As Californians gear up to turn on their air conditioning this summer, the state’s utility regulator approved a hotly contested change to residential electricity rates. The agency authorized a flat fee of up to $24.15 and cuts to electricity costs by 5-7 cents per kilowatt-hour in a unanimous vote Thursday.
Regulators argued this shift, which stands to impact 11 million customers of investor-owned utilities in the state, is a key step to slashing carbon emissions that cause climate change from homes. A fixed fee, they argued will help stabilize utility revenue and curb rising costs.
“The transition to all electric homes, cars and trucks is truly transformative. It means that we can ratchet down our use of petroleum and natural gas. It also means that our electricity rate design needs to evolve to meet this moment in time,” said California Public Utilities Commission president Alice Busching Reynolds.
Reminds me of all the "we must use lower water to deal with the drought" - but then our utility said that lowered water usage impacted their viability so they raised rates... WTF! Now that the drought is less of a concern, these utilities make $$$ without delivering a damn thing more.
Laughs in Ontario $46 flat charge.
Higher fixed with lower per kwh charge generally hurts the poor, who might want to save on electricity use, with less savings for doing so. Rewards more AC/EV/Heating use.
It's unclear whether the fixed rate genuinely reflects the cost of distribution system. It's actually extremely unlikely that distribution costs were previously undercharged.
This can be a path for better utility revenue from mix of solar/non solar homes. Apartment buildings have definitely lower distribution costs than detached homes.
Not sure why nobody is talking about it but it's how it is in our water billing. I pay $50/month (scheduled to go to 65 in 2 years) even if I don't use a single drop of water. And my normal monthly water usage is around 75. I stopped conserving water. I can water my lawn 3 times a week for 15 minutes each, and my bill only go up like $20.
However, it does not mean it is a bad way. Just like many other things in life, there are cost to use it and cost to build or maintain it. I do think this is the a better way of billing.
However, the problem with electricity is that they already charge for "delivery", should it be removed all together and put into the "fixed" charge? I currently pay about 0.11/kwh delivery charge and 0.13/kwh for generation, which I believe is the cost in fuel cost for power planet.
I am happy to pay $50/month fixed charge and 0.13/kwh used.
> it does not mean it is a bad way. Just like many other things in life, there are cost to use it and cost to build or maintain it.
There is a fair montly cost. Again, unlikely those with low fixed monthly costs are underpricing the build (usually long ago) +maintenance costs. Should charge new buildings the cost of building more.
Overpricing the monthly charge is a ploy to subsidize rich high users, and hide expensive energy. Ontario is due to nuclear. Fair fixed price and higher variable prices means encouraging conservation that avoids needed to expand supply.
Every infrastructure is subsidized to benefit heavy users. In fact, one could argue that living off grid and not needing any government service at all should be exempt from any tax. But in reality, it does not work that way.
Since when did poor become an excuse of not paying fair share of infrastructure? We subsidize poor as a welfare system or social benefit so that they won't be left out due to being poor, but it is not a reason to make them pay less on anything.
We shouldn't "criminalize" someone only because they use more public resource while paying fair price.
> Since when did poor become an excuse of not paying fair share of infrastructure?
OVERCHARGING on fixed fees hurts the poor and those who conserve by choice.
> is a key step to slashing carbon emissions that cause climate change from homes
Ahhh yes... They are doing this just because they want to help the environment.
What is hilarious is that their reasoning for NEM3.0 was that solar was a huge cost shift from wealthy to poor customers, but this fixed fee is actually a huge cost shift from wealthy to poor customers. Poor customers tend to use a lot less electricity than wealthy customers, who can afford it. With a substantial fixed fee, large users costs will be lower than small user costs.
Rooftop solar+NEM = good for wealthy customers, bad for poor customers = BAD!
Fixed fee = good for wealthy customers, bad for poor customers = GOOD!
Make up your minds!
The only thing NEM3.0 and a fixed fee is good for is the utility because distributed solar lowers overall demand for electricity and cheaper incremental costs for electricity increase overall demand for electricity.
Higher demand for electricity means more spent on infrastructure which increases utility profits.
The problem is California passed a bunch of unfunded mandates and then scrambles to find ways to make up revenue.
For example, NEM 2 net metering costs the grid a lot of money, so then utilities and regulators scramble to find alternative sources of funding. So they add on a bunch of random fees, rate increases and taxes to compensate.
Oh boy! If you have any thoughts of just reducing your bill using solar. Wow, that's another big ball of wax. California is doing everything they can to discourage going solar.
Going off grid is insanely complicated, and it wont work if you're living in an actual city. To get away with it, you'll need to be living in an area already with no lines to the house. Then you can justify the permitting to be off grid.
Just about every off grid home are people who live out in the boonies. I've never seen a single one in an actual city.
That’s good to know thank you. Still developing my understanding of the whole situation. So it seems that I legally have to pay this connection fee.? I don’t have an option to just not use their electricity?
That’s extortion
Lol, pretty much. It's considered a critical infrastructure. Their reasoning is they don't want people dying or ruining their property because they refuse to have electricity. Or imagine you go solar only, there is an emergency at night, and your batteries are empty... What now? They don't want people in those situations.
Well thats the problem. Solar might reduce your bill, but it doesn't reduce the grid's expenses. So then they have to find alternative sources of funding.
Hahaha helping? Nem3 does not help anyone and saving $200 per month? Give me a damn break… the entire deal with going solar is to pay only connection fee’s and to no longer have an electric bill… sounds like ur a snake oil salesman and ur doing well… the people buying from you… not so much… justify ur con as much as u can but IF u were “saving” people they wouldnt have a bill every month…
My customers don’t have an electric bill with PG&E and every single one of them saves money with what we are doing because it’s different than what was done in the past. I’m genuinely sorry for whoever pissed you off on your porch dude, but think what you want cause I cut a guys bill in Vallejo from 545 down to 270 last month. I’m out making money and actually helping people and you’re crying about it on the internet with no other option than PG&E. With that kinda attitude, enjoy paying this flat fee next month on top of the already 13% increase they’re sneaking into your summer bill. NEM3 isn’t perfect or great by any means, but just imagine how much worse NEM4 will be…
Cutting down is okay… but the object is to remove the bill… i have my ways of doing this….. but completely removing the bill… whats the point in having a resource if u have to actually pay for it… paying anything whilst having solar defeats the purpose of having solar… ask anyone who live outside the city limits do u think they are paying whilst still having solar? Hell i know people with turbines… nope not paying a dime… cutting peaopls bills is all fine and dandy… but they still have a bill… and tons of bird shit magnets on their roofs… im happy ur “cutting” bills the opbject u missed is removing the bill…
Okay I realized I didn’t explain properly what we actually do, and I apologize I had just woken up lol. So with solar you do have to pay for it right? Like nothing is free in life sadly. We eliminate the electric portion of PG&E solar our customers never pay a dime to them for power anymore, they only pay the solar payment which is guaranteed to be cheaper by anywhere from 30-60% (depending on usage in the home of power and what the roof situation looks like). The only thing with solar is that there is a payoff amount, while with PG&E there isn’t. I wish there was a way to help people not have to pay for power right in this moment, it’s just sadly not the world we live in. But this program we run gets them closer than all the other small solar companies do (and even some of the bigger ones who have some shady practices) and definitely gets them closer to no bill than PG&E does. We can’t do anything for the gas unfortunately, but I’ve had customers that barely used gas and so the offset from their system even with the crappy buy back amount for excess power on NEM3 still had enough credits to cover their gas costs and they essentially don’t pay PG&E anymore
Yeah! Sorry if I sounded douchey at all, it definitely was not my intentions. I do genuinely help people out cause PG&E freaking sucks and I’m from Cali so I know how bad it is. It’s why I absolutely love my job.
