Solar wasted watts/volts
I am curious what happens to the watts /volts when your system is fully charged and you have no demand? Were does the extra power go?
Forum Discussion
jolooote wrote:
Have you ever wondered why, as our electric usage in our homes and businesses gets more efficient using less Watts, our electric bill gets more expensive? The power generator( Power Company) must generate the POWER regardless of whether or not its used. As for u'r local Power Co. they have the same cost of production but less income as less power being not used is also Not paid for. As for we campers, we are the producers and always must pay for it. lol
I just gotta dogpile here. I am the Superintendent of Operations at a large power plant in Wyoming. Each of our 4 units has a nameplate rating of 530 megawatts. As I type this, our 4 units are generating:
U1 = 394 MW
U2 = 400 MW
U3 = 419 MW
U4 = 221 MW
Why aren't they at full load? According to you, they should be, and we should be charging our customers to do it. Ironically, the reason we aren't at full load is because our customers don't need the power.
And right in line with this discussion, one of the major reasons we are down on load during the day anymore is from a large increase in solar generation being put on the grid (both large generation facilities and individual rooftop solar installations).
As the sun comes up, we come down. With subsidies, solar is cheaper. But you can't make power with solar when the sun doesn't shine. You can, however, burn more coal.
Lest you forget, most power companies are regulated utilities. I can assure you 100% that a state's public utilities commission would never allow us to charge customers for energy they don't use or need. Another poster hit the nail on the head, you are charged for the electricity you use, nothing more, nothing less.
As for why your power bill goes up over time, well that's a different story. Inflation is one reason. Federal regulations requiring increasingly expensive pollution control equipment to be installed on units is another one. You don't honestly believe the power company just absorbs the cost when a $150 million SCR is mandated to be installed, do you? You, the customer, pay for it.
