If my electric utility paid me as much as I pay them for electricity, I’d be making a profit from my solar panels. As it is, I profit anyway by paying a lot less, the panels are paid for, and I get to watch the electric meter galloping backwards on a sunny day:

The little bars are moving to the left below the numbers, which means I’m selling solar power to the power company.

And that’s with only about 10 kiloWatts being generated, short of the 15 KW max the solar panels approach at noon in high summer.

Delivered: 26693 kWh

This is what we sell to Colquitt Electric at 4.5 cents per kiloWatthour.

Received: 20907 kWh

This is what we buy from Colquitt Electric at 10 cents per kiloWatthour.

Georgia law requires your electric utility to buy solar power you generate, if you meet certain requirements, which you can by using a certified solar installer. But the power company gets to set the rate they pay you. They set it at their so-called “avoided rate”, which is what they claim it would have cost them to generate the power.

Nevermind that studies by Austin Energy and Minnesota show that distributed solar generation is a benefit to the power company, because of less wear on their lines (the solar power I use here doesn’t have to pass through their lines), delayed need for financing to build more power plants, more robustness when lines or power plants fail in storms, etc.

Eventually Georgia utlities may see sunlight on net metering. Meanwhile, I profit anyway.

-jsq

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