[RE-wrenches] Feed-in tariffs and internal offsets

Mac Lewis maclewis1 at gmail.com
Mon May 30 21:08:47 PDT 2016


Hi Troy,

Does this little utility have a Time of Use rate structure?  How often do
they true up (pay the customer for their extra power)?

There are various  markets that this makes sense, Germany, Hawaii etc.
They call this type of system a self-consumption system.  It does require
energy storage/management.  There are quite a few companies out there that
are doing this now, Outback, Schneider Electric, Sonnen etc.  The pricing
that you are stating $0.08 retail, will make this extremely difficult
(impossible) to offer any type of payback for a system like this.  However,
you can offer excellent backup power and a "future-proof" system ready for
almost any type of rate structure.  Some of these systems can also
intelligently reduce demand charges by exporting power out of the battery
bank during high energy use.

What makes the most sense will really depend on the rate structure.  If the
utility says that they will pay whole sale for overproduction, ask them how
often they check the meter.  Do they net-meter?  When is the check cut for
excess energy production?  It's common for a utility to only pay whole-sale
for over-production, but allow you to off-set retail electricity rates.  We
have a utility that used to pay off any excess in January.  This was a
rotten deal for solar customers because they would get paid whole sale for
what they over produced in the summer in the dark days of winter would be
buying retail.  They have changed this policy to have a continuous rollover
option.

Good Luck


On Mon, May 30, 2016 at 11:23 AM, Troy <taharvey at heliocentric.org> wrote:

> I am dealing with a small utility that only provides a small feed-in
> tariff (basically wholesale). Customer wouldn’t have much value to install
> PV when they sell in at 5 cents, and buy back at 8 cents.
>
> However, if we load shifted the PV to provide an internal offset on the
> consumption meter (but staying clear of exporting), and move any excess to
> the tariff meter we could make the PV more valuable by offsetting the 8
> cent power first, rather than just producing 5 cent power all the time.
>
> Has anyone done this? Are there legal hurdles? Any reason one can be
> legally stopped from offsetting their own power?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Troy
> Heliocentric
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-- 



Mac Lewis

*"Yo solo sé que no sé nada." -Sócrates*
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