[topher515]

But the goal here in setting these prices (from Society’s perspective) is not to maximize Safeway’s profits, but rather to incentive more people taking up carrot farming!

Since we’re fairly confident we need lots of carrots to save the world!

[rsj_hn]

People are so quick to speak for "Society" because, in their minds, they think it trumps all other arguments.

But very few -- if any -- actually know what society needs.

I would say that what Society needs is to ensure a regular supply of carrots at stable prices. It's not to maximize small household carrot farming if it does not align with this goal.

There is no particular reason why solar needs to be on individual rooftops where there is no storage, no ability to make long term commitments, and no mechanism to turn it into a reliable, dependable stream of energy.

But sure, if the same households commit to maintaining their solar panels at an agreed upon capacity, and commit to purchasing enough storage to provide the agreed upon electricity despite the weather, and are able to sign long term contracts with significant financial penalties for failing to deliver the promised quantity of electricity, then yes they can be an electricity supplier to those utilities that need reliable energy suppliers in order to meet their own contractual commitments to energy users.

[vanviegen]

There's no need for all that red tape. Since there are so many households, the average will be highly predictable, given the weather conditions. Same as with large suppliers.

Battery capacity is something many households may also want to invest in, if the incentives are attractive enough. Again, no need for long term contractual commitments.

[rsj_hn]

> " Since there are so many households, the average will be highly predictable, "

Unfortunately when it's dark in one place, it's also dark elsewhere. When it's cloudy or rainy in one place it's not made up for with extra sun elsewhere. There are also differences across seasons, with less sunlight in the winter, etc. You can average and say a state has, on average, x hours of sunlight in June, but without extremely expensive storage, the sunny days don't end up powering the grid on cloudy days, and solar in the summer doesn't get stored for use in the winter.

Electricity needs to be stable and reliable year round, and every day.

[hansvm]

But that's an argument against solar rather than against the notion of retail compensation rather than wholesale for boutique-scale production of solar (which is what the main topic on this subthread seemed to be).

[rsj_hn]

No, it's an argument against solar without storage. Include the storage, include reliability, and you can have solar.

But no one wants to do that because storage is expensive, so they wave their hands and talk about "randomness evening out" or they explain "storage is a solved problem!" and then they draw something on a napkin for you.

Bottom line everyone wants to externalize the cost of storage because it's a difficult and expensive proposition. And so the household with the rooftop solar connected directly to the grid is effectively using the grid as storage, because buying the batteries is -- surprise -- too expensive.

But the electric utilities are saying -- "unreliable power is not very valuable to us, because we need reliable power" -- that is solar plus storage. If you just give us unreliable power, we'll only pay a penny for that, but we'll pay 20 cents for reliable power. And people are getting very angry at this because they think the unreliable and reliable power should have the same price, or that unreliable power is somehow a replacement for reliable power.

[UIUC_06]

I think you want PG&E to be a government-owned company. It's not, though.

That's worth discussing, but right now it's a regulated monopoly, entitled by law to make a "reasonable" profit, AFAIK.

[labcomputer]

Given the amount that I've had to bail them out as a California taxpayer and as a ratepayer, it's absolutely criminal that they're not currently a government-owned company.

[emodendroket]

Well, these rates were "reasonable" enough before that they were apparently not violating some superlegal principle.

[HDThoreaun]

Pg&e is a regulated utility. They’re getting their profits either way, it would just come more from people who can’t afford solar.

[lokar]

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