Most of us now can become energy producers. We might not produce as much as we consume, but we can put solar panels on our roofs and reduce our energy bills. And if our panels produce more energy than we’re using at the moment, it seems like a good idea to put that energy back on the grid for others to use. Energy storage is inefficient. The burning question: how much do we get paid for that power?
The law differs everywhere but where I live right now, People can sell electricity back onto the grid at the same price they pay for it. While that is great for those with rooftop solar, I’m not so sure it’s great for all of us. The question is: Why is the electricity I sell back to the grid worth twice as much as the electricity utilities buy from other power generators? The utility is forced to pay way more for electricity homeowners produce than they pay anyone else.
The power companies are fighting back by imposing huge fees on solar homes. In some states now, like Arizona (which… solar… duh), if you put in a solar installation you’re slapped with a huge tax to pay for “your share” of the old-world electricity infrastructure. That is also ridiculous. The message in those states: if you go solar, go big enough to get off the grid. A total lose-lose scenario, since the surplus generated by homeowners goes to waste.
And in that battle, I am the biggest loser of all. My euphemistically-named ‘manufactured home’ can’t support the panels. Next-gen solar panels might be light enough. I hope so. But in the meantime, my rates are inflated because some of the electricity I’m buying was bought by my power company at a ridiculously high price.
If I make more electricity than I need, the price I sell that power back to the grid should reflect the cost to the power company to get that energy to its destination. Right now in my neighborhood the power company is required to buy electricity at a loss from schmoes like me. While I have no sympathy whatsoever for the assholes who run the power companies, assholes who endangered public safety to bilk Californians out of billions of dollars and then hid the money behind bogus bankruptcies, I still have to move forward on principles of fairness.
Brief aside: Documents sealed in the Enron trials could get a lot of energy executives serious jail time.
Back to the small. If I produce electricity I don’t need at the moment, I should be able to sell it. The value of that power should be a contract between me (or a collective of people like me) and the power company I’m selling to. The price could change minute-by-minute, based on demand. But it shouldn’t be retail. Sorry, my hippie friends, when I’m producing electricity I am just another power plant; I shouldn’t have an unfair advantage over any other electricity producer.
BUT! While I accept that I should sell my electricity at wholesale, that doesn’t mean I accept the ridiculous taxes on energy-producing households to maintain the grid. The power company can profit from the power I generate the same way it does with power it purchases from big producers.
Power companies across this great nation wish to punish the small producer. They have brought forth taxes to combat the little-guy-friendly laws in many states. Solar power is starting to make real economic sense, even with the government underwriting of fossil fuels.
I think the key was in a parenthetical a couple of paragraphs back: millions of rooftop solar owners combining to form a collective — a single power company that negotiates its rates with the power companies the same way all the other generators do. As solar technology improves, the cost of generation goes down, where the cost of the fossil competitors may enjoy periodic drops, but ultimately must move upward.
If our nation were to say in the meantime that poisoning our water and killing our children is illegal again, even for frackers, that would dramatically increase the leverage of alternative power generators.
Let’s make solar power officially just another source of electricity. Solar is ready to compete on its own merits, without price controls, and despite the staggering portion of our taxes that is spent to maintain the oil industry. PG&E is not going to impose wacky grid taxes on its most cost-competitive supplier. But it’s the people making the electricity who need to speak, not governments. It’s time to take the training wheels off and let solar ride.
