Home electricity costs around $0.15/kWh, while power plants sell electricity to the grid for around $0.03/kWh. The difference pays for installing and maintaining the grid and local distribution wires to your home. Depending where you are (I live in a forest, where a tree falls on the power lines a few times a year and they have to send out guys in a bucket truck to fix it) it's expensive.
Because of net metering, home solar panels effectively get paid the home rate. It's kind of unfair. If you have enough solar panels to zero out your home bill, you're getting something valuable (reliable nighttime power) that cost money (to install and maintain the wires) for nothing. But that's the system we have.
Sometime before we hit 100% solar power, the system will have to change.
My electric costs are 0.035 USD/kWh here in Europe (Czech Republic).
Wth is wrong with the USA? It seems like you're getting screwed over everything. 10x electricity, 100x healthcare and education - is US market really just a bunch of colluding monopolies?
Hm, that seems unusually high, really wonder where these stats come from. Is every eurostat statistic distorted like that?
Here's a chart of energy prices on a Prague energy exchange, currently it's about 30 EUR/MWh = 0.032 USD/kWh. I pay a bit more than that (incl. distribution) with a good tarif (low cost broker), but even conservative people I know who don't renegotiate energy prices get about 0.06 USD/kWh incl. all distribution fees.
That said, electric distribution network in our country is probably underinvested. Is the premium you're paying in US based on distribution network cost?
Still seems low for retail. In Europe, the UK has very low costs with ~12-13€c/kwh, high cost countries such as Germany are more around 25-30c/kwh (taxes and renewable energy charge).
Electric rates in the US vary widely. The $0.15/kWh rate sounds like California prices, which are notoriously high compared to other parts. Less urbanized states have lower rates, except Alaska and Hawaii.
Speak for yourself. My home electricity costs right around $0.30/kWh. If you can't get a net metering contract, it's already about cost-effective to just go off-grid.
The economic calculation for one of these roofs probably looks very different depending on where you live.
Not necessarily - my home was built in 2013, with a metal roof and 5kW PV system. But because it's so efficient, I end up not just zeroing out my bill, but giving power to the grid for free (since I don't actually get paid for the power I generate, I just get credits). I have evened the odds out now to some degree with a plug-in hybrid, but I will have to see if in practice charging it will soak up some or all of the surplus I was losing...
If you live uphill from work, then that car just might help to balance the load. Early in the morning, you leave with a minimal charge, and roll down to work on regenerative brakes while topping up the batteries. After work, you spend that charge and the minimum fuel necessary to get home. You charge your vehicle in the late afternoon, not long after peak sun. Your home power controller is configured to allocate 80% of the car's battery for household usage, overnight.
If you live downhill from work, however, then the only way to use that to your advantage would be to work an evening / night shift.
When home solar installations send excess power to the grid, they also do it in the middle of the day, when wholesale electricity prices are at their highest.
So cheaper prices at the time of most usage (and previously highest cost to generate or consume) which is yet another positive externality of solar power.
Home electricity costs around $0.15/kWh, while power plants sell electricity to the grid for around $0.03/kWh. The difference pays for installing and maintaining the grid and local distribution wires to your home. Depending where you are (I live in a forest, where a tree falls on the power lines a few times a year and they have to send out guys in a bucket truck to fix it) it's expensive.
Because of net metering, home solar panels effectively get paid the home rate. It's kind of unfair. If you have enough solar panels to zero out your home bill, you're getting something valuable (reliable nighttime power) that cost money (to install and maintain the wires) for nothing. But that's the system we have.
Sometime before we hit 100% solar power, the system will have to change.