Tesla wants to buy Solar City, become an integrated sustainable energy business

Musk wants to offer an integrated solution at Tesla stores: Solar to storage to vehicles.

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[CraigJ ✅]

AFAIK the biggest problem that Solar City is having is that local and regional power companies (owned by the likes of Berkshire Hathaway, etf) are getting the net metering rules changed because they are eating into profits. Over the last few years they have been able to buy seats on the regulatory commissions that oversee the utilities. Regulatory capture says hi!

In Central Arizona SRP was able to change their rating to actually make solar more, not less, expensive for a lot of consumers. I ran the numbers and at best solar would be break even for me. It sure wouldn't save any money.

Looking at ownership, Musk owns about 20% of the outstanding shares of both SCTY and TSLA. Not surh how the deal would be structured, but I can't imagine that a lot of cash will be involved. Probably most if not all a stock swap.

 

[CraigJ ✅]

Statistical[/url]":z85b6xmi]

AFAIK the biggest problem that Solar City is having is that local and regional power companies (owned by the likes of Berkshire Hathaway, etf) are getting the net metering rules changed because they are eating into profits. Over the last few years they have been able to buy seats on the regulatory commissions that oversee the utilities. Regulatory capture says hi!

In Central Arizona SRP was able to change their rating to actually make solar more, not less, expensive for a lot of consumers. I ran the numbers and at best solar would be break even for me. It sure wouldn't save any money.

Looking at ownership, Musk owns about 20% of the outstanding shares of both SCTY and TSLA. Not surh how the deal would be structured, but I can't imagine that a lot of cash will be involved. Probably most if not all a stock swap.

Powerwall would be a way around that. If you are right this would be another area where synergies make sense. Granted net metering is better for most consumers so lobbying to keep net metering in effect makes sense but having storage is a fallback when they lose a territory to the ruinous powers.

Powerwall might be. The problem is in the summer my house can easily pull 20kW due to the AC (and my house isn't that large) and the fact that we don't have natural gas. I calculated that I would need 3 powerwalls (7kWh) maybe 4, to make it from dusk to dawn on hot nights. So that's $10,000 or $13,000 in addition to a properly sized PV system. In this case properly sized is in excess of 18kW. I could go on a rant about how SRP decided that net metering customers had to be on time of use metering, but no one else does. And the $50 fee to connect. But I won't. SRP is run by a bunch of people who think they are the reincarnation of Barry Goldwater...

 

[CraigJ ✅]

SLee[/url]":ueclpgyx]

CraigJ[/url]":ueclpgyx]
In Central Arizona SRP was able to change their rating to actually make solar more, not less, expensive for a lot of consumers. I ran the numbers and at best solar would be break even for me. It sure wouldn't save any money.

That's not surprising, the utility will almost always be able to generate electricity cheaper than you can with rooftop solar. High feed-in tariffs and net metering is the only way to make rooftop solar economical, but at the expense of all non rooftop-solar customers.

Except that it's not, or it doesn't have to be. All they have to do is only pay low wholesale for the consumer generated power. Or hell, don't pay for it at all. If I could connect up and push power back into the grid and not get paid for it, and pay them $25/month for the privilege, I'd still be ahead of the game. But if I want to grid tie, I have to pay $50 for the privilege AND I have to go on time of use. Which would make my bill more than I'm paying now even with the solar...

 

[CraigJ ✅]

KGFish[/url]":97tmpzq6]

CraigJ[/url]":97tmpzq6]

Statistical[/url]":97tmpzq6]

AFAIK the biggest problem that Solar City is having is that local and regional power companies (owned by the likes of Berkshire Hathaway, etf) are getting the net metering rules changed because they are eating into profits. Over the last few years they have been able to buy seats on the regulatory commissions that oversee the utilities. Regulatory capture says hi!

In Central Arizona SRP was able to change their rating to actually make solar more, not less, expensive for a lot of consumers. I ran the numbers and at best solar would be break even for me. It sure wouldn't save any money.

Looking at ownership, Musk owns about 20% of the outstanding shares of both SCTY and TSLA. Not surh how the deal would be structured, but I can't imagine that a lot of cash will be involved. Probably most if not all a stock swap.

Powerwall would be a way around that. If you are right this would be another area where synergies make sense. Granted net metering is better for most consumers so lobbying to keep net metering in effect makes sense but having storage is a fallback when they lose a territory to the ruinous powers.

Powerwall might be. The problem is in the summer my house can easily pull 20kW due to the AC (and my house isn't that large) and the fact that we don't have natural gas. I calculated that I would need 3 powerwalls (7kWh) maybe 4, to make it from dusk to dawn on hot nights. So that's $10,000 or $13,000 in addition to a properly sized PV system. In this case properly sized is in excess of 18kW. I could go on a rant about how SRP decided that net metering customers had to be on time of use metering, but no one else does. And the $50 fee to connect. But I won't. SRP is run by a bunch of people who think they are the reincarnation of Barry Goldwater...

