Tag: "sce"

10/30/21

  03:11:00 am, by Jim Jenal - Founder & CEO   , 588 words  
Categories: Solar Economics, Residential Solar, Net Metering

NEM 3.0 Transition Rules - Potential Solar Clients Need to Read This!

New solar clients in Southern California Edison territory (along with their counterparts in PG&E or SDG&E territories) will soon find themselves operating under the not yet known, but certainly less advantageous NEM 3.0 rules that has the potential to significantly affect their return on investment.  While NEM 3.0 won’t go into effect for some time, we already have an idea of what clients need to do to secure the benefits of the present NEM rules.  Here’s what we know so far…

NEM 2.0 - the Present State of Play

SCE customer presently operate under NEM 2.0 rules established a number of years ago.  (Municipal utility customers, such as those in PWP or LADWP, are unaffected by any of this, fortunately.)  We wrote extensively about the impact of the NEM 2.0 transition at the time, as this article from 2017 explained: NEM 2.0 is Here - Now What? 

Essentially the NEM 2.0 rules made several changes: they introduced a one-time application fee of $75, they forced solar customers onto a Time-of-Use rate structure (instead of the more solar-friendly tiered rates), and they introduced the concept of non-bypassable charges - components of the rate structure that have to be paid on every kWh imported from the grid, even if it would otherwise be “netted out” thanks to energy exported.

Those changes, while concerning as they marked the first successful effort to chip away at the benefits of net metering, turned out to be relatively mild and the industry surged forward despite them.

NEM 3.0 - Dark Days Ahead?

Now we are in the middle of the process of bringing about NEM 3.0, and it looks far scarier than what we faced in 2017.  For example, one proposal calls for monthly fees on the order of $75 for every residential solar customer (commercial customers would pay far more).  The value of exported energy might drop by as much as 80%!  Payback periods could balloon to as much as 20 years!

(Take a moment to sign the petition to make the new NEM 3.0 rules more favorable to solar system owners!)

However that process turns out, if it is possible to get in under the current rules you will save a lot of money!  Here’s what we know about how the transition period will be handled:

  • If you sign a contract and submit your complete interconnection application to SCE by mid-January you are guaranteed of 20 years under the more favorable NEM 2.0 rules!

  • If you submit between mid-January and April, you will start under NEM 2.0, but the 20-year term is not guaranteed.

  • If you submit after April but before NEM 3.0 is fully up and running, you will start on NEM 2.0 for a set term of years, but you may be forced onto a rate that includes a monthly fee.

  • Applications submitted after August, will likely be completely under NEM 3.0

The uncertainty around all of this is distressing but is out of our hands.

What we can do is to urge folks on the fence about going solar to act before mid-January.  Bear in mind that the project does not need to be completed by mid-January, you simply have to have your completed application submitted by then.  We anticipate quite the rush to get applications in by then, and there is always the concern that a reviewer at SCE might kick back an application and deem it incomplete.  The best way to be safe is to get the application in as soon as possible, thereby avoiding the crunch.

So right now really is the best time for anyone in SCE’s service area to go solar!  Give us a call and let’s get the process started!

 

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03/14/21

  07:57:00 am, by Jim Jenal - Founder & CEO   , 767 words  
Categories: SCE, Residential Solar

SCE Just Hiked Their Rates - Here's What That Means For You!

While you weren’t watching, SCE - the same SCE that is trying to kill off rooftop solar - just raised their Time-of-Use rates for residential customers. We will break down the increase and show you what it might mean for a couple of potential solar clients.

What are Time-of-Use Rates?

Time-of-Use (or TOU) rates are exactly what they sound like: a rate structure where how much you pay for energy is tied to when you use that energy.  (We wrote a lengthy blog post explaining the differences between TOU rates and Tiered rates, in gory detail!) 

