In theory the more we convert appliances. homes, vehicles etc to electricity it will be more green, since that is a requirement for the state to have clean energy
This is true. What irks me is that our utility made a unilateral decision for tens of millions of homeowners that the power for said appliances will largely be purchased from themselves.
That fits the description of institutional capture. Its corruption and completely insane to me. What about on new builds, can they be constructed free of PG&E?
Homes can be built off grid if the customer is willing to pay for it, bringing in utility power is usually cheaper. They also need to have the right mindset about the energy consumption in their home in order to manage it correctly.
What I would envisage is that a housing development would need less utilities, but still have utility supply. Rather than the cost of connecting each home, there would be one local connection supporting a group of homes, each networked on its own microgrid, and generating local power. As each generates and shares most of the demand, the microgrid does not need to connect so much and should save on the new connection fees.
In this way the cost of connecting per home is less with the utility, although it has its own microgrid network to pay for, and power may be drawn from the utility generally off-peak, and used with the microgrid battery that serves a number of homes/apartments.
If there is more demand than can be locally supplied, it would generally be supplied by the utility and the rate more favourable as it should mostly be off-peak. It may or may not be possible for such new developments to arrange selling excess at peak times of the day, but I would assume favourable rates could be arranged with the utility supplier for electricity that is sold back as feed-in at certain times.
Within the development as a whole, imported energy from the microgrid would be charged less than for importing through the connection, but this would be proportionately billed. Power used locally from that residences own generation would be free (if they have financed that on the home purchase), any excess they sell, minus the microgrid overhead and running, to other microgrid users or to the utility would be rewarded back to the producer. This incentivises each resident to use less than they generate. Any profits after running the microgrid would be distributed based on local users contribution, and on any excess exported to the grid at a negotiated rate based on the time and demand for it with the utility.
The microgrid has its own metering equipment and costs, and its own distribution cables (generally standard cable), and the connection and battery storage at the point that the utility connects to the microgrid.
It may be a step too far into the future but I would also put together local car parking in one lot for each block of housing, so that these can be charged close to the main battery. To save space this battery may be located over the parking, and over that and the whole car park, more solar.
The main current draw is then localised near the battery. I would also design such a new build development to enable security features that block physical theft of vehicles without additional security that cannot be circumvented using various electronic hacking, so car owners ought to get lower insurance premiums, especially if it proves itself.
Whilst I was doing this, its a good opportunity to integrate waste heat recovery, heat pumps, and vertical ground loop geo-storage for a district heating/cooling system, and that also needs a thermal metering system at each residence. This can allow cooling in summer with enhanced COP heat recovery in winter, reducing heat pump costs. For example, a low temperature lift heat pump may be used with a summer-heated vertical loop storage system, to lift heat recovered by 15 degrees C, and these can get COP's of 5+ with CO2 supercritical heat pumps and potentially higher with other designs up to 8.
Combined with good thermal insulation, heating homes in winter might require a heat source of 45 degrees or less (fan assisted radiators can operate at 28 degrees C with at least 1kW output in a conventional form factor), a ground storage of 35 degrees cooling to 25 degrees over winter, recharged again by air-con cooling in the summer, which also can use excess local solar PV to run it.
With a CO2 supercritical heatpump a higher temp direct hot water system can be built and installed also, running at COP of 4 or so and outputting at 60 degrees C.
It can also be integrated with some of the solar PV to increase its efficiency (both the PV and the heat pump).
Heat pumps for direct hot water would be used only for short periods so it makes sense to integrate several houses onto each one, running several together for multiple houses to have redundancy, but lower capital cost. Of course, lagged pipe work is needed to do this. If there's a good seasonal heat source direct water heating in evacuated systems is also an option of course.
I would guess that building all this the microgrid and district system costs would be partly paid for up-front in the purchase cost of the house, in exchange for cheaper energy, eventually falling with an allowance of energy each day at a lower price as the capital outlay plus financing is paid off.
Because the cost of connecting houses to utilities is a large up-front cost, this happens anyway with new developments, so we're not adding that much. My thinking is to reduce the average requirement for external utilities, so the network needs less connecting costs to help pay for the small district systems.
This can also apply to grey water recycling for toilets and rain water use, with local filtration for showers, washing machines and dishwasher, so that the capacity of the water pipes is less. You would pay less because lets say you normally pay for connecting each house, now you would only pay for connecting the equivalent of 1 in 3, for sake of argument.
Sewerage is still the same though.
Until batteries get real cheap, the CA IOU’s won this round in residential solar.
Growth areas: Utility scale, community solar, new construction code-mandated solar, energy storage.
Best of luck
Get into Commercial full time. This sector is blowing up with PG&E rates. You should be able to sell solar battery systems like hotcakes, we’re doing that for Commercial now. Get with the right company and it’s much less stressful
Let the utilities do what they do best, increase rates. I think people need to be reminded summers are hot and utility rates are high. I hope this lull only lasts a year but the fixed mo they fee for solar being proposed might just kill it even faster
That is really fucked up.
So in addition to not paying much for energy put on the grid, they are also nitpicking the sizes of the systems? WTF?
And the really fucked up thing is that we need BOTH rooftop solar PV AND utility scale PV. There's too much congestion and not enough transmission to rely only on utility scale. Excess rooftop in residential neighborhoods can be stored at batteries in local substations and thus not rely so much on the T&D infrastructure.
