I have been uploading data ok for a few months, but I am still trying to figure out how to calculate the value of the energy I produce.
I do not understand fit credits.
This is my rate table.
hi john01 the table would appear to be what you pay for power in cents per Kw at different times and not what you get paid for the power you export to the grid,so its NOT showing FIT credits at all.
To the best of my knowledge, FIT or Feed in Tariff’s are not used in California. I’m not sure if they’re used elsewhere in the US but from what I can gather, they are pretty common in other parts of the world. That said, I can get somewhat close to my energy costs by using the Peak, Shoulder 1, 2 and 3 Time Periods in the Edit Tariffs screen. For you, Peak would be 4-7pm, M-F corresponding to Super Summer Peak, Shoulder 1 would be 9am-4pm M-F corresponding to Peak and Shoulder 2 would be 7pm-9pm M-F corresponding to the second half of your peak period. You wouldn’t need to use Shoulder 3. You would need to adjust your pricing at the season changes as it appears your Super Peak is only in the summer.
Assuming you’re on net metering, you would probably set your export and import rates to be the same for each period.
I’m in SCE territory and this works fairly well but it’s not perfect.
My net metering is 1 for 1 in dollars. I do pay a $20/month connection fee. October is my true-up month when I have to pay for what I used but not produced. It is all tracked in $ rather than watt-hours. Overproduction is credited to the next year. If overproduction gets significant, I do not know what that is, they will write a check for the power value based on what it would have cost to buy the power from their cheapest source which is about $0.06
I do not have a way to get my energy usage into this system. Last year I had a $20 credit. I am still working on paying off my power from December to March.
https://smud.opower.com/ei/x/energy-use-details#!wdb/cost/electricity/year/2017-05-09?accountUuid=ece68dc3-67d3-11e5-a621-0025b500015f
I hope that link works.
The utility acts as a battery that I can drain first then charge latter with a maintenance fee of $20/month and settle up once a year in October.
Thanks for defining what FIT and shoulder are. That makes a lot more sense.
Would be nice If I could have 2 FIT tables that would switch at given dates. I will still have to update the tables each year as the price does change.
My bill works about the same with SCE. I don’t pay a specific maintenance charge for solar but I believe that is because my system is grand fathered (installed in 2011). I pay a small amount every month for state taxes and the basic charge. My energy usage (export) then get calculated for the billing period but I don’t pay (or get a credit) until the end of my 12 month period which, for me, is in July. If I over generate during a billing period, I get credit at the same rate as I would pay if I imported.
I did just recently switch from a tiered rate plan to a TOU rate plan and I’ve seen an average 37% savings over the old tiered plan in the last seven months. Most of my savings comes from the middle period of the day (from 8am to 2 pm) when my generation is quite a bit higher than my usage. Even if I use more than I generate for the day, this overgeneration during this period results in a large credit that tends to offset my peak usage in the evening.
I use a Rainforest Eagle device to get my smart meter data. Unfortunately it doesn’t look like SMUD allows you to use that device yet even though it should be compatible with their smart meters.