My first question was asking about whether the state has any plans to require power companies to provide an option for residents interested in having all their electricity generated by renewable sources. Currently, some utility companies allow this and others do not. Requiring power companies to provide this as an option would allow people like me that want to cut back on greenhouse gasses and other forms of pollution to only buy power that was generated from clean power plants. It allows market forces to speed up the transition to clean energy supplies. As described, this bill sounds like it does everything it should.
Response from Denise Provost:
Senate Bill 1794 – An Act Relative to the Consumer Choice of Green Electricity – addresses your first concern about certain power companies’ failure to offer energy from renewable sources (e.g., National Grid does, NStar doesn’t). This bill has multiple beneficial aspects: it creates programs to educate consumers about renewable energy; establishes fair and efficient rates for electricity generated from renewable energy sources; and ensures that these renewable options, if purchased by consumers voluntarily, do not count toward utility companies’ certificate requirements. Additionally, H 1822 provides a tax credit for all owners of residential property who purchase and install energy efficient items for their property.
My next question was about time-of-day metering. Electricity usage varies throughout the day. During peak load times, dirtier, more expensive power plants are turned on to meet the added demand. Many things that are done during peak times could just as easily be done at off-peak times. Currently, most people are unaware of this and don’t think about how their choice of when to do laundry or run the dishwassher will affect the power grid. Time-of-day metering, if implemented well, would increase the cost of electricity during peak hours and reduce it during off-peak hours. This would provide an incentive to people to shift their usage to off-peak hours, when power is cleaner and less expensive. The state seems to be studying the issue now. I will try to read over the comments and summarize them sometime soon. This is a rather complicated issue, because having the price of electricity change throughout the day would confuse many people and it might put an undue burden on those least able to do anything about it. Time-of-day metering is probably better for businesses than people, because they can more effectively manage the added information requirements.
Response from Denise Provost:
I spoke with a colleague in the Division of Energy Resources who told me that the division had just submitted a petition to the Department of Telecommunications, Utilities, and Energy regarding time-based metering. The petition is entitled “Real Time Pricing” and was given a docket number (06-101) by the DTE. The Department is currently gathering comments from interested parties to determine if an investigation is necessary, which can be found by entering the docket number into the following link: http://db.state.ma.us/dpu/qorders/frmDocketList.asp.
Response from Patricia Jehlen:
Most utility companies charge all of their customers a flat per kilowatt rate all day, although a few, including NStar, have implemented pilot programs that allow customers the option to pay a rate based on time-of-use. Sen. Morrissey has filed An Act Relative to Dynamic Pricing, which would allow for real-time dynamic pricing for residential customers, and An Act Relative to Smart Meter Allocation for Residential Electric Customers, which would provide grants for customers to buy electric meters that measure hourly electric usage and allow for time-based pricing of service. Real-time pricing options may become more prevalent in the future, but the current system protects customers that may not be able to modify their time-of-usage energy, such as the sick or elderly.
My next question was about net metering. This is a policy where customers are allowed to generate electricity and feed it into the grid from their home when they generate more than they use. With net metering, the customer is charged based on the difference between what they use and what they produce. This provides an incentive for installing larger solar panels and windmills, because you benefit from producing electricity even if you don’t use it when you produce it. Some states allow people who generate more electricity than they use to get a refund. Apparently the bill under consideration does not allow refunds, but it does allow you to transfer the credit to someone else to pay their electric bill.
Response from Patricia Jehlen:
Currently, small net metering is allowed for 60 kilowatt self generators. The power generated by a renewable generator can be used to reduce a customer’s consumption of energy supplied by a utility company. If the customer is generating more energy than s/he is using, the utility company must purchase the excess from the customer. Policies concerning net metering credit rates for time-of-use customers are company specific.
This legislative session the Joint Committee of Telecommunication, Utilities and Energy will take up An Act to Promote Electric Generation via Renewable Resources, which would establish a standard net metering practice that credits the customer’s account for energy generated, but not used. Any excess credit would roll over to the following billing cycle or could be transferred to another account with written approval of the account holder.
