[RE-wrenches] Demand charges for residential

[Sky Sims]

Peak and off peak rates are pretty typical on the east coast. Residential customers usually have to request that they be put on peak off peak billing. 
The fact that energy and transmission costs are usually substantially lower at night during off peak hours, is one of the reasons why utilities should be paying a higher premium for solar energy. Utilities are getting peak rate power at the point of use from solar facilities, which radically lowers their cost of supplying peak power. And then through net metering they give back cheap off peak power. The deal is currently lopsided in favor of power distribution companies. 
Srec's and feed in tariffs (FIT) have historically been used to compensate solar facilities for the added value they are providing. But FIT and Srec are best suited for compensating for the more complex (health and environmental) benefits of clean non-polluting energy production. The utility company should be passing through a portion of its distribution cost savings to the solar facility. If the solar energy passes through less than a mile of public grid and coal energy has to pass through 100miles of public grid, the utility company should be compensating that solar facility for the obviously reduced expense. Net metering is a start toward proper compensation, but it does not go far enough. 

Sky



> On May 2, 2015, at 10:59 PM, William Dorsett <wmdorsett at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> 
> Jay, residential demand charges are becoming a big thing. The argument as I’m sure you know, is that solar customers aren’t paying their share of the expenses in generation and distribution. So our utility, Westar, has a rate increase before the corporation commission “decoupling” their fixed costs from energy costs. And from that they are proposing to charge new solar customers a high base fee for the use of the grid (~73% of the total bill) and a lower energy charge…plus a demand charge for capacity required for the highest fifteen minutes of use each month. This is becoming common across the US as utilities try to assure their long term rate base. How it plays out for us is that a high fixed charge leaves not much that solar or efficiency can change.  A 50% reduction of the 27% left for the energy charge leaves only 13.5% that’s variable. When they add in the demand charge, it kills the investment incentive that solar offers. Now it would be possible to deal with high demand charges in the same ways we used in trying to keep the loads from overloading old and relatively expensive inverters…timers and lockout relays and such to keep large loads from coming on simultaneously. Continuous cat and mouse game with the utilities.
>  
> Bill Dorsett
> Manhattan, KS
>  
> From: RE-wrenches [mailto:re-wrenches-bounces at lists.re-wrenches.org] On Behalf Of Jay
> Sent: Friday, May 01, 2015 7:06 PM
> To: glenn.burt at glbcc.com; RE-wrenches
> Subject: [RE-wrenches] Demand charges for residential
>  
> Hi all 
>  
> A different question. The tesla sites makes the claim that " often power companies charge for peak rates "
>  
> My question is where is this happening in the us for residential customers?
>  
> Thanks
>  
> Jay. 
> Peltz power. 
>  
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