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NewsOK reports that the Oklahoma legislature has passed a bill that allows regulated utilities to apply to the Oklahoma Corporation Commission to charge a higher base rate to customers who generate solar and wind energy and send their excess power back into the grid reversing a 1977 law that forbade utilities to charge extra to solar users. "Renewable energy fed back into the grid is ultimately doing utility companies a service," says John Aziz. "Solar generates in the daytime, when demand for electricity is highest, thereby alleviating pressure during peak demand."
The state's major electric utilities backed the bill but couldn't provide figures on how much customers already using distributed generation are getting subsidized by other customers. Oklahoma Gas and Electric Co. and Public Service Co. of Oklahoma have about 1.3 million electric customers in the state. They have about 500 customers using distributed generation. Kathleen O'Shea, OG&E spokeswoman, said few distributed generation customers want to sever their ties to the grid. "If there's something wrong with their panel or it's really cloudy, they need our electricity, and it's going to be there for them," O'Shea said. "We just want to make sure they're paying their fair amount of that maintenance cost." The prospect of widespread adoption of rooftop solar worries many utilities. A report last year by the industry's research group, the Edison Electric Institute, warns of the risks posed by rooftop solar (PDF). "When customers have the opportunity to reduce their use of a product or find another provider of such service, utility earnings growth is threatened," the report said. "As this threat to growth becomes more evident, investors will become less attracted to investments in the utility sector."
(Score: 3, Interesting) by mendax on Wednesday April 23 2014, @05:29AM
As I recall, several years ago when solar panels started to be mounted on houses in California, Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) complained about the fact that when when someone's electric meter ran backward, they were forced to pay to the subscriber exactly what they changed for a kilowatt hour. This rate includes the cost of the power, the cost of the power grid that PG&E maintains, and a percentage for their profit. What they wanted to pay was solely what the power is worth. That substantial discount would then pay for the fact that the subscriber is, after all, using their system to redistribute their excess power from their panels. From what I can see, this attitude makes sense. The fact that it makes having solar panels on top of your house that generate far more power than you can use less cost effective is a side-issue, or so they thought anyway.
The fact of the matter is that the power companies own the power grid. If you're going to be pushing power on that grid, you ought to be paying for that privilege. And that seems to be the real basis of that Oklahoma law.
However, the fact that this law was crafted in Oklahoma only reinforces my view that this state is populated by morons.
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 23 2014, @11:07AM
Not going to disagree with most of what you said - except for the having to pay to push power onto the grid. If the power companies are going to be selling the energy that gets pushed onto the grid, why should they make a profit from me supplying it as well? Especially as most areas (I believe) charge a premium for energy from a renewable for the customers that want to pay for it.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Grishnakh on Wednesday April 23 2014, @03:25PM
Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) complained about the fact that when when someone's electric meter ran backward, they were forced to pay to the subscriber exactly what they changed for a kilowatt hour. This rate includes the cost of the power, the cost of the power grid that PG&E maintains, and a percentage for their profit. What they wanted to pay was solely what the power is worth. That substantial discount would then pay for the fact that the subscriber is, after all, using their system to redistribute their excess power from their panels. From what I can see, this attitude makes sense.
No, it doesn't make sense. The power company should be forced to pay them at whatever rate they charge, per kWh, period.
If the power company doesn't like that, too bad. It's their own stupid fault for rolling everything into a per-kWh price. If they want to pay people the actual cost of the power itself, then they need to bill the power separately from the connection cost, for all customers.
If they can't be bothered to change their pricing structure, then solar-generating customers shouldn't be bothered with getting a lower price for their generated power.
(Score: 2) by mendax on Wednesday April 23 2014, @06:29PM
Well, let me put it another way. Someone has to pay for the construction and maintenance of the power grid. Are you saying that you should pay for the use of this grid when you draw power from it but not pay for its use when you push power into it? In other words, you are advocating the profiting from the use of a privately held resource without paying for access to it. How can that possibly be fair to the power companies? After all, they have to at least break even, and in the case of PG&E, being a regulated utility and a for-profit corporation, make a minimal profit.
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday April 23 2014, @08:02PM
Yes, that's exactly what I'm advocating. If these companies are too stupid to charge separately for a connection to the grid and the usage of power from the grid, then they should be required to subsidize all solar producers.
If they don't like it, they can change their billing. I've proposed a simple solution to the problem (actually, I just copied it from one of the other SN posters somewhere else in this discussion), so if they don't want a simple solution, then they shouldn't get a solution at all, they should just be forced to allow solar producers to profit off their grid.
(Score: 2) by mendax on Wednesday April 23 2014, @10:43PM
Okay, I get you. But is not the Oklahoma solution not a simple solution to that problem, just not an ideally fair one?
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday April 24 2014, @03:13PM
That's why I oppose the OK solution: it's not fair. If the power companies billed connections and power separately, that would be entirely fair. The OK solution is just a crappy patch because they don't want to change their billing practices.