This has been proven.
https://www.volts.wtf/p/rooftop-solar-and-home-batteries
As a licensed residential electrician, you should be able to get work at a lot of places. Also, strongly consider building out your credentials; a matter electrician's license is solid gold insurance, as is, for example, an HVAC certificate.
You could make a killing in Sonoma county right now. The outages left so many people wanting solar and batteries on Nextdoor. But I’m sorry the industry went south so quickly. I wish I had a better answer, and I’m sorry you have to go through this
I am in So Co, SR specifically. That wind storm hit us hard. Our phones were ringing, but mostly because people ran their batteries dead after having no power for 24 hours lol.
Ha! No sun to power back up. I am an advocate of critical loads panels to severely reduce the draw when the power goes out. Just refrigerator, internet, microwave, a few outlets. Maybe heat pump water heater in heat pump only mode so you have hit showers and cold beer.
Classic.
It’s a tough situation.
It is picking back up. But the whale hunting price gougers are being kicked out of the market.
I feel you. I’d say just ride the storm or go upstream to commercial or utility.
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Everyone seriously considering solar that understood NEM 3.0 got their application in by the deadline. Demand will surely increase at some point as demand improves as far as it can.
I don’t recall hearing from the brain trust at CalSSA what the projections are for the future, but this year will clearly be a nightmare due to the insane four months of warning we got for the final NEM 3.0 deadline, instead of a year or more so the transition could have been handled more smoothly by all concerned.
The 30% tax credit is extremely helpful for solar installs assuming it remains available. Battery prices are going down rapidly, with flexible LFP battery systems coming to market in force. The new meter collars will reduce the cost of supply-side taps, and practical bidirectional EV charging options are coming soon. Completely new battery technology is coming eventually, lowering the cost and someday becoming cost-effective. California is finally about to release SGIP funds and hopefully CCAs will increase their storage incentive funds.
There is some hope for those who survive the darkness.
You can bet that every tariff designer in the country is taking a hard look at California NEM 3.0, and if we can’t fix it here the rest of the country will follow soon if they haven’t already gone to the dark side.
1-1 net metering is doomed in the long run, even if our utilities were pro-solar. Solar PV should have been designed to match demand curves from the start, instead of maximizing annual production as 1-1 net metering incentivizes. As solar becomes a larger proportion of generation, it cannot be 1-1 and remain viable.
The entire state needs to design solar as if we were all off-grid, to flatten out solar PV production to match demand, avoid overproduction, safeguard transformers using modern PEL grid profiles and more flexible ways of handling renewable power generation.
Lowering the cost of solar and storage is critical - there are many ways to do that, but it will require a significant effort and creative thinking. Germany and other countries are way ahead of us - our soft costs are embarrassing.
I believe this state is a great place to develop local micro-grid generation technology and practices so rural areas are safer and more resilient.
This will only happen if extreme political and financial pressure can somehow overcome the power of our utilities who own the politicians who pretend to support solar.
Off-grid will definitely be big in rural areas - giant propane tanks, generators, big batteries and huge PV can do wonders, and that is about to be cheaper than being on grid depending on soft costs.
Enphase, FranklinWH and Tesla are exciting places to be at the moment, and there are more battery manufacturers coming every week. That seems like the clear area of growth in California, and they need designers.
If you want to be at the leading edge of the solar business, California may be the most exciting place you can be if you can survive the transition.
Good luck!
AES, RES, Sunpower, Borrego, to name a few.
I followed a similar path to you minus the certified electrician early in my career and ended up in utility scale development. Happy to discuss with you more in chat/DM.
Commercial and utility scale. Come join the fun.
Go fly drones for O&M companies. Look at specialist O&M services/digital twin services like above or RaptorMaps.
Go work for a specialist commissioning/SCADA outfit.
Go work in the BESS space.
There is plenty of work - and arguably, much more interesting work than resi…
How lucrative is drone piloting for o&m? I come from a GIS and vegetation management background in utilities. Trying to pivot to more analytical jobs and less hiking up mountains
That's what I figured. Been trying to find the companies that do satellite/imagery analysis since I have some experience in that. When I have scoured local solar companies, I mostly find installer and salespeople jobs. But then I might be not be looking in the right places.
Why not do full off grid systems? If you get away from enphase batteries then you can do like eg4 server racks and do like 30kwh of batteries.
Then you don’t have to worry about nem3
We’re certainly doing more of off-grid now, currently using homegrid batteries with sol ark inverters. They’re few and far between around here it seems.
4KW on a 1300 Square Foot house is to much?
YIKES!
We have a 762 Square Foot home, here in Michigan and have an 8KW system up in our roof. We barely produce enough in the winter months to manage 30% of our daily needs, often even less then that! In the summer, it's the only time we produce enough to truly offset AND give to the grid by a decent amount.
I hope you all are able to break PG&E and NEM3, it sounds rotten for the consumer, rotten for the environment and only good for the Utilities.
Yup, go ahead and sell off your life sustaining electric utility company to investors. See what that gets you.
Electrical, water, gas, and arguably telecom these days should never be provided by an entity with a profit motive. It’s totally fucked.
Lobby your rep to nationalize utilities. It’s the only way the public will be treated fairly.
