Solar Panel Taxes?

[DragonTamer1]

It kind of makes sense that they would tax this since the electric company still has an infrastructure that they need to maintain. Maintaining it costs money, especially since people are not in business for the sake of generosity.

 

That being said, I don't think that a such a high tax is the right way to go about it. I don't have an issue with a small tax but there has to be a better way.

[shermantanker]

2 hours ago, SansVarnic said:

Wow.

Liberals - continuing to ruin everything...

 

 

Glad I live in Iowa... the electric company has to pay you for any current you put back on the grid...

It's the same thing where I live in southern California.

[Bensemus]

It makes sense to tax it if their sole purpose was maintaining the grid. I doubt that's where the money is really going. Seeing as they are taxing them so high it looks like they are using it to replace profit and discourage further development of solar.

[zMeul]

7 hours ago, SansVarnic said:

Wow.

Liberals - continuing to ruin everything...

liberals !?!?

that's a far cry from the liberal doctrine 

[Paragon_X]

hue hue hue, maintaining the grid should be covered by the fixed cost every month they charge you plus your usage, they should not tax you extra for solar panels. Its just pure money making.

[wrath]

That is complete BS ,I'm pissed

Since when do they have the right to put taxes on solar panels?

[kamuixmod]

Nothing is certain but death and taxes

[paradigm249]

murica fuck yeah! freedom

[gamerking]

10 hours ago, DragonTamer1 said:

It kind of makes sense that they would tax this since the electric company still has an infrastructure that they need to maintain. Maintaining it costs money, especially since people are not in business for the sake of generosity.

 

That being said, I don't think that a such a high tax is the right way to go about it. I don't have an issue with a small tax but there has to be a better way.

that ant the tax i was talking about .to   maintain the grid that is like 6$ flat so its bull to say the least . doesnt help everytime they break or drive a backhoe into the oil pipeline in the south they use it to jack the rates . most of the power comes from oil  power

[Thunderpup]

I am going to preface my comment by saying i really dislike the way the article is written.  It reads more like a irate blogger than anything else.  It is completely one sided, and the writing provides zero documentation proving his story.  Further he keeps referencing the historic flood, likely to drum up additional sympathy, but fails to say if the policies were enacted before, or after the flood (huge difference).

 

With that out of the way i'd like to know what the utility's stated reason for doing this is. If there is some kind of increased cost to the utility from accepting solar energy from homes; then i feel it is justified.  I am not meaning lost revenue, but actual physical money being spent to accommodate solar homes.

As far as the grid is concerned i don't know what, if any, the additional costs are for maintenance as a result of solar homes. However i do know that homes participating in net metering have to have a more advance meter installed, or at minimum a second one installed.  One to measure the energy the home exports to the grid, and the other for energy imported.

If the additional fee is to cover the cost of that sort of thing, then i feel it is justified, but only until the equipment cost has been paid off.  

 

Also the fact he still has an energy bill beyond the fixed monthly charge shows that their system is under built.  Had they gotten a system that exceeded their energy needs on a regular basis they would only be paying the monthly fee and that's it. 

 

 

Btw i am not saying the utility is in the right, but that there needs to be more information beyond what is provided.  

[Brian McKee]

On 11/4/2016 at 8:13 PM, djdwosk97 said:

In NJ you're not allowed to use a stream/river running through your property to create power either. So it's not just southern/western thing. 

This is actually a bit more reasonable because creating hydropower dams and such can actually be harmful to the environment.

[Kobathor]

On 11/5/2016 at 3:04 AM, zMeul said:

liberals !?!?

that's a far cry from the liberal doctrine 

liberals in America 

What we call Liberals are the people lobbying to ban guns and raise taxes. Give as much power as possible to the big government. Definitely not "liberal," but that's what they are here.

I like to call them "liberal" (application of governmental power)

[kirashi]

On 11/4/2016 at 8:01 PM, DragonTamer1 said:

It kind of makes sense that they would tax this since the electric company still has an infrastructure that they need to maintain.

No, it doesn't - if it did, they would need to apply this tax to all of their customers, and not just those with Solar Panels, since everyone collectively is sharing the same powerline infrastructure that would need to be maintained.

On 11/5/2016 at 4:23 AM, Paragon_X said:

hue hue hue, maintaining the grid should be covered by the fixed cost every month they charge you plus your usage... --SNIP--

^^ THIS. ^^

Cost for services like power, water, and communications should always be calculated as BASE-SERVICE-RATE + USAGE-RATE.