The most common TOU rate for SCE’s residential customers is titled TOU-D, with the 4-9 p.m. window having the highest rates overall.  Compared to a tiered rate -  where your monthly bill is divided into steps based on the volume of energy that you use, with each volumetric step, or tier, bringing you a higher rate - a TOU rate does not increase on volume but on the time of day.  As a result, rates during peak periods can be 50% or more higher than the lowest periods.  Of course, that peak period - either 4-9 or 5-8 with SCE - corresponds to when people generally use the most energy!  Gotcha!!! (Those rate differentials are what provide the economic benefit of adding storage, and make simple strategies - like delaying the dishwasher or EV charging until out of peak rates - effective at saving money.)

How is SCE’s TOU Rate Changing?

Needless to say, SCE’s rates are very complex, with the energy charge being comprised of some eleven different components!  I will spare you those distressing details and just focus on the overall energy charge and how it has changed, as shown in this table:

SCE rate change as of 2/1/2021

SCE’s TOU-D Rate change for the 4-9 p.m. option.

On average, we see that rates here have increased between 3.67 and 3.80% over the prior rate, but there are some special gifts to solar customers buried in the rates.  When the Net Metering rules were changed a few years ago, it introduced the concept of Non-Bypassable Charges (or NBCs) - components of the rate structure that solar customers paid for every killowatt hour pulled from the grid, even if that same kWh was netted back by energy exported to the grid.  Far and away the largest NBC is the Public Purpose Programs charge, and in this rate increase it jumped from 1.323¢/kWh to 1.622¢/kWh - a whopping 22.6% increase! 

Another fun fact for SCE customers who have endured so called public-safety shutdowns, is that they are paying 0.6¢/kWh toward the “wildfire fund charge"!  That’s right, SCE’s customers are helping to pay for an insurance fund against wildfires caused by SCE, PG&E, and SDG&E - now isn’t that almost enough to get one hot enough to, well, burn!

Use Case Impacts

We decided to examine how potential clients would see their bills, and potential savings, change under the new rate structure.  As always, we made use of the wonderful tool Energy Toolbase to do our calculations. 

Average user comparison Our first example is a pretty average user in the Run on Sun service area, consuming approximately 30 kWh of energy per day, pre-solar.  Under the old TOU rate their annual bill pre-solar was $2,946, but under the new rate (including things like utility user taxes, etc.) their bill would go up by nearly 5%, an extra $144 for the year.  However, their post-solar savings also increase, by 5.42% or an extra $143 per year.  For this average user, adding solar ended up being a nearly perfect hedge against the SCE rate increase!

Heavy consumption use caseOur second user does not fare quite as well.  This is a significantly larger user, consuming more than 50 kWh/day.  Their pre-solar bill increases by 4.29%, or $228. Unfortunately, while their overall savings increases, it is not as dramatic as it is for the smaller user, reducing the differential from $228 to $92, compared to reducing it to just $1 for the average user.

Bottom line - adding solar helps hedge against rate increases, and as energy costs get higher, your annual savings will increase!

Meanwhile, SCE is Trying to Kill Rooftop Solar

It is one thing for SCE to be seeking, and getting, rate increases from the CPUC - that is their business model.  It is quite another thing for them to try and gut the value of net metering, thereby eliminating the economic value of adding solar - but that is precisely what they are trying to do!  We are fighting back, starting with a signature campaign targeted at a petition to Governor Newsom

There will be lots more to do in the coming days to fight against SCE’s attack on solar, but for now there is something simple that you can do - mash that button below and go sign the petition!

Sign the Petition!
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12/29/20

  07:14:00 am, by Jim Jenal - Founder & CEO   , 342 words  
Categories: Residential Solar

Going Live in Altadena!

We recently received PTO for a new project in Altadena, and part of what made this interesting was that we decided to modify the project mid-stream so that we would be positioned to add an Enphase Ensemble Storage System down the road.  We wanted to configure the layout so that when the storage was added, we could just “plug-and-play” - so here’s how that turned out…

Oh County, Why do you make EVERYTHING so Hard?

Our approved plans from LA County showed the solar disconnect adjacent to the service panel, but that really wouldn’t work out if we were going to add storage.   Instead, we were going to install a backup subpanel near the main panel and the Enphase Enpower switch next to that.  Then we would run conduit to a gutter box on the wall, above which the storage device(s) would eventually be installed, and then we would have our combiner box and PV disconnect.  So I redrew the site plan showing the location of the revised equipment, and a new single line drawing to show how everything would be interconnected, crossed my fingers and hit “Submit".

