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If you have a wind, solar, and storage setup on your house that supplies 110% of your household needs... who pays for the hookup and maintenance for your house to be connected to the grid?

With the current approach, that is paid for by everyone. If you are just paying for the net energy used from the grid, and that's 0 (or less) then someone else is paying for the grid infrastructure maintenance (that you are using to push your power out onto the grid).

That in turn means that the people who can least afford to offset their own power consumption by installing rooftop solar and whole house backup batteries are the ones that are paying proportionally more for those who can do rooftop solar and backup to be able to connect to the grid.

And that's where the problem with just net metering is.

If it was net metering + flat infrastructure fee, that would be a different thing.

The sustainability that PG&E is concerned about in this context is the sustainability of the infrastructure itself - not the power sources. California is concerned that the maintenance of the infrastructure (that everyone uses) is being placed disproportionally on people with less means to put up rooftop solar.

>If you have a wind, solar, and storage setup on your house that supplies 110% of your household needs... who pays for the hookup and maintenance for your house to be connected to the grid?

Presumably people do pay taxes, no? This should get them basic infrastructure as a public power grid - and their house being hooked to it, amond many other things like bridges, roads, running water, and so on.

The power lines are maintained by private companies (PG&E for example). Many of these companies across multiple states. The larger interconnect is not necessarily owned by the same organization that does the last mile.

Is it your suggestion that the power lines and local power (e.g. Alameda Municipal Power) be taken over by the state itself and be made responsible for their maintenance and funding?

Or are you suggesting that California taxes be used to fund the California Independent System Operator (which also operates in Nevada, but not Northern California which is part of WRAP along with southern and central Oregon, south eastern Washington, and a tidbit of Idaho.

As it stands, the electric utility is private - not public. A public takeover of a private company (and multiple private companies) would likely be distasteful to many.

I was opposed to it at the time, but I very much regret that California didn't buy PG&E out of bankruptcy and do just that.

But PG&E doesn't own all the lines.

https://gis.data.ca.gov/datasets/260b4513acdb4a3a8e4d64e69fc...

For example, PG&E owns the line that goes from Coyote to Tracy, but the ones that runs perpendicular to it is owned by Critical Energy.

Or https://gis.data.ca.gov/datasets/260b4513acdb4a3a8e4d64e69fc...

One line owned by PG&E, the next line is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Path_66 (some of which is owned by PG&E, some of which is owned by other companies).

> Two of the power lines run from Malin Substation southeast of Klamath Falls, Oregon to Round Mountain Substation northeast of Redding, California. One of them is owned by Western Area Power Administration, with the other owned by Pacific Gas and Electric and PacifiCorp jointly.

I agree, but i have come to believe customers are best served by a locally controlled retailer that buys power and then pays someone to transport it.

I don't have a source handy, but if I recall correctly, most local retailers like Sacramento Municipal Utility District (Smud) have substantially lower rates.

Last I checked they were like half of my PG&E bill

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alameda_Municipal_Power

> Founded in 1887, it provides electricity to c. 34,000 residential, commercial, and municipal customers at rates up to 20 percent below neighboring communities.

> ...

> AMP has been providing 100% clean energy since 2020 and did so in 2023 at approximately a 35% saving over comparable PG&E rates.

However, my point is one of that the state of California shouldn't be the one owning (and maintaining) the transmission lines. And even if there was a public takeover of PG&E back when it was going through its bankruptcy - there still would have been many transmission lines owned by companies that are not PG&E.

Having taxes go to a hypothetical state-PG&E would also get into issues of the public sector directly competing with the private sector and using money from California for areas that they are not serviced by ( https://www.arcgis.com/apps/instant/minimalist/index.html?ap... ). You can see that Alameda and Sacramento and many other areas are not serviced by PG&E.

Would it be reasonable for California to have bought PG&E and then add to the taxes for California to support the connection fees... and how would you handle the people who live in areas that aren't served by PG&E (like Palo Alto, Santa Clara, Mountain House, Sacramento ... and all of Southern California ... and everything east of the Sierras but still in California)

Eminent domain can be used to acquire the assets if needed. It’s just not a popular idea to libertarian American political sensibilities to use those laws to acquire assets for the public instead of acquire the public’s houses to build shopping malls.

Anyway, there’s no reason you can’t decouple ownership and usage rights anyway. And it probably is the only way to stop the forest fires PG&E repeatedly has caused with their neglectful maintenance strategy.

Who owns the assets right now is possibly one of the least relevant questions in fact. It does not matter in the least, and we should in fact move in a direction that means it matters even less.

>It’s just not a popular idea to libertarian American political sensibilities to use those laws to acquire assets for the public instead of acquire the public’s houses to build shopping malls.

What a strange jab. Do you really think libertarians are excited about using eminent domain to seize houses?

