“There is a lot of talk of net metering customers putting extra power onto the grid, but these are the wealthy 500,000 people who will all eventually buy an EV,” he said. Ahmad added that on the day the government changes net metering policy, “we’re going to have a flywheel of storage capacity.”

‘Three attempts have already been made to transition from net metering to net billing in Pakistan – a change that would see consumers credited at a lower rate for energy exports – but Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has intervened each time to postpone the switch.’

Interesting politics…

I’ll look at the document as see what they mean by BTM, maybe I should cover this in pv magazine…bet we have already.

…and neither is efficiency - then the solar factor there isn’t really just measuring solar. It’s measuring other undefined similar grid characteristics - similar and the same to solar and efficiency.

If ~13% of your electricity costs $0.10/kWh after incentives for 25 years fixed with no inflation - that could drop the overall electricity price by a healthy chunk.

3. They don’t have a factor for efficiency in that equation at all. If behind the meter solar isn’t counted anywhere, see data set…

Got a question on this study though in how it does pricing…

1. How does this analysis account for behind the meter solar? It’s over 10% of California’s electricity. Is this in the efficiency box in which it simply is never counted?

2. What is the cost assigned? For many the $/kWh in under a dime.

Since in California’s case, load did actually grow, it just grew significantly slower - I guess there wasn’t a need to define the ‘negative growth’.

There’s been a lot of talk to better incentivize utilities for efficiency - since their profits come from spending.

Maybe a good idea. Battery backups that are truly off grid potential with a truly large enough solar system are expensive.

It’s not theoretical- it’s what happened in California. The population grew from 32 million to almost 40, while kWh absolute demand stayed flat. It’s because they upgraded their housing/commercial structures with efficiency.

The fact that efficiency gains aren’t in this analysis misses something.

In a flat demand environment, where individual account growth is occurring, and expansion of networking is occurring also - then costs will need to increase. If there are no extra kilowatt hours to absorb those increases - then the kilowatt hours must increase.

Is it less demand for electricity though, or is it increasing costs in general that aren’t supported by load increases? Meaning, staying the same leads to higher pricing?

For instance, much of California’s price increases in the last five years have been pure inflation and wildfire management.

Maybe it’s saying that efficiency gains mean the rate must increase to cover fixed costs?

Because even with their higher rates, their total bills are low.