[email protected] <[email protected]> wrote:
> The utility gets from me about 3000 kw hrs net input to their grid during > that time frame. That amounts to about $300 clear profit to the utility. > The utility loves that kind of margin. > Just to clarify: that is not clear profit! Not at all. The cost of the electricity itself is only part of their expenses. It is at most one-third of their costs. The utility is getting $100 per year from you, or less. In most locations they have to pay you. They pay around 2 cents per kilowatt hour, and sell it for around 10 cents, but that is not 8 cents profit. Costs vary a great deal. Rural power companies are different from urban ones. Companies with hydroelectric dams are different from ones with natural gas or coal generators. But anyway, typically about one third of power company expenses are for the grid. They would not save any money on the grid even if you gave them the electricity for nothing. On the contrary, they would have to improve the grid. Another third is for their own generator capacity: coal plants, nukes, wind turbines, or dams. They have to keep some of this working even if people sell or give them rooftop PV electricity for free. In most geographic areas, you can never generate all of electricity you need from PV. Even when your house is in an ideal location and you cover your whole roof with PV, you still cannot generate enough electricity for the average U.S. household. At best you get about one-third of what you need: http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/RothwellJcoldfusionb.pdf (Unless you live in Death Valley.) With hydroelectricity or wind turbines, the electric power itself costs nothing. I mean there is no fuel cost. There are no pipelines or mines. All of the power company costs are for equipment wear and tear, and for maintaining the distribution grid. That includes things like snowstorms and falling trees causing expensive repairs, and replacing old poles and power lines. These costs will not be reduced by people giving or selling power from home PV systems. Free PV power from houses is hardly any cheaper than free hydroelectric power from a dam. The cost of the dam over the life of the equipment is negligible. There is a 16 MW hydroelectric dam near my house, at a park, that has been in use since 1906: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgan_Falls_Dam Obviously, the turbines have been replaced, but most of the capital cost was for the dam, and it was paid off a long time ago! - Jed
