APS Loses Battle Against Solar

RSSfeed

The first battle between a large electrical utility and consumers dedicated to choice, competition and clean energy ended this week with a The post APS Loses Battle Against Solar appeared first on Solar Feeds.

go to solarfeeds for the rest of this story>>>>>


More...

solar_dave

Re: APS Loses Battle Against Solar

The last 2 paragraphs sum up what will probably evolve to a reasonable billing model.

The business models of utilities must evolve to match the relative costs of each element of a utility
and thus allow stabiity of the service. Utility business models must evolve to a “Grid Maintenance”
fee, a voltage and frequency reference fee, an “Amp Available” fee and then an energy fee at Time of day.
That would mean each customer would pay a flat fee for grid maintenance, a scaled fee for the number of amps
on their service drop and a fixed fee for voltage/Frequency (Ancillary service) fee and then a time of use
fee for the actual cost of electricity they consume.This means the utilities must move to smart meters, smart tariffs and a smart grid.

APS has taken a first step with a grid fee tied to array size, which would nicely match an ancillary service fee,
if the commission can place a flat rate fee on all users for the size of their service drop and begin charging users
to time of use cost, they can evolve to a sustainable model. if APS does not follow this first step but seeks to go to
war against solar they will find themselves warring against a technology shift that will still destroy their
business much as many new technologies have.