A Key misconception here. You say they charge $0.09 for electricity used, and will only pay $0.02 for your generation. But that is NOT NET METERING. Do not be confused.
NET METERING means your meter runs forward and backward, Only adding and subtracting kWh. If you use 10,000kWh per year AND your PV’s produce a total of 10,000 kWh per year, your net utilty bill is ZERO (plus the $8 or so fixed cost per month). (DOES NOT MATTER WHAT THE ELECTRICTY COSTS)… SURE, if you OVER PRODUCE, beyond what you use in a year, then the utility should only have to pay the $0.02 rate because that is how cheaply they can get electricity from other sources and no reason to expect them to pay a higher price to you. If you under produce, then you pay $0.09 per kWh as always. One does not add PV solar on their house to be a NET energy producer. That is direct competition to the utility.. No, you put solar on your roof to reduce your NET electricity use from the utility to ZERO so you pay nothing (except the monthly access fee which in my case is $8 a month for UNLIMITED grid storage). If you are basing your economics on this misunderstanding of buying and sellilng electricity (instead of NET metering) your economics are off by a factor of 5 to 1. Bob, WB4APR *From:* Michael Ross [mailto:[email protected]] *Sent:* Tuesday, December 23, 2014 10:19 AM *To:* Robert Bruninga; Electric Vehicle Discussion List *Subject:* Re: [EVDL] OT: batteries for solar PV off-grid (cost 10, 000 times more) You are quite right Robert. Presently, the grid is a better deal than storage. How much PV is "worth" is another item entirely. At my home, I have used the best possible location for PV. Trees have to come down (and not all of them mine) to get good sun. Tax credits have to be available AND I have to have enough tax liability to use them. (PV is still to expensive to own without the subsidies (I am happy to get those given how freely they are usually distributed to corporate entities). Duke Progress can't be counted on to pay a fair price for the power I would store if I had more PV. They have have floated the idea that I/we should pay $0.09/kWh when buying power, but they will only pay $0.02 /kWh when I make it. I do pay just under $20 a month when I use no power of theirs at all; supposedly to support the electrical service. It isn't in the cost of a kWh apparently. They say by having more power generation, but no extra paid in for grid service, that I/we are putting the cost of grid service onto all the poor folks that can't afford PV. I think this is money-grubbing and PR, but that is the track they took last year. I pretty much can't justify the unsubsidized PV. In the first sentence I said "presently." I think that holds for all these things. I have reached my goal to reduce our utility expense as much as we reasonably can,,and we contribute some non-use of un-green power. I really like it that we contribute less to the mutli-million dollar salaries and fine offices, and that my power generation is nearly maintenance free for decades to come. I am grateful that the fed and the state saw fit to make this possible. The utility company would not have supported it . They simply want nothing to succeed that they don't have firmly under their control. It is about the best we can do at this time. On Tue, Dec 23, 2014 at 9:48 AM, Robert Bruninga via EV <[email protected]> wrote: > A 20-year T-bill right now is only paying about 2.5%... > Even if it takes 20 years to pay off the battery system... Batteries are not a source of energy. They produce nothing. Solar panels do. Far better to spend X dollars available for more solar panels which pay off themselves in about 3 years and use the nearly free storage in the grid. Self-storage (if you have access to the grid) consumes $2 out of every $3 invested in Solar with zero benefit other than about 4 hours of backup electricity a year (around here with a 99.96% reliable grid). That's spending several thousands of dollars for about 60 cents worth of electricity. If you don't have the grid, then sure, on-site storage is required. Oh, my zero-usage electric bill is an $8 fixed rate "meter" fee per month, or $100 a year. That is renting a 10,000 kWh storage system (the grid). Or about 100 kWh per dollar. Compare that with the 0.01 kWh per dollar for batteries. A 10,000 times better deal if there ever was one. Bob, WB4APR _______________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org For EV drag racing discussion, please use NEDRA ( http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA) -- Put this question to yourself: should I use everyone else to attain happiness, or should I help others gain happiness? *Dalai Lama* Tell me what it is you plan to do With your one wild and precious life? Mary Oliver, "The summer day." To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk. *Thomas A. Edison <http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/t/thomasaed125362.html>* A public-opinion poll is no substitute for thought. *Warren Buffet* Michael E. Ross (919) 550-2430 Land (919) 576-0824 <https://www.google.com/voice/b/0?pli=1#phones> Google Phone (919) 631-1451 Cell (919) 513-0418 Desk [email protected] -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://lists.evdl.org/private.cgi/ev-evdl.org/attachments/20141223/e60df498/attachment.htm> _______________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org For EV drag racing discussion, please use NEDRA (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA)
