Re:How should net metering affect your electric bill?
by paulmd on Thursday February 03, 2022 @01:44PM
(#30196738)
Which - to go back to my "the utilities need to be paying fair rates for the infrastructure provided by clients" - if you're going to be putting extra cycles on my battery, you'd better be paying me a decent rate for it. I've always seen the idea thrown out as this abstract "we can use everyone's car as a peaker battery, it's gonna be great!" but if they are gonna pay distributed storage rates like the rates they pay for distributed generation, then fuck no, I'm not letting you wreck my battery for 50 cents a day.
Utilities are gonna charge you 25c a kWh extra for peak demand delivery, and then be paying the actual people delivering it like 1c a kWh, you can book it.
And actual usage of that capital often has peak usage much more extreme than a typical 90/10 rule, meaning that the vast majority of that fixed cost is mostly unused.
The key to decreasing that peak is the distributed storage that's paired with distributed solar. It allows massive amounts of cost savings, despite needing to beef up the distribution side of the grid for this to work.