« Social DNA at 23andme: who owns your genome? |
Main
| Conversation Week »
Texas PUC vs Solar
R.A. Dyer in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram writes that the Texas Public Utility Commission will consider regulations that could discourage consumers from adding solar panels. A coalition of conservation groups complained Tuesday that the rules would require the acquisition of expensive redundant meters for those who invest in solar panels and hope to be compensated for the excess electricity that would potentially flow back into the state’s power grid.
Preliminary rules also leave open the possibility that those who generate power through solar panels or small windmills would not be compensated properly — or at all — according to the conservation groups.
“These rules protect the utility companies by shifting all the cost of solar power to the customers while giving consumers none of the benefits,” said Cyrus Reed, conservation director of the Lone Star Chapter of the Sierra Club.
More background from the article: All the proposed regulations relate to House Bill 3693, an energy efficiency bill authored by state Rep. Joe Strauss, R-San Antonio, during the 2007 legislative session. Reed said the preliminary rules set forth by the PUC staff do not conform to the spirit of the law. Strauss was unavailable for comment Tuesday.
But Steve Davis, president of the Alliance for Retail Markets, said the electric company umbrella group supports the staff’s proposed regulations as they relate to the installation of meters for so-called distributive renewable generation, such as rooftop solar panels.
Under HB 3693, “an electric utility shall make available . . . separate meters that measure the load and generator output, or a single meter capable of measuring inflow and outflow.” The law also states that “the distributed renewable generation owner must pay the differential cost of the metering, unless the meters are provided at no additional cost.”
Davis said it’s important to have a method that measures the influx of power into a home or business and another that measures power that potentially flows from solar panels, windmills, or other renewable-energy sources.
Davis noted that the value of the energy flowing in to a home or business and the value of the energy flowing out can be different — depending on factors such as the time of day when the power is produced. That’s why it’s not enough to have a meter that moves both backward and forward, he said.
jon posted this at 8:25 AM
Share on Facebook| email to a friend
|
read weblogsky! latest posts:
 Subscribe to RSS feed for Weblogsky
|
Comments
Jon,
This an absurd objection by environmental activists. Let's remember that consumer solar systems, say 3 kW, are priced at roughly $7k/kW. Even when the panel prices drop, the cost of these meters is quite small compared to the installation work. Currently, the 2-way meters are just a substitution for the existing inflow meter. Furthermore, these meters are inexpensive. Finally, if users want to capture the renewable energy credits (REC) created by their system, they will need a second meter to measure the solar system's output. (No, the various REC creation agencies will not accept the output measures of the solar inverters. There is an issue of fraud. An accredited meter will be required.) While a REC is of small value today, ≈$7.50, in a mandated market, they will have more value and, hence, contribute to shortening the payback period. As the price of panels decline, the value of these RECs increases as a proportion of the payback interval.
Sometimes environmentalists pick the wrong issue to fight about. This is one of those cases.
Andrew
Andrew
Posted by: Andrew Donoho | March 27, 2008 9:44 AM
Andrew, as always, I appreciate your knowledgeable feedback. It sounds like the various environmental groups were misunderstanding the rationale for the second meters. What I originally heard was that the PUC was considering regs that would prevent consumers from getting RECs.
Posted by: Jon Lebkowsky | March 27, 2008 5:24 PM