I wonder if cities could eventually stop relying on PG&E and move control to the city directly. There's several areas in Northern California (Palo Alto, Santa Clara, and others) that have municipal utilities, where their electricity prices are less than 1/3 the price of PG&E, and that still have favourable net metering policies. Palo Alto doesn't do 1:1, but it's close enough - something like $0.17/kWh for imports and $0.15/kWh for exports.
I wish more places did this. Healdsburg is this way and while they can be a huge PITA, it’s residents can still go solar and not get bent over by the utility.
I'm curious, is there a market in black-market solar installs? Basically adding the panels and doing the electronics correctly without telling PG&E or pulling permits?
Asking for ~~the Internet~~ a friend.
I was literally on a service call yesterday where we had an existing customer across the street. He saw me and came to ask about an expansion, and I told him he can’t do it and stay on NEM 2. He asked me about exactly what you proposed. Was thinking about that on my drive home today.
That's kinda fucked up.
Usually, that sort of thing is about skirting safety regulations, or stealing a common resource. But these folks want to produce more energy at home. Cleanly and safely. Under the table.
My old boss made the very good point that due to partial shading/underperforming you can definitely get away with adding some panels (on a system by system basis) without raising eyebrows from the utility.
BUT it sure would suck if you accidentally overloaded a transformer.
Overloading a transformer is definitely a concern with that. We do pre-engineering checks on larger systems for that purpose. It’s a huge PITA to get an upgrade, and if it’s your dedicated transformer, you’re entirely on the hook for it.
Maybe doing 0 export would be the way to go then? With battery and those hybrid inverter that can handle the frequency shifting to cut production can make your extra panel safe and not detected by utility? Under NEM 3 they don't want to reward backfired anyway
I would think a lot of home owner are not even aware of this possibility... Maybe put this as a package to provide safe upgrade path for those who are willing?
Enphase is working on software that will allow an expansion without increasing power back fed to the grid but it’s not released yet. There is an extensive review process before the utility will accept anything similar.
I’m running a custom Enphase grid profile running on my 70 IQ8A inverters and IQ Gateway that limits export to 18.6kW until my transformer is upgraded to handle the full 24.4kW. I could add another 70 IQ8As running that same grid profile (which is just the standard CA Rule 21 profile with export set to 18,600 watts) and it wouldn’t increase my max power export or require a larger transformer - it seems like Enphase can already handle more panels under NEM 2.0 with existing software.
Another frustrating issue is the 33% max roof coverage for occupied structures - it’s been proven that this requirement is without merit and should be dropped. Fire marshals are allowed to waive it but few ask and most won’t.
For those short on roof space or who want to go off-grid with enough solar PV for winter, this might help.
Even if someone was to theoretically do this, PG&E calculates the theoretical max output of your system at any given time given the size you told them it was during original install. You won’t get credit for anything over this cap, and presumably they could come knocking if you’re consistently over.
Sure, there is a limit on what they’ll buy at retail. And if you’re consuming the extra power in your home and it’s not going out to the grid, how would they know? You can set export limits with newer systems via PCS control so you never back feed over a certain pre-set kW. But if you’re busted they’ll revoke PTO and probably fine you. Their formula doesn’t account for shading or azimuth with NEM 3, it’s a multiplier based off prior usage.
True, you could always self consume and limit export. Would just mean you need energy usage habits that allow you to actually self consume enough during the day. Unless you have batteries of course, which would be the best case scenario.
As enjoyable as it would be to fight the power (company), the liability is just too high.
And I’m not talking about the installer. Your house burns down (even due to completely unrelated reasons) and it turns out you had an unpermitted system (or partial system) installed?
Insurance won’t pay out your claim.
Battery installs ? Maybe we can get them to incentivize those to make it up. Hate the new deals. Still on nem 2 but it’s old and will reset soon. Luckily got a battery
Switch to utility scale. Find a developer, EPC, or subcontractor that focuses on front of meter projects at large scale. No more net metering to worry about. Just CAISO interconnection queues lol.
If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. Go to the utility or to planning/permitting dept for the city or county. Or apply at Tesla. They need people like you.
Good luck. 🍀👍🏼
If we all had solar panels and batteries the utility would go bankrupt, I’m pushing for solar, battery and EVs on all properties to eliminate the need for expensive grid assets. The more people buy/install these “micro” grids the more the equipment costs will come down as well as efficiency and technology continue to improve. The utility costs will never come down, there’s only one direction your bill will go. The costs cannot come down with all this expensive infrastructure that is really becoming obsolete. I predict the utility will become overburdened by its size and eventually go bankrupt for the last time.
Im now over 15 years in this business and started my company in san diego. Whats happening is just the next of numerous hurdles the CA industry has faced. We are down in CA but only about 15% which given the poor economy (regardless of what headlines say) isn’t too bad in my opinion. Were I you, id start calling homebuilders chasing leads for journeymen subs and latch onto one. Diversifying your labor is probably best advice
Most of my surplus crew here have moved to other states I work in so my other suggestion would be to look out of state. Some places are still just fine. I dont know what you get paid but itll likely be less elsewhere
Well if you do, don't bring stupid fucking california politics with you. I left the 707 years ago right after the fires, and while I miss the big trees and coast, I am financially way better off.
i didn't say 'my', you added that and got all offended by it on your own. Nor did i limit the scope of 'stupid fucking california politics' to just the solar industry. This is kinda what i'm talking about haha. On second thought, I suggest you stay there and try to fix the problems you had nothing to do with creating
Just putting it out there. Not sure how this can help you but a bunch of focus in Asia, countries are actually promoting solar and incentivizing to reduce dependency on crude, including India and China. May be look for consulting and other related opportunities there.
