Solar and Wind Power Fees for Oklahomans

[Townsend]

How to win friends and influence people...

PSO Proposes Six Percent Fuel Increase

http://kwgs.com/post/pso-proposes-six-percent-fuel-increase

TULSA, Okla. (AP) — Public Service Company of Oklahoma has announced plans for a six percent increase in what it charges customers for the price of fuel.

Tulsa-based PSO said Friday that the increase is needed for the company to recover what it pays for fuel used to generate electricity. PSO says the increase is due primarily to the rising price for natural gas that occurred following high customer demand for natural gas and for electricity during winter.

The company says the increase will amount to $5.68 cents for the average residential customer using 1,000 kilowatt-hours per month.

PSO is a unit of American Electric Power and has about 540,000 customers in eastern and southwestern Oklahoma.

[sgrizzle]

Your electric company saves money if you use a grid tied solar or wind system at residential scale. It reduces their peak power costs, it reduces their transmission costs, and it reduces their generation costs. The only extra cost involved, and this is going away now that they have single meters that can measure flow in either direction, is a second meter.

We are being forced to pay for saving the electric company money.

Yes, there might be costs in the future, when residential generation exceeds 20% of total demand, but we are nowhere near that yet.

Using less, or selling back, doesn't save an electric company anything. By that logic, the owners of Los Cabos are getting rich off of me not eating there.

During peak power events is generally when DG homes pull power from the utility, not provide power back to. They may not be pulling as much, they are generally pulling.

If the utilities buy DG power at rates like they pay other wind/solar plants, it would raise generation costs. Most power generators negotiate and buy/sell at their own rates, but I can only assume that the utilities will be required to pay a flat rate set by the OCC even if they don't want it and even if that price is above what it would otherwise cost to generate it.

And as far as the meter, based on what Patric says they don't really work for a house selling electric back onto the grid. It sounds like they would need a separate or different model of meter. (not to mention that there are only a few of those kind of meters in Oklahoma as part of a pilot program, so hard to assume what the future is given a small beta program.)

[sgrizzle]

How to win friends and influence people...

PSO Proposes Six Percent Fuel Increase

http://kwgs.com/post/pso-proposes-six-percent-fuel-increase

Blame the company who sets the gas price

[Townsend]

Blame the company who sets the gas price

The timing is unfortunate.

[Red Arrow]

During peak power events is generally when DG homes pull power from the utility, not provide power back to. They may not be pulling as much, they are generally pulling.

Which keeps the utility companies from having to build even more infrastructure to handle the peaks.

It's difficult to have any sympathy for an electric company that can't/won't even hire meter readers capable of reading a meter properly.  They were willing to send a recalculated bill based on my reading and the history of my usage but the reading was a total blunder.

[patric]

And as far as the meter, based on what Patric says they don't really work for a house selling electric back onto the grid. It sounds like they would need a separate or different model of meter. (not to mention that there are only a few of those kind of meters in Oklahoma as part of a pilot program, so hard to assume what the future is given a small beta program.)

Reading GE's lit, its clear that the new smart meters were designed with managing customer-generated power in mind (in addition to a few other things).
What I gather is AEP is gambling it can get the ratepayers rather than the stockholders to cover the costs of any infrastructure investments.
Boo.

[Cats Cats Cats]

Reading GE's lit, its clear that the new smart meters were designed with managing customer-generated power in mind (in addition to a few other things).
What I gather is AEP is gambling it can get the ratepayers rather than the stockholders to cover the costs of any infrastructure investments.
Boo.

That's what a regulated utility is and how things are paid.

[sgrizzle]

The timing is unfortunate.

Had the same thought.

[AquaMan]

Grizz....comparing a Mexican Restaurant model with a utility company model is poor logic. For one thing, utilities don't serve tamales or desserts.

[sgrizzle]

Grizz....comparing a Mexican Restaurant model with a utility company model is poor logic. For one thing, utilities don't serve tamales or desserts.

I see your point and will pass on the suggestion.

[nathanm]

Using less, or selling back, doesn't save an electric company anything. By that logic, the owners of Los Cabos are getting rich off of me not eating there.