These are not the full responses, and I have only included what I think are the most useful parts of the responses I got. They both responded fully, but much of the information was the same, so I only included one response.
Remember calling after a certain time at night or on weekends? Many plans now have a good amount of minutes included, but they still have peak and non-peak times and that has worked. It was certainly more prevalent before but that’s a good example. I know there are pilot programs in other states where people can volunteer to participate I’m not familiar with anything in our state.
All the right questions, and all the right answers.
<
p>
Here’s one more:
<
p>
NStar’s monthly charge is like $6.something, but $9.95 for time-of-use. By making time-of-use pricing more expensive, it’s yet another barrier. It doesn’t make sense.
Here is a link to the Compact, which is the only aggregator of RESIDENTIAL electic rates in the state (businesses have several aggregators) – http://www.capelight…
<
p>
I would really suggest that other areas also investigate residential aggregation, especially areas like the Blackstone Valley. We’ve had the Compact in place virtually since deregulaion, and I know it gives me both greener and cheaper alternatives.
<
p>
And of course, the big daddy of them all – BUILD THE WIND FARM! The FEIR was submitted to the Federal Government, one of the last steps in the permitting process.
Some questions:
I realize, of course, you might not know the answers to any of the above, but someone might.
<
p>
I believe the Compact was created with a bill that went through Government Regulations – BUT – there is an individual legislator, Matt Patrick, who was head of Cape & Islands Self Reliance and who can probably be your best guide to any pending legislation and how existing legislaton was crafted.
<
p>
2. Are there any data on the savings involved?
<
p>
Barnstable County has TONS of data through the Compact – the web site and Rep. Patrick can help you find what you need, and you can contact them for specifics as well.
<
p>
3. Has this been enacted anywhere else? Is it under consideration in some other state legislature?
<
p>
I don’t know about other states – remember, deregulation was a Mass. phenomenon, some other states sill have utilities – but as far as I know, CLC is the only residential compact in Mass. And considering dereg is now over ten years old, I have no idea WHY this hasn’t spread to other areas.
<
p>
4. Is there any opposition to it? What does the opposition assert?
<
p>
For the first three years, when they were trying to negotiate a first contract, there was opposition – saying this can never work, pie in the sky, waste of $3 million, etc. Since they landed their first contract, however, and established a rate, there hasn’t been criticism – especially since the default rates took effect for everybody in 2001. Anybody who HADN’T signed on with the Compact saw a siginificant increae then, and many more enrolled.
<
p>
2. I do not know of any data on how much energy would be saved. Most of these changes would not save energy directly, but would instead either provide more choices for people who want to reduce emissions or provide more of an incentive for people to save energy or install local generation (mostly solar panels).
<
p>
3. Various parts of this have been enacted in other places. Net metering is becoming more common throughout the country. I think all states allow it and many require it. Time of day metering is still somewhat experimental, because you have to give people new meters and figure out how to divide the day up so that it will be useful. Quite a few states have deregulated electricity generation. As far as I know none of them require utility companies to provide an option for people who want only renewable power, but I haven’t looked into it. Many states have more options than Massachusetts. I can only find two choices, although NStar’s website is bad enough that I might just be missing them.
<
p>
4. As I said, I can’t actually look at the bills. The descriptions sound good, and the bills almost certainly are good. The main reason to oppose any of these things is the complexity of implementing them.
<
p>
The utility companies have to have some way of separating electricity usage for customers that are buying green power for that one to work. This should just be a simple computer program. There could also potentially be a problem if everybody signed up for it, because we don’t generate enough renewable energy for that. But they could always raise the rates for it if that happened, and use the increased money to build renewable energy sources faster.