Hypothetically, let's do it. Wave the eminent domain wand and poof California now owns all the PG&E lines.

They are now in competition for transmission with the private entity PacifiCorp that jointly owns some substations with PG&E and spans six states. This gets into tricky situations where the government is competing to provide the same service without any profit motive and able to monopolize its position through enacting laws... something that private entities can't really compete against.

Next, you've got the power lines (and sub stations). What you don't have is the tools (vehicles, equipment) to maintain those power lines.

https://www.fleetowner.com/operations/article/21242388/2022-...

> Reichert is now a senior fleet engineer for PG&E, which has one of the largest battery-electric fleets in North America. The 49th largest commercial private fleet in the U.S. provides transportation services for the 117-year-old utility provider. Based in Oakland, the company has more than 5 million customers in central and northern California.

> Its fleet includes more than 14,500 vehicles that cover nearly every duty cycle. These include construction and off-road equipment, snowcats, UTVs, and specialty gas and electric utility fleet assets. More traditional assets range from Classes 1-8: light-duty passenger cars and pickup trucks, medium-duty service trucks, aerial trouble trucks, gas welding, heavy-duty gas crew vehicles, electric line, material handlers, and day cab tractors.

Does California suddenly also go and claim 14,500 vehicles that it would need to service the equipment that PG&E formerly had?

And next we're at the people who actually do the work...

https://jobs.pge.com/about-us

> Based in San Francisco, our 25,000 employees work throughout our Northern and Central California service area

25,000 people isn't a small number, and there are 220,000 people working for the state of California ... but we also know how well the public sector pays compare to the private sector.

I believe that it is absurd to think that you could use eminent domain to try to say that PG&E is doing a poor job and that the State of California is taking ownership of its power lines... and all of its assets... and expect its employees to continue to work there.

The State of California is not an organization that is properly equipped to handle the management of some of the power lines in some of the state unless you are also wishing to have CalPower be a department within the state government that rivals CalTrans for quality and timeliness of service.

>They are now in competition for transmission with the private entity PacifiCorp that jointly owns some substations with PG&E and spans six states.

Then they can also acquire the PacifiCorp substations. Even better, make it a public utility thing, and forbid (with some transition plan) private companies handling this infrastructure entirely.

>unless you are also wishing to have CalPower be a department within the state government that rivals CalTrans for quality and timeliness of service.

Since other countries manage to have public infrastructure like trains and power grids and have it work well, perhaps it's not some unobtainable magical goal, but just a specific failure because of the way CalTrans was managed - and can thus change if there's the political will?

Other countries are smaller than California and as countries have more authority over their land.

My claim is that the state of California does not have the funds to compensate multiple multi-state public and private companies within its borders, nor the equipment to be able to maintain that infrastructure (all the way down to the individual houses and the transformers on the pole), nor the manpower to be able to staff it.

If the claim is "caltrans doesn't either - they use contractors for the projects and are only responsible for state highways - the local town roads are the town's infrastructure that the town maintains - not the state"

Then you're going to hand over PG&E's gas and electrical infrastructure to San Francisco for them to maintain?

How does a properly regulated utility company fundamentally differ from the state owning the equipment but allowing the private sector to do what it does?

And if it was properly regulated, then PG&E and the state would be agreement about how to handle the addition of household solar... which is what people are up in arms about.

I still hold that the state of California would be ill-equipped and poorly prepared to be able to assume all the responsibilities for all of the electrical infrastructure in the state (which is far more than PG&E).

>Other countries are smaller than California and as countries have more authority over their land

There are countries much larger than California out there - France (with public rail) is 1.5 times the size of California and over 2x the population.

>I still hold that the state of California would be ill-equipped and poorly prepared to be able to assume all the responsibilities for all of the electrical infrastructure in the state (which is far more than PG&E).

Perhaps. But that's on them. Not some infeasibility to do so with public (state) owned electrical infrastructure.

>Is it your suggestion that the power lines and local power (e.g. Alameda Municipal Power) be taken over by the state itself and be made responsible for their maintenance and funding?

Yes.

In my state, there is a connection fee, and a usage fee. Even if I replace my power 100% with solar generated from my own home, and batteries, I would still pay the connection fee for the meter.

When I lived in the midwest, the interconnect was a seperate group, and I payed 3 fees on my bill: 1. the connection fee 2. the transmission fee (to ATC to operate the 'grid') 3. a usage fee.

In both bills, the usage fee is the one that goes up quickly.

I can't figure out from the article whether the rate changes being proposed are reasonable. Depending on the details, some adjustments might be okay.

However, I'd like to point out that it's also not "sustainable" to get energy from dirty power plants and leave future generations to deal with the consequences. If the long-term effects of releasing carbon into the atmosphere were priced into the cost of energy, I suspect PG&E would have no problem paying today's "retail" rates.

