Re:Reimagining electric utilities
by eigenvector on Sunday February 14, 2016 @08:16PM
(#11100945)
It's certainly a lot more difficult at the <10MW, distribution-connected scale. It sounds like the utility you were dealing with doesn't have any experience with variable generation resources and probably doesn't want to learn.
What a lot of jurisdictions are doing to ease complications for small projects is creating a standard-offer feed-in-tariff for projects under a certain size that allows you to get a boilerplate interconnection agreement and a fixed price that is economical even at low capacity factors. But to be clear, if you want small public utilities to be forced to take your power on reasonable terms, you're actually advocating for more market rules, not less. With less rules, they'll just use their natural monopoly to squeeze you.
As I read your example, it sounds like the problem is solar's low capacity factor, not scale. But maybe I'm not understanding the example.
Under the current regulatory schemes and market rules the low capacity factor of solar is absolutely a problem. I guess I'm saying that more flexibility for smaller systems to play in the markets will be important to increase renewable energy production. The advent of cost effective storage will obviously make the whole discussion easier.
So the system may well exist, but I think there is benefit from some scaling down of the market rules.