Solar Energy and Net Metering
A friend of mine wrote this article and I thought I would pass this on with his permission. Feel free to follow him as well on Twitter: @HDSolarguy.In the middle of the day, when the sun is overhead, solar panels usually make more power than your house can use. In the old days (pre-2000), you would need to store this extra power in batteries for use at night and whenever the sun was not shining.
This type of solar (called off-grid, since you are basically disconnected from the power line), was very complicated, inefficient and expensive. It's one of the reasons solar didn't catch on for a very long time.
Then, about 12 years ago, many states (including CA) passed net metering laws that forced the electric utilities to buy back any extra solar power you were producing and give you full credit for it.
Most renewable energy is intermittent -- it comes and goes -- so that sometimes, you have too much energy and sometimes, not enough.
With net metering, you stay connected to the power company (on-grid solar) and in the middle of the day, your meter runs BACKWARD for credit as you sell the extra power to the power company. Then, at night, you buy back the power you need and the meter goes forward again.
(Note: There is a great little 5-min video on this at http://www.stellarsolar.net/how.html)
In California (and many other states), you only pay your power bill annually and you pay the net difference between what you've produced and what you've used. If you produce and use the same amount, your net power bill is $0.
Depending on state laws where you live, you may even be able to get extra money back at the end of the year if you produce more power than you use. Imagine that... a power check instead of a power bill. California just passed such a law but is still deciding how to calculate the rates on this extra power; we may not get paid the full rate for it, time will tell.And this, dear friends, is why solar is still not more widely deployed in these United States. Not because it is too expensive (you can currently produce solar power for about one-third to one-half of what your power company charges).
The problem is that the net metering laws are different in all 50 states and in many of them, you do not get paid full price for your "extra" electricity, even though the power company re-sells it to the business community, usually at a higher price than you would pay as a homeowner.
In fact, there are still five states in which net metering is actually illegal! Missouri recently passed a net metering law in which the utility must pay you no more than $.03 per kWh even though they sell it for over twice that much.
This creates a number of problems for the future of solar energy but there is a simple solution and you may hear more about it this Spring. It's called "National Net Metering" legislation and it would set a common standard for buying and selling solar power -- for everyone, no matter where you live.
The bad news is that it will probably not be discussed alone but in concert with many other even more "controversial" bills dealing with climate change, carbon reduction and cap-and-trade.
But to really understand how important net metering is, just imagine what our economy would be like if the internet were still a one-way pipe into your home... with only a handful of service-providers and the rest of us forced to play the role of consumers (only).
Net metering (and solar power) transform the power line to your house into a two-way pipe and change you from an energy consumer into a part-time energy producer.
As such, net metering is more than just a way to own your own power source (with about a 5-year payback). It also provides a gateway for anyone to participate in the global economy, buying and selling power (which has actual cash value as measured by your electric meter), but produced cleanly and profitably: it is as revolutionary as Napster -- but not for music, for electricity!
P.S. - You can check on the status of Net Metering in any state at http://www.dsireusa.org/
P.P.S - Google just created a subsidiary called "Google Energy" and has applied to FERC for permission to buy and sell power. See http://bit.ly/8qIK5a