Put another way, we should have a carbon tax, but we don't, so I am in favor of subsidizing clean energy via whatever scheme is politically achievable.

They'd probably still have a big problem paying retail rates. They'd much rather buy from solar farms that have a much lower price of generation in that world.

But they'd have no problem paying today's retail rate. In this alternate universe, the actual retail rate would be higher.

And that would suck for consumers, but it would also reflect the real cost of electricity, which someone is going to pay one way or another.

Right now, we effectively subsidize dirty energy by allowing utilities to ignore the consequences of releasing carbon into the atmosphere. So it's okay—good, even—to force the utilities to pay more for the cleaner energy instead.

I really don't get the point you're trying to make. If there were a carbon tax, net metering of retail solar would still be unsustainable, just with different price points. The spread between wholesale and retail rates would still exist, and having a grid connection but no net usage would still be a large benefit at no cost.

The source of the rest of the power on the grid just isn't the relevant consideration for this particular issue. It's a very relevant consideration in general, just not for this specific question.

> If there were a carbon tax, net metering of retail solar would still be unsustainable, just with different price points.

If there was a (correctly priced) carbon tax, I wouldn't be making this argument. Clean forms of energy would naturally win in the market, because they are in fact much cheaper when you take the long-term consequences of dirty energy into account.

We don't do that, so we need to subsidize clean energy production instead. The free grid connection is a reward for performing a social good.

And, it is not "unfair" to make PG&E pay extra for clean energy when we let them release carbon into the atmosphere for free.

That isn't the situation today. The decision is between two clean energy sources, where one is 10x the cost of the other.

Net metering meant pge had to buy residentially generated power for 40 cents instead of industrial solar for 4 cents.

...does California already have enough industrial solar to power the entire state? I didn't realize that, that changes things significantly.

Yes, it has to turn off industrial solar production on sunny days. Less frequently, it has negative wholesale prices where it pays other states to take the excess power.

This is exactly why they got rid of net metering

Yeah this is exactly why the new version of the policy (attempts to) incentivize storage in addition to solar, because that makes the excess solar power more useful, by allowing it to be time-shifted to times when there is a dearth instead of an excess (ie. when the sun goes down). The big subsidy of net metering for stand-alone residential solar is no longer beneficial; there are better things for the system at large to be spending its resources on, like storage, and also transmission and distribution improvements.

> people that can get by on 0-net electricity use pay nothing for the real, significant benefit of being connected to the grid

What's stopping them from changing their pricing structure to something that makes sense in a world with solar? Example: My gas bill is $30-40/mo in summer months when I'm only using maybe $1 worth of actual gas for cooking. They need to pay salaries and maintain the pipelines, etc, fine by me.

Why can't PG&E do the same and charge $x/mo + $y/kWh? (where $x is a flat rate and only $y could go to 0)

Approval by "California Public Utilities Commission"

This would be the best solution, but other low-usage customers (retirees, low income workers) have come to rely on the implicit subsidy granted by not charging explicit infrastructure fees. The solution to that second order problem is to grant some sort of government financial aid to low income customers with low monthly electricity consumption. That way most households pay for infrastructure proportional to infrastructure costs, but the most vulnerable are protected against financial hardship.

It's already moving in that direction. You will have a $100/mo hookup fee and a $1 charge for usage.

It will be fair with respect to actual costs, but the state hates it because it is less favorable to the poor. This is why they are implementing income based service pricing.

Edit: it seems like there is some skepticism, so the law requiring it was AB 205, which was passed, and CPUC has approved the plan.

https://www.sierraclub.org/press-releases/2024/05/california...

> (the value of being connected to the grid) for nothing

PG&E has a Minimum Delivery Charge of $10.12. If a customer uses 0 KWH for a month, they pay $10.12. Is that not the value of being connected to the grid?

This comment needs more attention. 47 people have suggested this be done, and it already is, in fact, being done

I think the idea is that this number would have to be much larger

This $10 isn't nearly enough for actually maintaining it. For customers without net, it's not just $10. It's $10 plus some per-kWh cost to try and scale it based on your actual load on the grid equipment. If it was a flat rate for all customers it would have to be a good bit more than $10.

That's probably the value of being connected to the grid in case you need power, but not the value being able to sell your excess energy back.

There's a fixed cost and another cost that scales with usage. For instance, the California E-1 rate (non-time-of-use) is about 42 cents per kwh. Of that, 25 cents is transmission (long distance lines) and distribution (local lines), and 17 goes toward generation (if someone switches to another electricity provider, it's this 17 cents that would go to that other provider.

Scaling the cost of the grid with usage serves as a price signal for people to conserve power, as opposed to it being jumbled behind a more comprehensive tax or a larger flat fee.

Net metering was always a subsidy to kick start the solar PV industry. It feels kinda kick started.