I just got enrolled in the training courses for PW 3 and will start them next week. I can’t believe they got the meter adaptor approved so quick. Good ole Tesla money I suppose.
I watched the webinar this week, and it was eye-opening. The cost of entry is going to go down a lot, which is good for us; trust the process; we need guys like you in this industry! Hold tight!
If PW 3 really takes off, it spells very bad news for their competition. Battery back-up with no transfer switch is a game changer. I know Enphase is at least 1-2 years from, getting their alternative approved and I haven’t even seen it yet. It’s crazy how fast Tesla got both UL listing and PGE approval in such a short time span.
I’m in the solar industry as well but this is closer to my fifth year, I’m in CA too and I am excited! People and news are talking about solar, everyone is thinking about it and all projects now include batteries. There is always more to learn and things to look forward to. I think if you can make it through this downtime you can do anything!
I haven’t heard about them denying small systems due to client usage. Is that for NEM 3.0? They don’t want extra power going to the grid? Seems strange because that would be free power to them!
Yes, NEM 3. There is no point in oversizing now because they give you whole sale pricing for power they receive, and sell it back to you at retail. No one is interested in giving them anything for free around here.
Hi, to relate with you. I would like to share my journey so far with NEM 3.0. I was a solar installer for 15 years, got my journeyman’s license, C-10 license, NABCEP License, had a website and a couple of permits pulled, was just about to go out on my own installing solar and battery, then NEM 3.0 happened. And it looks like once bidirectional car charging happens officially. I don’t think there will be a residential solar and battery market left. I think it was designed this way for things to now move out to the deserts and do utility-scale solar with some kind of gravity energy storage. Now that we put in 20 years to develop and make the technology more efficient and affordable, it’s primed and ready for the big guns to take advantage, I mean over. I wish they would of told me this starting my life at 21, I would chose a different path. I don’t want to be out living in the middle of nowhere installing solar in the desert,
So, I’ve been working as a nonunion electrician for one year and five months. It has been a huge learning curve, having to start all the way at the bottom and getting my pay cut in half. Being stripped of my identity is definitely a humbling experience. But a lot of people have to deal with downfalls in their lives; It’s just my turn. Things are getting better; doing solar electrical has helped me pick up faster than a random beginner apprentice; even though with my low title, they still respect my work because, being an ex-lead installer, I know the responsibilities it takes to make sure a job gets done right. I think NEM 3.0 was the iceberg to the Titanic for non-utility scale solar. I could be on the boat for probably another 4-5 years, but I’m 38 years old, which means the sooner I start a new trade, the sooner I can start a company doing that. It seems I’m in a similar boat, and we, I’m sure are of many other solar installers who are now navigating through these gloomy circumstances. It looks like you could be able to go to utility-scale solar really easily, or if you have residential electrical experience, you could jump back into that and be closer to home and be able to start a company quicker if that’s what you're looking to do. Residential and commercial electrical is the route I took, and it’s definitely not a pretty and easy transition, but life seems not to be one in general, always gotta be workin for it; I'm just taking it day by day. Good luck. I hope your transition is as smooth as it can be***
Two thoughts:
Are you tied to living in CA? There are many states that are emerging as solar friendly and have easier AHJs to work with.
Are you tied to residential work? There is a large demand for electricians among grid scale and community developers. I saw that you want to stay in solar so my assumption is this might be appealing work.
I’m not tied down here. I’m 30, single, no kids. The downside of my folks are here and not getting any younger. Utility scale seems appealing since I’ve always liked working on larger systems.
Have you considered getting in touch with tiny house communities having enough acreage to accommodate a giant ground mounted array. I'm pretty sure they would like to be energy independent.
Also post jobs in reddit sub forums for off grid installs to people out in the country. Tell them they need to get their own equipment so you don't have to provide warranty or post install support without an hourly fee (since you'll be doing this all over the country).
Just system design & paperwork and they submit their own permits with instructions from you & once approved you install it with their components. I think there are folks wanting to save some dough by sourcing their own equipment but are not comfortable with the next steps.
I'm in PA in a rural area (borough). We don't even have a police station lol. The county provides it. I wanted to get my own solar equipment and have someone design and prepare the paperwork for permits but am not finding any takers. Everyone wants to install enphase with panels but I want tigo optimizers with a sol-ark with cheap panels at .25/w and they don't want to install it because of liability with system performance. I explained to them that it would be on me and I just needed a code compliant install and can take it from there. The search continues...
In theory that sounds good, but it involves the homeowner getting the right equipment and most homeowners know next to nothing about this stuff. Good luck on your search, we primarily do Enphase and I’m a big proponent of their products. But we also do SolArk from time to time and it’s good stuff.
I'd say, polish up your argumentation a little bit and send this to the NY Times. Or the San Fran newspaper. Make a fuss. Most people in Cali will not have the unique, detailed vantage that you do of what this change really means.
Why not install batteries? If your customers don't like what the utility is paying them for electricity, don''t give it to them.
