In that case..if true..score!
Sunrun/PGE Solar Panels
- Thread starter NickRoseSN1985
- Start date
divewsharks
Supporting Member
what they give per watt in return is a fraction of what they charge, it is not a profit generator in any way. Having a battery can save you money in that you can charge it all day and use it at night; not just for outage scenarios.
I am not an expert on Silicon Valley power, but your description of their payback being better than PGE doesn't match my understanding. NEM 3.0 is a California level thing, not a PGE thing.
From a quick search online I believe there may be some different ways SV handles payback if you produce more than you used for a whole year, but I don't think that's normal and it appears to have various asterisks on it.
I'd double check things, because y understanding with NEM 3.0 you're basically only getting a useful return on investment if you use almost everything you produce, either directly or via your battery. Sending to the grid is cost ineffective.
newfly
Supporting Member
Yes, i should double check. This is what i read online-
- Annual Billing and Reconciliation:
SVP customers with net metering are billed annually, rather than monthly, for their electricity. This allows for an annual true-up where your total energy consumption is offset by the energy your system generated over the year.
From google - I'll call and to confirm for sure before i commit.
- NEM 3.0 primarily applies to the three large investor-owned utilities (IOUs) in California: PG&E, SCE, and SDG&E.
- Publicly owned utilities, like Silicon Valley Power, are not required to adopt NEM 3.0.
newfly
Supporting Member
Here is an example yearly bill on SVP website. I hope i'm reading this correctly. Your usage and production get sum up at the end of the year, and yes, if you produce more than you use, you get pennies. This is fine with me. The description says you don;t pay monthly, but annually.
Interesting. Not going to thread hijack this one, but I'm going to look into this more myself as well. If you find anything fully conclusive please LMK.
Edit: my quick read (I'll read more) is this is very confusing, but I don't think you get paid more for SVCE. I read it as effectively
For power you use:
• you pay the baseline to PGE
• on top of the PGE costs, you pay SVCE $0.017 / kWh for electric -- this is to offset current clean energy production costs (which seems silly this day and age)
• so overall you're paying PGE $x and SVCE $0.017 so in total $x + $0.017 -> electric costs more, which can be worthwhile because you're supporting clean energy
For power you produce, it's effectively the inverse of that. SVCE will refund you back its $0.017, but for the PGE part (which is most of the cost) you only get NEM 3.0 rates, which are extremely low.
So I read this as both these things are accurate, but in different ways. You get a higher rate for production from SVCE, but that's just to offset the cost SVCE had. You get NEM 3.0 rates for the primary cost, which is the PGE portion.
Again, completely possible I'm misreading, and I would be happy to be proven wrong. I think if SVCE does somehow drastically change the way NEM works then everyone would be using it (it might just be everyone is oblivious though). Also since SVCE is just a layer on top of PGE, it feels like it'd be weird if somehow it was cheaper in aggregate.
Last edited:
newfly
Supporting Member
Confirmed with Silicon Valley Power. My interpretation is correct. At the end of the year, they sum all your production and consumption and if you produce more than you consume, they will pay you back at the (low) buy back rate. In this case, there is no reason (besides backup power) for battery. Paying $11k ( per powerwall) for this backup doesn't make financial sense to me. I have a $400 generator, which i have not used in the last 2 years.
the key is SVP is not obligated to conform to NEM 3.0 rates. They can set their own rules. Their per kwh rates is 1/2 of PG&E. This is the reason i didn;t seriously consider solar for many years.
divewsharks
Supporting Member
They can set their own rates/rules but their backend is still PGE; so they are not likely to deviate too much as they still have bills to pay and those costs do change from year to year.
As for the annual true-up (annual vs monthly) bill; that is the norm for solar as you will make more in the summer months less in the winter so it makes sense to administrate once versus constantly.
BTWL if you have NG at your house, you will still pay that monthly.
As for the annual true-up (annual vs monthly) bill; that is the norm for solar as you will make more in the summer months less in the winter so it makes sense to administrate once versus constantly.
BTWL if you have NG at your house, you will still pay that monthly.
Can you share the exact question and answer, assuming it was over email or something?
newfly
Supporting Member
It was a phone call.
I just realized one difference, you're discussing Silicon Valley Power versus I was meaning Silicon Valley Clean Energy. SVP being a Santa Clara oddity different than all the other setups (SVCE / Peninsula Clean Energy / ...), and things about it others outside of there should ignore. Seems like a great thing for the lucky few though!