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We are on the super advantage plan with off peak rates of about a nickel which I think is dirt cheap. I was digging a bit and couldn't find what the proposed off-peak rates are for any of the R1-R3 plans....do you know what they will be? I assume weekends will still remain completely off-peak?(I read holidays are). Or perhaps I'm misunderstanding and somehow the off-peak rates are variable/dependent somehow on the peak demand usage?
I also officially learned(assumed in the past) that current non-solar APS customers, the vast majority of customers, are/will continue to subside people with solar. I think this stinks. Yes, I understand APS is losing money with those on solar. What I think would be more fair? Charge the fee to those with solar to make up this loss to APS.....reduced buy back rates for kw, a fixed fee, etc. Regardless, I don't feel I should be paying the price/a fee for other people's decisions to go solar. I think we've got it a bit backwards here.
For myself, I won't go solar until I can sever ties with a power company and be independent/have my own storage for electricity when that technology comes down in price along with solar panels and becomes reliable/high capacity. Of course I wouldn't be surprised if the gov passes some law that makes one retain a power connection to a power company, at a nice charge, for our "safety/well being" of course, so perhaps what I'm looking for will never come to pass but time will tell.
As for the suggestion made about voting for/against the people who vote on these rate increases, to me it's an exercise of waste. Not to say I don't favor a "taking out the trash" ritual at the polls but I think we have to be realistic on what this accomplishes in the end and based on my observations is largely nothing as the average consumer doesn't appear to be on the guest list.
I'm not going to pull all of the rates from the rate case and put them on here because it's a PDF and they are in a table which screws things up.
If you go to this link, http://images.edocket.azcc.gov/docketpdf/0000170847.pdf Let the PDF load up because it's almost 1000 pages. Jump to page 43 and you will see the proposed rate schedule for the plans. It starts with R-1 and then keep scrolling through to see the other plans. It has all the information you need.
By the way, most city codes require a house within their area to be hooked up to all the utilities. So, there is already a requirement if you live within city boundaries.
APS likes to blame solar for losing money but you do realize that the amount of residential solar is less than 5%. I can't find a specific percentage but I do know APS has not reached 5% because that is classified as a substantial amount of customers for an alternate energy source and APS is not there. I am really confused how we'll say 4% of customers are causing such a huge burden on the other 96%. Do we talk about low income rate payers that get a reduced rate the same way? I hope everyone realizes that APS makes so much noise about this to cause a divide between the solar and non-solar customers.
I made an investment in my home by paying cash to put solar on my residence and reduce the amount of energy I use from the grid. After net metering last year I only pull about 200 kwh from the grid. I have also done my best to reduce my usage as much as possible. But that's the problem with efficiency measures and the current billing structure, it eventually doesn't raise the revenue a company needs to stay viable. If we continue with the current and proposed rate structure it just penalizes us for efficiency in the end.
Where do you get 19% increase? how can you even calculate that if you don't know what someones demand charge will be. If you don't want to buy electricity get off the grid go solar and battery power? Your selling solar which is basically tax payer funded business people just don't see it on their tax bill at the end of the year at least APS has a bill they send you.
The 19% comes from comparing the current Standard and TOU plans to the post July 2017 same plans. Those plans will still be around if you are a current solar customer (they are being grandfathered).
The current Time-Of-Use Noon - 7PM is approx. $0.24/kWh on-peak and is going up 19.6% to $.0285/kWh. Off-peak is going up the same 19.6%. Of course that's only for solar customers.
But if you're not a solar customer, the off-peak is going up even more. Current TOU off-peak is $0.061/kWh and going to $0.08, or a 31% increase. That's a pretty big increase and it has nothing to do wit the Demand which is only during on-peak hours. The on-peak rate is actually going down on a kWh basis, but the cost is being made up with the Demand charge.
You have a point. The net-metering creates an unfair advantage for solar owners. You get to abuse the grid as your personal year-long battery. Also, this problem along with the difference in the daily peak solar production vs. grid demand peak grows exponentially as you increase solar linearly, so the problems will really escalate. We can see this in Hawaii and California where there is more solar than here. Storage can resolve some of the issues and that's the future IMO: have your own battery backup rather than net-metering.
