

Spain has found a controversial way to boost solar adoption











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RE: Charging more for Solar
By Bateluer on 5/13/2009 9:37:46 AM , Rating: 2
I couldn't handle a 7x increase in my electric bill. In the summer, that'd place it around 800 to 900 dollars every month. This is insane, I feel sorry for the people in Spain that are subjected to this.

RE: Charging more for Solar
By oab on 5/13/2009 9:52:31 AM , Rating: 4
42% of the average Spanish electrical bill that is made up of solar is 95 Euro. It is the solar part that has the 7x market price attached to it, the coal, gas, nuclear power is still sold at market price, so the bill is not just 7x higher.

Your bill on average is about $121, So, 42% of 121 * 7 = $355 + 70 = $425.


Utility companies in their bill often charge separately for power used (mine is $40) plus "transmission fees" which are fixed (mine is again about $40), so the total bill is $80, but only half of that is power used, the rest is a fixed cost that even if I use no power, I get billed $40.

Meaning, if your bill is anything like mine...

121-40 = 81 * .42 = 34 * 7 = 238 + 81 * .58 = $285 for electricity only, plus transmission fee of $40 = $325.12

Make no misunderstanding, it is still fantastically expensive, however it is just over a third of what you expected it to cost.

RE: Charging more for Solar
By Keeir on 5/13/2009 3:21:18 PM , Rating: 2
Although I agree changing the whole sale price of a section of the power won't lead to a 1:1 ramp of the price to the consumer, I think your overlooking a few things

#1. "Transmission" costs are likely to increase as a greater percentage of power sources are not controllable in thier variability. One of the best advantages of both Nuclear and Coal as power sources is the low risk assosiated with counting on a plant to produce X power at Y time. Spain may be able to maintain lower "transmission" costs by borrowing stability from France/Italy/etc... but in the long term, I expect thier "transmission" part of the electric bill will also increase due to higher solar usage.

#2. Raising electric prices by 2.5x (your number) will lead to price increases of well... pretty much everything. In the end, Spain residents will likely pay the industrial/commerical sections an additional dollar in higher prices for each dollar thier personal electrical bill raises. (In the US, industry/commerical power usage is slightly larger than residental, and any good company passes 100% additional costs onto consumers often with a 10% upcharge for higher profit margin on the additional marginal costs)

If such as system (7x price and ~40% usage) was used in the United States, where the average household uses around 11,400 kWh of electricity per year, this would result in an additional 3-4+ thosand a year out of people's pockets to pay for...

RE: Charging more for Solar
By foolsgambit11 on 5/13/2009 4:06:33 PM , Rating: 2
Right, except that 42% of the power will be alternative energy by the end of the year. A significant portion of that 42% is wind power. Another post in this article mentioned that the wind is much more prevalent than solar in Spain.

Of course, this policy will most likely tilt the balance more toward solar, but at the moment, the part of the bill charged at the 7x rate is pretty small.

Wikipedia (yeah, I know, but I'm not going to put the effort in to double-check these numbers) says targeted installed solar capacity in Spain by 2010 is about 3GW, and that current installed wind capacity is 16GW. Of course, each tech has varying real output compared to nominal capacity, &c. But for a simplistic evaluation, we can guess that about 6% of total electricity is from solar.

So with your numbers, 81 * .06 = 5 * 7 = 35 + (81 * .94) = 111 + 40 = 151. In other words, instead of the power bill being some 600% higher, it's only about 25% higher.

That's still too much for FITCamaro and others like him, I know. But we are talking about an order of magnitude difference in the increase, so it's significant to note that fact, in case it matters to some here. (As if there were any people at DT on the fence on the issue... or any issue....)

RE: Charging more for Solar
By Keeir on 5/13/2009 4:56:14 PM , Rating: 2
Although the article does not directly provide information on the rates of Wind Power


Apparently both Solar and Wind can charge as much as 10 times the rate of coal.

RE: Charging more for Solar
By foolsgambit11 on 5/13/2009 5:38:21 PM , Rating: 2
Yeah. I missed that. Must. Work. On. Reading.

RE: Charging more for Solar
By heffeque on 5/13/09, Rating: -1
RE: Charging more for Solar
Yeah that damn polluting steam that nuclear power plants generate.

RE: Charging more for Solar

RE: Charging more for Solar

RE: Charging more for Solar
Water vapor is a greenhouse gas. ;)

RE: Charging more for Solar

RE: Charging more for Solar
You can fit a lifetime of pollutants in a swimming pool.
The steam stacks are pure water from boilers.



RE: Charging more for Solar
Are you serious? Or are you just being sarcastic?

