See it from the grid perspective: who pays the grid owner for maintaining the uplink. For working with the unfortunate peeks in solar/wind energy availability.
In CA? That’s the taxpayers - PG&E spent a few decades making a “profit” by under maintaining the grid, and distributing those profits to investors through dividends.
Then when the failure to maintain the grid killed numerous people and billions in damages they increased prices, increased “fees” (somehow separate from prices), and threatened bankruptcy unless CA gave them enough money to keep going. Then increased fees again.
This new fee for people with solar is because their poorly managed and under maintained grid might fall over if people add power to the grid, and more importantly they lose the ability to price gouge people who have a solar alternative.
Why CA didn’t simply seize their assets as compensation for the damage they’ve caused and instead have them a “loan” that the victims end up paying for is beyond me.
solar owners already paying for grid hookup like everybody
if they think it doesn't cover real costs of grid maintainance, they should raise it. for everybody
It is far more complicated than just “maintaining” the cables as most lay people think when they hear grid costs.
The problem is that the grid has to match power demand with the roughly the same amount of power generation during all the time. So, if a cloud passes over your system and reduces your output by 25%, those 25% need to come from somewhere, usually from rotational inertia from giant steam or hydro turbogenerators in the nearest second, and either by regulating steam production or water flow in the long run or if necessary by either taking offline generator or adding more easily dispatchable power sources. And all the while making sure the frequency keeps very close to 60hz all the time. It is not just about sending a man in a pole to change some insulators from time to time.
I pay for grid hookup and for electricity,
if they think that they don't have enough money for managing their stuff properly across the board (both wires and loads), they should increase those costs for everybody and not just throw some charges (or essentially tax to benefit utilities) on panels.
how is it exactly fair that in case when there are two households having same minimal use (essentially grid connection price) with one of them having 10k of solar, the household without solar will pay $10 per month and the other one will pay $90 per month ? (as i said, they consume same amount of energy from grid)
Then when the failure to maintain the grid killed numerous people and billions in damages they increased prices, increased “fees” (somehow separate from prices), and threatened bankruptcy unless CA gave them enough money to keep going. Then increased fees again.
This new fee for people with solar is because their poorly managed and under maintained grid might fall over if people add power to the grid, and more importantly they lose the ability to price gouge people who have a solar alternative.
Why CA didn’t simply seize their assets as compensation for the damage they’ve caused and instead have them a “loan” that the victims end up paying for is beyond me.