You really need both for it to work...battery and net metering. Battery for the demand, and net metering for the power you need over the summer. A battery will never solve that problem in my opinion because you need thousands of kWh "stored up" to get through the summer without buying it from APS.
We are on the super advantage plan with off peak rates of about a nickel which I think is dirt cheap. I was digging a bit and couldn't find what the proposed off-peak rates are for any of the R1-R3 plans....do you know what they will be? I assume weekends will still remain completely off-peak?(I read holidays are). Or perhaps I'm misunderstanding and somehow the off-peak rates are variable/dependent somehow on the peak demand usage?
Here are the new rate plans Steve.
Yes, weekends and now 10 total holidays will be off-peak (up from 6 holidays before) but they have raised the off-peak rate by about 31% compared to what it is now and while reducing the number of on-peak hours from 7 hours per day to 5, the "effective" hours have actually increased in my opinion as before it was from noon - 7:00pm but really most people aren't getting home until around 5:00pm so it was 2 hours of on-peak time you had to be careful with. Now the on-peak hours will be 3:00pm - 8:00pm, so it's 3 hours you have to wait.
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I also officially learned(assumed in the past) that current non-solar APS customers, the vast majority of customers, are/will continue to subside people with solar. I think this stinks. Yes, I understand APS is losing money with those on solar. What I think would be more fair? Charge the fee to those with solar to make up this loss to APS.....reduced buy back rates for kw, a fixed fee, etc. Regardless, I don't feel I should be paying the price/a fee for other people's decisions to go solar. I think we've got it a bit backwards here.
How did you officially just learn about it? Because APS is saying so? I've seen study after study and of course who is backing the study, it seems it backs their agenda. APS says non-solar customers are subsidizing solar customers...solar companies say that is not true. It's hard to find a non-biased study on it but some that I've read actually say that there is a net benefit to non-solar customers and possibly even to APS. APS gets to use that power that solar customers are feeding into the grid and they get to sell it, plus solar customers do help with the demand as their systems are producing power. If more people go solar, how do you weight the benefit of APS not having to build additional power plants, infrastructure, etc?
And for non-solar customers, there are environmental benefits which I know some people will say are BS but there was an article on AZCentral recently talking about power production being the 2nd highest use of water in the state, behind irrigation. It stated that currently 1% of AZ homes have solar and that today is saving 74 Million gallons of water per year. If 20% were to go solar, we would save 2.2 Billion gallons of water per year. That seems like a pretty big deal when you live in the desert, don't have a lot of water, but do have a ton of sunshine.
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For myself, I won't go solar until I can sever ties with a power company and be independent/have my own storage for electricity when that technology comes down in price along with solar panels and becomes reliable/high capacity. Of course I wouldn't be surprised if the gov passes some law that makes one retain a power connection to a power company, at a nice charge, for our "safety/well being" of course, so perhaps what I'm looking for will never come to pass but time will tell.
See that I don't understand, and I hear it every day. For one, you can't go independent, I believe your home loses it's Certificate of Occupancy if you disconnect from the grid. And second, I always hear people wanting to wait for better technology, but I'm not sure what people are expecting solar to do. All it does, and needs to do, is make AC electricity for your house to use...it doesn't have "features" like an upgrades phone etc. Battery wise I can see, but that can always be added and the risk in waiting is exactly what is happening now...you won't be able to do it later even if you wanted and in the mean time you're putting money in APS' pocket and what do you have to show for it? I see it as renting vs buying. Say you stay with APS...over the next 10 years you're going to give them say $24,000 (based on an average bill of $200/month). You could spend that same $200/month on solar and in 10 years you have a paid off solar system...vs...more APS bills, which will probably be $260/month by that point.
I don't like the rate increase built into this, but I get it with APS demand rates. The solar customers are cranking the ACs mid afternoon and their systems can't provide that kind of current so they rely on the grid. APS has to purchase power at the highest rates during that time and the solar people basically freeload off the rest of us because they don't pay an around the clock rate that compensates for the higher generating and transmission costs needed for peak demand. Demand surcharges will go a long way to make them pay their own freight. Why an 8% avg overall rate increase in a non-inflationary economy with near zero interest rates and cheap fossil fuel remains to be explained.