Nope.

County would not allow us to revise our existing solar permit to incorporate the Enpower switch.  Instead, we had to revise our solar site plan to just show the new location for the disconnect, and leave off the Enpower switch.  Then, we needed to pull a second permit - a complex electrical permit - that included a site plan with all of the equipment (all solar components designated as Existing!), and the full single line drawing.  And, yeah, pay for it.  Seriously?

Patience Carries the Day!

Ultimately we were able to overcome all of County’s complaints and get the project approved.  Happily, SCE issued PTO almost immediately, so we came back to go live with the system.  Our client, Sean, decided to memorialize the process, so here is an edited version of that footage that let’s you see how we designed for the future, and the process of bringing the system online.  Check it out!

08/17/18

  03:15:00 am, by Jim Jenal - Founder & CEO   , 1210 words  
Categories: All About Solar Power, Residential Solar, Energy Storage

What I Saw at Enphase - Mind Blown!

Enphase hqLast month during Intersolar, I (along with colleagues Sara and Victoria) was lucky enough to get invited to see a microgrid demonstration featuring the Enphase next-gen IQ8 at their headquarters in Petaluma, California.  As I had to sign an NDA as the price of admission, I was unable to write about what I had seen until today, when Enphase hosted their annual Analyst’s Day.  But I am no longer bound by that agreement, and can now tell you about what I saw. 

To say that I was impressed would be a gross understatement - quite simply, it was the most astonishing thing I have ever seen in the solar industry.  Settle in and let me tell you what I saw…

What Happens Today

Before I launch into describing the demo, let me remind you of what happens today.  All of the systems that we have installed are what is referred to as “grid-tied” which means that if the grid goes down, the PV system that is capable of back-feeding the grid also goes down, and remains down until the grid comes back.  (This is to prevent your house from being an island of energy, feeding the grid, and potentially injuring a worker trying to restore grid service.  As a result, this feature is known as “anti-islanding” and it is required of all inverter systems that are connected to the grid.)

Normally this is not a problem, but last month, when it got super hot out here (think 115° F hot!), both SCE and LADWP suffered dozens of outages, taking down PV systems across large swathes of LA County, and leaving frustrated PV owners without power, or A/C, just like their PV-less brethren.  Not good.

What I Saw in the Lab

Which brings us to what I saw at Enphase last month.

The lab looked like an ordinary industrial space, but with a series of household appliances and tools at one side.  There was a simulated array feeding a bank of IQ8 inverters, and a display that showed the output of the array (i.e., PV production), the total consumption from the loads, and any power being exported or imported to support those loads.  At the start of the demo the only load was a single red lamp, and the display indicated that it was drawing roughly 90 Watts.  The PV array was producing roughly 1.9 kWs, so the excess 1,800 Watts was being exported to the grid.  All super normal stuff.

But then things got interesting…

One of the engineers switched off the breaker that connected the PV array to the grid… and nothing happened!  Well, actually, a lot happened, but what didn’t happen was that the red light did not go off.  It didn’t even flicker to the extent that we could detect it.  But then when you looked at the display you noticed something amazing.  Not only had the microinverters created a grid on their own in fractions of a second, but they had throttled the output down so that now the production of the PV array exactly matched the load of the red light!  And here’s the kicker - there were no batteries attached to this system!!!

But what fun is just having a light on?  How about some toast?  So they switched on a toaster, and it lit up, and the total load jumped by about 1,000 Watts, making the total load now around 1.1 kW, and the PV array scaled up to meet it!  Still no batteries.  And how about this - there was no central controller, no master-slave relationship between the microinverters.  Rather, this was the “hive mind” at work, as the micros sensed the demand and scaled up or down as necessary to meet that load!

But wait, there’s more!

