I see solar being installed on commercial buildings that are 200kw plus. What the deal is the solar companies are installing systems free of charge but the owner has to buy the electric from the installer(not to mention they get the rebates). I have seen some of these agreements for 20 years! I thinks its a little fishy seeing how utilities have a meter dept for testing revenue meters in case of a meter complaint per the public service commission along with many other man dated programs along with rate increases. How can these solar companies do this?
Solar Programs
- Thread starter newt
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shortcircuit2
Senior Member
- Location
- South of Bawstin
There will be another bubble to burst. It is not their money they are spending, it is investors who will end up loosing in the long run. The SREC program failed in New Jersey and now here in Massachusetts the SREC value is plummeting and no one is buying...
jaggedben
Senior Member
- Location
- Northern California
- Occupation
- Solar and Energy Storage Installer
What exactly do you think is fishy? That the customer isn't required to pay a state mandated fee to fund a program for testing meters for solar PPAs? What's so fishy about that?
The solar companies are kept honest by the fact that if the electricity they provide costs more than the utility then their customers will be pissed. It's kind of hard for them to cheat the system. That's even if solar companies were able to conspire with the manufacturers of revenue grade meters, which strains credulity.
Solar Renewable Energy Credit (or Certificate)
shortcircuit2
Senior Member
- Location
- South of Bawstin
SREC...Solar Renewable Energy Credit...each Megawatt produced equals 1 credit that was supposed to have a floor price of $300. But we are at a price below $200 and no one is buying them from what I read. Below is the auction results from last week...
Compliance Year 2012 Auction Schedule and Results
Auction Volume is 38,866 Re-minted Auction Account Attributes (SRECs). The Auction will clear in the first or second round, only if the bid volume is equal to or greater than the auction volume, in which case the full volume will clear.
The results of each Auction round will be posted on this table by 5:00pm of the date of the Auction.
Round of Auction Date Auction Result "Cleared" or "Did Not Clear" Volume Cleared Volume Uncleared
1 Friday, July 26th Did Not Clear
2 Wednesday, July 31st Did Not Clear
3 Friday, August 2nd Partially Cleared 3 of 38,866
People were counting on the SREC money to pay off loans for the systems they installed. Massachusetts is trying to restructure the Solar Carve Out program to boost value...but I won't believe it till I see results...
jaggedben
Senior Member
- Location
- Northern California
- Occupation
- Solar and Energy Storage Installer
I'm sure there are third parties that can perform metering calibration services. If the customer is shrewd, they'll make sure that any necessary services are included in the initial contract, rather than something that would be the customer's expense if they decide at some point that they want it.
Solar developers do not think they are utilities.
tallgirl
Senior Member
- Location
- Great White North
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- Controls Systems firmware engineer
Why buy SRECs at a grossly inflated price when you can make them yourself for far less? Installing your own PV is =way= cheaper, especially for large-scale commercial.
That's the flaw in all the SREC programs I've seen -- they tried to set an artificial floor above the long-term target for installed PV. We're four years from nation-wide grid parity, at which time all of the artificial SREC prices will collapse.
ggunn
PE (Electrical), NABCEP certified
- Location
- Austin, TX, USA
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- Consulting Electrical Engineer - Photovoltaic Systems
Megawatt-hour, maybe?
shortcircuit2
Senior Member
- Location
- South of Bawstin
Opps...yes that is correct...
Generating SRECs and the Role of NEPOOL GIS (Generation Information System) Accounts
Electricity produced by qualified solar PV systems is broken into two products:
1) The electricity production that is used on-site or delivered to the grid.
2) The positive environmental attributes associated with this clean energy production.
SRECs represent the second product. One SREC is created each time a solar PV system generates 1 MWh (or 1000 kWh). The SREC is minted electronically and deposited quarterly in the generator's (or its aggregator's) account on the NEPOOL GIS, based on verified meter readings.
If a PV system Owner has a designated aggregator, their SRECs will be deposited into the aggregator's account. The aggregator may choose to combine fractional SRECs from several PV systems into whole SRECs within its account. Each SREC has a unique serial number assigned to it that carries information about where and when it was generated.
Generators can sell their SRECs to meet a regulatory compliance requirement. They can also sell them to voluntary markets or "retire" their credits as a means of voluntarily supporting solar power.
shortcircuit2
Senior Member
- Location
- South of Bawstin
I believe a 5kw system here is Massachusetts is capable of producing 5-6 SREC's annually. With a assumed market floor price of $300 per SREC an owner of a PV system would calculate their system to have income of say $1500 per year (for up to 10years) just from SREC's...then they would also get a $2000 credit from Massachusetts for installing a system and 30% write off from the Federal Government...it all looks good on paper...but SREC value has not been realized yet. So if you took a loan to put in a 5KW $24,000 PV system on your property counting on the SREC income, you now have to come up with the difference because the SREC's aren't selling.
tallgirl
Senior Member
- Location
- Great White North
- Occupation
- Controls Systems firmware engineer
I don't know what the retail electric pricing structure is in MA, but we've not had installed costs in the $0.30 / kWh PLUS whatever the PoCo is charging, for years.
