Leasing companies install and operate PV arrays on individual’s homes as if they were an independent power generation company. As this trend has been growing, the largest effect of greater decentralization of power generation that I have seen is the rising cost per kWh that the utilities are imposing on their customers that have not transitioned over in order to compensate for their lost revenue.
Eventually, I see the utilities starting to charge more in the evening hours to be able to reduce how much per kWh that they are current crediting to existing PV production sites or introducing standards that will allow them to not credit more than the standard utility rate for alternative power production. I believe that this would open up an opportunity to install smart controls on individuals’ homes to help program their loads to operate during peak PV production times.
I could easily see myself running consumption reports and installing smart home controls that would allow the end user to increase their self-consumption and reduce how much they were purchasing from and selling to the utility which is what they are already starting to introduce in Germany.
http://www.sma.de/en/products/monitoring-control/sunny-home-manager.html
Hopefully we begin to see efficiency in batteries improve, I think that’s the golden ticket for RE users to completely remove themselves from the grid or at the very least, use their grid-tied energy in a smarter manner. At the moment most grid-tied energy is during the evenings and at night when solar rays are lacking so hopefully with the innovation from both the automotive industry and residential RE industry, we begin to see batteries that hold more power and for longer.
Danielle DeBoer
Hi Cheri,
I enjoyed reading your post. I liked your point “Eventually, I see the utilities starting to charge more in the evening hours to be able to reduce how much per kWh that they are current crediting to existing PV production sites or introducing standards that will allow them to not credit more than the standard utility rate for alternative power production.” I could definitely see that myself. What business can you see yourself creating to serve this market?