Reply With Quote
Agreed, it seems to save them, and their consumers money.
Rare that I agree with the boutons, but he's right. What CPS is doing sucks. Every electric utility should be encouraging rooftop solar.
Agreed, it seems to save them, and their consumers money.
read the article(s) I posted above to see why centralized electricity utilities are against disruptive decentralized electricity.
I do get it. They need to establish rates for the future, and what amounts to a subsidy to the large farms isn't going to last forever. What about when all your neighbors decide to do the same thing, and then it has a longer route to travel, including through the transformers?
I think you agree if they are paying the large solar farms up to 16 cents a KWH, that these systems would never have been built to begin with if they had to compete with market rates. It's just another redistribution of wealth, for a political agenda.
Just got this from a solar installation company
========================
Date: 4/23/2013
Dear Solar Stakeholder,
After receiving initial feedback from our solar customers, we are making a change to the SunCredit Program proposal. All existing solar installations and those that have a completed registration form and pre-construction do ents submitted by May 31, 2013, will be grandfathered to the current net meter program, for the life of the system.
Also, the logistics and agenda for the SunCredit Program public input session have been established. The event will take place on Friday, May 3, from 4:00 p.m. to 6:30 p.m., at the Villita Assembly Building located at 401 Villita Street. Parking is being made available at the CPS Energy Navarro Garage starting at 3:45 p.m.
The public input session will cover four topics: Program Development, How SunCredit Works, Customer Impact, and SunCredit Calculation. Each of the topics will be presented in four separate tracks and repeated every 35 minutes to allow you the opportunity to attend one or all topics of interest, and to provide a discussion forum. Registration is from 4:00 p.m. to 4:15 p.m.
Track A
Program DevelopmentTrack B
How it WorksTrack C
Customer ImpactTrack D
SunCredit Calculation4:15 p.m. - 4:45 p.m. 4:15 p.m. - 4:45 p.m. 4:15 p.m. - 4:45 p.m. 4:15 p.m. - 4:45 p.m. 4:50 p.m.- 5:20 p.m. 4:50 p.m.- 5:20 p.m. 4:50 p.m.- 5:20 p.m. 4:50 p.m.- 5:20 p.m. 5:25 p.m. -5:55 p m. 5:25 p.m. -5:55 p m. 5:25 p.m. -5:55 p m. 5:25 p.m. -5:55 p m. 6:00 p.m. - 6:30 p.m. 6:00 p.m. - 6:30 p.m. 6:00 p.m. - 6:30 p.m. 6:00 p.m. - 6:30 p.m.
For courtesy of all attendees, we kindly ask that you refrain from bringing any signs, props, or any noise-making devices that may distract from the meeting. For more information about the SunCredit program or this event, visit www.cpsenergy.com, contact us at [email protected], or call (210) 353-6229.
Sincerely,
Solar Program Administration
Sweet. I sent them a blistering ing email as soon as they announced it and let them know I was going to be rocking city hall if they backwards on the contract we had.
LIFE OF THE SYSTEM
yeah.
That means it's transferable.
Congrats, hopefully it doesn't end here though.
Sounds like they are crab walking out of it. Bottom line IMHO it will never be as good as the deal I signed. Hopefully they give up completely but I seriously don't see that happening.
Bloomberg Study: 70 Percent Of New Global Power Capacity Added Through 2030 Will be Renewable
After ac ulating the latest data on economic prosperity, market trends, demand growth, technology development, and likely future policies, BNEF’s modeling program spit out three projection scenarios: the optimistic “Barrier Busting” scenario, the pessimistic “Traditional Territory” scenario, and the middle-of-the-road “New Normal” scenario.
The New Normal scenario is considered the most likely. It shows the investment requirement for new clean energy assets in the year 2030 at $630bn (in nominal terms), more than three times the investment in the renewable energy capacity that was built in 2012. This 2030 investment figure is 35 percent higher than that produced in Bloomberg New Energy Finance’s last global forecast a year ago, and the projection for total installed renewable energy capacity by that date is 25 percent higher than in that previous forecast, at 3,500GW.
In the power sector, the research company’s latest forecasts project that 70 percent of new power generation capacity added between 2012 and 2030 will be from renewable technologies (including large hydro). Only 25 percent will be in the form of coal, gas or oil, the remaining being nuclear.