I agree, I'm not saying the Demand charge is not necessarily fair but what I don't understand is why have different rates for different groups of people?
Anyone that goes solar after July of next week will only have one plan to choose from, the R-3, which has a $16.40/kW fee on-peak during the summer. The actual kWh rate is $0.09. So then does that not mean that APS has put a value on what they think a kW is worth and what they think a kWh is worth? Why is a kW and a kWh worth differently to a non-solar customer? The R-1 for example only charges $6.40/kW but the kWh rate is higher.
Of course this is kind of rhetorical because I assume I know why. Solar customers do have an effect on the demand, it's less than non-solar customers, but APS basically wants to make the same money.
I'm not going to pull all of the rates from the rate case and put them on here because it's a PDF and they are in a table which screws things up.
If you go to this link, http://images.edocket.azcc.gov/docketpdf/0000170847.pdf Let the PDF load up because it's almost 1000 pages. Jump to page 43 and you will see the proposed rate schedule for the plans. It starts with R-1 and then keep scrolling through to see the other plans. It has all the information you need.
By the way, most city codes require a house within their area to be hooked up to all the utilities. So, there is already a requirement if you live within city boundaries.
APS likes to blame solar for losing money but you do realize that the amount of residential solar is less than 5%. I can't find a specific percentage but I do know APS has not reached 5% because that is classified as a substantial amount of customers for an alternate energy source and APS is not there. I am really confused how we'll say 4% of customers are causing such a huge burden on the other 96%. Do we talk about low income rate payers that get a reduced rate the same way? I hope everyone realizes that APS makes so much noise about this to cause a divide between the solar and non-solar customers.
I made an investment in my home by paying cash to put solar on my residence and reduce the amount of energy I use from the grid. After net metering last year I only pull about 200 kwh from the grid. I have also done my best to reduce my usage as much as possible. But that's the problem with efficiency measures and the current billing structure, it eventually doesn't raise the revenue a company needs to stay viable. If we continue with the current and proposed rate structure it just penalizes us for efficiency in the end.
Thanks for all the info/narrowing down those rates....got 'em.
While the current city codes require a utility hook up, if politics/business doesn't get in the way, I would think those rules should be open to change when solar becomes standard/off the grid is more than doable with reliable/ample in-house energy storage.
As for how many customers have solar, it's only 4%:
Perhaps the charge they make is justified somehow/somewhere/to someone but who knows. In the end I know I don't feel it's right for non-solar homes to be subsiding solar. Perhaps the low-income/reduced rate is a gov grant? I have no idea. But yes, in the end, it's paid by the consumer somehow in the end.
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Originally Posted by HX_Guy
Here are the new rate plans Steve.
Yes, weekends and now 10 total holidays will be off-peak (up from 6 holidays before) but they have raised the off-peak rate by about 31% compared to what it is now and while reducing the number of on-peak hours from 7 hours per day to 5, the "effective" hours have actually increased in my opinion as before it was from noon - 7:00pm but really most people aren't getting home until around 5:00pm so it was 2 hours of on-peak time you had to be careful with. Now the on-peak hours will be 3:00pm - 8:00pm, so it's 3 hours you have to wait.
Great, thanks HX/appreciate the info. Looks like that R3 plan can work out very well for people using very little during the peak demand times and most use is on the off-peak. But yes, good points that it all depends on one's schedule/the hours one works on how well this will play out for households. Personally I wish the 7pm for non-peak stayed the same and the peak started at 2pm instead of 3pm.
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Originally Posted by HX_Guy
How did you officially just learn about it? Because APS is saying so? I've seen study after study and of course who is backing the study, it seems it backs their agenda. APS says non-solar customers are subsidizing solar customers...solar companies say that is not true. It's hard to find a non-biased study on it but some that I've read actually say that there is a net benefit to non-solar customers and possibly even to APS. APS gets to use that power that solar customers are feeding into the grid and they get to sell it, plus solar customers do help with the demand as their systems are producing power. If more people go solar, how do you weight the benefit of APS not having to build additional power plants, infrastructure, etc?