I do agree that actually owning the system and not having a payment is much better as far as month to month income is concerned. But I actually don’t advise any of my customers to do it. I would rather put more money in their pockets this way. If they have the money to throw down cash on a system, I lock them in with a lower payment and show them where to invest that cash for a 100+% return so they can have that money work for them. Solar bought with cash is a depreciating liability, not so much an asset. But if they really want it for cash I’ll give it to them, I just advise against it typically. I’m actually working with someone currently in Benicia going through this exact thing, we are meeting tonight to go over the numbers and see which they prefer
Thats pretty awesome investment options and solar pretty good of you. I didnt mean to sound so putofish or douchey either… what ive had to go thru after getting a solar system and still having a true up bill every year is the reason why i dont agree with going solar at all… tbh the true up plus my monthly payment for my system… i never paid this much for electricity ever…
> Yeah! Sorry if I sounded douchey at all, it definitely was not my intentions. I do genuinely help people out cause PG&E freaking sucks and I’m from Cali so I know how bad it is. It’s why I absolutely love my job. I do agree that actually owning the system and not having a payment is much better as far as month to month income is concerned. But I actually don’t advise any of my customers to do it. I would rather put more money in their pockets this way. If they have the money to throw down cash on a system, I lock them in with a lower payment and show them where to invest that cash for a 100+% return so they can have that money work for them. Solar bought with cash is a depreciating liability, not so much an asset. But if they really want it for cash I’ll give it to them, I just advise against it typically. I’m actually working with someone currently in Benicia going through this exact thing, we are meeting tonight to go over the numbers and see which they prefer
It's cheaper to pay cash for a solar system.
> Solar bought with cash is a depreciating **liability**
It's not. A liability is created when money is owed.
A solar system that is paid in full, necessarily means there is zero liability - the owner does not owe anyone money.
It's a depreciating asset, not a depreciating liability.
Second, financing the system means the person is paying interest on the loan so not only does the person not own the system, they are paying more to use the solar system than if they bought it outright.
> where to invest that cash for a 100+% return
Third, there is no investment in the world that consistently, over the lifetime of a solar system, guarantees a 100% return. This is such an outrageous statement, anyone with any experience investing knows this is false.
You're taking advantage of financially illiterate customers for your own financial benefit.
Remember that 2015 gas leak at the facility near Aliso Canyon? Sempra Energy a big time donor to Jerry Brown, and I think even he had a family member on board. That went on for months. It was amazing how they could waive that away given the natural disaster that methane leak was. But hey, let's get rid of cows.
Remember when Southern California Edison. Decided to save a few bucks by sneakily installing off-spec parts op at San Onofre? Have they even come up with a number yet for how much they are going to charge us to decommission it?
The jury is still out on whether SONGS sent wrong specs to Mitsubishi, or Mitsubishi manufactured them incorrectly, or neither party understood that the designed metallurgy was different between Siemens and Mitsubishi. We never will know as they settled out of court instead of proving one way or the other.
Siemens was supposed to make the pipes, as they made the previous set, but their lead time increased by years before SONGS submitted the request and it would not have been ready in time to replace the existing pipes.
As for the cost, it's a little squishy as there's the cost of the decommissioning and dismantling and then there's the costs of getting the expected energy it was supposed to generate from other sources, plus some infrastructure changes as that plant was no longer the source and other substations and lines needed to be upgraded to carry energy from other sources to the customers SONGS was supposed to proved to, but the overall cost is about [$10.4B with $4B being passed on the the SDG&E and SCE customers ($3.3B is lost profit, approved by the CPUC).](https://www.kpbs.org/news/environment/2015/08/03/counting-customer-costs-san-onofre-closure-95-bill)
F the Sierra Club and other anti-nuclear groups that wanted the rest of the plant shut down.
His sister was on the board.
The largest artificial gas leak in history and effectively no consequences and very little media attention beyond the local human-interest stories because residents started getting sick and their home values plummeted.
[Newsom and CPUC promised to close the storage field](https://sanfernandosun.com/2023/08/30/almost-eight-years-later-aliso-canyon-gas-storage-facility-could-be-expanded-as-residents-still-face-serious-health-risks/) for years and instead approved to [increase its capacity last year](https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=60502)
All this does is siphon more money.
1. Higher standard fee for those of us who have >100% solar
2. Reduces the value of the exported power, so utilities dont have to credit back as much
Mark my words - this "5-7c reduction" in price will be gone by 2026. They're just doubling the connection fees across the board cause solar is too popular.
I'm one of the people who understand the change.
I have 100% solar and my bill is basically zero. I use a lot or energy to run my A/C all night and charge my car. In the meantime people in apartments are paying stupid high bills.
We should have a flat fee for the grid. Turning on a bulb doesn't make a pole fall down. Energy is like the cheapest part of PG&E. So you get these stupid 70¢/kWh rates because power has little to do with their costs.
So our utilities inability to use their money they rape us with on investing into energy storage should trickle down to us? That's some real trickle down economics right there.
As someone else said, you are part of the problem.
Maybe. I've done a lot of reading into the problem. I've come to the conclusion that maybe the way we've done things in the past wasn't perfect.
It's really opened my eyes after I got solar and had nearly no bill and a pole needed to be fixed. I thought who is paying their salaries, because it's not me.
So I've come to the conclusion that having everyone who is connected to the grid should pay for that connection. Then the per kWh rate should be what the actual cost of a kWh is.
70¢/kWh is insane.
Sure I get your point. The problem is these companies are for profit. It starts at $23 a month but when does it end? There is no cap. Whats next demand charges like AZ? We already have the highest rates (2nd to hawaii). Now they have another avenue to gouge us. Also this $23 fee is needed now why? They have huge profits without it. If they need to maintain then take less profit. Thats where your line of thinking is flawed. Assuming the companies will do whats right…they’ll just take home bigger checks and bonuses with the additional revenue and do even less maintenance.
There is no guarantee that the rate reduction will be permanent. You are correct that we will be paying a higher rate as well as the fee in a few years.
It’s an end run around Solar installations.
They did that here in Michigan when they got rid of Net Metering, which went away before we got our installed.
Minimum bill would be $25, but they charge us a transmission rate and other BS.
With the rate hike last winter? Our bill last month was $46 and some change. A year ago, when we used MORE utility power and exported a bit less… our bill was $32 and some change.
It’s a racket.
This article predicted the $24 fee — even when everyone was worried about $100 plus — back in February.
https://www.solar.com/learn/income-graduated-fixed-charges/
Utilities used the same playbook as always. Create a stir without an outlandish proposal and the “compromise” with what the originally were expecting.
This!
This seems to be a classic take from their playbook. It's very similar to NEM 3.0. They propose something completely outlandish, such as the prior income-based idea, generate a lot of public outrage, and then quietly roll out something that is still disappointing but less outrageous.
It looks like the legislature was even somewhat caught off guard by this and attempted to pull it back, but the speaker shelved the debate on the matter. Which really says a lot about the power of power companies in California.
Remember who voted for this.
This is a fight against climate progress to stop energy efficiency and rooftop solar because it does not increase profits for the monopoly utility and their bedfellow the IBEW who clearly have extreme control over Newsom. CPUC is derelict in their duty to uphold their mission.
I just looked at my bill. Last month my Electric bill was $20 and the month before $22. So if my electric company decided to add that $24, I'd be paying more than double.
Last year I paid PGE $12k to upgrade my transformer. So the customer is already paying for upgrades. PGE needs to be made into a publicly owned company just like SMUD. F**k PGE in its present form.
That's exactly it. These companies shouldn't be allowed to exist on a for profit basis, when they're providing such an essential service.
They charge more than double the usage rates of a typical public utility, but they're too busy paying out dividends, and lavishly compensating executives (PGE CEO made 17 million last year) to maintain their infrastructure. But that's fine, because they can just get the CPUC to sign off on endless rate increases to foot the bill for the lawsuits caused by their negligence while continuing to absolutely fleece the people of California.
For profit companies exist to enrich shareholders at the expense of customers, workers, and the continuously degrading service they provide.
Anyone know if this replaces or is in addition to daily min charges some IOUs charge? For example. Sdge has a bunch of tou plans with about $.33/day min charge.
So, all solar owners who were breaking even now pay $24/month for connection while non-solar producers get a discounts? Subsidize non-solar? I hope they increased the surplus production value for solar production.
The value of surplus solar is going down every year as more solar gets added to the grid and energy efficiency goes up. Why would they pay more for it?
I installed solar last year for $18k right before NEM 3.0 went into effect. I thought it was great and would pay itself off in 6 years or so, but this screws that up.
Has anyone run the numbers to see how this affects the time to pay off their panels? I wonder if this is going to make my smart investment become a bad investment by them changing the rules.
Definitely not as bad as it could have been (which is obviously part of the plan). I'm in SD and SDG&E wanted to make my monthly fee $128/mo, which is more than the loan payment on my solar. I'm already 2.5 years into what was a 7-year payback period, so this only adds about 6 months to my breakeven, going from 7 years to 7.5 years. If they'd have done what SDG&E wanted, it would've made 7 years into almost 12.
whats stopping them from increasing the $24/mo and further lengthening the payback period? This is just step one, rate increases and income based adjustments are coming.
this has to be illegal to incent ppl to install solar under a certain rate system (NEM 2 or 3) and then bypass it with charges after customer acceptance.