Newly installed capacity in gigawatts. (Source: BNEF/Grist)
Significantly, even under the Traditional Territory projections, renewable investments would be $470 billion in 2030 — over twice what they are now.
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/201...-be-renewable/
Solar Jobs Beat Out Ranchers In Texas, Actors In California, And Coal Miners Nationally
The Solar Foundation’s announcement contains further details:TSF’s work also determined that several of the top ten states — New Jersey, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, New York, Michigan, and Ohio — actually rank in the bottom 30 percent of states in terms of available sunlight. The strong industry presence despite a seemingly unfavorable climate is thanks to “high electricity prices and favorable tax and regulatory policies” as CNN Money put it. Skeptics might consider that evidence of an artificial market created through government intervention, but then our national failure to properly price carbon emissions and natural capital is massively subsidizing non-renewable power in the opposite direction.
“In comparing our estimates with data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, we find that California now has more solar workers than actors and that there are more solar jobs in Texas than there are ranchers. Economies of scale are also making our industry more labor efficient, requiring only one-third the number of workers to install a megawatt of solar today as it did in 2010,” [said Andrea Luecke, Solar Foundation Executive Director.]
The top ten states for solar jobs in 2012 were: California, Arizona, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Colorado, New York, Texas, Michigan, and Ohio. In comparing solar employment estimates from today’s release with previous state figures that examined solar jobs in only a few states, six states – California, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Texas, Colorado, and New York – are in the top ten for the third year in a row. Many of the highest-ranked solar jobs states are also those with the greatest ulative installed capacity in the nation.
Other facts the Solar Foundation dug up included a 13.2 percent job growth rate in the solar industry from 2011 to 2012 — which added almost 14,000 jobs — versus a mere 2.3 percent growth rate in the overall economy. 86 percent of those were 14,000 were entirely new jobs, as opposed to previously existing positions that simply added on solar components. And finally, another 17.2 percent job growth rate is expected in the industry for this year, meaning another 20,000 jobs.
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/201...rs-nationally/
If only RickyBobby were subsidizing solar to the extent he subsidizes BigOilGas.
Last edited by boutons_deux; 04-28-2013 at 11:34 AM.
Sent to me by my solar supplier
===============
To: San Antonio Distributed Solar Industry
From: Lanny Sinkin, Executive Director, Solar San Antonio
At the City Council Citizens to be Heard last Wednesday, a number of installers had Power Point or other presentation materials. We would appreciate copies of those presentations being sent to our office.
Last night, we attended the CPS Energy SunCredit Event. The event was scheduled in Villita Assembly Hall, a cavernous space with cavernous acoustics. Perhaps the fact CPS Energy owns the building and avoided the need to pay for a space resulted in choosing such an inappropriate venue/format. The simultaneous four sessions were in spaces curtained off. The noise level was so high from four presentations being made at once that the CPS Energy presenters had to apologize for yelling.
Listening to people respond to SunCredit, it was clear that there were no supporters of the program present. Questions asked were often not answered. The overall impact seemed to be raising more questions than were answered.
Relevant recent media:
CPS Energy may well change the solar credit to provide a higher return and hope that will mollify the solar industry. It is important to understand that money is not the issue; control is the issue. By manipulating what cons utes "retail" that will be charged for all solar generation, asserting the right to charge for such generation, and controlling the level of the solar credit within the SunCredit Program, the utility can accelerate or extinguish the solar industry.
In a recent meeting with CPS Energy personnel, we were told that the solar credit within the SunCredit Program would never be reduced as a way of controlling solar. Misdirecting attention to some possible future reduction in the solar credit avoids focusing on the impact of what has already been put forth. Choosing to eliminate many items normally considered in a Value of Solar Study and undervaluing those included, specifying the credit only for the first year, and announcing a rate that the utility knew would result in foreclosing future solar sales, CPS Energy already demonstrated how such programs can be used to stifle solar.
The concern throughout the country is whether these types of programs can be abused to put distributed solar at a disadvantage or eliminate DG altogether. Whether intentional or not, CPS Energy is now the poster child on how such programs can be abused.
http://www.greentechmedia.com/articl...e-Net-Metering
http://www.greentechmedia.com/articl...s-Net-Metering
As far as the most recent developments:
http://www.ksat.com/news/brownes-blo...f/-/index.html
http://www.ksat.com/news/cps-energy-...z/-/index.html
http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/ene...al-4487571.php
CPS backs away from plan to slash solar incentive
CPS Energy announced Thursday that is backing away from its proposal to slash a key subsidy for customers with solar power systems in the wake of protests from affected customers and local solar installers.
