It is no surprise that home solar panel installations have both fans and foes. What is surprising is the vast amount of misinformation that consumes the internet with respect to who wins and who loses when a homeowner goes solar on a roof.
In the news recently is a an AP article which spells out Georgia Power’s view that solar customers do not pay their fair share of grid maintenance costs. As home power generation becomes more popular and more homeowners adopt solar to save money on power bills, utilities are fearful they will lose enough customers – and revenue – that they won’t be able to maintain the grid.
One Georgia utility has asked regulators to add a new $22 dollar monthly fee for solar customers who install solar energy power generation systems beginning next year. According to John Kraft, Georgia Power spokesman, the fee is needed because solar customers buy less power from the utility but still require access to the grid and other infrastructure.
Georgia Power argues that the benefit from individual home power generation is less than the cost of maintaining the grid connection to rooftop solar panel systems.
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“Solar generation tends to peak by 2 p.m. and then declines. Our system peak is between 5 and 7 p.m., so at the period of greatest strain, solar systems are back to pulling from Georgia Power” Kraft added.
Meanwhile, on the other side of America, a recent report analyzing a major Colorado utility making a similar claim tells a different story.