Electric companies are not like restaurants. If you really want to go down that road, you pay Los Cabos to get in the door whether or not you eat anything, and the person with the grid tied renewable is also acting as a server for a discount on the meal.

During peak power events is generally when DG homes pull power from the utility, not provide power back to. They may not be pulling as much, they are generally pulling.

Pulling less saves the utility money by reducing transmission and distribution loss, which is at its greatest during peak load, as well as shaving peak load, which is generally the most expensive for them to buy.

If the utilities buy DG power at rates like they pay other wind/solar plants, it would raise generation costs. Most power generators negotiate and buy/sell at their own rates, but I can only assume that the utilities will be required to pay a flat rate set by the OCC even if they don't want it and even if that price is above what it would otherwise cost to generate it.

You assume wrongly. Oklahoma does not require utilities to buy power from residential renewable installations at the retail rate like some other states do. Moreover, if a residential generator is selling power to the utility, they then get to sell that power to the generator's neighbors, at a profit.

And as far as the meter, based on what Patric says they don't really work for a house selling electric back onto the grid. It sounds like they would need a separate or different model of meter. (not to mention that there are only a few of those kind of meters in Oklahoma as part of a pilot program, so hard to assume what the future is given a small beta program.)

It saves the electric company money to replace meters with remotely readable models, which just so happen to all be capable of metering both directions. New technology is amazing.

In other states, it has been shown that residential generation is on average actually cheaper for the utility by a couple of cents a kWh than the retail rate, even before considering the difference in carbon emissions. As in they make money buying from you at retail because they, like every utility that doesn't have time of use billing, are losing money on energy sold at peak demand and that more than makes up for having to buy from you at not-peak times.

Basically, distributed generation reduces their capital costs and their variable costs, yet somehow we're expected to pay them for reducing their expenditure. It's weird.

[sgrizzle]

Pulling less saves the utility money by reducing transmission and distribution loss, which is at its greatest during peak load, as well as shaving peak load, which is generally the most expensive for them to buy.

This is under the assumption that the utility does not have the capacity to serve peak load, and you are about one state too far north of that assumption.

It saves the electric company money to replace meters with remotely readable models, which just so happen to all be capable of metering both directions. New technology is amazing.

These meters are being installed in a project that is not related to household generation, so this isn't a cost savings for home generators.

Basically, distributed generation reduces their capital costs and their variable costs, yet somehow we're expected to pay them for reducing their expenditure. It's weird.

All "we" are expected to pay is costs related to the cost of providing service.

Say a customer spends $100 a month on their regular electric bill. I don't know the breakdown, but say half of that is the cost of generation and half is the cost of installing and maintaining the wires.

If they then generate twice what they need, and sell it to the utility at 50% off retail (both wildly inaccurate, but easier for math) then they are "saving" the utility $25 but the utility is providing $50 worth of wires service for $10, making a net loss of $15 for the utility.

If, in your mind the customer is getting such a bad deal, then they should unhook from the utility.

[heironymouspasparagus]

Grizz....comparing a Mexican Restaurant model with a utility company model is poor logic. For one thing, utilities don't serve tamales or desserts.

Not to mention they don't have a monopoly....

[sgrizzle]

Not to mention they don't have a monopoly....

While I'm not a monopoly fan, deregulated electric customers generally regret the move. There is a reason that one small sliver of texas is still clinging to their regulated providers.

[Cats Cats Cats]

http://www.courthousenews.com/2014/04/25/67350.htm

Deregulation at work.  At peak times Texas pays $5000 a Megawatt hour.  It's going up to a cap of $9000 in 2015.  (They are already hitting the cap of $5k, not sure if it would hit $9k).  1 megawatt hour is 1000 kilowatt hours.  So for part of the day Texas is paying $5 a kwh and we are paying .11 or .12 cents.  Inefficient coal units are costing $5 a kWh and wind farms cost $5 kWh. Even though wind farms  bid negative money to ensure they stay generating.  Everybody gets paid the same as the most expensive unit on at the time.  Deregulation folks.