The next load to be added was a grinder like you might find on your workbench in the garage.  All by itself, that device drew roughly 1,200 Watts, bring our total load to roughly 2.3 kW - more than the maximum output of our simulated array.  What would happen when that was added to the mix?  Surprisingly little.  The grinder spun normally, but the red light dimmed slightly.  What was going on?  The system’s “hive mind” had lowered the voltage slightly (a microgrid equivalent of a brown out) to meet the amperage demand of the new load mix!  So slightly slower than normal, cooler than normal, dimmer than normal, but all operating.

Of course, all good things must come to an end.  Our already overloaded microgrid faced one more challenge - a vacuum cleaner with a significant in-rush current, far in excess of what the grid could sustain.  Indeed, as soon as they switched the vacuum cleaner to “on", everything shut off.  Nothing was damaged, the microinverters just shut off to protect themselves.

Turning on the vacuum cleaner served as the “ah-ha” moment for the potential homeowner - I guess I can’t run everything in grid outage mode.  So what do you do when something you just did produced an undesired result?  Well if you can, you undo it!  Turning the vacuum cleaner off, immediately restored the microgrid to its previous state of operation!  No delay.  No human intervention - just turn off that latest (over)load, and the system recovers on its own!

How cool is that?  Pretty damn cool, if you ask me!

Batteries Please?

So what about batteries, how do they play with this new system?  Just exactly as you would want.

The engineers added a bank of batteries to the mix, each with an IQ8 installed.  Now the display also indicated the battery’s overall state of charge, and whether they were charging or discharging.  Reset the demo to just the red light as a load and the batteries at 30% state of charge.  The PV array output jumped back to its maximum, with the surplus energy being used to charge the batteries.  As more loads were added, the PV array remained at maximum output, and as needed, drew power from the batteries.  Should the batteries reach full capacity and the PV output is greater than the loads, the microinverters will once again throttle down.

Sweet!

What’s Next?

I hope you agree that this was an amazing demo, and the IQ8 (or Ensemble, as Enphase refers to the overall system) has tremendous potential, both for Enphase as a company, and for so many nascent markets.  Think of how this product could have helped out in Puerto Rico, or in parts of Africa which have never, ever seen a grid!  Makes me want to book a trip to bring power to a village somewhere - hey Laurel, what do you say?

For our own clients, this has the potential to be the answer we have been seeking ever since Elon’s whoppers got people thinking about storage for the first time ever.

A point we raised with Enphase management is the need to have a reasonable upgrade path for existing clients.  Indeed, I have a call with Enphase tomorrow to discuss that very topic.  We know that current Enphase IQ products (the 6+ and 7+ we have been installing this year) will be compatible with Ensemble.  We expect to be able to work with older systems, though there may be a higher retrofit cost.  When we have that information, we will surely let you know!  The IQ8 is expected to be available in 1H2019… watch this space!

04/13/18

  11:10:00 am, by Jim Jenal - Founder & CEO   , 2082 words  
Categories: All About Solar Power, Solar Economics, Residential Solar, Ranting

My Electric Bill is So High! Will Solar Help? Part 3: Evaluating Competing Solar Proposals

Editor’s Note: This is the third installment in our three-part series:
My Electric Bill is So High! Will Solar Help?  
You can read Part One, How High is High, here, and
Part Two, How Do I Find Someone to Trust, here.

With apologies to the Lovin’ Spoonful, eventually you have to make up your mind between those competing bids you’ve received, but how?  Let’s walk through the proposal evaluation process and see if everything that you need to see has been included!

What’s in the Proposal?

Solar proposals come in all shapes and sizes.  Some are very short – just a listing of what will be provided, a price, and a place to sign.  On the other end of the spectrum are proposals that are twenty pages long, most of it boilerplate about what is solar and how does it work, and what a great company this is.  But strip away the boilerplate and are they really giving you much information that is specific to your situation?

What were the inputs?

The old saying, GIGO: Garbage In, Garbage Out, applies to solar proposals too.  In this case, the inputs are your past energy usage, and a detailed site evaluation that looked at your service panel and your roof.  Omit any of those inputs, and the output is likely to be of dubious value, or worse, it will mask the true cost of installing solar at your home, leaving you exposed to costly change orders down the road when the contractor “discovers” something that should have been addressed at the proposal stage!

