Zero export system without interconnection agreement

[ggunn]

Utilities generally are not allowed to do whatever they want. They are of course regulated by the state government. I guess the Texas Govt allows utilities to not allow citizens to use their solar power directly. Seems strange to me, especially for "free" Texas. Ill stay in NY I guess

The state government does not get involved; I have designed PV systems in the territories of many different AHJs in Texas and every one of them has their own rules for interconnection. Austin Energy is not the only one that meters and compensates PV generation separately.

BTW, AE is a municipally owned utility; the board of directors of AE and the Austin City Council are the same people.

 

[ggunn]

I thought part of 1749 testing was inverter shutdown on loss of utility power? If so, backfeed is not possible.

Do you guys mean UL1741? I don't know of a UL1749.

 

[kwired]

The biggest argument the utilities has is the net metering where you use a kWh meter spins one way, you export a kWh, meter spins the other way offsetting your net to 0.
From a utility perspective that’s not fair at all. Utilities set their rates based on many things. Poles, wires, plant, vehicles, etc.. all the things it takes to make a business run goes into the rate. Close to $.11 per kWh.

You have no infrastructure, plant, vehicles, salaries, etc, yet many want straight net metering. The utility pays wholesale rate for the power from G&T, why should they pay retail from solar production?

Thats like you making homemade bread and selling it to Wal-Mart at the retail rate and Wal-Mart making absolutely nothing off the item, yet they have to accept it, carry it somewhere, and sell it to someone at the exact same price they paid for it.
Doesn't work…

Don't most have a minimum charge that you pay even if you used no energy? Might be more for some than others, three phase is understandable there is more equipment wires, etc. needed to deliver to your premises.

Then there is energy charges in addition to this minimum charge. So if you have a net zero situation you would still be paying that minimum charge no matter what the energy side looks like. To get a negative bill you would at least need to send more energy into utility than what equates to the minimum charge.

I sort of can see them being concerned that you might mess up the peak demand situation in some cases, though a lot of that peak demand in the summer anyway sort of comes at same time as peak PV production would be occurring. To be fair if they are going to penalize you with more charges during peak demand periods then they should also pay you more for energy during peak demand periods. I don't know if they actually do that or not, just a thought. Guessing the investor owned utilities are going to be more greedy and not want to do that unless forced to. They are not in business for the customer they are in business for profits.

 

[ggunn]

I'm not trying to be argumentive, I just genuinely don't follow this argument against straight net metering. I think I must be not "seeing" it. Couldn't excess generation (after local use) all be billed at the same rate regardless of which tier the customer is in?

AE does not compensate for excess generation, it compensates for all of it at its published Value Of Solar rate. What their policy does is levelize the rate of compensation for PV energy generation for all of its customers irrespective of tariff tier. Their compensation rolls over month to month against your utility bill but they will never write you a check.

 

[kwired]

I would think as a general rule most POCO's don't want you creating more than you consuming on a regular basis. Occasionally might be acceptable, if so they likely to want to keep that credit to apply later. If you normally creating more than consuming they want a contract with you - sort of like they would with a solar farm that is always exporting more than they ever import. Then they will want you to contribute certain amounts to satisfy the contract as well or face penalties for not doing so.

 

[jaggedben]

The state government does not get involved;...

There's no doubt in my mind that the state government has to sign off on AE's scheme when they originally came up with it. Utilities don't just get to do what they want.

 

[jaggedben]

I would think as a general rule most POCO's don't want you creating more than you consuming on a regular basis. Occasionally might be acceptable, if so they likely to want to keep that credit to apply later. If you normally creating more than consuming they want a contract with you - sort of like they would with a solar farm that is always exporting more than they ever import. Then they will want you to contribute certain amounts to satisfy the contract as well or face penalties for not doing so.

Doesn't it make more sense for this to be subject to fair pricing signals rather than arbitrary limits?

Also new rules proposed in California would have people paying as much as ten times as much for imports as they get paid for exports during peak times. Doesn't seem like a problem for utilities if people export more under such rules.

 

[ggunn]

There's no doubt in my mind that the state government has to sign off on AE's scheme when they originally came up with it. Utilities don't just get to do what they want.

I don't know what the Texas state government has or has not signed off on, and I'll hazard a guess that you don't, either, but I do know that every AHJ in Texas has its own set of rules concerning distributed energy generation and they differ greatly from one another.

I take no position as to whether AE's policies are right or wrong; I only stated what they are and what AE's reasoning is. Ours is not to reason why; ours is only to follow their rules or fail their inspection.

 

[kwired]

Doesn't it make more sense for this to be subject to fair pricing signals rather than arbitrary limits?

Also new rules proposed in California would have people paying as much as ten times as much for imports as they get paid for exports during peak times. Doesn't seem like a problem for utilities if people export more under such rules.

How about a gas station dispenses gas to some vehicles yet receives excess/unneeded gas from others? What is fair pricing if that were to happen? How do they conduct any quality control of what they take in?

To be fair to all (POCO as well as those served) they need to be able budget the energy going in and going out all across the system to help keep it most reliable and efficient. Rely on too much unpredictable sources and you might end up short when a cloudy day comes along or the wind stops blowing. etc.

 

[ggunn]

How about a gas station dispenses gas to some vehicles yet receives excess/unneeded gas from others? What is fair pricing if that were to happen? How do they conduct any quality control of what they take in?

To be fair to all (POCO as well as those served) they need to be able budget the energy going in and going out all across the system to help keep it most reliable and efficient. Rely on too much unpredictable sources and you might end up short when a cloudy day comes along or the wind stops blowing. etc.

Most/all utilities I have dealt with consider everything that contributes energy to their grid to be under their jurisdiction irrespective of meter locations and property lines.