<
p>
Time-of-day metering requires installing a new meter on every house that will use it. It also requires figuring out some reasonable way to divide the day and year into zones so that prices can change in a predictable way and also correspond to typical peak usage. This is the one that could be most easily opposed on technical grounds, because if you install meters for two rates and later decide everyone should have hourly pricing, you have to install new meters again. This one should probably be studied a bit more before we go for wide-scale deployment. Right now the best thing to do is probably to make it so that time-of-day metering doesn’t cost twice as much as one-price metering, so that people who are interested can sign up for it without wasting money.
<
p>
Net metering requires meters that can run in both directions. I’m not sure how most electric meters are on this. You also have to make sure that the utility company can cut power to any wire for maintenance purposes, even if it is right next to a house with solar panels on the roof. This also provides the most environmental benefit, because it encourages actual renewable energy installation. If every house in the state had a 2kW solar panel on it (which is relatively small), we could probably close several peaking plants and drastically cut back on our coal usage.
If every house in the state had a 2kW solar panel on it (which is relatively small)
<
p>
If the insolation power numbers at Wikipedia are to be believed http://en.wikipedia….
<
p>
<
p>
Even assuming a figure at the high end (say, 50 W/m^2), one would require 40 square meters of solar panels to generate 2KW of electricity. At the approximation of 9 square feet to a square meter (a meter is a little longer than a yard), one would require solar panels of on the order of 360 square feet, that’s not exactly small–it’s about 19 feet on a side. It would require much larger panels to provide power at the lower end of the range.
<
p>
And that is aside from three other issues.
<
p>
One, manufacturing solar panels is not exactly environmentally benign.
<
p>
Two, unless I’m mistaken, the power generated by photovoltaics is DC, and would require a conversion to AC, which adds another inefficiency, which would further reduce the power that is actually available.
<
p>
And, three, the photovoltaic panels only generate power while being insolated–i.e., during the daytime. To provide power in the evening or at night, power storage apparatus would have to be provided, which would further reduce the efficiency of the system, and manufacturing and disposing of power storage apparatus (rechargeable batteries) is not exactly environmentally benign, either.
a few comments:
<
p>
0. Here is an actual installation in Boston. Their roof (well, the half with solar panels) is 48 square meters. The size is just about right. Note their (personal) payback period is about 10 years accounting for all costs and credits.
<
p>
1. That’s true, but producing electricity with coal isn’t environmentally benign either, and there’s no perfect answer. Still, I’d rather pollute elsewhere than my home area (selfish) and since the solar cell industry is nowhere near as mature as the coal/oil fired power plant industry, there’s likely more room for improvement.
<
p>
2. That inefficiency is less than the line loss from generating electricity in Salem (or wherever) and sending it to you. Furthermore, the inefficiency is included in the link above (by default).
<
p>
3. That’s a feature, not a bug. Peak load is during the day. Solar cells “shave” peak load because they allow fossil fuel (and nuke) to provide something closer to continuous power levels. This allows for fewer peaking power plant which, per kWh, pollute more, cost more, and are less energy efficient.
<
p>
Furthermore, no “storage apparatus” is needed. The house is still plugged in to the grid. When the solar cells are generating, the meter spins more slowly (or even backward) and when they’re not, the meter spins forward as usual. The net result of a month (or year)’s spinning is the difference between total consumed electricity and total produced electricity. So, no batteries.
Is peak demand for residential use the same as the general daytime peak?
<
p>
The daytime peak hours are a function of the HVAC demands of factories, offices, and commericial establishments. I think.
<
p>
When people are at work, their A/C use AT HOME is less, or zero, isn’t it? Then, they come home at night, and put the A/C on overnight.
<
p>
So, if you put panels on a residence, are you just powering your house during the hours when the A/C is off anyway?
It doesn’t matter much where the power is used or produced. There are some inefficiencies involved in moving the power around, but those will be there whether a peaking plant is turned on or solar cells make the power. Any power put into the system will offset oil and gas being burned. The purpose of net metering is to make it so that homes with solar panels can produce power when the sun is shining and use it when they need it, without the batteries. By reducing non-renewable peak demand, they cut down on pollution. Everybody comes out ahead (except the owners of peaking plants).