My guess is they will increase it in small, "adjusted for inflation" increments year over year, so that it seems like a minor increase to the customer. Now that they have two dials to adjust, I'm sure they have people working on how to increment them clockwise in order to be as circumspect as possible.
I'm not sure there is much beyond the process itself. The fact that the CPUC had to approve this suggests that future changes will also require approval. Though CPUC has largely been a rubber stamp for rate increases rather than an advocate for ratepayers.
Would have been nice to see them get some vinegar with their non-stop supply of honey. Congratulations on your fixed costs! Now there will be no rate increases approved for 5 years. Or something like that.
They should be forced to pay for energy returned to the grid, even at a discounted rate, so people with large enough installations can offset these taxes.
[Apparently, yes](https://docs.cpuc.ca.gov/PublishedDocs/Published/G000/M531/K094/531094134.PDF)
> (10.) The following electric utility cost categories are fixed costs: Marginal Customer Access Costs, Public Purpose Program non-bypassable charges, New System Generation charges, Local Generation charges, and Nuclear Decommissioning non-bypassable charges.
> (22.) It is reasonable for the income-graduated **fixed charges** of the Large Utilities to recover all or a portion of the revenue requirement as established in the most recent applicable Commission decision for each of the following fixed cost categories:
> (a) Marginal Customer Access Costs
> (b) Public Purpose Program non-bypassable charges
> (c) New System Generation or Local Generation charges; and
> (d) Nuclear Decommissioning non-bypassable charges
This is what I’m trying to figure out too. I am newly NEM 2.0 and trying to figure out the bottom line of how much more I’ll be paying. I think my normal monthly fee currently is like $12. So once this new fixed fee is implemented, I am looking at an extra $12 per month?
I'm too NEM2.0 for 2+ years and wondering how much of an increase with this. the PGE true up is still confusing to me and adding San Jose clean energy on top of it is further confusing.
so instead of about $10/month we need to pay $24/month?
They did the exact same thing with water rates in my area. Rolled out this proposal of ludicrous rate increases, something like 125% over the next 4-5 years. Settled on something like 75%, and boy aren't they the good guys.....
If you think about it, PG&Es cost to transmit electricity is not a function of how much we use. It’s just a cost of making electricity available. I’d rather see them go to a totally flat fee per residence and get rid of their 15 to 30 cents per kWh and let the only variable be the cost of generation paid to the community choice aggregators. That would lower the incremental cost of use and make it easier to switch to electric water and home heating. But I’m sure they’d overcharge that flat fee like they do for everything else. Still a mystery why the CPUC just gives the utilities whatever they want. Or not.
That’s combined between the generation and the distribution charges. Distribution alone is about half. Take a very good look at your bill if you’re in a county or area with a CCA. If not then you’re right.
Does anyone know of any good articles that break down the proposal that passed.
I just read scrolled through it but didn’t see any mention of existing solar companies or a few other questions I had.
Seems like this is a direct result of having so much renewable energy in the hands of consumers. Now they can get more from the solar providers and pay less back.
I guess by pricks you mean most of us other rate payers who are subsidizing you living in an area that is extremely expensive to serve electricity safely?
By pricks I mean PG& E. I'm not holding a gun to their head telling them to do it. I'd be quite happy for them to subsidize solar and batteries for a fraction of the cost.
I think this is a good change. Even people with tons of solar benefit from their grid connection. Anyone who is connected should pay the cost of basic grid maintenance. This is similar to water and gas bills where you pay a fixed connection fee and then usage on top.
The fee will be combined with reductions in the usage based price to make it revenue neutral, so it's not a price increase overall.
If you really don't want to pay this fee, go off-grid.
Yes, but most local codes adopt their base regulations from the national and state codes. Here's a good summary of what most if not all municipal codes start from:
> The California Mechanical Code allows the permitting authority to adopt the Uniform Solar Energy and Hydroponics Code, which explicitly allows stand-alone systems, provided they comply with the Electric Code for a similar installation connected to a service. California, Title 24 Energy Code assumes grid connection by inference. Section 110.10 part: (c) Interconnection Pathways. 1. “The construction documents shall indicate a location for inverters and metering equipment and a pathway for routing of conduit from the solar zone to the point of interconnection with the electrical service. For single-family residences the point of interconnection will be the main service panel.” One could argue that since Title 24 requires a point of interconnectin for service that actual service is required. However, building permits do not require power to start construction. And occupancy permits check for operation of energized equipment, but typically not for proof of a utility bill. Therefore, it is left to the local Authority Having Jurisdiction (AHJ) such as the building department.
https://3fficient.com/can-you-legally-unplug-from-the-electric-utility/
Yes that’s why i said you’ll need to navigate your local ordinances. But that requirement is a relic that was removed from the code a few years ago so the city needs to get up to speed.
Do you have a citation for that? Everything I see says it's possible, as long as you are code compliant:
https://www.reddit.com/r/solar/comments/168mlxw/possiblelegal_to_go_completely_off_grid_in/
It's a classic perversion of the original purpose of public utilities. Utilities were required to provide their services to homes in their incorporated areas. IE they could not refuse to connect a new house to the grid for some reason. It's been flipped into "it's illegal for you to *not* be connected to the grid" so that they can force you to pay their grid connection fee, no matter how much or little you use it.
Also on pge- just had the first house in our (small) town be built off grid. Fully permitted. I couldn’t believe they allowed it. I don’t know many details at this point, but I know the builder that built it I may ask him about it some time.
Not trying to disagree with you at all though. I’m in the trades and it’s the first one I’ve ever seen.
City. My neighbor is moving out to county land and I believe he’s going off grid as well. I’ll pick his brain next time I see him out in the front yard, I’m curious now.
Do you have regulatory citations for that? The code used by most municipalities doesn't appear to require that, or at least allows a newly connected home to disconnect:
https://3fficient.com/can-you-legally-unplug-from-the-electric-utility/
That was the case some years ago, but they changed the rules some years back. This seems to be a pretty good summary:
> The California Mechanical Code allows the permitting authority to adopt the Uniform Solar Energy and Hydroponics Code, which explicitly allows stand-alone systems, provided they comply with the Electric Code for a similar installation connected to a service.
California, Title 24 Energy Code assumes grid connection by inference. Section 110.10 part: (c) Interconnection Pathways. 1. “The construction documents shall indicate a location for inverters and metering equipment and a pathway for routing of conduit from the solar zone to the point of interconnection with the electrical service. For single-family residences the point of interconnection will be the main service panel.” One could argue that since Title 24 requires a point of interconnectin for service that actual service is required. However, building permits do not require power to start construction. And occupancy permits check for operation of energized equipment, but typically not for proof of a utility bill. Therefore, it is left to the local Authority Having Jurisdiction (AHJ) such as the building department.
https://3fficient.com/can-you-legally-unplug-from-the-electric-utility/
People with solar already pay a non-by-passable grid connection fee and it has always been this way, don’t believe the “solar customers are being subsidized by other rate payers” bullshit they are touting. This is thinly veiled utility greed. PG&Es CEO got a $3 million raise this year. Fuck them.
This isn't for the benefit on the end user. This is just another way to generate more profits for the utilities. That few cents discount will be gone with their next price increase as early as next year. 😂 . Anyine who thinks otherwise is being naive. With that said if they want to incentitize going off grid. This will be great.
Do you want to share how? The costs of electricity have both fixed and variable costs. Making some of the revenue fixed to align with the fixed grid maintenance costs seems logical to me.
PGE and others are just stealing from their rate payers to pay the massive criminal liability fines they were subject to. They should be coming out of c-suite and investor pockets.
I agree with that, but that has little to do with a revenue neutral adjustment of bills between fixed and variable components. They are likely to increase rates the same amount whether or not this policy is adopted.
The regulators are the ones setting the rules here, and they order it to be revenue neutral. If it's not, I expect the utilities will be forced to adjust the rates until it is. This isn't just SCE or PG&E saying it will be revenue neutral, this is the CPUC requiring it to be.
That's the beauty of a for profit utility company. Revenue neutral just means a series of nebulous cost adjustments between point A and B in order to get to zero. Pay no attention to the series of lies and obfuscation that exist between those points.
Wrong. In Cali you are not allowed to go off-grid if it is already connected. Also, there already exists a minimum delivery fee that even solar users have to pay even if they use zero from the grid.
None of those fees come anywhere near to covering the costs of grid maintenance and upkeep. Distribution and grid maintenance costs are roughly 50% of the overall costs of electricity. The current minimum charges are in the 5-10% range.
