Tag Archives: utilities

demand charges plus solar

How do demand charges work?

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Reading Time: 5 minutes

In the past few years, utilities across the country — from Indiana to Massachusetts to Arizona — proposed mandatory or voluntary demand charges for residential customers. With the right resources and knowledge, it is definitely possible to reduce your monthly bill on a demand charge rate. But in many situations, including often for people with solar on their roof, demand charges can lead to more expensive bills overall.

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New York REV Initiative is Shaping the Future of Power

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Reading Time: 2 minutesblog_solar in NYRenewable sources of energy are not only changing where we get our power from, but also how the fundamental economics of getting power work. This shift is creating challenges for utilities across the country, but New York is investigating using a system where utilities do a different job and it might be the next step towards making it easier to get solar panels in NY.  Continue reading →

Wall Street Journal: Utilities Update Grid to Increase Rates

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Reading Time: 2 minutesAccording to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), the price consumers in New York are paying for electricity today is 40 percent more than it was a decade ago. At the same time the price of natural gas, the basic fuel that is most often used to produce energy in the state has fallen by 39 percent. So why are New Yorkers paying more for their power? The WSJ postulates that utilities have been spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on updates to the grid in order to raise rates and make more money.  Continue reading →

Solar Power Storage: The Next Step

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Reading Time: 2 minutes5.01.15_HowDoYouStoreSolar (1)Can you draw power from your solar system when the sun isn’t shining? If you have a way of storing the electricity the system has produced you can. Batteries have long been used for solar power storage, but haven’t been popular until recently. With Tesla Motors announcement of a new battery for residential solar storage, it may be within the reach of many solar system users soon. Continue reading →

The ABCs of Utility Companies

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Reading Time: 3 minutesjoin solar revolutionMost of the time your relationship with your electrical utility company is pretty straightforward, but what happens when that relationship changes because you’ve installed solar on your property? The type of utility you have has a big impact on how your solar energy production is measured and accounted for when you have a solar electric  system installed. The first step in understanding your relationship to your utility is understanding what kind of utility company you have. Continue reading →