Myself I'd be interested in a map of the cost per customer for PG&E. Because I suspect customers in dense to medium density area's are heavily subsidizing Potemkin rural customers. Meaning very low density pretend rural suburbs where the cost per connection is high, the power delivered is low and the risks are high enough they bankrupted PG&E twice.

The root problem here is that the market structure for energy should change to adapt to new technologies and new climate realities, but we have a century of regulation, infrastructure, and entrenched incumbents that have a vested interest in preventing the change.

I could believe that we need some form of a grid to smoothe out demand across consumers, and some form of time-based demand pricing. It is probably not the grid that PG&E owns, and it is probably not the rate structure that CPUC approves. Renewables generally have much smaller economies of scale than fossil-fuel based generation - you can craft and install solar panels in much smaller modules than a single power plant that services tens of thousands of homes, and you have much more flexibility where you put them. At the same time it's becoming much riskier and more expensive to run transmission lines through tinder-dry forests and burn down another city every few years.

I think the future is microgrids and municipal grid defection. We'll still have electric grids and electric companies - but they will likely service and be owned by the city-states that they serve. To the extent that we have a rural population, they'll setup their own rooftop & community solar, and back it with generators and iron-air batteries. The grids won't interact much - people in say San Jose are unlikely to want to subsidize the tree-clearing needed to run wires out to say Petrolia.

We also need much more transparent time-of-use pricing, to encourage demand shifting back to daylight hours. You actually don't need huge battery setups: well-built homes with energy-conscious owners draw only a couple hundred watts at night, vs. several kilowatts during the day. You do need a couple things that have passed under the radar screen so far: 1) workplace EV charging, so all your vehicles get charged during the day, and 2) better insulation, so you run your heat pumps during the day. Shift those loads from nighttime to daytime and you'll end up consuming 90% of your energy usage while the sun shines.

this should be easily solved by having a grid fee separate from the energy fee

On my bill (ISO-NE region/market) there is a separate generation and transmission fee.

Crediting generation, and zeroing/discounting the transmission fee would be "more fair" but it would wreck the incentives.

> On my bill (ISO-NE region/market) there is a separate generation and transmission fee.

Same here, on the Peninsula of the Bay Area: Generation comes from generation owned or contracted by SVCE [0], which is then delivered via PG&E (both transmission and distribution).

Billing is handled by PG&E: My bill has a section for PG&E charges, and a section for SVCE charges. The PG&E section has a generation credit, that effectively removes any costs of non-SVCE power generation, leaving the costs of transmission & distribution.

[0]: https://svcleanenergy.org

In France we have a fixed grid monthly fee depending on the maximum feed power (usually 3, 6, 9, 12 kVA in single phase and up to 36 kVA in triple phase) and a variable part proportional to the kWh consumed.

As of now the official rate "tarif bleu" available to all consumers are 151.2 EUR per year (12.6 EUR/month) for grid free of a 6kVA feed and 0.2516 EUR/kWh.

Average electricity consumption of a household in France is 5681 kWh/year.

For homeowner with solar when you export to the grid the excess you are paid (currently) 0.1301 EUR/kWh so less than the consumer price per kWh. There is also a small annual fixed fee for grid injection (24.36 EUR/year currently).

It is in California, but I don't understand how they decide what falls into each category.

im pretty sure that in california, transmission costs were broken out, but capital costs for generation capacity was baked into the price/kwh.

Things have changed with the new legal mandate fixed fees that are being rolled out.

> or changing the rate model altogether by charging separately for "hookup" vs. "power" line items

Earlier this month the utility commission approved a $24 flat fee. https://www.cpuc.ca.gov/news-and-updates/all-news/cut-reside...

With NEM3 this has largely been fixed - you only get paid for the "replaced generation" not retail rates for new solar installations.

So you are saying that net gives people a financial incentive to switch to renewable energy?

Yes, absolutely! And this sounds great to me!

>> people that can get by on 0-net electricity use pay nothing for the real, significant benefit of being connected to the grid.

Unless one is a rural resident you cant get to net zero and legally disconnect from the grid. You will pay PGE for something even if you dont draw power from them in most of their service area.

> With net metering it's essentially forcing utilities to buy their power at retail rates

The retail rate for electricity is getting to ZERO at points during the day. Transmission is the biggest cost/factor here and PGE has decades of not doing any upkeep on that aspect of the system. Color me less than sympathetic to the situation.

Sorry but PG&E can go fuck itself. It is backwards at best and greedy at worst.

> The retail rate for electricity is getting to ZERO at points during the day.

No, you misapprehend the word "retail".

My wife is a biologist and her income is evidence that PG&E does invest in transmission upkeep. You may not like the bang for the buck you get, but consider that part of that might be because PG&E has to pay her to drive to various remote locations to monitor construction workers doing maintenance lest they step on some valuable mushrooms (only a slight exaggeration).