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[deleted] t1_iw2vxpm wrote

Reply to comment by WAKEZER0 in Rooftop Solar Is Becoming More Accessible to People with Lower Incomes, But Not Fast Enough - Inside Climate News by darth_nadoma

Moved from AZ to CA. The ROI in AZ was getting longer and longer as the utility monopolies continued to tighten the screws. Here in CA I am with a community owned utility that is much more supportive of solar. We also got rebates for changing gas appliances to electric from out utility.

Utilities shouldn’t be investor owned and corporate commissions maybe shouldn’t be elected. There is a lot of press in AZ about their corrupt commission and state reps being controlled by the utility monopoly. To be fair, if I was with PG&E in CA I would not be in the same position I am in now, an all electric house with rooftop and a $35 utility bill.

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gobsnotonboard t1_iw2ypkp wrote

Can you expand on your PGE comment?

I recently moved to Sonoma county, have rooftop being installed in early Jan, and get my power bill from PGE, but distribution is PGE and generation is Sonoma Clean Power co-op.

PGE and Sonoma Clean Power each do the math differently, so I’m having trouble determining which one I’ll get more $ back for my generated power from (I can opt out of Sonoma). I’m also banking on still being grandfathered into NEM 2

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[deleted] t1_iw3390o wrote

PG&E was our gas provider, I had issues with our disconnect and they made it very difficult to have the meter removed. I still have the meter but at least they fixed the leaks, there were two.

As to specifics with rooftop, I got my PTO from SMUD less than a week after the install was complete. In fact from first call to my installer to operation was less than three weeks.

SMUD doesn’t have a solar rate plan, we pay the regular time of use rates everyone else does. I believe PG&E has a solar rate plan, this was our issue in AZ and made it almost necessary to have a battery or a load limiter device (can’t remember the name of it). Basically you’d sweat through dinner because the 5 to 8 pm rate was ridiculously high. Ultimately it added cost to the system that pushed the ROI out a decade.

I currently don’t have a battery, November is looking like a net loss for us though. We’ve been operational since last January and have overproduced every month till now. We also have an EV and I just can’t see the value in home storage vs the cost per kWh of car batteries. Most backup batteries also have to be protected from the weather which adds complications for us. We’d be better off buying an old Leaf just for the battery, but the wife ain’t going for it yet.

For more specifics about PG&E, try r/solar

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