[Sorry, should have posted this in the EV area, but can't find a way to move it or delete it now...] For those SoCal SCE customers, there's been a quiet increase in the price of electricity (on top of the many other rate increases SCE has petitioned for). As of January 2018, the small lower tier went up from 16c to 17c/kwh. Not a lot, but it does add up after a while, and of course adds to the cost of charging (though gas is also way up). The large middle tier is (for now) still the same at 25c, but now even the small lower tier is 17c/kwh (and lots more price increases over the already-high price are on the way over the next year or two if approved as expected).
25? Gads. I can understand why everyone who can, places PV in service at their home. 6.9 cents/kW here in Illinois where I live.
After moving to Texas, I've learned ComEd aren't as big a bunch of crooks as OnCor (not the frozen entree company, the electric delivery monopoly for most of North Texas). I pay 3.6 cents/kWh to Reliant for 100% wind generated power, and 5.4 cents/kWh to OnCor to deliver it. Delivery fee just went up a couple months ago. Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.
Ah OnCor, the company of the multi-hour power outage. They once had our power out for 3 days with “no ETA”. It’s still cheaper here than CA though.
Those nice folks at the U.S. Energy Information Administration periodically publish a table comparing average rates paid in the various states: Average Price of Electricity to Ultimate Customers by End-Use Sector (The definitions of "Residential", "Commercial", and "Industrial" sectors are fairly obvious. The "transportation sector" is defined as electricity delivered to and consumed by local, regional, and metropolitan transportation systems. For example, the New York City subway system.) Obviously, your own average rate per kWh may be different because of your local utility, multi-tier rates, TOD metering, etc. The full 256-page report is available as a pdf here.
Wow , doesn’t look like it would be that cost effective to own a Prime in Hawaii at 30 cents/kWh. Wonder what the price of gas is in Hawaii?
According to Gas Buddy, Costco regular gas is $2.93/gal. The fact that Hawaii grid is powered by diesel generators is even more amazing.
On Kauai, Tesla is delivering solar power for 13.9 cents/KWh...Shame that their farm still delivers far less than 1% of the need Tesla built a huge solar energy plant on the island of Kauai - The Verge Here's a good report on Hawaii power generation... https://energy.hawaii.gov/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/HSEOFactsFigures_May2017_2.pdf
Yeah well I read that Hawaii put the kabosh on residential solar supposedly because the grid can't handle the excess energy generated. iPhone ? Pro
I think those are more economic arguments. The utility companies don't want to pay you to supply the grid as they don't know what to do with the power at times...AND, can't rely on it so they need capacity anyhow. It's a fair point the utility companies make. That shouldn't prevent anyone from using solar to power their home when the sun is shining or maybe even recharging batteries so you can power your home while the sun isn't shining...Just because they don't want to fund your solar purchase by buying back your excess power doesn't mean you shouldn't be able to generate your own power. BUT, then the question around how much you should be able to demand they supply you when your local generation falls short. The utilities still need to supply full capacity because everyone wants it on cloudy days but on sunny days, nobody is paying for power...Back to the point above. Now residential only consumes 15% of the power in Hawaii...Rooftop solar on residences are unlikely to comprise more than a few percent of the island's demand but it is a complex problem that looks like it will persist for a while.
The fact is when they killed net metering, it killed the market for solar. People would never be able to recover their investment, so why get it? Same thing happened in Nevada, until they went back to net metering. The grid needs to get smarter to handle excess power generation. My solar array is perfectly happy generating power even if it isn't used. Hawaii is not a good model for solar energy, in my opinion.
