Thinking of going solar? Don't move to Arizona.

[RgrF]

Arizona Public Service Co. is proposing charging customers who install rooftop solar panels $50 to $100 or more a month to cover the cost of maintaining the power grid. The request will be filed with the Arizona Corporation Commission on Friday and will kick off a months-long period of review by regulators, who will ultimately decide whether or not to approve the policy change. Their final decision could impact the future of rooftop solar in Arizona. The rooftop-solar industry, including companies that lease solar panels, argues that any changes in solar policies will kill demand for the services and crush a burgeoning industry. wrote:

AZ Central

[Ombligo]

So $50-$100 a month for not using a monopolies product...

I hope the AZ commission is more independent than my states utility oversight commission. (there is no forum approved smiley for the relationship Florida's Public Service Commission has with the utilities)

[OWC Jamie]

Just carbon credit tax those that don't have panels.
Easy peazy.


(until everyone has panels and then let everyone know the true costs of panels )

[Acer]

Around here, we pay a basic service charge to stay hooked up no matter how much of a utility we use. Don't they have that in AZ?

[davester]

Note also that rooftop solar in climates that use A/C actually saves the utilities a lot of money since peak solar production is during peak A/C use periods and it offsets the use of prohibitively expensive "peaker plants".

This move is clearly something punitive designed to squash solar deployment since the proposed charges are way more than the cost of "maintaining the grid" $50 to $100 is probably more than some people's entire power bill. Ah, Arizona, the progressive state. What will they think of next?

[Filliam H. Muffman]

davester wrote:
Note also that rooftop solar in climates that use A/C actually saves the utilities a lot of money since peak solar production is during peak A/C use periods and it offsets the use of prohibitively expensive "peaker plants".

This move is clearly something punitive designed to squash solar deployment since the proposed charges are way more than the cost of "maintaining the grid" $50 to $100 is probably more than some people's entire power bill. Ah, Arizona, the progressive state. What will they think of next?

:agree:

It should only cost the utility about $15/month to provide a grid connection for a typical city residence. My first inclination would be to make sure to install enough extra panels so that I generate more than $100 surplus energy every month, so that they will always pay me in perpetuity.

[Ted King]

davester wrote:
Note also that rooftop solar in climates that use A/C actually saves the utilities a lot of money since peak solar production is during peak A/C use periods and it offsets the use of prohibitively expensive "peaker plants".

When I had solar panels installed on my house here in the Central Valley of California, our local power company (the small city I live in has its own power company) wanted me to put the panels on the west facing roof to maximize electric power production from the panels during the hot afternoon hours. My house has hipped roofs so I could put the panels on any side of the roof, so I had them installed on the south facing roof to maximize the overall power production, but I did undertand why they wanted me to put them on the west roof and maybe in the overall scheme of things that would have been the best thing to do.

[davester]

I put my panels on the west-facing roofs of my house because I went with time-of-use metering which maximizes the dollars you realize out of your panels (because the utility pays/charges peak rates on summer weekday afternoons that reflect the expense of using peaker plants). I calculated the difference between using south- versus west-facing panels and although power production is higher for south-facing panels, the dollar production is significantly higher for west-facing.

[Ted King]

davester wrote:
I put my panels on the west-facing roofs of my house because I went with time-of-use metering which maximizes the dollars you realize out of your panels (because the utility pays/charges peak rates on summer weekday afternoons that reflect the expense of using peaker plants). I calculated the difference between using south- versus west-facing panels and although power production is higher for south-facing panels, the dollar production is significantly higher for west-facing.

They didn't get around to installing smart meters in our city until after we installed our panels. It's a small local utility and the people here seem to fight any changes for as long as they can. At the time of installation, we were charged by tiers based on total usage.