The base service rate covers the minimum operating costs to maintain the infrastructure, and your actual usage is what the company should be allowed to make profit from.

But... well, when companies get together behind closed doors, they can do whatever they please...

 

[ivan134]

1 hour ago, Kobathor said:

liberals in America 

What we call Liberals are the people lobbying to ban guns and raise taxes. Give as much power as possible to the big government. Definitely not "liberal," but that's what they are here.

I like to call them "liberal" (application of governmental power)

ROFL

So in other words you have no idea what you're talking about.

[Kobathor]

19 minutes ago, ivan134 said:

ROFL

So in other words you have no idea what you're talking about.

I don't like using the term "Liberal" for these people, it's just what sticks (in the media and on social media.) It's nowhere near the actual definition of liberal:

"open to new behavior or opinions and willing to discard traditional values."

[zMeul]

9 hours ago, Kobathor said:

liberals in America 

What we call Liberals are the people lobbying to ban guns and raise taxes. Give as much power as possible to the big government. Definitely not "liberal," but that's what they are here.

I like to call them "liberal" (application of governmental power)

that sounds like commies 

[Zulkkis]

On 5.11.2016 at 1:59 AM, bcredeur97 said:

Ok first I want to start off with a disclaimer: I only know this to be occurring where I live, I am not sure that it occurs anywhere else. But I want to encourage other's to research this for themselves.

Source: http://theind.com/article-24174-lus-quietly-clouds-solar’s-future.html

 

So apparently, the local electricity company in my town is going to be taxing solar panel users, making their bill high enough that it's actually higher in certain months than if they didn't have solar panels, due to these extra fees.  Perhaps, due to the abundance of houses with panels in my area, the electric company is beginning to lose money over this problem, or perhaps it's just another case of coorperate greed. Whatever it is, this really isn't funny in terms of making these systems, that people spend $1000's on in hopes to save over many years, completely and utterly useless! 

 

Let me know what you guys think about this. And yes, the fees specifically target homes with solar panels installed, one's without panels are unaffected. The charge itself is deemed a "wiring fee" (wha?)

 

I was initially confused, but now I think I got it. There is a very realistic reason for it if I got it correctly, but I'm confused as to why the billing can be that dumb to begin with. We have a fixed cost + usage based system, which actually reflects the costs.

 

There are two parts for the operation of the grid. The grid infrastructure, and the power generation. The infrastructure is a fixed cost. The wires don't really wear out faster if you're using electricity all the time. Hence, this cost is a fixed cost. The power generation costs in your power bill should be billed by the actual use of electricity.

 

Case A:

 

Let's say the cost of the grid is $15 / month for a person. Then we add (easy unit for math, not for realism) $1 / UsageWatt bill for the electricity.

 

A home without panels uses 10 UsageWatts per month. The final bill will be $15 + $10 = $25 / month.

A home with solar panels uses 4 UsageWatts per month. The final bill will be $15 + $4 = $19 / month.

 

This reflects the actual costs accumulated per user fairly well.

 

Case B:

 

Under another billing system, we only have UsageWatts for billing. In this system, the price of electricity is $2.5 / UsageWatt and no fixed costs.

 

A home without solar panels still uses 10 UsageWatts per month, and the final bill is still 10 * $2.5 = $25 / month.

A home with solar panels is still using 4 UsageWatts per month, and the final bill is 4 * $2.5 = $10 / month.

 

In case A, the solar panel home saves $6 / month, and in case B, the savings are $15 / month, or a 150% increase in savings. In reality, in case B the solar panel home is paying less than they should if the billing was appropriate.

 

Case C:

 

Exactly what is going on here; the power company only bills consumption, but uses different UsageWatt rates for solar panel homes and non-solar panel homes. For normal homes the cost is $2.5 / UsageWatt, but for solar panel homes, the cost is increse to $5 / UsageWatt.

 

Now the non-solar panel home is still billed for $25 / month...

But the solar panel home is billed for $20 / month.

 

This reflects the actual costs much better (just like case A) although it still isn't perfect. Case A is really how the electricity should be billed, if we were to bill by actual costs.

 

The only problem with billing by actual cost is that the price of electricity itself can be relatively little of the total bill, and infrastructure costs can make the majority of your bill depending on the case, so it does not create an effective price incentive to actually save energy since you can only save so little. Electricity costs wary a lot depending on geographical locations.

19 hours ago, kirashi said:

Cost for services like power, water, and communications should always be calculated as BASE-SERVICE-RATE + USAGE-RATE.

