Over 1 million Arizona customers to see rooftop solar fees increase

2 Comments

1. GreenStrong 2 months ago Log in to Reply

   Rage inducing headline, but

   > residential customers will increase by about $10 to $12 starting in March, and those with solar panels will be on the hook for an extra $2.50 to $3 per month under the changes…

   This is reasonable. It costs money to maintain the grid, but we’re still stuck in a twentieth century billing model where the main source of revenue for the utility is selling wattage. A customer with solar buys fewer watts, but they still require just as much maintenance to keep them online. $3 per month is not punitive, it isn’t preventing people from going solar, they’re just paying their share.

   Worth mentioning that in Arizona, rooftop solar is probably very beneficial to the utility by mitigating the peak energy demand of midday in hot summer days in Phoenix. California isn’t quite as hot and sunny, they deal with the “duck curve” where power demand peaks around 5:00 PM, where solar is less productive. But I’m broadly generalizing, someone could look at historical trends on gridstatus.io and come up with a more informed take on that.

2. Germanofthebored 2 months ago Log in to Reply

   I agree that the billing/tax models have to be adapted to the increasing use of non-fossil fuels, whether it’s taxes to maintain roads or to maintain the electrical grid. Rolling these costs into a sales “tax” for gas or electricity was easy, but doesn’t really capture the change.

   We have rooftop solar and an EV, and there should be every possible incentive to make people switch from fossil fuels to alternatives. But it has to be fair