California Raises the bar for Solar Renewables

[hill]

My love / hate relationship with Ahnold is back on again

California heats up incentives for solar power | Industries | Technology, Media & Telecommunications | Reuters

From the read though, I'm still not certain if residential grid tied folks like myself will be receiving a check for our surplus. If so (and we switch to a TOU meter) we could be getting a $500 - $600 check from So Cal Edison



Gawd, that must chafe their hide!

.

[KD6HDX]

Glad to see the push for advancing solar projects in Kalifornia, I just completed 80 hours of training in Solar PV and Wind Turbine classes....whoo hoo!!! As long as your commercial system is 3 MW or better, looks like you could earn a buck or two on your system power. I can't wait to become a NUG (Non Utility Generator)

[hill]

But is that 3 MW hours? ... MW's per year? I can't tell if its strictly for commercial, as opposed to residential. The unclear part to me comes here:

" ... the new subsidy for solar generation could be "explosive" on top of the existing investment tax credit for installing solar systems ..."

There was ALREADY a 30% credit for commercial, and has been prior to Jan. 1st 2009 when the latest legislation was drafted. That makes me think it may apply to home owners as well (hope hope). It's only individual home owners who've seen a 30% credit from the feds as of 2009. Ergo, THAT's the group seeing the "explosive" growth. No? Some counties already pay home owners for surplus, so it'd follow the perk would necessarily include a grid tied residence. The rest of us not reimbursed by our utility company for our surplus just have to either use it up, or consider it a freebee to the utility company. Not exactly promoting good stewardship of one's excess power.

.

[fuzzy1]

But is that 3 MW hours? ... MW's per year? ...

"MW's per year" is ambiguous, but I see no ambiguity in the news article's usage "up to 3 megawatts in size".

[burritos]

Originally Posted by hill

My love / hate relationship with Ahnold is back on again

California heats up incentives for solar power | Industries | Technology, Media & Telecommunications | Reuters

From the read though, I'm still not certain if residential grid tied folks like myself will be receiving a check for our surplus. If so (and we switch to a TOU meter) we could be getting a $500 - $600 check from So Cal Edison



Gawd, that must chafe their hide!

.

How did you switch to a TOU meter? Did you have to buy it? Does edison install it?

[drees]

Originally Posted by hill

From the read though, I'm still not certain if residential grid tied folks like myself will be receiving a check for our surplus. If so (and we switch to a TOU meter) we could be getting a $500 - $600 check from So Cal Edison.

Yeah, not quite clear from the article under what conditions residential PV owners would get paid - the article focused mainly on the small commercial installations.

From the article:

Schwarzenegger also approved a measure on Sunday that will require utility companies to pay customers for surplus solar electricity generated on an annual basis. Previously under the state's net-metering law, utilities could receive that extra electricity from their customers for free.

From the article, it seems that you should not need a TOU meter to benefit from this measure.

Good news to me - I hope to have a 3.2kW DC system on my roof by the end of the year and I expect to produce extra energy (oversized the system based on current bills in anticipation of adding central air for summer and hopefully getting a PHEV or EV in the next year or two).

Edit: Found a better article on the new net-metering law.

Solar users to feel surge in wallet

Goes into effect in 1/1/2011 as is bill AB 920.

I think the bill will go a long way towards encouraging customers to install larger PV systems, where current law highly discourages it.

[DaveinOlyWA]

its too bad we have to continously go thru the "wait and see what Cali does first" syndrome.

solar and wind should be top priorities NATIONWIDE

[burritos]

Just called Edison, they said that they'd install the TOU meter this month. Guess I'll have to do all optional electrical stuff off peak.

[hill]

Originally Posted by burritos

How did you switch to a TOU meter? Did you have to buy it? Does edison install it?

We haven't switched ... yet. (We'll finish calculating regular use for 2 more months & that'll be ONE year on the PV panels ... THEN the TOU meter comes in) My understanding comes from THIS doc:

http://www.sce.com/NR/rdonlyres/C715...nection_DM.pdf

... in short, it seems to say that Edison installs it for free, then charges a monthly fee for you having the privilege of saving money by its use. There's a phone # for more details there too.

Originally Posted by drees

.............. snip
Edit: Found a better article on the new net-metering law.

Solar users to feel surge in wallet

Goes into effect in 1/1/2011 as is bill AB 920.

I think the bill will go a long way towards encouraging customers to install larger PV systems, where current law highly discourages it.

nice find! much easier to understand the applicability to regular ol home owners

Originally Posted by DaveinOlyWA

its too bad we have to continously go thru the "wait and see what Cali does first" syndrome.

solar and wind should be top priorities NATIONWIDE

Hey Dave ~ your legislator(s) are only a phone call or email away ... get crackin' my friend


.

[fuzzy1]

... Hey Dave ~ your legislator(s) are only a phone call or email away ... get crackin' my friend ...

No point in rushing. Our Washington State Legislature has been out of session since April, and won't return to session until mid-January. My experience with leaving messages this time of year is that they are all thrown in the trash so the critters can start with a clean slate in January.

This year was the "long session", 105 days. But most of it was spent huddled in the secret Democratic Caucus to settle on a budget in the middle of a fiscal catastrophe without the glaring attention of the Press and any contribution from the Opposition Party or the general public.

Next year will be the "short session", just 60 days. We are still in the same predicament and they have 43% less time to deal with it, so I don't expect them to listen to us any better than they did/didn't during this year's session.

If you really want input to our Legislature, you need to attend your local party meetings, caucuses, and conventions. And considering the seriously lopsided split of the current Legislature, those party events had better be Democratic.