[dpierce9]

Net metering means utilities sell the power your system produces at full price to your neighbor. They pocket the avoided cost of producing and delivering that power (and during price spikes the cost of fuel can be higher than the value of producing power).

Net metering does create stranded assets if everyone does it. But not everyone does. Further, the idea that the utility gains NO benefit from net metering is wrong.

The corresponding view that rate payers are subsidizing solar by paying additional grid costs is wrong. Solar reduces grid demand. This reduces required generation capacity. Capacity is very expensive.

[konschubert]

Your solar panels tend to produce power at times when power is cheap - because there is so much solar power.

When you do net metering, the utility has to pay on top: They have to sell the power that you produce on the spot market, but the price they get for it is less than what they have to pay to you.

It's not a scalable approach.

[Retric]

Solar also produces power when demand is at it’s absolute peak. It varies by location but prices are still cheapest at night the vast majority of the time.

There’s many ways to do net metering, but regulations are setup to maintain profitable local utilities. Utilities hate it because they make less money by selling less electricity not because it’s ever going to drive them to unprofitability.

[mcv]

I think the demand peak is in the evening. Whether that overlaps with daylight depends on the season. I suppose in areas where people use a lot of AC, peak demand might be earlier in the day, but I haven't seen any figures showing that. I have seen the evening peak.

[Retric]

It really depends on what you mean by peak demand. From the grid’s perspective a home with rooftop solar has zero demand during peak solar production.

However, that’s ignoring the home actually uses electricity during that period it’s demand simply isn’t something the utility can make money from.

Similarly, transmission losses increase as temperatures rise which requires more production to offset those losses. From the perspective of a natural gas power plant that load is just as real as actual customer demands because utilities need to pay for it.

Finally, time zone boundaries and suburbs being on the east or west of cities on the coast make a noticeable difference. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2572317/Are-...

[kyriakos]

Maybe I'm wrong here but everyone seems to be considering only home use. During day time there's higher demand from factories and industrial processes even if home use its at its lowest.

[boulos]

Hmm? Why guess? Each provider has public sites with graphs of demand and generation. Here's the CalISO one: https://www.caiso.com/TodaysOutlook/Pages/default.aspx showing a funny camel shape today of an 8AM morning peak (heating) and then a 5:30 PM peak. What we can't see is the demand that would be placed on the grid around solar noon, if it weren't being serviced directly by panels.

Industrial and commercial customers often engage in Demand/Response programs though (primarily for building HVAC), so if there's a likely residential spike, they can shed some of their load.

[jjav]

> Your solar panels tend to produce power at times when power is cheap - because there is so much solar power.

But that's not true in how PG&E prices power. The very highest rates start when the day is just past warmest and sunniest (3pm) when there's tons of solar power available to feed into the grid. The cheapest rates start at midnight when solar contribution is obviously zero.

[FartyMcFarter]

Net metering doesn't make sense for a simple reason:

- when you use power, the grid is forced to produce it for you at that specific moment.

- on the other hand, solar panels produce energy at random times, regardless of whether it's needed or not.

Net metering forces symmetric pricing into a fundamentally asymmetric situation, which is not scalable.

You could think of similar asymmetries in other contexts where the unfairness is obvious. Imagine making a deal with a restaurant for them to deliver pizzas to you whenever you order them, and in exchange you'll give them back the same number of pizzas at a time of your choosing (or at random times). This is obviously not a fair deal for the restaurant.

[burnished]

Your analogy introduces factors that aren't present in the system, I dont think you need to use one here. Solar panels arent exactly random for one, pizzas arent fungible for two, and the grid is already composed of many producers and consumers for three.

[belorn]

Energy as a service isn't fungible either. You can not trade energy at one point in time with energy at an other point in time and expect both to have identical value. There are many energy speculators which trade is to determining when prices are low or high, and with good weather predictions its not that difficult to make a accurate guess about the price a few days ahead in time.

[burnished]

How does that make a pizza restaurant a better analogy than just the situation itself?

[hbarka]

Analogies are terrible but I’ll bite—

Imagine if you will there’s a peak demand for pizzas (dunno maybe Super Bowl?) and the pizza company is struggling to deliver enough pizzas. You come in and say hey Mr Pizza Company I’ll help out with that demand and make pizza for you, and so will my other neighbors and we’ll help you supply pizza. Mr Pizza Company takes your pizza and sells it but only pays you a fraction of what they charged their customers. And on top of that charges you for making pizza for them. This is what you get in return. Except you’re making pizza everyday and giving it to the pizza company so they can sell your pizza out in the market first before they sell theirs. The greatest trick played.

[bunabhucan]

Example from Boulder: big houses near open space at the "end of the line" as far as the dendritic distribution grid is concerned install solar. On a cold sunny day those houses produce more than they need and more than the network leading to them was sized to deliver. Who pays to upgrade the transformers and switchgear upgrades? Should it be subsidized by all ratepayers?

[HDThoreaun]

Utilities pay much lower wholesale costs than than they sell the power for. Why should they be forced to buy your power at an inflated rate when the generator will sell to them for 90% less?