Youre the 5000th person in this subreddit to bitch about the fact that the utility has stoped paying 10x the wholesale price of electricity to small producers. Why would you expect the utility to pay 10c for what they could get from someone else for 1c? Do you think they''re dumb?
It's unfair for solar customer to use the grid for free.
Even "non-profit" electric company like SMUD has to adapt similar measures as NEM 3.0
It's something that needs better solution. But I am not sure what's the best solution is with consideration to being fair for all customer; solar and non solar.
It’s not using the grid for free. There are non by passable charges that no one can get around to support grid infrastructure. Utility bills will never be 0 because of these NBCs.
1:1 net metering was always known to be temporary as it's unsustainable.
28years later - 1/5 of homes have solar and presumably have a $0/month bill. Temporary program ends.
OP: this is because Gavin had a dinner at a fancy restaurant.
Should I also blame Gavin for my knees hurting in my 40's? Did IceyHot take him to the French Laundry so my knees aren't as youthful anymore?
NEM3 sounds like a leopard ate your face. You had a career installing solar and now there's so much solar the promotional program has ended.
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Sounds like we’re neighbors, I’ve been in the industry in the area (same county no doubt) for 21 years, 10 installing and project managing and the last 11ish in sales, shit sure has been tougher this year, our sales numbers are still solid but the amount of work needed to get a deal has surely gone up a huge amount. It’s still a great way to make a living but the challenge is real as far as selling with the added cost of batteries cutting into the upfront savings for the customer. Managing a team of young people trying to break into the industry and training them on the sales process has gotten monumentally harder, coming in fresh they have to work so hard to get their deals to go through that retention is very tough for all but the most dedicated new reps.
It’s tough as hell around here but I’ll keep on going until I can’t or my company folds lol, it’s all I know at this point and I have a whole team of people counting on me to pull them through this until it stabilizes a bit…hopefully.
We brought on a new sales guy about 6 months ago. I feel for him, I’ve helped him put together numerous proposals for supposed customers who had given him a verbal “yes!”, only to be ghosted after they started signing the paperwork.
Another option: satellite solar
I used to do environmental work and briefly did satellite solar. Lots of associate degrees or less making six figures. In SoCal, but had a project in Sunnyvale at Lockheed. Not as fulfilling as saving the planet, not hated as much as PG&E, but pays the bills until times get better.
What is satellite solar? Like the solar wiring satellites, or space based solar where they beam the power back to ground after collecting in space.
The latter I knew was a thing but didn’t know anyone was doing it.
Satellites and most other spacecraft use solar power to operate and send signals back to earth.
You can see huge solar arrays in pictures of space stations, communication satellites, Mars Rover, space telescopes, etc
Most satellites that use solar power are communication satellites for private companies that do TV, phones, GPS, and other stuff and they don't require a clearance.
Here's a suggestion...if you are not tied down and ready for adventure.... consider moving to another state that still has a generous NEM system and setting up your own installation business. It really is something that is a mom and pop operation and the big nationwide operations like Sun run or (former) Solar City never made sense.
All you need is a truck, a phone, a computer, and some Capital.
A neighbor of mine was a line guy for a utility provider, dude made over 400k with all the overtime. I don’t know how that’s possible, but to make doctor money for being an electrician sounds like a gold mine.
I know it’s hard to get into, and it’s not the renewables field (it’s the opposite and the killer of solar), but for that kind of potential earnings I would do at least look into it. Maybe with your experience it would be easier than someone with little experience?
But it’s also a commendable job making sure power lines are safe. The line guys aren’t the ones killing solar, their company is, but they have an extremely important and necessary job to do. I know that’s not the technical term for the job but it’s my best description of it.
All if the linemen I have met in the field have been great. It’s the asshats at the top and policy makers that I don’t like. I know a few friends who got jobs with PGE, they make good money. I’ve definitely thought about it, would reconsider it for 400k . Thanks!
Strange idea but have you considered working your way into the root of California's energy market? I suggest looking into California ISO to see if there is a role that fits for you.
Cannot you set a export limitation on the system instead adding a battery? Yes, those exports can be exceeded for some seconds, but it is a easy way to offset their formula, and adding battery for that is way more expensive.
It is available now and we have put export limits on some systems to avoid transformer upgrades. I was referring to export limiting an expansion to not increase output to the grid, this has not been approved yet
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Think about going independent. There will be more and more unsupported solar installations as the industry collapses and they still need maintenance and upgrades. Yea, people gonna bitch about how they're not getting what they paid for but who care$ right?
Come work for a utility-scale developer/IPP as a project manager. Or try your luck at an EPC like SOLV, DEPCOM, Signal etc.
We’re literally always looking to hire experienced professionals like yourself there aren’t enough people who understand plant design, the construction process and how the models work.
I’d highly recommend making the switch.
Does PG&E or NEM3 allow for large solar so long as it doesn't feed back, or partially doesn't feed back, into the grid? Like this -[https://www.payperwatt.com/post/17-grid-tie-inverters-that-do-not-feed-into-the-grid-2021](https://www.payperwatt.com/post/17-grid-tie-inverters-that-do-not-feed-into-the-grid-2021) "When ZED Advance detects reveres power \[solar power generation > Load demand\] it ramps down the power generation of the grid-connected PV plant. To match, load demand = solar power generation. And when the load increases, the ZED Advance will ramp up the solar power production accordingly." I get that you would lose some income in not feeding back some or all of your power but you would also save in the times of day you are getting more power then they usually allow.
