Fight with power
Welcome to this week's Reno News & Review.
I started a little tempest in a teapot last week when I posted a photo of my new solar panels on Facebook. Here's slightly abridged version of one of the responses. It's by my friend Bob Tregilus of the podcast “This Week in Energy” and other green energy groups.
“Because you installed solar, with the intent of zeroing out your electric bill, that shifts all of the utility's overhead and enormous fixed costs onto other ratepayers. Because you are compensated for the solar you generate at retail rates, on the consumer's side of the meter, NV Energy lost a customer and someone has to make up the difference.
“However, if we had a feed-in tariff program, like we got through the state Senate in 2011, but [which] died in the Assembly, you could have connected your system to the utility's side of the meter. Then NVE retains you as a customer, and they would have gained a resource, you as a generator.
“Being on the wholesale side of the meter, then, the energy you generated could be used to displace more expensive energies on the grid, in particular, costly sources such as energy from peaker plants which can cost the utility as much as a $1 kWh [kilowatt hour]. So the $0.14 kWh NVE pays you for the solar you generate would be displacing $1 kWh peak energy saving the utility $0.86 kWh, a savings which, theoretically, they would pass on to ratepayers.”
I agree wholeheartedly with Bob. I am now my own utility. I should be able to sell the energy I produce anywhere I want, maybe to those very neighbors Bob is talking about. I should be able to install as many solar panels as I want, without the monopoly being able to prevent it. This is anti-competitive, pro-dirty energy, and anti-American, and it artificially increases rates for everyone, including me, because I paid for the hardware.
This screwed system was bought and paid for by NV Energy. Until Nevada legislators get a dog in the fight—maybe by installing solar modules on state buildings and selling back to the “utility”—we'll all continue paying more for dirty energy we don't want.