I now have gotten a few electricity bills after completing all the permitting required to export my solar energy to the grid. With that, its as good of a time as any to reflect. One question that keeps bothering me is the whole net thing. Is it net energy or net money? While most of the contractual language and info available online suggests the former, the bill suggests the latter. This matters as there is an opportunity to up-size my solar-array to include the garage, if its net money, that might actually make sense.
To be fair, I have not seen a hard limit to how many electrons you can export relative to how many you import. The only item we have on the Toronto hydro website (source), is the line: “You generate electricity primarily for your own use”. Hence its possible I suppose to overdo it a little and stretch the “primarily” part?
Why would you want to do that you say? Well, as it turns out there is a sizable “customer fee”. Lets check out my latest bill (slightly stylized), for a steamy July:
- Energy used (off-peak 7.6 c/kWh) 200 kWh = $ 16
- Energy used (on-peak 15.8 c/kWh) 0.1 kWh = $ 0.5
- Energy used (mid-peak 12.2 c/kWh) 8 kWh = $ 1
- Energy generated (off-peak 7.6 c/kWh) 200 kWh = – $ 16
- Energy generated (on-peak 15.8 c/kWh) 300 kWh = – $ 48
- Energy generated (mid-peak 12.2 c/kWh) 100 kWh = – $ 12
- Delivery (2 c /kWh) 208.1 kWh = $ 4.1
- Customer charge $45
- Subtotal = – $ 9.4
- HST on imported energy (13%) = 9
- Grand total = – $ 0.4
So, I over-generated energy last month, just a little more than the customer charge, and it seems my energy credits covered the customer charge. Hence the opportunity we are discussing, namely that $45 could be covered by a slightly larger solar system. Well, last month, I got a $76 credit for producing 600 kWh, why thats an average “sell” rate of 12.6 c/kWh. Hence, on an annual basis, Id have to generate 4.2 MWh of electricity to cover the twelve months of the customer charge. Why thats a good chunk of my 12.4 MWh annual consumption.
Of note is the HST charge, seems while Toronto Hydro is willing to give you credit for exported energy, they still need to cover the HST for electricity sold to you. Including the customer charge, and delivery charge.
An eagle eyed reader might have noticed that the cost figures for electricity are all for the time of use plan, I have had ongoing discussions with Toronto Hydro to move me back to the ultralow overnight rate, somehow when their solar billing folks took over they forgot my pricing plan, and also my direct debit information, but that is another story.
I must say I am tempted to put panels on the roof of my garage, to cover the customer charge. There is some nuance, most notably working around the 10 kW inverter limit, as otherwise the paperwork gets much worse. At the moment, my array, when in full production just about uses up that 10 kW inverter limit. Adding another 3-4 kW to that from the customer charge covering garage, causes a problem. By default the system simply throttles down production to stay below the 10 kW limit, but I could also add an expansion pack to my battery system to absorb that additional energy.
All that goes to say that the idea of adding panels to the garage to cover the customer charge, while good in theory, might run into some practical problems.
But perhaps your situation is different, can you add a little to your solar project so that it stays under 10 kW peak? If so, perhaps over-sizing to cover the customer charge is not such a bad idea.
Electric car adventures 