasting it. With wind/solar it isn’t quite as simple as you use less overall, so so pay that much less.
If you want that, build/buy your own battery storage system and enough solar panels to cover all your electrical usage year round and disconnect from the grid.
None of that justifies charging those who use solar panels more than other customers. Especially when you consider that solar can actually provide power to the grid when there is excess power produced in a household.
I agree with the idea behind your message. But keep in mind that in many places you aren’t allowed to disconnect from the grid. I ran into that problem a lot when searching for a property to build an off-grid house, many counties simply require that you are hooked up to utilities if they are available within a certain distance of your house. Be it electricity water or sewer you just don’t have a choice
Well that’s just some bullshit, right there.
You do realize that in some states those privately owned battery systems are offered up to help with peak demand events, right? Owners sign up to be part of a virtual power plant, allowing the utility to send power from the batteries to the grid when needed. The utilities pay the owners for that power, and limit how often they can do it. And owners can opt out at any time.
I recall that there’s a trial run of that from 1 power company and it’s not been rolling out very long now.
They’re in wide use in a number of states. The 4 biggest leaders of VPP’s are California, Texas, New York, and Massachusetts:
https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2023/03/29/california-tops-the-virtual-power-plant-market/