Without knowing anything about this or any context... that does not seem unreasonable to me.
Note that OP didn't even require net negative at all to have it still totally be a great investment. He only offest a portion of his actual usage. So net negative paid only at wholesale rate seems like it should still be functional economically and leave plenty of incentive. Wouldn't have effected OP at all, for those who do go net negative and it effects, it seems like it shouldn't tip the scales.
AFAIK, most home solar is not set up this way. You don't use the energy from your solar panels. The solar panels feed directly into the grid, and your usage comes directly out of the grid.
So if you use 100kwh, and generate 100kwh, then you will pay 100kwh at retail rate, and receive 100kwh at wholesale rate.
The Solar out actually runs your meter backwards, so does actually reduce the amount the meter shows you owing to charge you at the retail rate. There is no metering present to make it possible to charge you for the 100kwh you used at one rate, but then you pay you for the 100kwh you generated at a different rate. The electricity you generate runs the meter backwards, and reduces what you are charged for consumption -- which monetarily means you are "being paid" for it at the retail rate.
But if your meter goes negative in a given time period, they can tell at the meter you actually generated more than consumed, and could pay you out a different rate for that. (Or as OP notices, in some places, they allow you offset your use, but don't actually pay out for net negative at all. )
This is why the metering is called "net", it's your "net" use, consumption minus generation. I believe that's how it works for my friends here in Baltimore who have solar panels.
Are there other places in the USA where they install more sophisticated metering capable of separately metering out and in, and charge different rates for it?
Or, anyway, since we're talking about California, if anyone wants to clarify how it actually is going to work in CA, rather than speaking in hypotheticals based on our theoretical understanding of how things work, that would be even better!
But I agree with the message several posts up. The old net metering was a subsidy and I understand it going away. It makes sense to me at a technical level that you would be billed your fine-grained net usage, so if your solar supports your daytime load then you didn't consume power, but you can't expect daytime excess to 1:1 cancel your nightime grid load, unless you install local batteries to time-shift your own power.
The old net metering did that. People generate excess during the day and consume power at night from the grid and expect it to all cancel out.
Do you have details on how home solar is or will be metered in California, with regard to credits for power generated, and if it will be different depending on whether it's "net negative" or not?
With the right kind of grid-tie, you should be able to consume your own solar on-premises and have effectively no grid consumption charges during productive hours. If you had a net excess to supply back to the grid, that net would be credited at the applicable wholesale rate. If your solar was insufficient for your load, your net load on the grid would be billed at the applicable retail rate.
Think of all of this as "instantaneous" net metering. If you want to time shift your production and consumption, you need your own on-premises battery and accept your own charge/discharge efficiency losses. Your 1 kWh of excess solar will end up giving you less than 1 kWh of overnight power due to losses in the converters and battery chemistry. The old net metering rules allowed people to act like the grid was their perfectly efficient battery and consume 1 kWh of nighttime load for 1 kWh of daytime solar excess.
Another proposed rules change was rejected. It would have placed an additional fixed grid connection fee only on solar homes. It was an attempt to add a connection fee for homes that might hit net zero consumption, without restructuring the rest of the non-solar rate plans where the infrastructure costs are tacked onto the marginal energy price.
The other thing to understand about PG&E billing is that some of the new time-of-use rate plans have a "baseline allowance". In a recent bill, we were charged $0.37 or 0.39 for 1 off-peak or peak kWh. But, there is an offset of $0.09 per kWh for the first 281 kWh used in the month. This effectively gives you tiered pricing but without calling it out as such. I don't know why they did this instead of publishing tiered, time-of-use rate schedules.
Ah, I see what you mean now. Sure, I can't absolutely confirm that, from a physical point of view, all locally-generated power is sent out and comingled with grid power. Rather, from an _administrative_ perspective, it's the case that I don't have any "exclusive claim" on the power that I generate, and my house's power is not independent of grid outages. It's quite possible - likely, I agree! - that the power that I generate is locally consumed; but, from an administrative and practical perspective (esp. lack of independence from the grid), the system "behaves as if" that is not the case.
So - yes, you're probably right!
> would seem to be a terrible deal for homeowners now that net metering is being phased out
Whether you're right or not from a physical perspective, this is absolutely the case from a numerical perspective - which is why I'm extremely glad that I got mine installed in the grace period during which NEM 2.0 pricing is still in effect despite NEM 3.0 being approved (and becoming active in April).