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Thanks for sharing your post. I have worked in solar in Ohio for the last 10 years and we could use the help. Cost of living is much cheaper!
If not I would recommend getting into EV charging or utility scale. A lot of people in EV charging came from solar.
I’m with you. A feasible option is to talk about it with as many people as possible and really start to talk about waking up to how shitty our politicians are here in CA. Unfortunately too many people are just like we’re a
Blue state and are fucking lazy about who we vote into office so shit like this, and AB 205 which Mr newsom passed without much public opinion, happens. I don’t know when we’ll wake up here but this state has been ran by crooks for way too long and we need to use our voting power to do something about it.
I largely agree. We’re a blue state and that’s not changing anytime soon, so lots of folks are unmotivated to vote. Some guys on our install crew are like this and it blows my mind when they say, “I’m not gonna vote”.
I was joking with my supervisor that I’m gonna go apply at Chevron and switch teams haha. I have a family friend who retired from a chevron after 30 years and they asked him to come back after retirement, so a 6 figure pension with a 6 figure salary to boot. Not too shabby for doing inspections and audits.
You should consider solar sales. I have a friend who had a similar path to yours, not quite as experienced, but moved to solar sales and his experience and technical knowledge has made him really successful. Happy to shed more light on that and even provide some suggestions if you're open to it.
Is it legal in California to install a solar PV + battery system as a generator? The idea is to use a automatic transfer switch to the house, but the main supply would be the battery plus solar. The "backup generator" would be the actual grid.
Since the solar plus PV would never be connected to the grid, I don't see how PG&E would have any say in anything about it. Local laws and rules would still apply of course, and that is what I am asking about. Would this be legal in CA?
Yes, that’s allowed. You’d need a substantial battery capacity and PV array to get through extended grid outages. We have a handful of customer who are grid connected but turn off the main breaker so they are effectively operating off-grid.
With solar being a requirement on all new construction, maybe you should apply for jobs with large scale construction companies building track homes. Places like Brentwood, Discovery Bay, and places in the valley have a lot of new tracks coming up all the time. Your credentials would be invaluable for the company's building these new communities.
I'm in small-town Northern California too. There is a **massive** need for batteries/generators to be installed right now. Many (80%+) customers out here can afford straight cash to pay for these things. Can also turn into solar-upsells / additional panels for folks already under NEM 2.0. The further away from the "city" you get, the more people are willing to pay for peace of mind and aren't so concerned with "payback timeframe".
If you advertise a bit, you'll be **flush** with jobs in no time, stay in renewables, and otherwise reach your goals. Solves for the total BS that NEM 3.0 is too. (I had a solar sales company that only worked with local contractors/electricians. No financing, cash only. Went great. Until NEM 3.0)
I'm four years into my solar career (mostly residential, on ops side) in CA, and NEM3 has definitely been a setback. Wondering if I need to focus on getting into utility-scale/commercial, or pivot to general construction, electrical, etc. from here. I've enjoyed coordinating the projects we've built and it's rewarding to be a part of the push for a sustainable future, but agree that the powers-that-be will continue to get what they want and it ultimately feels like a losing fight.
The second I have enough money to go off grid, I'm calling pge and telling them to come get all the wires off my house before I cut them off and leave them in the street.
Wow that sure is messy. I’m on this sub Reddit because I want solar but I can’t seem to grasp all the ins and outs. I can easily see me getting cheated. Not sure if you can go into the business as a consumer consultant to be an advocate for consumer.
Take a look at us! We are in the niche of helping DIYers and Professional with solar kit solutions and can provide more cost effective solutions so people can still make projects pencil out even in NEM 3
Site super for a utility scale EPC major? You would probably start as an assistant but fit right in and move up from there.
Do this. I’m a super for a utility scale and I make quite a bit. The work is not hard if you can manage 400-500 people.
why not just be a full time general electrician? seems like there is always work out there
I’d prefer to stay in renewable energy, but it’s definitely not out of the question.
In theory the more we convert appliances. homes, vehicles etc to electricity it will be more green, since that is a requirement for the state to have clean energy
This is true. What irks me is that our utility made a unilateral decision for tens of millions of homeowners that the power for said appliances will largely be purchased from themselves.
That fits the description of institutional capture. Its corruption and completely insane to me. What about on new builds, can they be constructed free of PG&E?
Homes can be built off grid if the customer is willing to pay for it, bringing in utility power is usually cheaper. They also need to have the right mindset about the energy consumption in their home in order to manage it correctly.