Your energy usage for the past year is the key input – without it you’re flying blind.  If you are in SCE territory, your potential installer should be asking for access to your  interval data.  For most residential clients, that is hourly usage measurements over the entire year, and that is important to accurately model your savings under now mandatory, time-of-use rates.  Where interval data is not available, monthly, or worse, bi-monthly billing records can be used, but they will not provide the granularity needed to see how the proposed PV system will actually operate to offset your daily loads.

Seasonal load profile comparison

Assuming that interval data is available – we ask our clients provide it through a secure service called UtilityAPI – it is the installer’s responsibility to properly analyze it to know how large a system you need.  As we mentioned in Part One, we use Energy Toolbase for our data analysis as it is the most authoritative tool on the market.  The chart above shows the average seasonal usage for one particular client as processed by Energy Toolbase from the raw interval data.  This shows the average hourly usage over spring and summer, with a very dramatic peak on summer weekends around 5:30 p.m.  Recall from Part One about “low-hanging fruit” – what you are seeing here is an excessive A/C demand that, if it can be addressed, would greatly reduce the size of the PV system needed for this client.

Ideally, this analysis takes place before the site evaluation so that the installer is able to advise the potential client about actions to be taken to reduce their overall usage, and thereby end up with the most cost-effective solution tailored to their needs.

Detailed equipment line items

One of the things that we see on competitors’ proposals that never ceases to amaze us is the total lack of detail regarding the actual equipment that is going to be installed!  It is as if the homeowner is expected to pay thousands of dollars for a generic solar power system – but you wouldn’t spend thousands on a generic car, would you?  Moreover, how can you assess the value proposition of a generic system?  A company that proposes a generic system intends to install on your home whatever is on sale that week.  Maybe you get lucky, more likely you don’t, but in either case, you simply don’t know, and that is no way to make a major investment.

Your proposal should have line items for all of the major components of your system: the solar panels, microinverters, racking, and installation costs.  And those items should be specific, down to the model being selected and the per unit cost.  Only that level of detail allows you to see what you are getting and for how much.

Utility savings analysis

Determining how much your proposed PV system will save you in Year 1 is the key to the entire analysis of the proposal, and it is a two-step process.  First, your historical usage data is analyzed against your current billing rate to determine what your energy costs will be over the next year.  There are a couple of assumptions built into that assessment, namely that both your usage and your billing rate will stay the same.  If you have been in your home for awhile, your usage last year is probably a pretty good predictor of your usage next year.  On the other hand, if you moved in rather recently, or made a major purchase like a new EV, that will skew your usage going forward.  Similarly, last year’s bills were predicated on the exact details of your billing rate structure in effect at that time – and those are subject to change without notice.  So look at what the proposal projects for your bill next year without solar, and see how that compares with last year.

The second part is the more important piece - assessing how  your bill will change now that you have added PV.  Here’s where things get complicated, and a tool like Energy Toolbase becomes essential.  The proposal should show a model of your past usage overlayed by the production of the PV system.

PV production overlayed on historical usage

As you can see in the graph above (click for a larger version), the darker blue is the historical usage (we are looking at two days in July), the green is the modeled production from the proposed PV system, and the pale blue is the net energy demand.  At the peak on the right, the PV system is producing 5.22 kW at a time when the historical demand was 11.95, meaning that the net demand from the utility is 6.73 kw – and that is the basis for what the client will be billed.  You can also see that there are periods in the morning when the system is producing more power that the client historically used, resulting in power being exported out to the grid – for which the client is compensated due to net metering.

This is the analysis that must underlie your savings analysis – anything else is simply guess work.

Cash flow analysis – payback over time

Part of any cash flow analysis is the cost of the transaction.  If you are making a cash purchase you know exactly what your transaction costs will be.  But if you are financing through the solar company, or heavens forbid leasing, those transaction costs may well be obscured, it not hidden altogether.  Make certain that you have all the information you need to determine exactly what that deal is going to cost you.

