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Diane Cardwell reports in the NYT that "many utilities are trying desperately to stem the rise of solar power, either by reducing incentives, adding steep fees or effectively pushing home solar companies out of the market."
The economic threat has electric companies on edge. Over all, demand for electricity is softening while home solar is rapidly spreading across the country. There are now about 600,000 installed systems, and the number is expected to reach 3.3 million by 2020, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association. In Hawaii, the current battle began in 2013, when Hawaiian Electric started barring installations of residential solar systems in certain areas. It was an abrupt move — a panicked one, critics say — made after the utility became alarmed by the technical and financial challenges of all those homes suddenly making their own electricity. "Hawaii is a postcard from the future," says Adam Browning, executive director of Vote Solar, a policy and advocacy group based in California.
But utilities say that "solar-generated electricity flowing out of houses and into a power grid designed to carry it in the other direction has caused unanticipated voltage fluctuations that can overload circuits, burn lines and lead to brownouts or blackouts."
"At every different moment, we have to make sure that the amount of power we generate is equal to the amount of energy being used, and if we don't keep that balance things go unstable," says Colton Ching, vice president for energy delivery at Hawaiian Electric, pointing to the illuminated graphs and diagrams tracking energy production from wind and solar farms, as well as coal-fueled generators in the utility's main control room. But the rooftop systems are "essentially invisible to us," says Ching, "because they sit behind a customer's meter and we don't have a means to directly measure them." The utility wants to cut roughly in half the amount it pays customers for solar electricity they send back to the grid. "Hawaii's case is not isolated," says Massoud Amin. "When we push year-on-year 30 to 40 percent growth in this market, with the number of installations doubling, quickly — every two years or so — there's going to be problems."
(Score: 3, Informative) by Phoenix666 on Monday April 20 2015, @02:43PM
In the United States roads are not paid for through gas taxes and driving is heavily subsidized [citylab.com] by the rest of the society.
As for the rest of your post, you do rather sound like an apologist for the utilities trying hard to pretend like you're not one. An electricity company levying penalties on a consumer for daring to use less of their service/product? Sounds an awful lot like socialism to me. The utility ought to be grateful that so many homeowners are willing to provide it green energy at no extra cost to them that they can tack a "carrying" fee onto for everyone connected to their grid who is not yet energy self-sufficient. They could even spin it like it's their part of their plan to supply "green" energy to their customers.
See, utilities really like having a whole bunch of customers who are held hostage to their caprice. Increasingly, though, they are walking a fine line. They are loathe to spend money on new power plants and generation to keep up with growing demand. They are also challenged by an ageing grid that is the source of their monopoly; that is why they have tried so hard to sell people on the "smart grid" and get government to gift them a shiny new system that allows them to continue their monopoly for another 100 years. Meanwhile, pesky homeowners and businesses are starting to get the idea that they can switch to self-generation and thus shrink their paying customer base. So, to keep up their profit margins, they're wont to charge their shrinking customer base more and more. That, of course, sets up the feedback loop that will sink them shortly, because people who start seeing their bills climb and climb while solar and wind prices fall and fall will be more apt to jump.
Utilities are trying to stop that with measures such as these, or in getting subsidies repealed, but it's too late. The train has left the station.
Washington DC delenda est.