That would work if the panels run the meter backwards during the day, helping reduce peak demand.
<
p>
Is that how it works? Or does the panel produce power that disappears into the ether? Would a utility actuallu allow one’s meter to run in reverse?
Letting the meter run in reverse is what net metering means. Your meter runs forward or backward at any given moment, based on whether you are supplying or using energy. At the end of the month, your meter shows the net amount of energy you have used. If you used more than you produced, it simply reduces your bill.
<
p>
The tricky bit is what you do about people who produce more than they use. The options are basically
1. Reduce their bill to 0 and have them lose out on whatever power above that they produced.
2a. Roll the power over to the next month. If they always produce more power then they use, send them a check once a year for the difference.
2b. Roll the power over to the next month. Allow them to transfer the energy credit to another customer to reduce the other person’s bill. This is what the bill under consideration does.
<
p>
Personally, I prefer 2a. 2b requires someone who installs a large solar array to have someone to transfer the energy credit to. Your options are basically to give it to someone as a gift or to find someone who will pay you for it. If the state really wants to go with this, they should probably also have some way for people to donate their energy to the low-income energy fund and have it count as a tax-deductible charitable donation. Many people would probably feel awkward trying to sell excess power credits to their friends, but the sort of people who would install a huge solar array are likely to give to charity regularly anyway.
<
p>
Most people won’t end up producing more power than they use because most people don’t have the yard space for wind power and their roof isn’t large enough to produce much more power than they use. Farms could easily set up solar arrays and wind turbines on their land that produce more energy than they need, so farmers and other people on large rural plots are the most likely people to be affected by this part of the policy decision.
Sorry, I’ve been doing calculations of sizes for heating, which has a much larger efficiency. But still, an average house with a south-sloped roof does have over 400 square feet of useful roof area for solar panels. Roofs that slope East-West are less useful. Those numbers are also averaged over the course of a day. A 2kW peak system would only be about 180 sq ft at 15% efficiency.
<
p>
Solar panel technology is improving. The efficiencies are going up and the toxic waste is being reduced. Solar cells in labs are getting close to 50% efficiency. Mass-produced cells are getting up to 20%. You can buy cells with efficiencies around 30% (but not at home-system price levels).
<
p>
AC to DC conversion can be done at 90% efficiency with cheap parts. With not-very expensive parts, you can get over 95% efficiency. There are parts available for a few hundred dollars that get the efficiency over 99%. Compared to everything else, the inverter efficiency is not a big deal.
<
p>
Annual peak power usage is for air conditioning. Peak power usage is well coordinated to be met by solar panels because it is when the sun is shining on a hot day that we most need extra power. On a daily basis, power loads typically peak in the afternoon. Solar panels won’t always help, but they will reduce the usage of peaking plants.
<
p>
The whole point of net metering is so that peopple don’t need to store power. If someday we are producing all of our power from solar and wind, we will need much better energy storage solutions. For the near future, we will probably not go above 10-20% of power from solar, so energy storage is unnecessary.
Power companies spend a lot of effort and money on maintaining the 60 Hz (50 Hz in Europe) phase synchronicity in the power delivered through the grid. More than a few appliances depend on the 60 Hz synchronicity–and not just clocks. If they were to have to introduce power from every Tom, Dick or Harry who has a solar panel on his roof into their grid, it would probably be a nightmare for them. If they introduce power that is out of phase, it would actually reduce the efficiency of the distribution system.
Most people are not going to build their own inverters. It is not very hard to design an inverter to phase lock onto an input signal (in fact it is easier than designing one that doesn’t have an input signal). All commercially available solar cell installations will include an inverter that takes care of this.
My father moved into the area covered by this. He purchases a house that was built in the 1950s. When he got his first bill there was a 20 or 30 % (can’t remember exactly) surcharge for “new service”. He called to question this since the service was not “new”, it just had a different name on it. He was told that is a “new service” according to their definition and he couldn’t do anything about the surcharge.