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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 3rd, 2023

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  • I think it’s more like this: Say maintenance of a grid costs $1 million/year, power generation costs another $1 million/year and people use 10 million kWh/yr at 20¢ per. Everything is balanced. Then half the people cut their usage in half. Grid maintenance still costs $1 million/year, generation dropped to $750,000, but revenue dropped to $1.5 million. They have to raise the price 16% to go back to paying for maintenance. You’re still saving money if you dropped your usage more than 16%, but those that didn’t pay the difference.

    Since you generally have to be fairly well-off to afford the massive upfront labor costs involved with solar, its adoption has disproportionately raised the living expenses of the lower class.

    The alternative is a base services charge, where everyone pays a flat percentage of the grid maintenance costs and then his or her usage is on top of that. No idea why it’s taking this long for PG&E to adopt that model, but adding charges for solar is a big improvement in equity.


























  • The 25th is a Wednesday, not a Tuesday like he was wanting. Tuesday is nice because you get a four-day weekend without using any days off. (Though, usually you’d get the next off if it was a Monday or Sunday or whatever.) I think the best is Friday or Monday because then New Year’s gives you a three-day weekend too.