Hi Okiedo,

Thank you for your comprehensive explanation. The rental contract of yours make quite sense, primarily because the maintenance of the solar system is responsibility of SolarCity, not yours. You have made quite good deal and seeing the case from the other side, I know understand, why SolarCity went bust.

IMHO, the „net metering“ is an „evil“ imposed by greenwashers on the utility company and will be likely eliminated. It was probably OK to offer it initially to spart the interest, but with more systems being online, the only benefit of net metering are higher costs for everyone else but owners of the solar systems and greater instability of the grid.

The problem with this concept is, that the operator has to take all those solar systems as a power stations and keep a “hot backup” basically a gas power station, running “hot” and being ready to step in once those resources goes offline and users goes “on grid”. That is quite expensive service to be offered for free. IMHO, the net metering is quite unfair towards all participant of the grid, except those running the solar panels. Anyone running own power station should be either “off the grid” or pay fair price for its own “hot backup”. Either way, massive installation of solar panels will not translate into a cheaper energy.

The difference between 3c and your price of 11c is quite reasonable.  Electricity is not only about production costs, but also about maintenance of the grid and so called “system services” to keep the grid stable. Unlike in the US, my bill has the split and the energy itself is about 30% of its value. Rest is distribution, system services, support of “green generators” and of course the tax.

You are right, direct comparison of an electricity bill of 2 properties, each on other side of the globe does not make any sense. If for nothing else, I source heating from my own forest, you live on a dune :-). The same applies to the debate around efficiency of solar systems. One has to consider local condition and available subsidies to make his own call on this matter.