Power company wants ME to pay to upgrade THEIR transformer!

[J.P.M.]

Not quite that simple. POCO takes the power I generate and sells it to their other customers, and I get none of that profit. All I get is 4 hours a day where I pay them nothing, if its sunny. I am still a PAYING customer of theirs.

You may be correct, but before I can believe you are, I'd need to see some figures from reliable, authoritative sources, some logic, and some unbiased data that helps me understand why you think as you do. Having no more than what amounts to a woody for the POCO doesn't do it.

[SunEagle]

Not quite that simple. POCO takes the power I generate and sells it to their other customers, and I get none of that profit. All I get is 4 hours a day where I pay them nothing, if its sunny. I am still a PAYING customer of theirs.

Trust me when I say the money the POCO makes from your power is a drop in the bucket. It would take years of your generation to pay for the transformer let alone the labor to install it.

[bob-n]

Didn't you say that if you get into their netmetering program in 2020, you get 90% of your generation back for years to come, or did I misinterpret? I'm reading about RMP schedule 136, which goes through 12/2032. Is that your agreement? If yes, that's as good as you can expect.

Where I live, with netmetering, I only get roughly 75% credit for what I generate, and I consider that good. They claim the remaining 25% to pay for infrastructure and maintenance. Many parts of the country are much worse.

Please let us know how things settle in terms of transformer costs. We're all hoping that the power company treats you well.

[azdave]

Not quite that simple.

But it is simple. Most POCOs want nothing to do with RE customers. Whatever they do to accommodate RE customers is only because mandates to reach green energy goals forces them to deal with us. They are not going to make it easy for you. Why upgrade any equipment that was working just fine before you came along? It fits in perfect with their battle cry that RE customers are causing overall rates to go up for everyone because RE customers aren't covering the true cost of being tied to the grid. Unless you have a very good friend on the local utility commission board, I don't see them backing down. You can keep trying to fight them and have no solar for who knows how long or go with an 8.77 kW system.

[dapug]

It is real simple math and costs.

If the customer uses more power then the POCO gets the funding back for a bigger transformer.

If the customer generates extra power then the POCO loses money for infrastructure upgrades.

Not quite that simple. POCO takes the power I generate and sells it to their other customers, and I get none of that profit. All I get is 4 hours a day where I pay them nothing, if its sunny. I am still a PAYING customer of theirs.

[dapug]

Of course they want you to pay for it.. Why should the power company pay to upgrade a transformer when its not needed to deliver power to your home?

So, just me then, and not the other solar neighbors using it? No. Re-read the OP.

[reader2580]

Anyway... I too want to keep things positive, but I am NOT going to just bend over on this. I will propose this: If I must pay for the transformer, I will own it. I will charge a 90% fee for all power flowing through it at the established rate until my investment is paid back 2x, at which point I will relinquish my ownership back to them. And I want this in contract.

You would have a better chance of winning the lottery than getting the power company to agree to such a contract. Any money spent on having a contract drawn up you might as well be throw in a pile and light on fire.

Look at it from the power company's perspective: You are are asking them to pay for an upgrade so you can buy less of their services. It wouldn't be the power company paying for it, it would be the ratepayers paying for it. Power companies get a guaranteed rate of return in most cases.

I know someone who paid $250,000 to have three phase power brought to his semi-rural property. The equipment installed benefits only his property and is not connected to any other customers.

[SunEagle]

Think it is expensive now? Stick around. The grid is way overdue for an expensive upgrade. Sooner or later, ratepayers are going to get hammered with the costs of getting away from fuel combustion...

Yep. I see a whole lot of change coming especially if more and more people go with an EV or worse if they install a lot of solar. The POCO's will end up charging more for their infrastructure changes.

[solarix]

Think it is expensive now? Stick around. The grid is way overdue for an expensive upgrade. Sooner or later, ratepayers are going to get hammered with the costs of getting away from fuel combustion...

[J.P.M.]

It is real simple math and costs.

If the customer uses more power then the POCO gets the funding back for a bigger transformer.

If the customer generates extra power then the POCO loses money for infrastructure upgrades.

If EV ownership/use take off for more folks other than well heeled nerdy tree huggers like us (which seems likely at this time), it would be nice, but probably not as profitable for them, if POCOs informed their customers of what they (the POCOs) may have in mind as to changes they see coming down the road such as infrastructure upgrades or rate changes as a result of a significant portion of the more well heeled population using a lot more electricity between, say, midnight and 5-6 A.M. for vehicle charging than in the past.

[SunEagle]

Interesting. I wonder what they are going to do once more people get EVs and each house behind a single transformer starts pulling a constant 40-80 amps (1 to 2 EVs) for a number of hours in addition to AC loads. Will they also make us pay for their transformer upgrades?

It is real simple math and costs.

If the customer uses more power then the POCO gets the funding back for a bigger transformer.

If the customer generates extra power then the POCO loses money for infrastructure upgrades.

[bcroe]

"The transformer serving this location is a 25 kVA unit. There is already 16.23 kW of private generation on this transformer, and the AC power output from your proposed generation system is 11 kW. To proceed, the AC output of the proposed system will need to be reduced to 8.77 kW, or the transformer will need to be upgraded from its current size to a 50 kVA unit."

I am having another thought. Solar is set up to be only a fraction of the attached service, less
than half. So the neighbors probably already have installed 50KW of house service, my house
at 200A is 48KW. Add yours and expect 80KW or probably more. So the PoCo has long been
gambling that the group will never turn enough on or begin to approach their limit, with that 25KW
transformer. They could be pressed on that point alone, so solar should never cause a problem.

Probably the all electric homes forced them to gamble less, with heavy loads assured by every
customer in certain weather, got me and my neighbors our own transformers. Bruce Roe

[macaddict]

Interesting. I wonder what they are going to do once more people get EVs and each house behind a single transformer starts pulling a constant 40-80 amps (1 to 2 EVs) for a number of hours in addition to AC loads. Will they also make us pay for their transformer upgrades?

[Salts]

Of course they want you to pay for it.. Why should the power company pay to upgrade a transformer when its not needed to deliver power to your home?

[bcroe]

My AC is the main draw. Extreme heat here, and my house construction sucks - I'd like to punch the builder in the face for not building it efficiently. My AC is brand new, perfectly tuned, sized correctly, and runs 16 hours a day NON-STOP during the summer, and even then only drops the temp to barely tolerable. That is not supposed to happen. They aren't designed to run that long. I also have an abnormal amount of electronics draw, running my own servers for video surveillance, etc. I can find a few places to trim the fat, but I will never get it down to anywhere near 8kW.

Your AC heat load might consist of house leakage, and the electrical equipment heating
it inside. Check what happens when the equipment is turned off.

Cleaning up house leakage will help. If the equipment is dominating the problem, how
about putting it into a very well ventilated but NOT air conditioned room? As for the AC,
I put one in in 2014 with a SEER of 14.5, it was a disappointment. In 2018 I put in 3 of
these for zone heat/cool, with a SEER of 33. The electrical consumption was greatly
reduced, and there are a few other high tech advantages.

If you are stuck with roof mount micro inverters, not much can be done with the array.
Bruce Roe

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