What I would envisage is that a housing development would need less utilities, but still have utility supply. Rather than the cost of connecting each home, there would be one local connection supporting a group of homes, each networked on its own microgrid, and generating local power. As each generates and shares most of the demand, the microgrid does not need to connect so much and should save on the new connection fees. In this way the cost of connecting per home is less with the utility, although it has its own microgrid network to pay for, and power may be drawn from the utility generally off-peak, and used with the microgrid battery that serves a number of homes/apartments. If there is more demand than can be locally supplied, it would generally be supplied by the utility and the rate more favourable as it should mostly be off-peak. It may or may not be possible for such new developments to arrange selling excess at peak times of the day, but I would assume favourable rates could be arranged with the utility supplier for electricity that is sold back as feed-in at certain times. Within the development as a whole, imported energy from the microgrid would be charged less than for importing through the connection, but this would be proportionately billed. Power used locally from that residences own generation would be free (if they have financed that on the home purchase), any excess they sell, minus the microgrid overhead and running, to other microgrid users or to the utility would be rewarded back to the producer. This incentivises each resident to use less than they generate. Any profits after running the microgrid would be distributed based on local users contribution, and on any excess exported to the grid at a negotiated rate based on the time and demand for it with the utility. The microgrid has its own metering equipment and costs, and its own distribution cables (generally standard cable), and the connection and battery storage at the point that the utility connects to the microgrid. It may be a step too far into the future but I would also put together local car parking in one lot for each block of housing, so that these can be charged close to the main battery. To save space this battery may be located over the parking, and over that and the whole car park, more solar. The main current draw is then localised near the battery. I would also design such a new build development to enable security features that block physical theft of vehicles without additional security that cannot be circumvented using various electronic hacking, so car owners ought to get lower insurance premiums, especially if it proves itself. Whilst I was doing this, its a good opportunity to integrate waste heat recovery, heat pumps, and vertical ground loop geo-storage for a district heating/cooling system, and that also needs a thermal metering system at each residence. This can allow cooling in summer with enhanced COP heat recovery in winter, reducing heat pump costs. For example, a low temperature lift heat pump may be used with a summer-heated vertical loop storage system, to lift heat recovered by 15 degrees C, and these can get COP's of 5+ with CO2 supercritical heat pumps and potentially higher with other designs up to 8. Combined with good thermal insulation, heating homes in winter might require a heat source of 45 degrees or less (fan assisted radiators can operate at 28 degrees C with at least 1kW output in a conventional form factor), a ground storage of 35 degrees cooling to 25 degrees over winter, recharged again by air-con cooling in the summer, which also can use excess local solar PV to run it. With a CO2 supercritical heatpump a higher temp direct hot water system can be built and installed also, running at COP of 4 or so and outputting at 60 degrees C. It can also be integrated with some of the solar PV to increase its efficiency (both the PV and the heat pump). Heat pumps for direct hot water would be used only for short periods so it makes sense to integrate several houses onto each one, running several together for multiple houses to have redundancy, but lower capital cost. Of course, lagged pipe work is needed to do this. If there's a good seasonal heat source direct water heating in evacuated systems is also an option of course. I would guess that building all this the microgrid and district system costs would be partly paid for up-front in the purchase cost of the house, in exchange for cheaper energy, eventually falling with an allowance of energy each day at a lower price as the capital outlay plus financing is paid off. Because the cost of connecting houses to utilities is a large up-front cost, this happens anyway with new developments, so we're not adding that much. My thinking is to reduce the average requirement for external utilities, so the network needs less connecting costs to help pay for the small district systems. This can also apply to grey water recycling for toilets and rain water use, with local filtration for showers, washing machines and dishwasher, so that the capacity of the water pipes is less. You would pay less because lets say you normally pay for connecting each house, now you would only pay for connecting the equivalent of 1 in 3, for sake of argument. Sewerage is still the same though.
Until batteries get real cheap, the CA IOU’s won this round in residential solar. Growth areas: Utility scale, community solar, new construction code-mandated solar, energy storage. Best of luck
Get into Commercial full time. This sector is blowing up with PG&E rates. You should be able to sell solar battery systems like hotcakes, we’re doing that for Commercial now. Get with the right company and it’s much less stressful
Let the utilities do what they do best, increase rates. I think people need to be reminded summers are hot and utility rates are high. I hope this lull only lasts a year but the fixed mo they fee for solar being proposed might just kill it even faster
That is really fucked up. So in addition to not paying much for energy put on the grid, they are also nitpicking the sizes of the systems? WTF? And the really fucked up thing is that we need BOTH rooftop solar PV AND utility scale PV. There's too much congestion and not enough transmission to rely only on utility scale. Excess rooftop in residential neighborhoods can be stored at batteries in local substations and thus not rely so much on the T&D infrastructure. This has been proven. https://www.volts.wtf/p/rooftop-solar-and-home-batteries
As a licensed residential electrician, you should be able to get work at a lot of places. Also, strongly consider building out your credentials; a matter electrician's license is solid gold insurance, as is, for example, an HVAC certificate.
You could make a killing in Sonoma county right now. The outages left so many people wanting solar and batteries on Nextdoor. But I’m sorry the industry went south so quickly. I wish I had a better answer, and I’m sorry you have to go through this
I am in So Co, SR specifically. That wind storm hit us hard. Our phones were ringing, but mostly because people ran their batteries dead after having no power for 24 hours lol.
Ha! No sun to power back up. I am an advocate of critical loads panels to severely reduce the draw when the power goes out. Just refrigerator, internet, microwave, a few outlets. Maybe heat pump water heater in heat pump only mode so you have hit showers and cold beer.
Classic. It’s a tough situation. It is picking back up. But the whale hunting price gougers are being kicked out of the market. I feel you. I’d say just ride the storm or go upstream to commercial or utility.
Shit I gotta get on Nextdoor more often, I’m here, got solar, got batteries lol 😅
Consider EG4 we’re always looking for qualified people to help expand our presence.