The city-owned utility said it would delay making changes to its net-metering program for a year while it works with local solar customers and installers to come up with an “equitable solution.”
“We've heard the industry's concerns on a number of issues,” Cris Eugster, CPS Energy's executive vice president and chief strategy and technology officer, said in a statement made on the utility's blog. “We're looking forward to working with them on a program that will allow for a viable rooftop solar industry, while at the same time being fair to all customers.”
Solar San Antonio executive director Lanny Sinkin declared victory in a statement released to the Express-News on Thursday morning.
“Now the real work begins of choosing a group, setting an agenda, and conducting productive discussions,” said Sinkin, who serves as the de facto spokesman for local solar installers and CPS' solar customers.
However, CPS spokeswoman Lisa Lewis reiterated the utility's desire to reduce the payout it gives to solar customers for their electricity generation.
“We are going to walk away from this process with something that is different from what we're doing today,” she said. “We don't know what we're going to end up with.”
Under the current “net-metering” program, customers with solar power systems are allowed to count each kilowatt of solar energy they produce against each kilowatt of energy they consume from the grid, sometimes zeroing out their CPS Energy bills.
However, the utility says the arrangement is unsustainable because it means that solar customers aren't paying their fair share to help maintain the utility's infrastructure: its wires, poles and substations.
It proposed replacing the net-metering program with “SunCredit” — a system that would credit solar customers a fixed amount for each kilowatt of solar energy they produced. Under the new system, the solar energy would be worth a little more than half of what it was worth under “net-metering.”
About 1,000 CPS customers eventually would have been affected by the program, although some would have been phased in.
Under the proposal, existing solar customers and those who turned in their paperwork to install a solar system before April 27 would be grandfathered in the net-metering program until 2023. Solar installers and solar customers protested, and the utility pushed the deadline back to May 31.
As the protests continued, the utility announced another concession: Customers with solar systems or those who met the May deadline would be allowed to remain in the net-metering program for the life of their solar systems.
The latest announcement comes six days after the utility held a contentious public meeting to seek feedback on the proposal.
http://mobile.mysa.com/mysa/db_28310...l=true#display
Rooftop Revolution: How Solar Energy Is Putting Power Back in the Hands of the People
http://www.alternet.org/environment/...=11&paging=off
http://www.amazon.com/Rooftop-Revolu...top+revolution
Here's an exact statement of the battle of people's distributed solar vs the electric utilities' centralized generation business model
Energex says rooftop solar is trashing its business model
Queensland electricity network operator Energex has conceded that its century-old business model is under threat from the increased use of rooftop solar, and a growing interest among its 1.3 million consumers to produce and manage their own energy needs.
The concession was included in the state-owned company’s annual report released last week, which noted that despite the huge population growth in south-east Queensland, demand from residential customers fell 3.8 per cent in 2012/13 from a year earlier.
Over the past four years, Energex says residential demand has fallen 10.4 per cent in south-east Queensland, one of the areas with the highest penetration of rooftop solar in Australia.
Energex cited rooftop solar PV as the main factor for this reduced demand, along with milder winters and summers, and the use of more energy-efficient appliances. Non-residential energy grew by 1.1 per cent in the same period.
The network operator, which manages a $10 billion network, says the number of customers with solar PV has jumped from less than 2,000 in 2009 to more than 221,000 at the end of June, 2013. It made 74,000 new solar connection in the last financial year.
“The rapidly evolving energy industry, changing energy use patterns and rising electricity prices are resulting in a trend toward energy management options for customers,” the company says in its annual report.
http://reneweconomy.com.au/2013/ener...ss-model-58911
In contrast, SA (avg 224 days of sunshine/year) has only this miniscule number of installations, with 1/10 the populaiton of Queensland (263 days of sunshine/year):
- 1,021 solar projects
- 10.8 megawatts installed
- $3.98 avg cost/watt in January
- Total Value $52,774,424.40
http://www.solarsanantonio.org/
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Posting Permissions