The base service rate covers the minimum operating costs to maintain the infrastructure, and your actual usage is what the company should be allowed to make profit from.

 

For power and water that is correct, because power needs to be generated, and water needs to be pumped. Both are finite.

 

For communications, it doesn't actually make any sense. If the usage-rate is actually just the bandwidth you are paying for, then it is fine. Data caps, however, have no place in any kind of telecommunications network. The only data cap there should be is [time * the speed you paid for = maximum amount of data through the network].

 

On 5.11.2016 at 2:02 AM, Electronics Wizardy said:

If they keep doing this, people will buy batteries instead of using the grid. This will just cause them to lose more money.

Unless you are aware of some ground-breaking battery technology that nobody else is aware of, using batteries is nowhere near as efficient as using the grid. This is the primary problem with renewables. Using batteries can somewhat help you, but they are still mainly used for redundancy, and for a good reason.

 

Economically such an investment doesn't make sense. Just for some perspective, the average American household uses 30 kWh of power each day. Tesla's PowerWall 2.0 costs $5500 and stores up to 14 kWh of electricity. Not to mention that batteries are less efficient than the grid. Not to mention that they aren't getting better as they age, but rather the opposite.

 

Can't really blame you though, since there are plenty of people who have fundamental misconceptions what electricity is. Take this is from the blogger:

 

Quote

In related news, this past weekend, Tesla introduced its new solar power roof system and its battery Powerwall 2.0. The new sleek roof systems are aesthetically incredible, and likely to cost the same as a new roof plus the cost of energy. The roofs are designed to effectively outlive the house. The new Powerwall 2.0 doubles the amount of energy storage and lowers the cost of storing power. As electric companies continue to increase electric rates, and penalize solar users, Tesla’s system (and many, many others like it) will be a tempting option for residents and homeowners to go off-grid.

 

 

Just for the record, PowerWall 2.0 is not designed to take you off the grid. It is only intended to give you more efficiency out of your solar panels, because even though the efficiency of batteries still suck compared to the grid, having solar panels generating electricity during the day when nobody's at home using the said electricity is even less efficient.

[Kobathor]

12 hours ago, zMeul said:

that sounds like commies 

we should call them that instead

[kirashi]

2 hours ago, Zulkkis said:

For power and water that is correct, because power needs to be generated, and water needs to be pumped. Both are finite.

 

For communications, it doesn't actually make any sense. If the usage-rate is actually just the bandwidth you are paying for, then it is fine. Data caps, however, have no place in any kind of telecommunications network. The only data cap there should be is [time * the speed you paid for = maximum amount of data through the network].

Apologies, I should have clarified just this - communications usage should only be calculated insofar as to prevent overloading of the network.

IE: You are a heavy downloader affecting your neighbors speeds, or you just happen to always be using 20% of your neighborhoods' total available bandwidth.

 

But under no circumstances should data caps ever be a thing, just as you've said - unlike water and power, electronic data isn't a physical thing that needs to be generated and transported. The only thing required for communications to operate is the equipment and power operating costs involved in deploying such a network.

[Bensemus]

Sustainable energies due to their inherently instability do put more burden on our outdated grids. The grids grew organically and were never planned to have sizable amounts of power coming from variable sources like solar and wind. If the money is going back into the grid then it's worth it as a "smart grid" is much better for everyone. Again though using it to stifle adoption is just dumb. 

[emille26]

On 11/4/2016 at 7:59 PM, bcredeur97 said:

Ok first I want to start off with a disclaimer: I only know this to be occurring where I live, I am not sure that it occurs anywhere else. But I want to encourage other's to research this for themselves.

Source: http://theind.com/article-24174-lus-quietly-clouds-solar’s-future.html

 

So apparently, the local electricity company in my town is going to be taxing solar panel users, making their bill high enough that it's actually higher in certain months than if they didn't have solar panels, due to these extra fees.  Perhaps, due to the abundance of houses with panels in my area, the electric company is beginning to lose money over this problem, or perhaps it's just another case of coorperate greed. Whatever it is, this really isn't funny in terms of making these systems, that people spend $1000's on in hopes to save over many years, completely and utterly useless! 

 

Let me know what you guys think about this. And yes, the fees specifically target homes with solar panels installed, one's without panels are unaffected. The charge itself is deemed a "wiring fee" (wha?)

How to deal with solar users is a mix of greed and a problem with how we pay for electricity. 

 

IDK that state's utility structure, but, there is talk across the country in nearly every state to increase the amount of fixed charges on customers bills.

