And to clarify, I don't mean to use "accounting tricks" derisively, but figuring out how equitably pay rooftop solar owners for the excess generation they produce is a very serious policy problem that I don't think we'll arrive at a very satisfactory answer to before grid-scale solar takes off.
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Every customer has a base fee which covers grid connection, taxes, regulatory fees, etc. We all pay that if we have an active account.
Then you pay for energy based on your rate plan
You can't be connected to the grid and have a $0 or negative bill
BUT
you can have a $baseFee bill if Export≥Import.
Net metering isn't sustainable. But the system is full of incentives for anyone who can make storage work.
Even with all the smarts and real-time data we have I can't see how that makes more sense than the utility buying its own batteries and installing them in substations.
Although there's not enough money for the programs, which is annoying.
And even if we decide batteries-in-homes makes sense, my "perfect world" would be one where the utility just gives them to you in exchange for a discount on your bill.
Seems likely the power company would want some level of control over when batteries charge/discharge and whether they discharge into the house as use or into the grid as capacity?
Individual entities have to be compensated for their spend to balance their budgets and that makes it hard to accomplish goals that are more widespread...
For one, there's agrivoltaics. That's super exciting!
But more importantly, a huge amount of our farmland is being used to grow corn which isn't used for food - it's processed into ethanol which we add to gasoline.
Having solar on rooftops is a good thing, but much of our farmland today already doesn't produce food.
1) grid connection fee - separate from other charges.
2) kWh generated = kWh excess * an availability factor - less in daytime, more at nighttime. Changing as more/less energy available during day
3) electricity cost = rate * (total kWh used - kWh generated)
That's generally because while the idea of adding panels to every rooftop you can is a great idea, few rooftop installs utilize panels in optimal ways.
Self-consumption of output is key, as much as possible without need of home batteries. Other energy storage (hot water, EV, home thermal management) with smart management of discretionary loads is required. Hard to really nail it without batteries though as not all loads are discretionary.
I want that.
It's a tough balancing act to get it just right.