There is an old saying no good deed goes unpunished.
A rough translation of that is: If there's a way to screw the consumer we will find it. Or for every action there is a reaction.Wouldn't it be nice if someone told the bureaucrats and politicians.
Here's a story from MarketWatch we're sure all those climate change freaks and alternative energy pushers will love.
It’s
getting harder to figure out whether converting your home to solar
energy makes financial sense as utilities adopt new ways to pay
customers who pump electricity into the electric grid.
Most utilities buy homeowners’ excess solar power for the same price they sell power from the grid. This idea, called net metering, is easy to understand: Buyer and seller get the same price.
But some utilities around the country complain that net metering doesn’t cover their costs of accommodating solar. With support from regulators, they’ve started paying for home solar at lower prices than grid power.
Consumers
need to pay attention to these changes. Most home solar systems export
40% to 60% of their electricity production back to the power grid, says
Mark Dyson, a manager at the Rocky Mountain Institute, which studies alternate energy. Lower payments for that power have a big impact on whether home solar is cost effective.
In Hawaii — where utilities have griped that rooftop solar stresses parts of the power grid — regulators in October replaced net metering with a new price structure that slashes solar reimbursements.
In Honolulu and the rest of Oahu, rooftop solar owners have been reimbursed at Hawaiian Electric Co.’s retail price, which in 2014 averaged 35.48 cents per kilowatt hour. Under the state’s new rules, Oahu residents installing new rooftop systems will be paid around 15 cents per kilowatt hour — 64% less.
On Hawaii’s other islands, utilities won’t reimburse new solar customers more than 25 cents per kilowatt hour — the exact rate varies by company. The new price setup applies only to new solar installations. Homeowners who’ve already installed rooftop solar will continue to be paid at net metering rates.
Hawaii’s sky-high power prices make solar more popular there than anyplace else in the U.S. One in eight Aloha State homes has solar panels. Hawaii’s average retail electricity price in 2014 was 37.03 cents per kilowatt hour, the nation’s highest. That’s more than double the 18 cents it costs to produce a kilowatt hour of solar in Honolulu, according to an online calculator posted by the U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
Solar is so cheap compared with Hawaii’s grid power, it’s still a good deal despite the state’s new price rules. “Even with the reduced benefit, you still save money,” said Colin Yost, chief executive of RevoluSun, a Honolulu solar installer. “But it becomes a little less valuable.” Yost thinks the new tariffs will force lower-income customers to think twice about switching over to solar.
If you think they're going to let you leave quietly, solar panels, wind mills or cow flatulence, when there's money and "power"at stake, you probably believe there won't be any ISIS terrorists in the 10,000 Syrian refugees Obama and his crowd want to let into this country.
marketwatch.com/story/why-some-states-are-making-going-solar-more-expensive-2015-12-04.
Most utilities buy homeowners’ excess solar power for the same price they sell power from the grid. This idea, called net metering, is easy to understand: Buyer and seller get the same price.
But some utilities around the country complain that net metering doesn’t cover their costs of accommodating solar. With support from regulators, they’ve started paying for home solar at lower prices than grid power.
In Hawaii — where utilities have griped that rooftop solar stresses parts of the power grid — regulators in October replaced net metering with a new price structure that slashes solar reimbursements.
In Honolulu and the rest of Oahu, rooftop solar owners have been reimbursed at Hawaiian Electric Co.’s retail price, which in 2014 averaged 35.48 cents per kilowatt hour. Under the state’s new rules, Oahu residents installing new rooftop systems will be paid around 15 cents per kilowatt hour — 64% less.
On Hawaii’s other islands, utilities won’t reimburse new solar customers more than 25 cents per kilowatt hour — the exact rate varies by company. The new price setup applies only to new solar installations. Homeowners who’ve already installed rooftop solar will continue to be paid at net metering rates.
Hawaii’s sky-high power prices make solar more popular there than anyplace else in the U.S. One in eight Aloha State homes has solar panels. Hawaii’s average retail electricity price in 2014 was 37.03 cents per kilowatt hour, the nation’s highest. That’s more than double the 18 cents it costs to produce a kilowatt hour of solar in Honolulu, according to an online calculator posted by the U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
Solar is so cheap compared with Hawaii’s grid power, it’s still a good deal despite the state’s new price rules. “Even with the reduced benefit, you still save money,” said Colin Yost, chief executive of RevoluSun, a Honolulu solar installer. “But it becomes a little less valuable.” Yost thinks the new tariffs will force lower-income customers to think twice about switching over to solar.
If you think they're going to let you leave quietly, solar panels, wind mills or cow flatulence, when there's money and "power"at stake, you probably believe there won't be any ISIS terrorists in the 10,000 Syrian refugees Obama and his crowd want to let into this country.
marketwatch.com/story/why-some-states-are-making-going-solar-more-expensive-2015-12-04.
No comments:
Post a Comment