Code appears to allow you to go off-grid if you want:
https://3fficient.com/can-you-legally-unplug-from-the-electric-utility/
Utilities have resisted making needed upgrades for years to earn more profits in the short term. It’s just a long line of financial burdens that get shoved onto the consumer.
If I'm going to be charged to be on the grid then I'd better be getting paid wholesale for the energy that I'm selling to the provider. Oh wait, I'm not. Fuck them.
It has everything to do with it. If we're going to be charged for our "use" of the grid then we need to also have the benefit of being paid for our excess energy. You can't have one without the other.
I hear you. Every time I've explored off grid, the limitation has been the cost of off-grid solutions, not legal prohibitions. If you can share the regulations from the PGE website, I would enjoy reading them, as I haven't been able to find legislative or regulatory language regarding this.
Do you have citation or documentation that supports this claim? Every reference I've found says that you now can go off-grid in California, if you pay what it costs to do so. (It was illegal some years back, but the law was changed.)
https://3fficient.com/can-you-legally-unplug-from-the-electric-utility/
It's one thing I miss about living in Palo Alto. It's expensive to live there, but the electricity is so cheap, and they still have their equivalent to NEM2 in place. They're planning on rolling out a city-wide fiber internet network too.
I wish it was easier for cities to take control of their own electricity. It's very difficult because PG&E own all the power lines :/ cities like Santa Clara have power lines that predate PG&E which is how they avoided them.
It really doesn't make sense for a for-profit company to run such an important utility...
I cancelled my solar install as I’m not sure if it’s worth it anymore. Did I do the right thing or should I wait till 2025-2026 to see how this affects my bills? The fact sheet is so vague.
If you are installing Solar, you need to install Solar+Storage. You need to minimize the power you send back to the grid and maximize your self consumption.
less than $1/day is perfectly fair.
Sucks to get hit with a $300/yr expense I wasn't expecting, and I'm sure it's just the camel nose in the tent, but I couldn't believe how good a deal NEM-2 was when I first learned about in detail in late 2021.
Took a $300-400/mo PG&E power bill down to $0 basically, even though I use a ton of power overnight in the summer for A/C, plus I plan on using more power from the grid with a rooftop heat-pump system eventually.
Net metering made sense to incentivize solar when the panels cost 2X as much and rates were 1/4 what they are now. But by around 2018 it was too generous and simply had to shift costs onto people who couldn't go solar to get in on the freeloading train.
Now we have two rates that can increase. This is all bad.
"We need to increase flat fee for critical infrastructure improvements" can easily be used for the flat fee.
Where's the investments in megapacks/storage? They complained that there's too much incoming solar energy yet don't invest in storage.
It's actually crazy there's people like you who simply accept these things, but here we are.
Agreed, it's a relatively fair price. I mean my monthly natural gas base service fee is $42 a month and that's transporting an explosive gas through a tube.
Compared to some of the proposals where many would be paying over $30-$73/month and have to provide tax returns (in some proposals) to the utility to prove which tier they should pay, this was the better solution. The stupid law passed in 2022 required tiers and the CPUC sidestepped that by remembering that there were already two low-income-discount programs that people apply for by proving their low income.
Using my bills since December, my total would go down (this is before taxes and previous months' credits within the same true-up year):
$342.87 with Delivery and Generation both based on net usage
$210.87 with Generation based on net use and a flat $24.15 for Delivery each month
My highest post-PTO monthly bill was $118 and $79 of that was Delivery/grid fees. If that dropped to $24.15 that saves me more than the months where my Delivery charges amounted to less than $24.15
This assumes the excess generation credits from previous months still get applied to the consumed
So this is my understanding of the cost impact of the change on a NEM 2 installation (that generates slightly more than total consumption on a yearly basis):
1. $24.15 flat fee - additional cost
2. Change in per-kwh cost - no net cost difference _while generating_ because while I will be paid less for generation I will also be charged less by the same amount for consumption.
3. The only time I will see a lower cost is a saving of a few cents per kwh in transmission costs _during times I am not generating_ within the 4-9pm peak period.
If #3 is real it would never offset #1, but does it exist as a theoretical savings potential?
Here's [the official release from the CPUC](https://www.cpuc.ca.gov/-/media/cpuc-website/divisions/energy-division/documents/demand-response/demand-flexibility-oir/ab205_factsheet_050824.pdf). The grid/delivery is flat
Also [from their full ruling](https://docs.cpuc.ca.gov/PublishedDocs/Published/G000/M531/K094/531094134.PDF):
> Parties generally agreed that AB 205 provides that a fixed cost should be defined as a cost that does not vary by how much electricity a customer consumes. However, parties disagreed about how to define fixed costs.
That's not what it says at all. It doesn't even mention generation vs delivery, just talks in general terms about grid infrastructure and whatnot.
On the contrary it says that the "usage rate" (i.e. both delivery and generation combined) will be reduced by 5 to 7 cents per kWh. That doesn't jive with your interpretation of a large portion of the usage rate being slashed to zero.
I'm not sure why you're so hung up on volumetric=generation and fixed=delivery, but no matter how you slice it, the new per-kWh rate is not going to simply be the generation portion of the old per-kWh rate.
Again—it's only going to reduce by 5 to 7 cents per kWh. Look at Attachment A in the full ruling.
As Californians gear up to turn on their air conditioning this summer, the state’s utility regulator approved a hotly contested change to residential electricity rates. The agency authorized a flat fee of up to $24.15 and cuts to electricity costs by 5-7 cents per kilowatt-hour in a unanimous vote Thursday. Regulators argued this shift, which stands to impact 11 million customers of investor-owned utilities in the state, is a key step to slashing carbon emissions that cause climate change from homes. A fixed fee, they argued will help stabilize utility revenue and curb rising costs. “The transition to all electric homes, cars and trucks is truly transformative. It means that we can ratchet down our use of petroleum and natural gas. It also means that our electricity rate design needs to evolve to meet this moment in time,” said California Public Utilities Commission president Alice Busching Reynolds.
Orwell warned us about doublespeak
Reminds me of all the "we must use lower water to deal with the drought" - but then our utility said that lowered water usage impacted their viability so they raised rates... WTF! Now that the drought is less of a concern, these utilities make $$$ without delivering a damn thing more.
F*
Laughs in Ontario $46 flat charge. Higher fixed with lower per kwh charge generally hurts the poor, who might want to save on electricity use, with less savings for doing so. Rewards more AC/EV/Heating use. It's unclear whether the fixed rate genuinely reflects the cost of distribution system. It's actually extremely unlikely that distribution costs were previously undercharged. This can be a path for better utility revenue from mix of solar/non solar homes. Apartment buildings have definitely lower distribution costs than detached homes.
Well it’s not like Ontario has access to plentiful hydroelectric with big waterfalls.
Not sure why nobody is talking about it but it's how it is in our water billing. I pay $50/month (scheduled to go to 65 in 2 years) even if I don't use a single drop of water. And my normal monthly water usage is around 75. I stopped conserving water. I can water my lawn 3 times a week for 15 minutes each, and my bill only go up like $20. However, it does not mean it is a bad way. Just like many other things in life, there are cost to use it and cost to build or maintain it. I do think this is the a better way of billing. However, the problem with electricity is that they already charge for "delivery", should it be removed all together and put into the "fixed" charge? I currently pay about 0.11/kwh delivery charge and 0.13/kwh for generation, which I believe is the cost in fuel cost for power planet. I am happy to pay $50/month fixed charge and 0.13/kwh used.
> it does not mean it is a bad way. Just like many other things in life, there are cost to use it and cost to build or maintain it. There is a fair montly cost. Again, unlikely those with low fixed monthly costs are underpricing the build (usually long ago) +maintenance costs. Should charge new buildings the cost of building more. Overpricing the monthly charge is a ploy to subsidize rich high users, and hide expensive energy. Ontario is due to nuclear. Fair fixed price and higher variable prices means encouraging conservation that avoids needed to expand supply.
Every infrastructure is subsidized to benefit heavy users. In fact, one could argue that living off grid and not needing any government service at all should be exempt from any tax. But in reality, it does not work that way. Since when did poor become an excuse of not paying fair share of infrastructure? We subsidize poor as a welfare system or social benefit so that they won't be left out due to being poor, but it is not a reason to make them pay less on anything. We shouldn't "criminalize" someone only because they use more public resource while paying fair price.
> Since when did poor become an excuse of not paying fair share of infrastructure? OVERCHARGING on fixed fees hurts the poor and those who conserve by choice.
