[rescue] Re: Help IDing Old Drive

[Lionel Peterson]

On Fri, 2004-03-19 at 23:50, Phil Stracchino wrote:
> In CA, if you produce any power of your own, the power company is
> required by law to purchase your excess generation from you.

Agreed...

> The catch is, they only have to pay you their wholesale generation cost,
> rather than what they actually charge you retail.  So if your daytime
> solar surplus production exactly balanced your nighttime consumption and
> your NET consumption of grid power was exactly zero, you'd still end up
> owing PG&E wads of money.  Nice little racket....

Why is this a "racket"? They'd prefer not to buy it at all, as they have
no control over when they get it, how much of it there is, etc.

The electrical grid is a monument to just in time Mfg. - they can't
"store" energy produced at night for use in the daytime in any
meaningful quantity...