I can't figure out from the article whether the rate changes being proposed are reasonable. Depending on the details, some adjustments might be okay.
However, I'd like to point out that it's also not "sustainable" to get energy from dirty power plants and leave future generations to deal with the consequences. If the long-term effects of releasing carbon into the atmosphere were priced into the cost of energy, I suspect PG&E would have no problem paying today's "retail" rates.
Put another way, we should have a carbon tax, but we don't, so I am in favor of subsidizing clean energy via whatever scheme is politically achievable.
They'd probably still have a big problem paying retail rates. They'd much rather buy from solar farms that have a much lower price of generation in that world.
But they'd have no problem paying today's retail rate. In this alternate universe, the actual retail rate would be higher.
And that would suck for consumers, but it would also reflect the real cost of electricity, which someone is going to pay one way or another.
Right now, we effectively subsidize dirty energy by allowing utilities to ignore the consequences of releasing carbon into the atmosphere. So it's okay—good, even—to force the utilities to pay more for the cleaner energy instead.
I really don't get the point you're trying to make. If there were a carbon tax, net metering of retail solar would still be unsustainable, just with different price points. The spread between wholesale and retail rates would still exist, and having a grid connection but no net usage would still be a large benefit at no cost.
The source of the rest of the power on the grid just isn't the relevant consideration for this particular issue. It's a very relevant consideration in general, just not for this specific question.
> If there were a carbon tax, net metering of retail solar would still be unsustainable, just with different price points.
If there was a (correctly priced) carbon tax, I wouldn't be making this argument. Clean forms of energy would naturally win in the market, because they are in fact much cheaper when you take the long-term consequences of dirty energy into account.
We don't do that, so we need to subsidize clean energy production instead. The free grid connection is a reward for performing a social good.
And, it is not "unfair" to make PG&E pay extra for clean energy when we let them release carbon into the atmosphere for free.
Yes, it has to turn off industrial solar production on sunny days. Less frequently, it has negative wholesale prices where it pays other states to take the excess power.
Yeah this is exactly why the new version of the policy (attempts to) incentivize storage in addition to solar, because that makes the excess solar power more useful, by allowing it to be time-shifted to times when there is a dearth instead of an excess (ie. when the sun goes down). The big subsidy of net metering for stand-alone residential solar is no longer beneficial; there are better things for the system at large to be spending its resources on, like storage, and also transmission and distribution improvements.
However, I'd like to point out that it's also not "sustainable" to get energy from dirty power plants and leave future generations to deal with the consequences. If the long-term effects of releasing carbon into the atmosphere were priced into the cost of energy, I suspect PG&E would have no problem paying today's "retail" rates.
Put another way, we should have a carbon tax, but we don't, so I am in favor of subsidizing clean energy via whatever scheme is politically achievable.