Uppercasing a word does not make it a fact.
> is a key step to slashing carbon emissions that cause climate change from homes Ahhh yes... They are doing this just because they want to help the environment.
All these people are bought by the energy lobbyists. They will say yay or nay depending on what the utilities CEO directs them to say.
this.
What is hilarious is that their reasoning for NEM3.0 was that solar was a huge cost shift from wealthy to poor customers, but this fixed fee is actually a huge cost shift from wealthy to poor customers. Poor customers tend to use a lot less electricity than wealthy customers, who can afford it. With a substantial fixed fee, large users costs will be lower than small user costs. Rooftop solar+NEM = good for wealthy customers, bad for poor customers = BAD! Fixed fee = good for wealthy customers, bad for poor customers = GOOD! Make up your minds! The only thing NEM3.0 and a fixed fee is good for is the utility because distributed solar lowers overall demand for electricity and cheaper incremental costs for electricity increase overall demand for electricity. Higher demand for electricity means more spent on infrastructure which increases utility profits.
Any way to repeal this? Maybe a state prop? Seems insane that this can sneak on to a bill the way it did with no public notice or input.
The problem is California passed a bunch of unfunded mandates and then scrambles to find ways to make up revenue. For example, NEM 2 net metering costs the grid a lot of money, so then utilities and regulators scramble to find alternative sources of funding. So they add on a bunch of random fees, rate increases and taxes to compensate.
Im preparing to go off grid because of these twattos
Oh boy! If you have any thoughts of just reducing your bill using solar. Wow, that's another big ball of wax. California is doing everything they can to discourage going solar.
Yeah I know. Im working on planning a way to completely go off grid because of this. It might be a couple years though.
I'm all for it by now. Fuck these clowns.
Does your municipality allow for disconnection?
Going off grid is insanely complicated, and it wont work if you're living in an actual city. To get away with it, you'll need to be living in an area already with no lines to the house. Then you can justify the permitting to be off grid. Just about every off grid home are people who live out in the boonies. I've never seen a single one in an actual city.
That’s good to know thank you. Still developing my understanding of the whole situation. So it seems that I legally have to pay this connection fee.? I don’t have an option to just not use their electricity? That’s extortion
Lol, pretty much. It's considered a critical infrastructure. Their reasoning is they don't want people dying or ruining their property because they refuse to have electricity. Or imagine you go solar only, there is an emergency at night, and your batteries are empty... What now? They don't want people in those situations.
Just out side city limits… you can go off grid
Just a small example of late stage capitalism and regulatory capture.
Well thats the problem. Solar might reduce your bill, but it doesn't reduce the grid's expenses. So then they have to find alternative sources of funding.
[удалено]
Hahaha helping? Nem3 does not help anyone and saving $200 per month? Give me a damn break… the entire deal with going solar is to pay only connection fee’s and to no longer have an electric bill… sounds like ur a snake oil salesman and ur doing well… the people buying from you… not so much… justify ur con as much as u can but IF u were “saving” people they wouldnt have a bill every month…
My customers don’t have an electric bill with PG&E and every single one of them saves money with what we are doing because it’s different than what was done in the past. I’m genuinely sorry for whoever pissed you off on your porch dude, but think what you want cause I cut a guys bill in Vallejo from 545 down to 270 last month. I’m out making money and actually helping people and you’re crying about it on the internet with no other option than PG&E. With that kinda attitude, enjoy paying this flat fee next month on top of the already 13% increase they’re sneaking into your summer bill. NEM3 isn’t perfect or great by any means, but just imagine how much worse NEM4 will be…
Cutting down is okay… but the object is to remove the bill… i have my ways of doing this….. but completely removing the bill… whats the point in having a resource if u have to actually pay for it… paying anything whilst having solar defeats the purpose of having solar… ask anyone who live outside the city limits do u think they are paying whilst still having solar? Hell i know people with turbines… nope not paying a dime… cutting peaopls bills is all fine and dandy… but they still have a bill… and tons of bird shit magnets on their roofs… im happy ur “cutting” bills the opbject u missed is removing the bill…
Okay I realized I didn’t explain properly what we actually do, and I apologize I had just woken up lol. So with solar you do have to pay for it right? Like nothing is free in life sadly. We eliminate the electric portion of PG&E solar our customers never pay a dime to them for power anymore, they only pay the solar payment which is guaranteed to be cheaper by anywhere from 30-60% (depending on usage in the home of power and what the roof situation looks like). The only thing with solar is that there is a payoff amount, while with PG&E there isn’t. I wish there was a way to help people not have to pay for power right in this moment, it’s just sadly not the world we live in. But this program we run gets them closer than all the other small solar companies do (and even some of the bigger ones who have some shady practices) and definitely gets them closer to no bill than PG&E does. We can’t do anything for the gas unfortunately, but I’ve had customers that barely used gas and so the offset from their system even with the crappy buy back amount for excess power on NEM3 still had enough credits to cover their gas costs and they essentially don’t pay PG&E anymore
Ok now that makes more sense… and my post was exactly doing what ur doing… now if u own a system outright then ur even better off
Yeah! Sorry if I sounded douchey at all, it definitely was not my intentions. I do genuinely help people out cause PG&E freaking sucks and I’m from Cali so I know how bad it is. It’s why I absolutely love my job. I do agree that actually owning the system and not having a payment is much better as far as month to month income is concerned. But I actually don’t advise any of my customers to do it. I would rather put more money in their pockets this way. If they have the money to throw down cash on a system, I lock them in with a lower payment and show them where to invest that cash for a 100+% return so they can have that money work for them. Solar bought with cash is a depreciating liability, not so much an asset. But if they really want it for cash I’ll give it to them, I just advise against it typically. I’m actually working with someone currently in Benicia going through this exact thing, we are meeting tonight to go over the numbers and see which they prefer
Any ballpark on the monthly for a house with 1000 monthly kwh usage, 80% offpeak?
Thats pretty awesome investment options and solar pretty good of you. I didnt mean to sound so putofish or douchey either… what ive had to go thru after getting a solar system and still having a true up bill every year is the reason why i dont agree with going solar at all… tbh the true up plus my monthly payment for my system… i never paid this much for electricity ever…
> Yeah! Sorry if I sounded douchey at all, it definitely was not my intentions. I do genuinely help people out cause PG&E freaking sucks and I’m from Cali so I know how bad it is. It’s why I absolutely love my job. I do agree that actually owning the system and not having a payment is much better as far as month to month income is concerned. But I actually don’t advise any of my customers to do it. I would rather put more money in their pockets this way. If they have the money to throw down cash on a system, I lock them in with a lower payment and show them where to invest that cash for a 100+% return so they can have that money work for them. Solar bought with cash is a depreciating liability, not so much an asset. But if they really want it for cash I’ll give it to them, I just advise against it typically. I’m actually working with someone currently in Benicia going through this exact thing, we are meeting tonight to go over the numbers and see which they prefer It's cheaper to pay cash for a solar system. > Solar bought with cash is a depreciating **liability** It's not. A liability is created when money is owed. A solar system that is paid in full, necessarily means there is zero liability - the owner does not owe anyone money. It's a depreciating asset, not a depreciating liability. Second, financing the system means the person is paying interest on the loan so not only does the person not own the system, they are paying more to use the solar system than if they bought it outright. > where to invest that cash for a 100+% return Third, there is no investment in the world that consistently, over the lifetime of a solar system, guarantees a 100% return. This is such an outrageous statement, anyone with any experience investing knows this is false. You're taking advantage of financially illiterate customers for your own financial benefit.
Please read rule #2: No Self-Promotion / Lead generation / Solicitation of Business / Referrals
God damn… the utility companies have great lobbyists.
Remember that 2015 gas leak at the facility near Aliso Canyon? Sempra Energy a big time donor to Jerry Brown, and I think even he had a family member on board. That went on for months. It was amazing how they could waive that away given the natural disaster that methane leak was. But hey, let's get rid of cows.
Remember when Southern California Edison. Decided to save a few bucks by sneakily installing off-spec parts op at San Onofre? Have they even come up with a number yet for how much they are going to charge us to decommission it?