Whenever SRECs come up in conversation, the discussion turns to PV as an investment vehicle and not as what it is -- distributed generation.
Getting back to the issue of meter reliability/accuracy.
I always wondered what that meant when I buy a simple "revenue grade meter". Shouldn't that be accurate enough to base billing a customer on?
Do these meters need to be, and are they regularly, recalibrated by the existing utilities?
I always wondered what that meant when I buy a simple "revenue grade meter". Shouldn't that be accurate enough to base billing a customer on?
Do these meters need to be, and are they regularly, recalibrated by the existing utilities?
If a customer does not agree with the revenue meter and request it has to be tested who does that? I know utilities must test for every meter complaint on site you can not change the meter for a new one per psc. Once tested it has to be calibrated to 99.4 to 100.4 % Im sure this is not the case with these solar installers. So how can the pcs allow this?
jaggedben
Senior Member
- Location
- Northern California
- Occupation
- Solar and Energy Storage Installer
There are certainly third parties that can be contracted.
Well, the customers of these solar PPAs certainly could ask for a new meter to be installed. They are not subject to the same rules. Also, FWIW, where I work the utilities do change meters in reponse to complaints. So not every state thinks it's necessary to regulate meters the same way.
Because there's no law or regulation that says that solar metering is subject to those rules. It is not a utilty meter. By all means, if you think the law needs changing, contact your legislator. But I will point out that (unlike with utilities, for all practical purposes), no one is forcing the customers of these solar PPAs to buy the solar electricity or accept any particular metering equipment. The customer could probably even have a separate additional meter of their own installed if they wanted.
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Aha i see from your reply, NEWT, that the utility is required to do testing - if requested.
Thank you.
In a solar power system's case, isn't it fairly easy to pull a meter from the socket, and plug in a new one, a make and model of the CUSTOMER'S choosing, if billing is in dispute??
I am agreeing that this may be an issue in some cases, but is the question best left to regulators or the market?
Look, in my trusting and naive and ignorant view
, at some point everything can be fraudulent, and apart from a total tyranny no regulation can manage it all. I can install 225 W panels and charge them for 250 W panels. I can use #14 instead of #10 wire. etc.
It comes down to what is the cost of compliance vs the risk of over/under-billing a customer?
Also, independent and much smaller solar contractors are NOT utilities.
Just b/c utilities are required to do so, doesn't ipso facto mean solar companies should be.
It seems you place your trust in regulations and commissions rather than voluntary contracts, ie. the market?
I think freely contracting parties should be allowed to do anything they mutually agree on. But go ahead and contact the commission to deal with those dirty sheister solar guys that are busting their butt to make energy cleaner and more affordable.
JaggedBen make a great point: "(unlike with utilities, for all practical purposes), no one is forcing the customers of these solar PPAs..."
PUCs are formed to give the semblance of regulation of large industries that have been granted monopolies.
Thank you.
In a solar power system's case, isn't it fairly easy to pull a meter from the socket, and plug in a new one, a make and model of the CUSTOMER'S choosing, if billing is in dispute??
I am agreeing that this may be an issue in some cases, but is the question best left to regulators or the market?
Look, in my trusting and naive and ignorant view
, at some point everything can be fraudulent, and apart from a total tyranny no regulation can manage it all. I can install 225 W panels and charge them for 250 W panels. I can use #14 instead of #10 wire. etc.It comes down to what is the cost of compliance vs the risk of over/under-billing a customer?
Also, independent and much smaller solar contractors are NOT utilities.
Just b/c utilities are required to do so, doesn't ipso facto mean solar companies should be.
It seems you place your trust in regulations and commissions rather than voluntary contracts, ie. the market?
I think freely contracting parties should be allowed to do anything they mutually agree on. But go ahead and contact the commission to deal with those dirty sheister solar guys that are busting their butt to make energy cleaner and more affordable.
JaggedBen make a great point: "(unlike with utilities, for all practical purposes), no one is forcing the customers of these solar PPAs..."
PUCs are formed to give the semblance of regulation of large industries that have been granted monopolies.
tallgirl
Senior Member
- Location
- Great White North
- Occupation
- Controls Systems firmware engineer
Just make sure your meters can measure KVArs, because that's where the money is going to be made as we get further into the happy fun world of DG.
On the subject of meters, it's really not all that big a deal to get someone out to test and calibrate a meter. Nor would I, if I were doing a PPA deal, trust the other guy's meter to be "right" and scrimp on whatever the cost of having my =own= meter. Someone mentioned a 200KW system -- installed cost on that is something between $500K and $1M, depending on what all is involved, and I wouldn't trust that much money to someone else if installing MY OWN METER cost less than $0.01 / watt (closer to $0.001 / watt on a system that size). For a system that size the inverters should also have some means of reporting production and if the numbers don't line up, then you call one of those companies (we get someone into the office every year to calibrate such trivial things as our hand-held meters) and have them check the production meter.
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