 

Right now, utilities pay for the distribution system (wires and stuff) based on how much power customers use. However, if you use less power (the utilities argue) you pay less then everyone else does for the distribution system, even though you are making it more expensive by having panels that often are net-metered. 

 

When I say every state, I mean nearly EVERY state electric company is trying to do this. They are making less money per-customer now, and in a lot of states want to move towards fixed charges that you pay just for being a customer. 

 

 

[emille26]

3 hours ago, Zulkkis said:

There are two parts for the operation of the grid. The grid infrastructure, and the power generation. The infrastructure is a fixed cost. The wires don't really wear out faster if you're using electricity all the time. Hence, this cost is a fixed cost. The power generation costs in your power bill should be billed by the actual use of electricity.

your analysis is really on point. power companies actually try to say everything is a fixed cost when asking for more money. In the long run, the wires and substation are actually a variable cost. In NYC instead of building a new substation, they decided to make everyone who lived there more efficient so they wouldn't need a new one. It was way cheaper (will be?) than the new substation. 

 

However, back when we needed more access to electricity, we set the system up to incentivize new construction all the time. When a power company builds something big and new, they recover the costs from the customer plus an approved rate of return. So, the best way to get more money after you already have customer saturation is to keep building new stuff. 

 

 

The power companies

[Zulkkis]

16 hours ago, emille26 said:

your analysis is really on point. power companies actually try to say everything is a fixed cost when asking for more money. In the long run, the wires and substation are actually a variable cost. In NYC instead of building a new substation, they decided to make everyone who lived there more efficient so they wouldn't need a new one. It was way cheaper (will be?) than the new substation. 

 

However, back when we needed more access to electricity, we set the system up to incentivize new construction all the time. When a power company builds something big and new, they recover the costs from the customer plus an approved rate of return. So, the best way to get more money after you already have customer saturation is to keep building new stuff. 

 

 

The power companies

 

Variable cost as in what? Pretty sure that the transmission equipment (whether if you choose to use different wires, or build substations) is still a fixed cost, as it goes into the infrastructure. Yes, power demand affects on how the grid is built, but the grid is basically built to withstand the peak demand and at all other times the grid could be much smaller and still manage. In other words, the actual electricity consumed overall doesn't matter regarding infrastructure because the grid is scaled up to meet peak demand.

 

The cost of electricity itself as consumed depends on what the costs of generating the energy itself are, be it coal, nuclear, solar (and gas) or wind (and gas). Unfortunately renewables aren't great in everyday grid use because they deliver energy in whatever way they wish and cannot be scaled up or down to meet demand. When building the grid, solar and wind can be essentially set at close to zero because there are times when they don't produce energy anywhere near to meet the demand. If efficient batteries or efficient ways to store energy other than hydro and as fuel was possible, I'd be very much glad to see how they would fare, but the energy storage would have to be quite massive considering how seasonal the renewable power sources are.

[emille26]

2 hours ago, Zulkkis said:

 

Variable cost as in what? Pretty sure that the transmission equipment (whether if you choose to use different wires, or build substations) is still a fixed cost, as it goes into the infrastructure. Yes, power demand affects on how the grid is built, but the grid is basically built to withstand the peak demand and at all other times the grid could be much smaller and still manage. In other words, the actual electricity consumed overall doesn't matter regarding infrastructure because the grid is scaled up to meet peak demand.

 

The cost of electricity itself as consumed depends on what the costs of generating the energy itself are, be it coal, nuclear, solar (and gas) or wind (and gas). Unfortunately renewables aren't great in everyday grid use because they deliver energy in whatever way they wish and cannot be scaled up or down to meet demand. When building the grid, solar and wind can be essentially set at close to zero because there are times when they don't produce energy anywhere near to meet the demand. If efficient batteries or efficient ways to store energy other than hydro and as fuel was possible, I'd be very much glad to see how they would fare, but the energy storage would have to be quite massive considering how seasonal the renewable power sources are.

 

You are right, but there are three things in play with the tax. 

 

First, we can lower peak demand through distributed generation ( including on-site natural gas plants) and energy efficiency. Most state energy efficiency programs set targets to lower peak demand. So infrastructure (on a 10-15 year planning cycle) is variable to the extent we can choose to lower peak demand rather than build more lines. New York is doing this right now with something call the REV. 

 

Second, how we bill for electricity can change peak demand. Things like time of use rates, or rates that more closely reflect the cost of delivering power at the moment can change peak demand. 

