DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

After meeting with installers and trading emails with a friend who has an EV (electric vehicle) and a PV array, I’m now an expert on three of the crucial concepts of solar electricity generation: time-of-use metering, net metering, and rate hikes. If that doesn’t sound interesting, read it this way: over the next 30 years, I’ll pay $65,000 less for electrical power than my neighbors. And, I’ll be preventing 130 tons of carbon dioxide from being created to power my home.

Time-of-Use Metering
The vast majority of ratepayers in California pay a flat fee for each kilowatt-hour consumed. Of course, fees and fines apply to anyone using more than PG&E’s arbitrary “baseline” quantity, but regardless, each consumer pays the same for power whether it’s at noon (when demand is high) or midnight (when demand is low).

In contrast, time-of-use customers pay a lot less for power outside peak times, and a lot more (three times more, in the summer) for power used during peak times. For our purposes, “peak” means noon to 6PM, weekdays. The benefit of TOU metering to PG&E is that TOU customers consciously avoid drawing power during the times PG&E has the least available to sell.

A reasonable person might wonder why any of this matters: if you’re installing a solar energy system, one might ask, why do you care about electricity rates? After all, you’ll be generating your own power, especially from noon to 6PM. The short answer: because PV arrays don’t generate power at night. When the sun isn’t shining, PV users rely on the utility’s electrical grid for power. And so it makes sense to find a way to pay the least amount possible for electricity during these times.

Therefore, PV users are great candidates for TOU metering, because on most days the PV array fills 100% of the household’s energy needs during the TOU peak periods. Homeowners then pay only the much-lower off-peak rates when they do consume power.

But the deal is even better than that. If the PV array generates surplus energy, PG&E pays market rate — the inflated peak rate — for it. At night, PV users buy back power at the lower off-peak rate.

In other words, because of the pricing, 1 kwh fed into the grid between noon and 6pm is worth three drawn from the grid between 6pm and noon the next day. This is the key to PV array sizing: generate enough surplus power during peak hours to cover the cost of the household’s power needs for the rest of the week. Even though there are only 30 peak hours in the week, the 3:1 price differential makes this an attainable goal.

In basic, practical terms, it means most folks can get by with a smaller PV array than a straight usage analysis would indicate.

Net Metering
There is a seasonal component to this analysis. PV arrays generate more power during the summer, because days are longer and skies are clearer. Most PV households end the summer with a net energy credit — meaning, the PV array has generated more power than the house has consumed over six months’ time.

In the winter, solar energy generation drops, and consumption rises. Interior lights are used for more hours than in summer. People spend more hours indoors, running the heater. And so the household burns more power than the PV array creates.

The ideally-sized PV system will balance the estimated summer surplus against the winter deficit, and end a 12-month cycle with a net of 0 kwh. In a move that is surprisingly beneficial to the PV user, PG&E allows PV users to settle their accounts annually. The utility charges the customer only for the net amount of grid energy consumed for the previous year.

Rate Hikes
With a correctly-sized system, a typical household can expect to break even on a PV investment in 10-12 years. This calculation can be only an estimate, because we cannot predict how fast utility rates will climb.

The best we can do is look at the history: since 1970, electrical rates in California have climbed, on average, 6% per year. Project today’s $80 electrical bill 15 years into the future: at 6% per year, it doubles. In 30 years, my monthly electrical bill would probably be over $500.

Summary
The numbers surprise me: solar energy really does make financial sense, at least in California. The only downside is the large initial investment. But even then, the state pays for half of it, and I’ll get it all back in about 10 years (plus free power for another 20-30 years!).

It’s like the rent-vs-buy argument: paying rent is like throwing money away, because at the end of the year, renters have no equity to show for their expenditure. Most homeowners, as smart as they were to buy a house, continue to rent their power. It’s not necessary, and there are great benefits to those who choose to buy it instead.

Today’s Chron contains a roundup of Recall humor: Hey, did you hear the one about the California recall election? My two favorites are:

Larry Flynt, running for governor of California. His goal — change our state bird to the spread eagle.   — Craig Kilborn

It’s been reported that some of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s opponents have been circulating naked pictures of Arnold on the Internet. In a related story, Arnold is leading the other candidates by four inches.  — Conan O’Brien

Pictured is the least “green” thing I’ve done all year: I had the driveway paved. As I was composing this article, I pondered color metaphors for being unmindful of the environment, eco-hostile, non-conservationalist… essentially, not-green. The best color word I came up with: “asphalt.”

When we bought the house, the driveway was gravel. Whoever had most recently worked on it had carefully scraped away any semblance of a crown, creating a tremendous drainage problem. In the heavy rains of last winter, water coursed down the driveway in line with the tire tracks and carved foot-deep ruts into the surface.

On my motorbike, this was particularly challenging to traverse. It felt a lot like riding a slalom course. On gravel. Bikes and gravel do not go well together. Bikes and gravel and riders inexpert at both go especially poorly together; in fact, they’re a recipe for road rash.

That’s not the real reason we paved it, though. One more rainy season would make the road impassable. We had to either regrade and re-gravel it, a process that might need to be repeated yearly, or pave it. I’ve never liked quick fixes — seems to me we’d end up spending more money and, worse, more time dealing with it if we tried to take the “cheap” way out. Fortunately, the neighbor (with whom we share this road) was willing, so we split the costs of a more-permanent solution.

Here’s what it looks like at sunset.

Adbusters’ Corporate America Flag campaign proclaims:

Corporate America is revelling in a Golden Age. A shrinking number of the planet’s biggest businesses — AOL Time Warner, Shell, Nike, Microsoft, McDonald’s — are the money behind presidents, the power that drives global trade rules, the voice of authority on how we live and the way we think. Corporations have all the rights of we, the people, but thousands of times more money to make the system work for them.

We call this system “democracy.” But today it looks a lot like corporate rule.

Click the flag to read more, or to see the full-size “brands and bands” version of the “stars and stripes.” It’s art, and it’s subversive. Sometimes that’s a good combination.

Quiz for the day: how many logos can you name? I recognized 83.5% (25 of 30). If you watch television, you’ll probably recognize more than I did.

The Adbusters site offers a high-res PDF version of the image, so you can print your own. Or, order a 5'' x 3'' polyester flag, suitable for flying in the face of corporate america.

Here’s a trio of eco-disasters taken from one day’s headlines. President Bush appears to be determined to poison as many of us as he can. I’m not real sure what the benefit is, to him or anyone. Maybe that’s why politics make me ill.

Coal-fired power plants’ upgrade provision to die; Utilities expected to save billions on anti-pollution devices

The Bush administration has decided to allow thousands of the nation’s dirtiest coal-fired power plants and refineries to upgrade their facilities without having to install costly anti-pollution equipment, as they now must do.

Bush official rallies support for logging legislation at Sonora summit

President Bush’s agriculture undersecretary came to California timber country Friday to rally support for legislation that would ease logging restrictions in the name of fire protection and forest health.

EPA misled public on 9/11 pollution; White House ordered false assurances on air quality, report says

In the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center, the White House instructed the Environmental Protection Agency to give the public misleading information, telling New Yorkers it was safe to breathe when reliable information on air quality was not available…
[S]ome of the [EPA]’s news releases in the weeks after the attack were softened before being released to the public: Reassuring information was added, while cautionary information was deleted.

Or, in short, Bush is saying: you’ll have dirtier air, fewer trees to clean it, and we’ll lie to you about how sick you’ll get as a result.