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posted by janrinok on Wednesday April 23 2014, @02:15AM   Printer-friendly
from the sometimes-I-despair dept.

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."

 
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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Dunbal on Wednesday April 23 2014, @12:58PM

    by Dunbal (3515) on Wednesday April 23 2014, @12:58PM (#34850)

    " They can just decline to hook up to the grid."

    Yeah, look at what's happening to people who decide to go completely "off grid". Municipalities are going after them for things like trash collection or sewage fees. I'm sure when enough people have solar panels (not going to happen soon though if they keep thinking up new fees) lots of creative excuses will be invented to extract more money. At the end of the day, you see, it's all about the money. The "environment" is just a pretext. Better to charge you for your water and order you to ration than say, stop handing out new zoning permits. It's exactly the same racket that ISPs are involved in - trying to make finite capacity stretch as far as possible and charging an arm and a leg to everyone. Only the consequences here are when the power grid collapses, or the water supply collapses - catastrophic. I wonder what they'll do with their piles of cash when the city is on fire due to rioting.

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  • (Score: 2) by Rivenaleem on Wednesday April 23 2014, @03:18PM

    by Rivenaleem (3400) on Wednesday April 23 2014, @03:18PM (#34939)

    Here in Ireland we have a TV license. When more and more people cut the cord in favor of internet services, Netflix and the like, they change the law to make the TV license include any device "capable of receiving TV signal" which includes computers, as they could potentially receive online TV.

    And Ireland still gets different Netflix listing to the US, as RTE (Irish primary TV broadcaster) clearly doesn't want shows available online before they can be bothered showing them (often a year later than the US) locally.

    So yes, these guys are only interested in protecting their own income, and not about customers or the environment.

  • (Score: 2) by frojack on Wednesday April 23 2014, @08:53PM

    by frojack (1554) on Wednesday April 23 2014, @08:53PM (#35138) Journal

    When I said Off the Grid, I meant the electrical grid.

    I had no intention of triggering a rant about hermits living in the woods dumping garbage in everyone else's garbage cans and leaching raw sewage into the ground water.

    --
    No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.