RE: Damned Corporate Cocksuckers
January 8, 2015 at 12:28 pm
(This post was last modified: January 8, 2015 at 12:44 pm by The Grand Nudger.)
What fantasy do you live in where utility companies are running a charity? Solar users pay for the service they consume. If utilities don't like the situation, they can plead to their consumer for a new rate structure - but they don't want to do that, because it will only yield yet more solar consumer/producers...and they know it.
Utilities sell excess power generated by solar to their -other- customers, they just don't like the price they have to pay for it because they're used to getting it cheaper, and then raking the consumer over the coals - literally. Boo-hoo, they've found themselves on the shitty end of the stick they've been beating John Q with for decades. Perhaps they should fold up or get into solar themselves - if it's so damned lucrative, as their complaint would suggest? Someone else will gladly rake in the 360bil in annual sales if it's not worth their trouble. Meanwhile, rooftop solar producers are making $0 dollars off their investment, despite flowery ad copy from those selling the panels (who are also receiving subsidies). The savings over even the theoretical life of the panels is still a break-even proposition relative to the cost of the panels and installation. My hats off to them, they're doing their part - while the utilities are complaining about not being able to profit as egregiously from the destruction of our environment and exploitation of their users.
The subsidy (for solar, in the form of a price control on the excess power generated) exists because power companies have utterly failed to invest in the sort of energy infrastructure we want -and require- but have nevertheless had their hands around the throat of the american citizen for decades...while also availing themselves of subsidies (including price controls..of course) and directly granted monopolies, ostensibly "in the best interests of the public". From 1950 to 2010 oil received $369b, natural gas $121b, and coal $104b...approximately 70% of all energy subsidies in total. These folks have no problem with subsidy or price control whatsoever - except when the check isn't written out to them. Talk about sucking the government tit. In a better future - they don't even exist - and what this recent kaffufle shows is that we're inching closer and closer to that future. Apparently, their bottom line can't handle Billy Bobs rooftop panels. They've actually suggested inefficient orientation of someone else's solar panels as a solution to -their- financial problems.
In a nutshell, their gripe is this. "When they feed power into the grid, we should only have to pay the wholesale rate - when we feed power into the grid...they should have to pay the retail rate."
http://www.misi-net.com/publications/NEI-1011.pdf
Utilities sell excess power generated by solar to their -other- customers, they just don't like the price they have to pay for it because they're used to getting it cheaper, and then raking the consumer over the coals - literally. Boo-hoo, they've found themselves on the shitty end of the stick they've been beating John Q with for decades. Perhaps they should fold up or get into solar themselves - if it's so damned lucrative, as their complaint would suggest? Someone else will gladly rake in the 360bil in annual sales if it's not worth their trouble. Meanwhile, rooftop solar producers are making $0 dollars off their investment, despite flowery ad copy from those selling the panels (who are also receiving subsidies). The savings over even the theoretical life of the panels is still a break-even proposition relative to the cost of the panels and installation. My hats off to them, they're doing their part - while the utilities are complaining about not being able to profit as egregiously from the destruction of our environment and exploitation of their users.
The subsidy (for solar, in the form of a price control on the excess power generated) exists because power companies have utterly failed to invest in the sort of energy infrastructure we want -and require- but have nevertheless had their hands around the throat of the american citizen for decades...while also availing themselves of subsidies (including price controls..of course) and directly granted monopolies, ostensibly "in the best interests of the public". From 1950 to 2010 oil received $369b, natural gas $121b, and coal $104b...approximately 70% of all energy subsidies in total. These folks have no problem with subsidy or price control whatsoever - except when the check isn't written out to them. Talk about sucking the government tit. In a better future - they don't even exist - and what this recent kaffufle shows is that we're inching closer and closer to that future. Apparently, their bottom line can't handle Billy Bobs rooftop panels. They've actually suggested inefficient orientation of someone else's solar panels as a solution to -their- financial problems.
In a nutshell, their gripe is this. "When they feed power into the grid, we should only have to pay the wholesale rate - when we feed power into the grid...they should have to pay the retail rate."
http://www.misi-net.com/publications/NEI-1011.pdf
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