But critics insist the costs of those solar panels are beginning to outweigh the benefits.
Incentive payments to homes with solar, they say, have led to higher electricity rates for everyone else — including families that can’t afford rooftop panels. If so, that’s not only unfair, it’s damaging to the state’s climate progress. Higher electricity rates make it less likely that people will drive electric cars and install electric heat pumps in their homes — crucial climate solutions.
The solar industry disputes the argument that solar incentive payments are driving up rates, as do many environmental activists. But Newsom’s appointees to the Public Utilities Commission are convinced, as they made clear Thursday.
“We need to reach our [climate] goals as fast as we can,” said Alice Reynolds, the commission’s president. “But we also need to be extremely thoughtful about how we reach our climate change goals in the most cost-effective manner.”
When I am having a stroke, I don't stop and calculate of the most cost effective treatment options. I go to the emergency room. We could have done this calculation in 1970 and acted, but that ship has sailed.
I find it dubious that it's as simple as you're making it. For example, another commenter said their bill breaks down the charges so that distribution is separate. I think mine does too, I know all my power bills have had various break downs. This sounds like propaganda from the fossil fuels industry tbh
Take a look at how your bill splits it up. They do separate generation and distribution, but they are both charged as a percentage of whatever the usage is according to your meter. Lots of places do have meters that can count forwards and backwards to be able to charge differently for negative consumption, but plenty of us just have analog meters that only run at one rate, and require a person to come look at it.
If you go and read the actual law that has been on the books in California, it works the exact way I said, purely net metering.
https://www.solarreviews.com/blog/california-net-metering-nem-2