travis' brain dump

DENVER (AP) – Using emissions-free solar panels to power one’s home may help save the planet but having access to traditional fossil-fuel generated backup electrical power isn’t free.

Xcel Energy is proposing a rate increase for solar customers that the state’s largest power supplier said pays for providing electricity in case those homes need it.

Xcel is proposing a 2.6 cents per kilowatt hour fee based on the generating capacity of a home’s solar panels. The proposed fee would be along with actual electricity used and a $7 to $8 service fee now charged to cover meter reading and billing.

The Public Utilities Commission will hold a hearing on Xcel’s new fee on Aug. 5.

Members of the solar panel industry oppose the fee.

NO kidding. I oppose this nonsense. Everyone knows that anyone who uses solar panels in a residential area is always going to rely on regular hookup to Xcel in order to power their homes at night or when batteries run lower than needed to operate a house. The nonsense here is there doesn’t seem to be any definition on where this would apply. Seeing as how there are many people who use solar panels on their rooftops to offset energy costs this could technically cause some serious issues if it applies to even the most basic user. This story taken from 9 News depicts just how freakin greedy these utility companies are. Are you kidding me!?  Talk about a way to completely derail the desire to help the environment or your power bill any.  Let me break this down for you folks that don’t quite get what the impact of this is. 

If they were to apply this to even the most basic solar panel user here is what the impact would be:  

In a normal month (this is from my power bill mind you) I use a total of 1402 kilowatt hours a month. This costs me $54.86 (mind you that’s after you remove the $76.55 in completely BS fees) which makes each kWH cost right at  $0.039. On another stab, is it really necessary to charge people 150% of their power usage in fees?! Don’t you greedy people get enough money!?

Now, if I wanted to say put some solar panels on the roof of my house to offset *some* of the cost of running my servers and such I would go and spend about $10,000 for a 2.10 kW system for a start. That would probably generate about 245 kWH a month of offset on average. Not a ton, but we’re only doing the basics here. Ok, so with the proposed increase above, if it applies to even the most basic user and because I’ve turned on solar panels the cost of my electricity now goes up to $0.065 per kWH for power used from the grid. This would mean that the now 1157 kWH that I’m using now costs me $75.20 in addition to an extra $8/month for a meter reading. LOL Seriously? What’s the point in doing it if you’re going to almost double the cost of my current usage?

Now, in defense of the utility I’m sure they won’t apply it to the most basic user, it really doesn’t make sense. If they do they’ll have lawsuit after lawsuit on their hands I’m sure.

So let’s look at the impact of a heavier user of solar. Someone who say, offsets half of their electric bill and would more than likely fall into this category. They go and spend $30,000 on a solar system that outputs about 7.2 kW which would put out an average of 800 kWH a month. This offset would reduce the amount used from the grid to about 602 kWH. At the new adjusted rate that’s $39.13 + $8 meter fee. Ok, so you’re finally saving money, but before the hike + fee you were much lower at $23.47.

I’m sure some of my numbers are off here, I’m using some calculators on nrel.gov to do the usages based on outputs of systems so who knows. Regardless, the second user is still looking at a savings of only $8.00 a month as opposed to $31.00 a month based on my scenario. How is that incentive for someone to go solar? You can’t even afford to pay for the system at that point.

I dunno. It just doesn’t make sense to me.