Quote:
Originally Posted by GGG
I don’t believe they do. They pay on the Net draw from the grid.
So during the day let’s say the system produces let’s say the system produces 5kwh extra beyond what was used. Then at night when the solar system is producing 0 thr home owner uses 3kwh.
So on a net basis they sell 2kwh to the grid and pay no distribution. On a non-net basis they would pay distribution on 3 kWh.
So they only pay distribution on the difference between what they produce and what they use rather than on each kWh drawn from the grid.
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In your example, the Solar homeowner would pay the full delivery costs on the 3 kWh pulled in evening/night hours as would a non solar homeowner. The 5kWh that they over produced would be sold back as a credit, however you don't get to charge back delivery fees to the utility, you are credited at your fixed rate. So essentially the Solar Homeowner has only offset the fixed rates, not their distribution on any non-production hour usage.
Now what's actually selfish is the 5kWh they sold back to the grid is being used by the neighbouring 15-20 homes tied to the same transformer, and that homeowner is still being charged the full delivery cost by the utility retailer even though that power didn't come from a power plant and didn't have to travel to get there.
In Alberta, average homes use 50% of their electricity in daylight production hours and 50% of their electricity in evening/night non-production hours. If you simplify it, a home at a 100% offset would not pay any delivery charges on the 50% of the electricity they produce during daylight hours, and they'd have the fixed rates covered on the 50% they use during non-production nightime hours, but again the variable delivery charges are still there on the 50% they use in evening and at night, as well as the fixed costs of delivery they can never get away from. However that's a simplified way of looking at is since the electricity draw even during daylight hours is non linear. Even if they are in the middle of highest production hours of the day, if they are using AC as well as dishwasher/washing machine, they may still be drawing from the grid and paying those fees at that point.