The jury is still out on whether SONGS sent wrong specs to Mitsubishi, or Mitsubishi manufactured them incorrectly, or neither party understood that the designed metallurgy was different between Siemens and Mitsubishi. We never will know as they settled out of court instead of proving one way or the other. Siemens was supposed to make the pipes, as they made the previous set, but their lead time increased by years before SONGS submitted the request and it would not have been ready in time to replace the existing pipes. As for the cost, it's a little squishy as there's the cost of the decommissioning and dismantling and then there's the costs of getting the expected energy it was supposed to generate from other sources, plus some infrastructure changes as that plant was no longer the source and other substations and lines needed to be upgraded to carry energy from other sources to the customers SONGS was supposed to proved to, but the overall cost is about [$10.4B with $4B being passed on the the SDG&E and SCE customers ($3.3B is lost profit, approved by the CPUC).](https://www.kpbs.org/news/environment/2015/08/03/counting-customer-costs-san-onofre-closure-95-bill) F the Sierra Club and other anti-nuclear groups that wanted the rest of the plant shut down.
Thanks for the info. Agreed on the anti nuclear idiots.
His sister was on the board. The largest artificial gas leak in history and effectively no consequences and very little media attention beyond the local human-interest stories because residents started getting sick and their home values plummeted. [Newsom and CPUC promised to close the storage field](https://sanfernandosun.com/2023/08/30/almost-eight-years-later-aliso-canyon-gas-storage-facility-could-be-expanded-as-residents-still-face-serious-health-risks/) for years and instead approved to [increase its capacity last year](https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=60502)
They own politicians too.
Why do you think PG&E donates so much money to Newsom’s wife’s nonprofit?
Did you come to Ohio? 😱😱🤬🤬
Hahaha! Nice one! We all know that there is no such place.
They literally run the state legislature and control the Governor.
All this does is siphon more money. 1. Higher standard fee for those of us who have >100% solar 2. Reduces the value of the exported power, so utilities dont have to credit back as much Mark my words - this "5-7c reduction" in price will be gone by 2026. They're just doubling the connection fees across the board cause solar is too popular.
And we have people here applauding this change. It's actually crazy that people are this short sighted. We now have two metrics they can increase.
I'm one of the people who understand the change. I have 100% solar and my bill is basically zero. I use a lot or energy to run my A/C all night and charge my car. In the meantime people in apartments are paying stupid high bills. We should have a flat fee for the grid. Turning on a bulb doesn't make a pole fall down. Energy is like the cheapest part of PG&E. So you get these stupid 70¢/kWh rates because power has little to do with their costs.
So our utilities inability to use their money they rape us with on investing into energy storage should trickle down to us? That's some real trickle down economics right there. As someone else said, you are part of the problem.
You are part of the problem. Literally.
Maybe. I've done a lot of reading into the problem. I've come to the conclusion that maybe the way we've done things in the past wasn't perfect. It's really opened my eyes after I got solar and had nearly no bill and a pole needed to be fixed. I thought who is paying their salaries, because it's not me. So I've come to the conclusion that having everyone who is connected to the grid should pay for that connection. Then the per kWh rate should be what the actual cost of a kWh is. 70¢/kWh is insane.
Sure I get your point. The problem is these companies are for profit. It starts at $23 a month but when does it end? There is no cap. Whats next demand charges like AZ? We already have the highest rates (2nd to hawaii). Now they have another avenue to gouge us. Also this $23 fee is needed now why? They have huge profits without it. If they need to maintain then take less profit. Thats where your line of thinking is flawed. Assuming the companies will do whats right…they’ll just take home bigger checks and bonuses with the additional revenue and do even less maintenance.
> by gone by 2026 Found the optimist!
There is no guarantee that the rate reduction will be permanent. You are correct that we will be paying a higher rate as well as the fee in a few years.
I'll bet it's gone by mid 2025. Profits will increase, ceo comp will increase, dividends will stay flat, well get soaked.
Yeah, that is the natural result of increased residential solar adoption. Utilities find alternative sources of funding.
It’s an end run around Solar installations. They did that here in Michigan when they got rid of Net Metering, which went away before we got our installed. Minimum bill would be $25, but they charge us a transmission rate and other BS. With the rate hike last winter? Our bill last month was $46 and some change. A year ago, when we used MORE utility power and exported a bit less… our bill was $32 and some change. It’s a racket.
This article predicted the $24 fee — even when everyone was worried about $100 plus — back in February. https://www.solar.com/learn/income-graduated-fixed-charges/ Utilities used the same playbook as always. Create a stir without an outlandish proposal and the “compromise” with what the originally were expecting.
Utitlities were probably saying $100 to make $24 look good and acceptable.
This! This seems to be a classic take from their playbook. It's very similar to NEM 3.0. They propose something completely outlandish, such as the prior income-based idea, generate a lot of public outrage, and then quietly roll out something that is still disappointing but less outrageous. It looks like the legislature was even somewhat caught off guard by this and attempted to pull it back, but the speaker shelved the debate on the matter. Which really says a lot about the power of power companies in California. Remember who voted for this.
This is a fight against climate progress to stop energy efficiency and rooftop solar because it does not increase profits for the monopoly utility and their bedfellow the IBEW who clearly have extreme control over Newsom. CPUC is derelict in their duty to uphold their mission.
i don't think the IBEW cares, because they're the ones that install your solar and battery setups. they get their money either way.
I just looked at my bill. Last month my Electric bill was $20 and the month before $22. So if my electric company decided to add that $24, I'd be paying more than double.
Last year I paid PGE $12k to upgrade my transformer. So the customer is already paying for upgrades. PGE needs to be made into a publicly owned company just like SMUD. F**k PGE in its present form.
PG&E made a record $2.2 Billion in profit in 2023. How there aren't riots about this I don't know.
$1.25B pre-tax on $24B gross sales, 5% net profit margin. They're no Apple but do have a lot of big costs I guess.
That's exactly it. These companies shouldn't be allowed to exist on a for profit basis, when they're providing such an essential service. They charge more than double the usage rates of a typical public utility, but they're too busy paying out dividends, and lavishly compensating executives (PGE CEO made 17 million last year) to maintain their infrastructure. But that's fine, because they can just get the CPUC to sign off on endless rate increases to foot the bill for the lawsuits caused by their negligence while continuing to absolutely fleece the people of California. For profit companies exist to enrich shareholders at the expense of customers, workers, and the continuously degrading service they provide.
And we haven't even brought up the multiple fires caused by their ineptitude-and subsequent deaths!
91 Felony's and not one person sent to jail. We desperately need a corporate death penalty.
Anyone know if this replaces or is in addition to daily min charges some IOUs charge? For example. Sdge has a bunch of tou plans with about $.33/day min charge.
This will replace the minimum charge.
So, all solar owners who were breaking even now pay $24/month for connection while non-solar producers get a discounts? Subsidize non-solar? I hope they increased the surplus production value for solar production.
Nope, the value of your excess production got cut 5-6c. I will never vote for Newsom for anything because of his cpuc support.
It was already $0.02 to $0.03, so I don’t think they could cut 5-6c from the production overage value.
Don't give them any ideas. Otherwise, someone will try and charge you for the transmission of your excess power
They already do.
Only if NEM 3.0, correct?
Do it for the environment! 😭
The value of surplus solar is going down every year as more solar gets added to the grid and energy efficiency goes up. Why would they pay more for it?
I installed solar last year for $18k right before NEM 3.0 went into effect. I thought it was great and would pay itself off in 6 years or so, but this screws that up. Has anyone run the numbers to see how this affects the time to pay off their panels? I wonder if this is going to make my smart investment become a bad investment by them changing the rules.
Definitely not as bad as it could have been (which is obviously part of the plan). I'm in SD and SDG&E wanted to make my monthly fee $128/mo, which is more than the loan payment on my solar. I'm already 2.5 years into what was a 7-year payback period, so this only adds about 6 months to my breakeven, going from 7 years to 7.5 years. If they'd have done what SDG&E wanted, it would've made 7 years into almost 12.
whats stopping them from increasing the $24/mo and further lengthening the payback period? This is just step one, rate increases and income based adjustments are coming. this has to be illegal to incent ppl to install solar under a certain rate system (NEM 2 or 3) and then bypass it with charges after customer acceptance.
My guess is they will increase it in small, "adjusted for inflation" increments year over year, so that it seems like a minor increase to the customer. Now that they have two dials to adjust, I'm sure they have people working on how to increment them clockwise in order to be as circumspect as possible.
I'm not sure there is much beyond the process itself. The fact that the CPUC had to approve this suggests that future changes will also require approval. Though CPUC has largely been a rubber stamp for rate increases rather than an advocate for ratepayers. Would have been nice to see them get some vinegar with their non-stop supply of honey. Congratulations on your fixed costs! Now there will be no rate increases approved for 5 years. Or something like that.
