Assume for the moment that over the next few years, that utilities and solar come together and negotiate something in the center. Something between full retail rate net metering and no net metering at all. You could foresee something along the lines of a minimum bill, time of use pricing and non-bypassable charges. NARUC, the association of regulatory commissioners, is writing a manual about good rate design. I’d be interested to see the lobbying and education that the solar sector is doing for this manual. Not because it will become ‘law’ but because things like this can be used as tool if the manual is particularly friendly to incumbents. What I am trying to say is that little things matter and the foreseeable future requires that we lead on crafting the tools going forward.
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Yann
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Yann
How many times have legislators said that solar must compete on price. Not based on an RPS or carbon price or special carve outs. Now that solar costs have dropped 90% over 10 years and is doubling in market every year and a half, it’s normal for incumbent market participants to push back. Nuclear provides some important base load but let me be clear that power in open markets needs to be priced with market dynamic pricing. If the grid needs the baseload power that nuclear provides than the costs should reflect that. That pricing dynamic will undoubtedly cause more storage to be put in place because solar plus storage is renewable nuclear fusion bottled into a battery. The timing is right because in a few years, the storage sector would have policy staff that would make this exact case but that investment is not yet in the cards. So in the meantime, utilities will get what they can to keep the assets from being stranded.
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Yann
Packed news day so make sure you keep up. To recap the story we talked about yesterday in the NY Times. I spoke with dozens of you about how this happened and while the article may have been strong in its wording the issue is based on the timeframe and the peak times are starting later in the afternoon. As solar companies pull back the policy fight and trade associations lack desire to get into the fight, these things will happen. More importantly policy and PR are related and it is VERY telling that no solar company was quoted in the story. Speaking of policy, look at the story about Nevada. The solar industry sometimes thinks we can negotiate from a position of pleasure in the middle. That fighting the fight isn’t ugly and getting rid of a single person can fix the issue. Well, you are wrong and now you have proof. NV Energy and the anti-solar commissioners are now attacking the other players in the fight to bring solar back to Nevada. Don’t get pitched by what people are selling without understanding their motive, that’s my message for reporters in solar today.
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Yann