DrMcMeow OP t1_j1gkl2y wrote
When homeowners are interested in residential solar, they will typically call a solar installation company. The company determines whether the location is suitable for rooftop or ground-mounted solar panels, and will figure out what system will meet the homeowner’s energy needs.
Then, the company applies to a utility company, such as Versant Power or Central Maine Power Co., for their customer to connect to the grid. The utilities are responsible for the system of poles, wires, substations and other equipment that make it possible to deliver electricity. The solar installation company’s application includes details such as the number of panels needed and the kilowatts of electricity the homeowner’s system is anticipated to generate.
But recently some Mainers have had their applications denied due to a lack of capacity on the electric grid. One was Matt Quinn of Trenton, whose rooftop solar application was denied by Versant on Dec. 7.
“The fact that we would own our solar panels and essentially reduce our electric bill by 80 percent was very impactful for us,” Quinn said. He said the state’s goal to be carbon neutral and to electrify is important, but to him “the policies don’t jive with reality.”
Danny Piper, the owner of Sundog Solar in Searsport, a company that installs residential solar systems, said he has recently seen three other customers, in addition to Quinn, have their applications to connect to the grid denied.
Versant, which serves 159,000 customer accounts in northern and eastern Maine, did not provide an alternative or suggest modifications to help Quinn connect, Quinn said. The utility’s emailed response to him said it was denying his application because the level of generation would cause high voltage with the existing system. Versant also said the project designed for Quinn’s residence was beyond the scope of a minor modification.
“When people are generating lots of solar energy and using only a fraction of it, they’re pushing out a whole bunch of energy onto the grid for other nearby customers to use,” said Judy Long, the manager of communications at Versant. “And when they aren’t generating enough solar energy, they’re pulling in power from us.”
The electric grid wasn’t built to have a lot of power sources on the distribution system or to facilitate a two-way flow of energy, Long said. In addition, utilities do not have discretion and are not allowed to save room for rooftop solar programs.
“There are more requests to connect to the grid, megawatts-wise, than we actually even have demand for electricity,” Long said. “So if we interconnected all these projects, we would be making more energy than we use.”
bubalusarnee t1_j1jsz5v wrote
> “So if we interconnected all these projects, we would be making more energy than we use.”
Replace any man who sees an opportunity as a problem.
glasswings t1_j1lktj9 wrote
The opportunity is real but so is the engineering challenge. Unfortunately those engineering challenges are hard to explain in a test works as a sound bite.
This means that smart people who legitimately want to help will sound like sticks in the mud compared to "well, why don't they just..."
Imagine you're running a phone company, and there's a new fad. Every time it's sunny, your customers start calling random businesses halfway across the state to say "hey, it's sunny, isn't that cool?"
You would need to install more long distance lines, of course. But you'd also need to install more local switching equipment to handle that surge in demand.
But on cloudy days you don't need that equipment. Fewer calls you can bill, more equipment needed, rates have to go up.
The problems for an electric utility are similar. Grid-tied solar, if it becomes too popular, forces them to install more capacity in substations, more lines between them, and then to deal with the unpredictable effect it has on the supply-demand balance.
So, complaints about upgrading are not "oh no we need to buy the latest model of switches." It's an upgrade as in "we need to build a highway with exits and traffic control in order to make that possible."
It might be worth doing. (Burning fossils sucks.) But it really is expensive, and it's not laziness when utilities say that they can't do net metering for everyone. They literally can't.
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