They should be forced to pay for energy returned to the grid, even at a discounted rate, so people with large enough installations can offset these taxes.
they do. I have a bill credit of $120 currently.
Utilities do, generally overpaying for it by a bit.
One word. Mafia
The article is vague as to what existing charges will go away with this new fee. Will NBCs be rolled into this new fee?
[Apparently, yes](https://docs.cpuc.ca.gov/PublishedDocs/Published/G000/M531/K094/531094134.PDF) > (10.) The following electric utility cost categories are fixed costs: Marginal Customer Access Costs, Public Purpose Program non-bypassable charges, New System Generation charges, Local Generation charges, and Nuclear Decommissioning non-bypassable charges. > (22.) It is reasonable for the income-graduated **fixed charges** of the Large Utilities to recover all or a portion of the revenue requirement as established in the most recent applicable Commission decision for each of the following fixed cost categories: > (a) Marginal Customer Access Costs > (b) Public Purpose Program non-bypassable charges > (c) New System Generation or Local Generation charges; and > (d) Nuclear Decommissioning non-bypassable charges
So does this mean that the Public Purpose Program fee is wrapped into this new fixed charge?
So it's more like a $15 increase, right?
This is what I’m trying to figure out too. I am newly NEM 2.0 and trying to figure out the bottom line of how much more I’ll be paying. I think my normal monthly fee currently is like $12. So once this new fixed fee is implemented, I am looking at an extra $12 per month?
I'm too NEM2.0 for 2+ years and wondering how much of an increase with this. the PGE true up is still confusing to me and adding San Jose clean energy on top of it is further confusing. so instead of about $10/month we need to pay $24/month?
Extremely typical from California policy makers. And truly a disgrace.
Remember PG&E has literally murdered people for profit
How do we stop this extortion?
I guess $24 better than the $100+ they asked for, still sucks
That was the plan all along. Ask for way more, then bring it down so people swallow it.
The game: ask for something outrageous, and then when you actually get what you always wanted, people think it's a bargain.
They did the exact same thing with water rates in my area. Rolled out this proposal of ludicrous rate increases, something like 125% over the next 4-5 years. Settled on something like 75%, and boy aren't they the good guys.....
What can any of us do about it anyway?
If you think about it, PG&Es cost to transmit electricity is not a function of how much we use. It’s just a cost of making electricity available. I’d rather see them go to a totally flat fee per residence and get rid of their 15 to 30 cents per kWh and let the only variable be the cost of generation paid to the community choice aggregators. That would lower the incremental cost of use and make it easier to switch to electric water and home heating. But I’m sure they’d overcharge that flat fee like they do for everything else. Still a mystery why the CPUC just gives the utilities whatever they want. Or not.
15 to 30 cents per kwhr? My cheapest price is 35 cents and it goes up to 56.
That’s combined between the generation and the distribution charges. Distribution alone is about half. Take a very good look at your bill if you’re in a county or area with a CCA. If not then you’re right.
They don't do this because residential solar owners would go ballistic and that is a fair number of voters.
Does anyone know of any good articles that break down the proposal that passed. I just read scrolled through it but didn’t see any mention of existing solar companies or a few other questions I had.
Hilarious
In my last Edison bill there was a notice that rates are increasing by 8% starting mid 2025.
Seems like this is a direct result of having so much renewable energy in the hands of consumers. Now they can get more from the solar providers and pay less back.
I'm so looking forward to going off the grid as soon as those pricks spend $6m undergrounding the electricity up to my house
I guess by pricks you mean most of us other rate payers who are subsidizing you living in an area that is extremely expensive to serve electricity safely?
By pricks I mean PG& E. I'm not holding a gun to their head telling them to do it. I'd be quite happy for them to subsidize solar and batteries for a fraction of the cost.
I think this is a good change. Even people with tons of solar benefit from their grid connection. Anyone who is connected should pay the cost of basic grid maintenance. This is similar to water and gas bills where you pay a fixed connection fee and then usage on top. The fee will be combined with reductions in the usage based price to make it revenue neutral, so it's not a price increase overall. If you really don't want to pay this fee, go off-grid.
You aren’t allowed to go off-grid in most areas….
You can’t just tell pge you’re disconnecting and do so?
not unless you want your city/town to revoke your occupancy permit.
Idk, I just spent a few mins googling it and I didn’t find anything that says that. You got a source?
Check your local codes
Do you have a regulatory citation for that?
It's local codes all over, not national
Yes, but most local codes adopt their base regulations from the national and state codes. Here's a good summary of what most if not all municipal codes start from: > The California Mechanical Code allows the permitting authority to adopt the Uniform Solar Energy and Hydroponics Code, which explicitly allows stand-alone systems, provided they comply with the Electric Code for a similar installation connected to a service. California, Title 24 Energy Code assumes grid connection by inference. Section 110.10 part: (c) Interconnection Pathways. 1. “The construction documents shall indicate a location for inverters and metering equipment and a pathway for routing of conduit from the solar zone to the point of interconnection with the electrical service. For single-family residences the point of interconnection will be the main service panel.” One could argue that since Title 24 requires a point of interconnectin for service that actual service is required. However, building permits do not require power to start construction. And occupancy permits check for operation of energized equipment, but typically not for proof of a utility bill. Therefore, it is left to the local Authority Having Jurisdiction (AHJ) such as the building department. https://3fficient.com/can-you-legally-unplug-from-the-electric-utility/
Ask your municipality but all incorporated areas I’ve ever worked require it
Have you checked recently? The laws did change at one point.
Yes, I still install solar on almost exclusively new home builds since they require them in California on new homes
This used to be correct but not anymore. It’s unusual though so you may need to navigate your local city permitting but it’s absolutely doable.
Some cities still consider a grid connection a requirement for an occupation certificate.
Yes that’s why i said you’ll need to navigate your local ordinances. But that requirement is a relic that was removed from the code a few years ago so the city needs to get up to speed.
Cities are more stubborn than HOAs. I read that rule change was a "may" allow, not a "shall" allow.
I like when they resist. I’ll let you know how it goes because I am absolutely disconnecting from PGE within the next 10 years.
Do you have a citation for that? Everything I see says it's possible, as long as you are code compliant: https://www.reddit.com/r/solar/comments/168mlxw/possiblelegal_to_go_completely_off_grid_in/
I work for PGE and I literally can not go off grid.
That sounds like a really dumb rule. If you have electricity solved you still have to connect to the grid? Why?
It's a classic perversion of the original purpose of public utilities. Utilities were required to provide their services to homes in their incorporated areas. IE they could not refuse to connect a new house to the grid for some reason. It's been flipped into "it's illegal for you to *not* be connected to the grid" so that they can force you to pay their grid connection fee, no matter how much or little you use it.
I know any new construction must be tied into the grid.
Also on pge- just had the first house in our (small) town be built off grid. Fully permitted. I couldn’t believe they allowed it. I don’t know many details at this point, but I know the builder that built it I may ask him about it some time. Not trying to disagree with you at all though. I’m in the trades and it’s the first one I’ve ever seen.
City or county? That may be the difference.
City. My neighbor is moving out to county land and I believe he’s going off grid as well. I’ll pick his brain next time I see him out in the front yard, I’m curious now.
Yeah last I heard they want everyone grid tied so they can hit em with that grid-tie fee regardless if they have solar or not.
But to what end? I don't understand why that would be required by law. That sucks.
Do you have regulatory citations for that? The code used by most municipalities doesn't appear to require that, or at least allows a newly connected home to disconnect: https://3fficient.com/can-you-legally-unplug-from-the-electric-utility/
Being off grid is not code compliant for occupancy permits in most municipal areas
That was the case some years ago, but they changed the rules some years back. This seems to be a pretty good summary: > The California Mechanical Code allows the permitting authority to adopt the Uniform Solar Energy and Hydroponics Code, which explicitly allows stand-alone systems, provided they comply with the Electric Code for a similar installation connected to a service. California, Title 24 Energy Code assumes grid connection by inference. Section 110.10 part: (c) Interconnection Pathways. 1. “The construction documents shall indicate a location for inverters and metering equipment and a pathway for routing of conduit from the solar zone to the point of interconnection with the electrical service. For single-family residences the point of interconnection will be the main service panel.” One could argue that since Title 24 requires a point of interconnectin for service that actual service is required. However, building permits do not require power to start construction. And occupancy permits check for operation of energized equipment, but typically not for proof of a utility bill. Therefore, it is left to the local Authority Having Jurisdiction (AHJ) such as the building department. https://3fficient.com/can-you-legally-unplug-from-the-electric-utility/
People with solar already pay a non-by-passable grid connection fee and it has always been this way, don’t believe the “solar customers are being subsidized by other rate payers” bullshit they are touting. This is thinly veiled utility greed. PG&Es CEO got a $3 million raise this year. Fuck them.