 

Third, how we tax power changes behaviour. So if as a state, or government, or individual, I want to incentivize people to lower energy usage for environmental or other policy goals, keeping rates volumetric (recovering fixed costs through usage) provides a stronger incentive to use less. If we moved towards more fixed charges (google straight-fixed variable rate design if your curious) lower energy usage does not lower my bill, so why not use more power? It also creates equity concerns if we do that. 

 

I am not taking a position on what we should be doing, just stating that there are many different ways to choose how  we do it. 

 

To your point on energy storage, I agree that we really need good batteries in the future. 

[Zulkkis]

3 minutes ago, emille26 said:

You are right, but there are three things in play with the tax. 

 

First, we can lower peak demand through distributed generation ( including on-site natural gas plants) and energy efficiency. Most state energy efficiency programs set targets to lower peak demand. So infrastructure (on a 10-15 year planning cycle) is variable to the extent we can choose to lower peak demand rather than build more lines. New York is doing this right now with something call the REV.

We are getting much more efficient with energy all the time, but the problem is, that we find all these new uses for electricity, so the total consumption actually goes up. One essential part around the world is construction quality of homes (lack of multi-layer windows and other stuff that should be a standard), but even there the gains aren't going to change the trend.

 

Distributed generation means generally smaller plants but wind and solar aren't going to make the infrastructure costs go down, rather, they shoot it up. If the wind is not blowing, you have unusable capacity. That capacity has to then be compensated somehow or you have to start taking some drastic measures to ensure that at least a part of the grid gets electricity that matches the standards, for going significantly over or under the regulated frequency is going to break things.

 

3 minutes ago, emille26 said:

Second, how we bill for electricity can change peak demand. Things like time of use rates, or rates that more closely reflect the cost of delivering power at the moment can change peak demand.

Can you imagine i.e a restaurant just shutting down at a certain time, or a movie theater?

 

How exactly would you realistically do this?

3 minutes ago, emille26 said:

Third, how we tax power changes behaviour. So if as a state, or government, or individual, I want to incentivize people to lower energy usage for environmental or other policy goals, keeping rates volumetric (recovering fixed costs through usage) provides a stronger incentive to use less. If we moved towards more fixed charges (google straight-fixed variable rate design if your curious) lower energy usage does not lower my bill, so why not use more power? It also creates equity concerns if we do that. 

 

I am not taking a position on what we should be doing, just stating that there are many different ways to choose how  we do it.

Data shows that human well-being goes up with electricity usage. More and more parts of the world are joining that fray.

 

Equity concerns are huge, even if a system was created where the bill is proportional to income it would be gamed with.

6 minutes ago, emille26 said:

To your point on energy storage, I agree that we really need good batteries in the future. 

Yes, but battery technology improvements are minimal and we don't even have promising theoretical models that could lead to a breakthrough.

 

As it stands, renewable energy par Hydro does not bode well for grid usage. Averaging out the power doesn't really work; if power does not meet the demand, production needs to ramp up (to which the grid then needs to be scaled for as well as the production) or demand needs to go down - which essentially means cutting a part of the grid out altogether. That's why some factories have contracts where the power company will actually pay the factory to shut down production if needs be. A smart grid enables the use of distributed electricity problem, but it does not get rid of the issues related to the intermittent nature of it. Only good, long-term storage could, because the power is more or less seasonal.

 

Renewables have a place, for example in areas that are completely off the grid, and getting the grid wired would cost more than the installation of a system that would meet the rather small power demands. I was working in a business that sold solar panels among other things, and one place where it made sense was summer cottages. Getting the wire would have cost too much, but summers are bright and heating is not needed. So, with a couple of small LED lights, a recharge point for mobile devices, and a DC fridge along with batteries and a couple of panels you could even keep the system running. It wasn't cheap, but in many cases, cheaper than the grid. The whole idea starts falling down when people would start looking it as a permanent location, because especially winter would cause a lot of issues.

 

If it was up to me, nuclear would be built up much faster to address the demand for electricity. The waste issue is blown out of proportion and the waste itself can be reused in later reactors, and the risk for accidents is low, while the decreased air quality we get from burning gas or coal is causing more deaths every month than nuclear has during all of its operating time. It's a realistic alternative that actually produces energy to the demand as it does not have the intermittent nature of it, and I take the waste we get from it over all the emissions we get from Coal, Oil, Solar (because you need gas) and Wind (because you need gas) any day of the week.

 

Or Hydro everywhere, but not everyone can be Norway.