 

[kwired]

Most/all utilities I have dealt with consider everything that contributes energy to their grid to be under their jurisdiction irrespective of meter locations and property lines.

Yes, and it goes beyond just how much they are going to pay a customer for energy they put in, they need to be able to determine how much energy to expect and use that information to determine how much capacity their conventional generation needs to be prepared to deliver without having any disruptions to some or even all parts of the system.

 

[wwhitney]

I'm not trying to be argumentive, I just genuinely don't follow this argument against straight net metering. I think I must be not "seeing" it. Couldn't excess generation (after local use) all be billed at the same rate regardless of which tier the customer is in?

Sure you could do that (where for "billed" I would use the word "credited"), but I think the argument is that the behind the meter consumed kWh generated by someone in a high tier would still be worth more than the behind the meter consumed kWh by someone in a low tier. So if that's undesirable for whatever economic or social policy reason, you have to separately meter all solar. Clearly such a policy is intentionally treating a kWh avoided differently from a kWh generated.

Cheers, Wayne

 

[wwhitney]

I don't know what the Texas state government has or has not signed off on, and I'll hazard a guess that you don't, either

As AE doesn't run the Texas grid, I'm sure a higher state wide authority has at least passively OK'ed it by not raising a fuss. I would be surprised if they hadn't also OK'ed it in advance.

Cheers, Wayne

 

[R&T Jimmy]

The utility here does not require an interconnection agreement for a grid tied system. The system has to be inspected upon installation. The catch is without an agreement they will not install the bi-directional meter so the consumer is not being paid for anything that they put back on the grid. They also ground everything they are working on so if there is a backfeed the inverter creating it will not last long.

 

[winnie]

One of the posters in this thread has described the use of 'secure forward' meters for customers without an interconnection agreement.

With these meters, you get charged for every kWh that goes through the meter. Yes, in this case you _pay_ the power company to take your electricity.

Apparently this isn't their policy for PV in general, just for 'pirate' installations without an agreement.

Jon

 

[electrofelon]

I don't know what the Texas state government has or has not signed off on, and I'll hazard a guess that you don't, either, but I do know that every AHJ in Texas has its own set of rules concerning distributed energy generation and they differ greatly from one another.

Sure each utility has it's own rules and standards, but I would think the issue of rates and DG would have some state level regulation no? Can a POCO there say they will only pay a penny for PV generation?

 

[electrofelon]

The biggest argument the utilities has is the net metering where you use a kWh meter spins one way, you export a kWh, meter spins the other way offsetting your net to 0.
From a utility perspective that’s not fair at all. Utilities set their rates based on many things. Poles, wires, plant, vehicles, etc.. all the things it takes to make a business run goes into the rate. Close to $.11 per kWh.

You have no infrastructure, plant, vehicles, salaries, etc, yet many want straight net metering. The utility pays wholesale rate for the power from G&T, why should they pay retail from solar production?

Thats like you making homemade bread and selling it to Wal-Mart at the retail rate and Wal-Mart making absolutely nothing off the item, yet they have to accept it, carry it somewhere, and sell it to someone at the exact same price they paid for it.
Doesn't work…

Yeah fair enough, but (one of) the specific topic we got on was not about "net metering" it was about whether or not people can offset their usage in real time, without the PV going thru a meter first and then being sold back to them at a higher rate. You could still have an arrangement where the PV goes to local loads "first" , and any excess gets sold to the utility at a lower than retail rate. No not sure if there are official terms for these different schemes. I call what Ggunn is describing as " buy all sell all", but not sure what "allowed local consumption with different import and export rates" would be called.

 

[winnie]

IMHO fair charging would have something like a 'meter charge' (flat rate just to have service), a 'capacity charge' (a charge for power that the utility guarantees will be available for your use, even if you don't use it), a consumption charge (a charge for each kWh that goes through the meter toward the consumer, possibly time of day variable) and a production credit (a payment for each kWh that goes through the meter toward the utility, possibly time of day variable and different than the consumption charge).

Any energy that I produce and use immediately should be charged exactly the same as if I simply decided not to use the energy; if it doesn't result in a net flow through the meter it simply should not count, just like the various 'one way' systems that I described.

Just my opinion of what is 'fair' from the point of view as an educated consumer.

-Jon

 

[electrofelon]

IMHO fair charging would have something like a 'meter charge' (flat rate just to have service), a 'capacity charge' (a charge for power that the utility guarantees will be available for your use, even if you don't use it), a consumption charge (a charge for each kWh that goes through the meter toward the consumer, possibly time of day variable) and a production credit (a payment for each kWh that goes through the meter toward the utility, possibly time of day variable and different than the consumption charge).

Any energy that I produce and use immediately should be charged exactly the same as if I simply decided not to use the energy; if it doesn't result in a net flow through the meter it simply should not count, just like the various 'one way' systems that I described.

Just my opinion of what is 'fair' from the point of view as an educated consumer.

-Jon

Yeah I agree. IMO net metering isn't really fair, although it may have been appropriate in the past to help get things rolling. In NY they just changed from net metering to - I guess it's still net metering technically - but there is a fixed monthly charge per system KW, something like 80 cents per KW.

 

[gadfly56]

Sure each utility has it's own rules and standards, but I would think the issue of rates and DG would have some state level regulation no? Can a POCO there say they will only pay a penny for PV generation?

That would be ERCOT, Electric Reliability Council of Texas, if we're still talking about Texas. Other states do their thing and have something equivalent to NJ's NJ Board of Public Utilities. However, there is also the Independent System Operator to consider as well. There are several across the US and they add another layer to the regulatory cake.

Independent System Operator (ISO) · Energy KnowledgeBase

An ISO is an independent organization that handles electric grid operations, market facilitation for certain electric markets, and bulk electric system planning.

energyknowledgebase.com