And for non-solar customers, there are environmental benefits which I know some people will say are BS but there was an article on AZCentral recently talking about power production being the 2nd highest use of water in the state, behind irrigation. It stated that currently 1% of AZ homes have solar and that today is saving 74 Million gallons of water per year. If 20% were to go solar, we would save 2.2 Billion gallons of water per year. That seems like a pretty big deal when you live in the desert, don't have a lot of water, but do have a ton of sunshine.
It's in one of the documents from APS from the url you provided in your OP:
Towards the bottom of the page it talks about the $1.74 average charge:
"Approximately $1.74 of the average bill increase is due to the subsidy currently paid to support the rooftop solar industry by the 96% of customers who do not have rooftop solar".
I'm with you on the environment/understand this view. Perhaps here because we use power generated via nuclear and not coal it's more of a non-issue as those cores are going to be chugging along no matter what so it's a hazy/gray area on that aspect I think.
Quote:
Originally Posted by HX_Guy
See that I don't understand, and I hear it every day. For one, you can't go independent, I believe your home loses it's Certificate of Occupancy if you disconnect from the grid. And second, I always hear people wanting to wait for better technology, but I'm not sure what people are expecting solar to do. All it does, and needs to do, is make AC electricity for your house to use...it doesn't have "features" like an upgrades phone etc. Battery wise I can see, but that can always be added and the risk in waiting is exactly what is happening now...you won't be able to do it later even if you wanted and in the mean time you're putting money in APS' pocket and what do you have to show for it? I see it as renting vs buying. Say you stay with APS...over the next 10 years you're going to give them say $24,000 (based on an average bill of $200/month). You could spend that same $200/month on solar and in 10 years you have a paid off solar system...vs...more APS bills, which will probably be $260/month by that point.
I think for me it's an independence issue, not to have to rely on APS for anything. Like having a gas line and paying the hookup privilege fee of $13 or $15 no matter how much gas I use. We had a gas hot water hookup in our other Phoenix area house we have since sold and the gas bill was much less than the base fee since we only had gas hot water and a gas furnace which we rarely used. I'm hoping the city/state/occupancy rules will change with the times one day when home/onsite battery storage is reliable and ample but like I mentioned to AZ_Mitch, in the world of business/politics/and someone wanting to make money, nothing would surprise me.
Towards the bottom of the page it talks about the $1.74 average charge:
"Approximately $1.74 of the average bill increase is due to the subsidy currently paid to support the rooftop solar industry by the 96% of customers who do not have rooftop solar".
Yeah, but that website belongs to APS. How do we know if that number is accurate or not?
Quote:
I'm with you on the environment/understand this view. Perhaps here because we use power generated via nuclear and not coal it's more of a non-issue as those cores are going to be chugging along no matter what so it's a hazy/gray area on that aspect I think.
Yes nuclear but how much water is consumed? Apparently a buttload!
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I think for me it's an independence issue, not to have to rely on APS for anything.
You're right AZ_Mitch...there is the one other plan for people using basically 7,200kWh or less per year...aka "snow birds". The plan is actually pretty great...no Demand fee and only a little over 10.2¢ per kWh both on and off peak. Sounds like its a direct target for the solar industry (SolarCity charges 10.5¢ for example).
Many year round people use less than 7200kWh. I used 5075 kWh in the last 12 months. That is with no effort to watch how much I use.
Many year round people use less than 7200kWh. I used 5075 kWh in the last 12 months. That is with no effort to watch how much I use.
It always blows my mind when I see that...HOW is it possible?
We use in the 22,000kWh range.
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For one, you can't go independent, I believe your home loses it's Certificate of Occupancy if you disconnect from the grid. And second, I always hear people wanting to wait for better technology, but I'm not sure what people are expecting solar to do. All it does, and needs to do, is make AC electricity for your house to use...it doesn't have "features" like an upgrades phone etc. Battery wise I can see, but that can always be added and the risk in waiting is exactly what is happening now...you won't be able to do it later even if you wanted and in the mean time you're putting money in APS' pocket and what do you have to show for it? I see it as renting vs buying. Say you stay with APS...over the next 10 years you're going to give them say $24,000 (based on an average bill of $200/month). You could spend that same $200/month on solar and in 10 years you have a paid off solar system...vs...more APS bills, which will probably be $260/month by that point.
