Comments on: Net-metering battle between utilities and solar industry heats up in California

By: Vishwa

Vishwa — Fri, 20 Aug 2021 23:14:49 +0000

In reply to Ron. Not just that, there is a cap on how much you can produce. This just shows that the these utility companies are above the law just like any other third world countries. I was planning to go Solar myself, but looking at the $65 fee I have dropped this plan for now. Hope the governments take some notice of this.

By: Ron

Ron — Tue, 29 Jun 2021 22:18:38 +0000

Merced Irrigation District charge $65/month for solar panel fee. It is ridiculously high and discouraging people away from clean energy. The likely results:
Existing solar users may have trouble selling their homes.
Very few people will adopt solar in Merced going forward.

By: Dominic Barrenger

Dominic Barrenger — Wed, 02 Jun 2021 21:53:52 +0000

I’m currently in the solar industry and usually have 3 appointments a day 6 days a week. What I see is that my customers pay about half of what they would pay to PGE. We completely get rid of their PGE bill other than a $10 connection fee saving customers thousand a year. No more rate increases while increasing the value of their home. If anyone were to pay more for solar than they would to their electric company that just means you did business with a very sketchy person or company and should have done your research. This is very sad to see especially from my end where I know how much solar actually helps people here in the state of California.

By: Paul

Paul — Wed, 02 Jun 2021 20:55:31 +0000

James, welcome to the world of solar. The disparity isn’t that great, sdge charges from $0.32 to $0.39 a kWh and they buy it back at around $.07 to $0.10 a kWh. But it’s still a scam. They threaten us with brown outs and charge us more for excessive use with tier programs and TOU programs complaining that there isn’t enough electricity to go around but then want to punish us for supplying our own

By: Paul

Paul — Wed, 02 Jun 2021 20:44:42 +0000

In reply to Timothy. The months you don't overproduce you pay in the hundreds? You are paying $50 more a month? That makes no sense whatsoever. The disparity between winter and summer generation is not that great that you are over producing in summer months but paying 100s in winter. That just doesn't make sense unless your usage goes way up in winter and even then solar is still cheaper than the grid unless you way overpaid.

By: Timothy

Timothy — Tue, 13 Apr 2021 17:21:51 +0000

6 months out of the year I produce a surplus. The other six I don’t. At the end of the year I produce about the same as I use. This month I only got $.06 back for the surplus. The months I don’t have a surplus I pay in the hundreds. So I still have a huge $367 payment to pay at the end of 12 months. So after getting solar, I am paying well over $50 extra a month on average. It was a waste of money to go solar.

I have no problem paying to use the grid. We already pay bond charges, and non by-passable charges. I’d even pay a $10 fee a month for the grid. They get to pocket all the extra energy I produce.

By: James Hollingsworth

James Hollingsworth — Fri, 19 Mar 2021 08:05:10 +0000

Hi Kelsey, thanks for bringing this ploy by the power companies to our attention. We all need to get the word out that this not OK, and hopefully prevent it from happening.
Something else that should be mentioned, is that residential customers buy power from SDG&E at around $20 per kilowatt hour, but if our solar puts power INTO the grid, SDG&E pays us about $2 a kilowatt hour, a slight difference! What a bunch of scammers.
With my new system (under construction) most of the excess power will go to charging a very large battery array, with as little as possible going to SDG&E, unless they change their policy.