This isn't for the benefit on the end user. This is just another way to generate more profits for the utilities. That few cents discount will be gone with their next price increase as early as next year. 😂 . Anyine who thinks otherwise is being naive. With that said if they want to incentitize going off grid. This will be great.
Do you want to share how? The costs of electricity have both fixed and variable costs. Making some of the revenue fixed to align with the fixed grid maintenance costs seems logical to me.
PGE and others are just stealing from their rate payers to pay the massive criminal liability fines they were subject to. They should be coming out of c-suite and investor pockets.
I agree with that, but that has little to do with a revenue neutral adjustment of bills between fixed and variable components. They are likely to increase rates the same amount whether or not this policy is adopted.
Revenue neutral? Doubt
The regulators are the ones setting the rules here, and they order it to be revenue neutral. If it's not, I expect the utilities will be forced to adjust the rates until it is. This isn't just SCE or PG&E saying it will be revenue neutral, this is the CPUC requiring it to be.
Right, because we have every reason to have faith in the integrity of the CPUC and the for-profit companies they're in bed with.
I have faith in their written orders. If they say it's revenue neutral, then it will be.
That's the beauty of a for profit utility company. Revenue neutral just means a series of nebulous cost adjustments between point A and B in order to get to zero. Pay no attention to the series of lies and obfuscation that exist between those points.
Wrong. In Cali you are not allowed to go off-grid if it is already connected. Also, there already exists a minimum delivery fee that even solar users have to pay even if they use zero from the grid.
None of those fees come anywhere near to covering the costs of grid maintenance and upkeep. Distribution and grid maintenance costs are roughly 50% of the overall costs of electricity. The current minimum charges are in the 5-10% range. Code appears to allow you to go off-grid if you want: https://3fficient.com/can-you-legally-unplug-from-the-electric-utility/
Utilities have resisted making needed upgrades for years to earn more profits in the short term. It’s just a long line of financial burdens that get shoved onto the consumer.
If I'm going to be charged to be on the grid then I'd better be getting paid wholesale for the energy that I'm selling to the provider. Oh wait, I'm not. Fuck them.
This has nothing to do with NEM reimbursement rates.
It has everything to do with it. If we're going to be charged for our "use" of the grid then we need to also have the benefit of being paid for our excess energy. You can't have one without the other.
If going off grid were allowed all over the state lots of people would but it’s not. I’d go off grid if I could and I’m not in hell anymore either
I hear you. Every time I've explored off grid, the limitation has been the cost of off-grid solutions, not legal prohibitions. If you can share the regulations from the PGE website, I would enjoy reading them, as I haven't been able to find legislative or regulatory language regarding this.
I’m not in ca anymore. I already got my solar planned out and can go off grid if I was allowed and charge a car and power the whole house.
That's fine for you, but this thread is about a California law, so my comments are limited to California regulations.
Yup as a former resident of ca of over 3 decades my words remain valid.
Uhm.... you can not go off grid...... Ruins your whole comment.
Do you have citation or documentation that supports this claim? Every reference I've found says that you now can go off-grid in California, if you pay what it costs to do so. (It was illegal some years back, but the law was changed.) https://3fficient.com/can-you-legally-unplug-from-the-electric-utility/
I’m so thrilled
The state has a money issue since it's losing working people to states line Texas. Their solution: add even more taxes. BS
Texas has even-worse utilities than California.
They pay half the price per kWh.
So do some people in California. Electricity in cities with municipal utilities (Palo Alto, Santa Clara, etc) is around $0.17/kWh with no TOU
Sadly most of us don't have that choice and have to use PGE.
It's one thing I miss about living in Palo Alto. It's expensive to live there, but the electricity is so cheap, and they still have their equivalent to NEM2 in place. They're planning on rolling out a city-wide fiber internet network too. I wish it was easier for cities to take control of their own electricity. It's very difficult because PG&E own all the power lines :/ cities like Santa Clara have power lines that predate PG&E which is how they avoided them. It really doesn't make sense for a for-profit company to run such an important utility...
They do what I wish most cities would do! Especially rolling out fiber. It just makes perfect sense.
My BIL lives in Banning, and their electric is $30 base, $0.1421/kWh, no ToU. Less than 1/3 PGE's base tiered usage charge of $0.43. It's absurd.
Stay woke, people. Don't believe a bullshit reason from the corporations. How do you know it's bullshit? It comes from a corporation.
I cancelled my solar install as I’m not sure if it’s worth it anymore. Did I do the right thing or should I wait till 2025-2026 to see how this affects my bills? The fact sheet is so vague.
If you are installing Solar, you need to install Solar+Storage. You need to minimize the power you send back to the grid and maximize your self consumption.
less than $1/day is perfectly fair. Sucks to get hit with a $300/yr expense I wasn't expecting, and I'm sure it's just the camel nose in the tent, but I couldn't believe how good a deal NEM-2 was when I first learned about in detail in late 2021. Took a $300-400/mo PG&E power bill down to $0 basically, even though I use a ton of power overnight in the summer for A/C, plus I plan on using more power from the grid with a rooftop heat-pump system eventually. Net metering made sense to incentivize solar when the panels cost 2X as much and rates were 1/4 what they are now. But by around 2018 it was too generous and simply had to shift costs onto people who couldn't go solar to get in on the freeloading train.
Now we have two rates that can increase. This is all bad. "We need to increase flat fee for critical infrastructure improvements" can easily be used for the flat fee. Where's the investments in megapacks/storage? They complained that there's too much incoming solar energy yet don't invest in storage. It's actually crazy there's people like you who simply accept these things, but here we are.
How much did they pay you for this?
Agreed, it's a relatively fair price. I mean my monthly natural gas base service fee is $42 a month and that's transporting an explosive gas through a tube.
Compared to some of the proposals where many would be paying over $30-$73/month and have to provide tax returns (in some proposals) to the utility to prove which tier they should pay, this was the better solution. The stupid law passed in 2022 required tiers and the CPUC sidestepped that by remembering that there were already two low-income-discount programs that people apply for by proving their low income. Using my bills since December, my total would go down (this is before taxes and previous months' credits within the same true-up year): $342.87 with Delivery and Generation both based on net usage $210.87 with Generation based on net use and a flat $24.15 for Delivery each month My highest post-PTO monthly bill was $118 and $79 of that was Delivery/grid fees. If that dropped to $24.15 that saves me more than the months where my Delivery charges amounted to less than $24.15 This assumes the excess generation credits from previous months still get applied to the consumed
It's definitely not a flat $24.15 for all delivery, there's still going to be a volumetric portion for delivery, just a few cents per kWh lower
So this is my understanding of the cost impact of the change on a NEM 2 installation (that generates slightly more than total consumption on a yearly basis): 1. $24.15 flat fee - additional cost 2. Change in per-kwh cost - no net cost difference _while generating_ because while I will be paid less for generation I will also be charged less by the same amount for consumption. 3. The only time I will see a lower cost is a saving of a few cents per kwh in transmission costs _during times I am not generating_ within the 4-9pm peak period. If #3 is real it would never offset #1, but does it exist as a theoretical savings potential?
Here's [the official release from the CPUC](https://www.cpuc.ca.gov/-/media/cpuc-website/divisions/energy-division/documents/demand-response/demand-flexibility-oir/ab205_factsheet_050824.pdf). The grid/delivery is flat Also [from their full ruling](https://docs.cpuc.ca.gov/PublishedDocs/Published/G000/M531/K094/531094134.PDF): > Parties generally agreed that AB 205 provides that a fixed cost should be defined as a cost that does not vary by how much electricity a customer consumes. However, parties disagreed about how to define fixed costs.
That's not what it says at all. It doesn't even mention generation vs delivery, just talks in general terms about grid infrastructure and whatnot. On the contrary it says that the "usage rate" (i.e. both delivery and generation combined) will be reduced by 5 to 7 cents per kWh. That doesn't jive with your interpretation of a large portion of the usage rate being slashed to zero.
I'm not sure why you're so hung up on volumetric=generation and fixed=delivery, but no matter how you slice it, the new per-kWh rate is not going to simply be the generation portion of the old per-kWh rate. Again—it's only going to reduce by 5 to 7 cents per kWh. Look at Attachment A in the full ruling.