For the sake of discussion, we will assume that this is a cash purchase.  What other assumptions go into a proper cash flow analysis? To start, how long is the period of the analysis?  Ten years?  Twenty years?  Thirty years?  Beware of an analysis that simply says how much money you will have saved in the end, without calling out the period in question!  In our view, ten years is too short, and 30 years is too long.  But whatever the number is, make sure you are aware of it as you compare “total savings!”

Another key assumption is how much will utility rates go up over the lifetime of the analysis?  It used to be common to see rate escalators of 6-7% per annum, but there was no real data-driven basis for that number.  (In fact, long ago we used 6.7% based on a website that claimed that the California Energy Commission had published that figure.  But when we went digging for the source, we discovered it didn’t exist - there was just this circular linking of sites each claiming to have gotten this from the CEC!) 

Over time we have consistently reduced the value that we use for our models, so that now we are using 3%, which we think is reasonably conservative.  But this is really a matter of just throwing darts at a board, and no one really knows what that number will be. Keep in mind that for comparison purposes, you should be able to see what value was used, and the higher the number, the rosier the prediction!

PV systems degrade over time, and that output diminishment should be accounted for in the analysis.  Modern solar panels degrade less than 1% per annum (the LG panels that we use are around 0.5%), but in any event, make sure that is incorporated in the model.

Finally, the value of money in your hand today is, generally, worth more than money you will have at some point in the future.  How much more valuable is a function of the discount rate applied to those future savings.  If the model ignores that, your future savings are likely artificially high.  Again, no one knows what the right number is, but a proper model will account for it and allow you to know what you are comparing.

What’s in the Contract?

Strictly speaking not a part of the proposal, it is not a bad idea to ask to look at the contract before you pick a contractor.  Many solar contracts are very long, written in tiny fonts, with lots of legalese – all designed to make you throw up your hands and simply ask, where do I sign?  But slow down, friend, the devil may be lurking in those details!  Indeed, we have had clients who were ready to sign with another company until they looked at what was in the contract!

Ideally the contract should be written in plain English, it should clearly set forth what will happen, when, and how, and it should be even-handed.

An Important Caveat

Finally, it is important to call out what even the most carefully considered proposal cannot address - future uncertainty; in particular, what will utilities try to do, and what will the CPUC let them do!

Things outside of our control - CPUC & Utilities

If you follow this blog you will know that the solar industry is under constant assault from efforts by utilities – particularly the investor-owned utilities like SCE – to reduce if not altogether eliminate the economic value of adding solar.  Whether it is by lobbying for changes to the net metering rules (which just this past year imposed additional fees, charges, and mandated time-of-use rates), or designing utility rates that make solar production less valuable, there is a constant struggle behind the scenes to undermine the solar investment of thousands of California homeowners.  (And this is not at all limited to California – attacks on net metering and efforts to impose pernicious rate structures are a nationwide phenomenon.)

Things we can control - SolarCitiSuns & CALSSA

Fortunately there are a couple of entities out there that are working hard to preserve the value of going solar.  If you are a California homeowner with a solar power system, there is an organization specifically for you.  California SolarCitiSuns is perhaps a corny name, but its mission is crucial: to organize the political power of California’s thousands of citizens with solar on their homes or businesses, or anyone who wants to be part of advocating for a clean, renewable future.  If you have solar on your home or business, click here to join!   The investment that you are protecting is yours!

 And finally, solar companies, are you a member of the California Solar & Storage Association?  We are, and you should be.  Click here to join CALSSA today! 

Beyond that, rank and file solar workers – installers, designers, finance people, anyone whose livelihood depends on the solar industry – there is an action group that you can join, even if your company is not a CALSSA member!  Joining means that you will get alerts when a crucial vote is upcoming in Sacramento or San Francisco, and give you the opportunity to reach out and show your support for the industry that provides your livelihood.  It’s easy and important. Every solar worker in California – click on this link to join the CALSSA Action Network – the job you save will be your own!

So there you have it - everything you need to know about going solar – look forward to hearing from you soon!

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Jim Jenal is the Founder & CEO of Run on Sun, Pasadena's premier installer and integrator of top-of-the-line solar power installations.
Run on Sun also offers solar consulting services, working with consumers, utilities, and municipalities to help them make solar power affordable and reliable.

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