I'd suggest you'd get more mileage out of better insulating your home as a first step.

I spent many weekends in my attic installing additional insulation. I've callked, I've shaded, I've weatherstripped. I've getting ready to insulate the exposed edges of the slab. We've spent $12K on a super efficient smart heat pump. When it's 115 degrees, ever R46 only goes so far...

 

[CraigJ ✅]

Statistical[/url]":254op9ic]

CraigJ[/url]":254op9ic]
In Central Arizona SRP was able to change their rating to actually make solar more, not less, expensive for a lot of consumers. I ran the numbers and at best solar would be break even for me. It sure wouldn't save any money.

That's not surprising, the utility will almost always be able to generate electricity cheaper than you can with rooftop solar. High feed-in tariffs and net metering is the only way to make rooftop solar economical, but at the expense of all non rooftop-solar customers.

That isn't true at all. There is no feed in tariffs and net-metering is cost neutral. I give the utility 1 kWh my meter spins backwards 1 kWh. Later I use 1 kWh and we are even. Utilities dislike net metering because it means they sell less power.

Utilities dislike net metering because it means they sell less power.

Right in one. It cuts into Warren Buffett's profits. That's the problem.

 

[CraigJ ✅]

gizmotoy[/url]":1mzs4kj9]

CraigJ[/url]":1mzs4kj9]

SLee[/url]":1mzs4kj9]

CraigJ[/url]":1mzs4kj9]
In Central Arizona SRP was able to change their rating to actually make solar more, not less, expensive for a lot of consumers. I ran the numbers and at best solar would be break even for me. It sure wouldn't save any money.

That's not surprising, the utility will almost always be able to generate electricity cheaper than you can with rooftop solar. High feed-in tariffs and net metering is the only way to make rooftop solar economical, but at the expense of all non rooftop-solar customers.

Except that it's not, or it doesn't have to be. All they have to do is only pay low wholesale for the consumer generated power. Or hell, don't pay for it at all. If I could connect up and push power back into the grid and not get paid for it, and pay them $25/month for the privilege, I'd still be ahead of the game. But if I want to grid tie, I have to pay $50 for the privilege AND I have to go on time of use. Which would make my bill more than I'm paying now even with the solar...

I guess I don't know your power situation, but this seems surprising to me. To me, Solar+TOU seems like the perfect match. Your panels are generating when rates are high (day), and you get a substantial discount on the power you use when your panels aren't generating (night). The only way I can figure you'd come out behind with Solar+TOU is if you have a small install that can only offset a fraction of your daytime usage. What am I missing?

That's not how it works with SRP, and in Arizona in particular.

The hottest time of the day is between 3 and 7 PM. If you have panels facing south to capture the most energy, when the temperature peaks you start losing panel efficiency. So you start pulling more power off the grid as the rate increases. Peak is something like 3PM to 8PM. There is also a morning peak time, but that's not usually an issue. The on peak rates are significantly higher than non-peak. But if you are a non-solar customer you don't have to be on time of use, so you can crank your AC at 5PM, wash the kids cloths, turn on the oven, start the pool pump, and all that, and not worry becasue you're paying a flat rate.

The only way to offset the peak is to face your panels west so they are getting max light in the afternoon. But then you get minimal power from Morning until about 2PM.

I've run the numbers 8 ways to Sunday and I can't male them work. I called Solar City and they basically said if you're with SRP and not grandfathered in, don't bother, we can't make it work. APS, at least in this regard, works well.

THe only way I could make it work would be a 30kW system with 20+ kWh of storage and go completely off grid. ANother solution I've been looking at is putting some of my circuits (water heaters, refrigerator, lighting, etc, on a separate box and running all that off grid. But then you run into a cost/benefit wall. Hard.

I got downvoted to hell above, but the reality is that the regulators are all industry insiders and we are seeing regulatory capture at its finest here in the Southwest.

I don't even care about net metering, really, Just let me grid tie my system and stay on the standard rate plan. I'll get a couple of batteries to hold the excess generation instead of sending it up the wire.

Edited to add,

If these rating changes were REALLY about conservation and helping offset the cost of delivering electricity, then the utilities should be open to something like:

Having a 12 or 14 kW rooftop system and 14 kWH of storage that allows me to cover most of my power needs from 10AM until about 7PM, then pulling power off the grid between 7PM and 10AM, when the demand is lower, and not having to pay me for my excess power (no net metering). Seems like a win-win, right? AFAIK thus far they won't even consider that type of arrangement. Ergo, this isn't about conservation and reducing demand during peak time, it's about selling more power. If it were about conservation and reducing demand during peak time, then they would have everyone on TOU to encourage changes in power usage habits. But they don't. They won't even consider it. Because people would end up using less power overall, and guess what? They sell less power.

But since most of the regulators are insiders with skin in the game, well, you figure it out.