PV metering Q's

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I think the customer is getting screwed if they make energy, the utility buys it at x, and sells it immediately back to them at less than x. That should be illegal. If I was in charge people would be going to jail. Gunny gives a pretty good rate so he might just get probation, but hv&lv is definitely going to prison :rotflmao:
 

romex jockey

Senior Member
Location
Vermont
Occupation
electrician
I think the customer is getting screwed if they make energy, the utility buys it at x, and sells it immediately back to them at less than x. That should be illegal. If I was in charge people would be going to jail. Gunny gives a pretty good rate so he might just get probation, but hv&lv is definitely going to prison :rotflmao:

I'm taking the 5th....:cool:~RJ~
 

ggunn

PE (Electrical), NABCEP certified
Location
Austin, TX, USA
Occupation
Electrical Engineer - Photovoltaic Systems
I think the customer is getting screwed if they make energy, the utility buys it at x, and sells it immediately back to them at less than x. That should be illegal. If I was in charge people would be going to jail. Gunny gives a pretty good rate so he might just get probation, but hv&lv is definitely going to prison :rotflmao:

I disagree, and so does Austin Energy. Why should someone who uses a lot of energy and therefore pays more for it (theirs is a a tiered tariff system) get paid more for the energy they produce than someone who lives more frugally? What AE does is establish a virtual FIT (feed in tariff) interconnection where everyone's produced energy is reimbursed for at the same rate irrespective of tariff.

There is one AHJ near here that has taken steps to make it more clear. Every PV system they allow must be connected through another meter to the grid outside the customer's meter as a completely separate service, i.e. a real FIT connection. The question you raise is not an issue in their jurisdiction, but it makes PV systems significantly more expensive; AE's deal is actually better for the customer. There is another AHJ not far from here that monitors power flow both directions through the utility meter in real time and offsets the customer's bill at only 2 or 3 cents per kWh when the meter is running backwards. You cannot build a grid tied PV system that significantly offsets your consumption without pushing energy back to the grid some of the time; that's also a worse deal than AE offers.

We've been around this tree before. If you want to build your own microgrid not connected to the grid, you can make and use your own energy at whatever price point you can manage (it will likely be ~10X per kWh what grid power costs and unless you build a crazy big system or include a generator you will run out of power occasionally), but if you want to connect to the grid, you have to live with the AHJs rules. The support you must have in order for your grid tied PV system to function is supplied by POCOs and you cannot expect them to provide it for free. True net metering is becoming less and less common as POCOs find ways to get compensated for that support.
 
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jaggedben

Senior Member
Location
Northern California
Occupation
Solar and Energy Storage Installer
For the record, my comment about customers getting screwed wasn't aimed at any type of rate policy. It was aimed at the technical aspect of the metering requirements that we've seen here for DC coupled systems, and whether and how they are capable of measuring PV production accurately. Maybe they are able to do it right and I'm just not thinking it through correctly, but it seems to the three meter setup potentially misses PV production.**

I do that all the extra equipment required constitutes its own kind of overkill that is a mark against such policies, aside from more general fairness questions about who should pay for what.

**EDIT: Okay, I took some time to think it through and now I realize that the three meter setup can count PV production accurately. It's just counterintuitive how it would do so.

- The standby loads meter reading would actually be counted positively as PV production, not consumption. (That's the counterintuitive part.)
- Any standby loads consumption that is actually drawn from the grid will be counted negatively by the PV meter
- The two numbers will offset resulting in zero added to the PV production total.
- In effect, the standby loads meter is the new PV production meter, and the in-between 'PV meter' is a moderator that either adds PV production or consumption, depending on whether its count ends up positive or negative, respectively.
Clear as mud? :cool:
 
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