Where I’m so fortunate to live, on Prince Edward Island, we have a Net-Metering system for electricity (see the legal act). My oversimplified explanation of PEI’s net-metering policy is:
- For any energy my solar panels generate, but that I don’t use gets shared back out to the grid.
- For any unit of energy I share back to the grid, I get a credit for that same amount of electricity.
- The credits are 1-to-1 value, with the caveat that we pay tax on the electric bill before credits are applied
- Credits can’t be carried year-over-year, and credits can’t be exchanged for cash value
A 1-to-1 credit system like this is pretty good. It means I benefit of every bit of energy I can generate even if I can’t use it at the time. Economically, at least it’s like the entire grid is my infinite battery, that I can charge up when it’s sunny, and draw from whenever I need.
The unintended consequence for this type of pricing is that I now have no financial incentive to do any electricity storage myself. I could pay $15,000 or more for a home battery system that would allow me to keep much of the surplus energy I generate and use it during hours when I’m using more, but generating less.
If there wasn’t a net-metering system, I’d have an incentive to get my own storage, but net metering is great. I don’t want to lose it.
Two incentives I can imagine would help people like me get home battery storage:
- Vary electricity costs (charge more during higher demand). A smart battery system could draw down my battery during peak rate times. This would save me money and reduce my draw on the grid at key times. As a human on a warming planet, I want this. As a consumer – I don’t want to have to think about the price of energy at different times of the day.
- Just pay me. If we want to reduce the draw on the grid at peak times, we could have the government incentive residential storage costs.
One other relevant thing to note (thanks to Steve for the tip in the comments): One of the first things you learn when you get solar panels (without some kind of battery storage) is: when the power goes out, your solar panels don’t work. A common residential solar installation without a battery storage component requires grid power to function.
In Nova Scotia, I’m under the same net metering plan as PEI. The one big benefit you didn’t mention about the battery system is (perhaps obviously) still having power when you otherwise wouldn’t. That’s a big one in the plus column.
I should have mentioned that Steve. When I bought this house, it already had the solar panels (awesome) and the previous owner warned me right away: when the power goes out, you’re solar panels don’t help you. I assumed, and imagined that most people would assume, that your solar panels could keep you going during a power outage. I’ve updated the post to note this – thanks!
Here in the Netherlands, net metering is almost phased out. Now you are seen as an energy producer and pushing electricity out into the net will carry a charge, like for any other producer. Also your production will not be counted against your usage 1 on 1, but less favorable (and in time at real time prices) This means you can be net paying at peak solar production (less your usage at the same time). Storage capacity is rising as a result. As a consequence I concluded a few years ago that if we put solar on our house, it only makes sense with ampls storage