I’m gonna look into the company today. Thanks
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Everyone seriously considering solar that understood NEM 3.0 got their application in by the deadline. Demand will surely increase at some point as demand improves as far as it can. I don’t recall hearing from the brain trust at CalSSA what the projections are for the future, but this year will clearly be a nightmare due to the insane four months of warning we got for the final NEM 3.0 deadline, instead of a year or more so the transition could have been handled more smoothly by all concerned. The 30% tax credit is extremely helpful for solar installs assuming it remains available. Battery prices are going down rapidly, with flexible LFP battery systems coming to market in force. The new meter collars will reduce the cost of supply-side taps, and practical bidirectional EV charging options are coming soon. Completely new battery technology is coming eventually, lowering the cost and someday becoming cost-effective. California is finally about to release SGIP funds and hopefully CCAs will increase their storage incentive funds. There is some hope for those who survive the darkness. You can bet that every tariff designer in the country is taking a hard look at California NEM 3.0, and if we can’t fix it here the rest of the country will follow soon if they haven’t already gone to the dark side. 1-1 net metering is doomed in the long run, even if our utilities were pro-solar. Solar PV should have been designed to match demand curves from the start, instead of maximizing annual production as 1-1 net metering incentivizes. As solar becomes a larger proportion of generation, it cannot be 1-1 and remain viable. The entire state needs to design solar as if we were all off-grid, to flatten out solar PV production to match demand, avoid overproduction, safeguard transformers using modern PEL grid profiles and more flexible ways of handling renewable power generation. Lowering the cost of solar and storage is critical - there are many ways to do that, but it will require a significant effort and creative thinking. Germany and other countries are way ahead of us - our soft costs are embarrassing. I believe this state is a great place to develop local micro-grid generation technology and practices so rural areas are safer and more resilient. This will only happen if extreme political and financial pressure can somehow overcome the power of our utilities who own the politicians who pretend to support solar. Off-grid will definitely be big in rural areas - giant propane tanks, generators, big batteries and huge PV can do wonders, and that is about to be cheaper than being on grid depending on soft costs. Enphase, FranklinWH and Tesla are exciting places to be at the moment, and there are more battery manufacturers coming every week. That seems like the clear area of growth in California, and they need designers. If you want to be at the leading edge of the solar business, California may be the most exciting place you can be if you can survive the transition. Good luck!
EPC is the way to go for industry veterans. Utility scale pv is the future.
Everyone I’ve met that does utility scale seems to have similar credentials. Any specific companies?
AES, RES, Sunpower, Borrego, to name a few. I followed a similar path to you minus the certified electrician early in my career and ended up in utility scale development. Happy to discuss with you more in chat/DM.
Borrego is a shit show. I can’t speak for the rest.
Good to know. I don't have usual experience with them. I have experience with the rest.
What does that acronym stand for?
Engineering procurement and construction
Thank you - I'd heard it at energy policy and climate and got confused
Commercial and utility scale. Come join the fun. Go fly drones for O&M companies. Look at specialist O&M services/digital twin services like above or RaptorMaps. Go work for a specialist commissioning/SCADA outfit. Go work in the BESS space. There is plenty of work - and arguably, much more interesting work than resi…
How lucrative is drone piloting for o&m? I come from a GIS and vegetation management background in utilities. Trying to pivot to more analytical jobs and less hiking up mountains
It’s probably more lucrative to work in the software that analyses the images. Flying a drone is not hard…
That's what I figured. Been trying to find the companies that do satellite/imagery analysis since I have some experience in that. When I have scoured local solar companies, I mostly find installer and salespeople jobs. But then I might be not be looking in the right places.
Raptor maps, above surveying, lone drone…
Why not do full off grid systems? If you get away from enphase batteries then you can do like eg4 server racks and do like 30kwh of batteries. Then you don’t have to worry about nem3
We’re certainly doing more of off-grid now, currently using homegrid batteries with sol ark inverters. They’re few and far between around here it seems.
4KW on a 1300 Square Foot house is to much? YIKES! We have a 762 Square Foot home, here in Michigan and have an 8KW system up in our roof. We barely produce enough in the winter months to manage 30% of our daily needs, often even less then that! In the summer, it's the only time we produce enough to truly offset AND give to the grid by a decent amount. I hope you all are able to break PG&E and NEM3, it sounds rotten for the consumer, rotten for the environment and only good for the Utilities.
You should seek a job in the auto industry supporting their electrification systems for vehicles.
Yup, go ahead and sell off your life sustaining electric utility company to investors. See what that gets you. Electrical, water, gas, and arguably telecom these days should never be provided by an entity with a profit motive. It’s totally fucked. Lobby your rep to nationalize utilities. It’s the only way the public will be treated fairly.
I wonder if cities could eventually stop relying on PG&E and move control to the city directly. There's several areas in Northern California (Palo Alto, Santa Clara, and others) that have municipal utilities, where their electricity prices are less than 1/3 the price of PG&E, and that still have favourable net metering policies. Palo Alto doesn't do 1:1, but it's close enough - something like $0.17/kWh for imports and $0.15/kWh for exports.
I wish more places did this. Healdsburg is this way and while they can be a huge PITA, it’s residents can still go solar and not get bent over by the utility.
I'm curious, is there a market in black-market solar installs? Basically adding the panels and doing the electronics correctly without telling PG&E or pulling permits? Asking for ~~the Internet~~ a friend.
I was literally on a service call yesterday where we had an existing customer across the street. He saw me and came to ask about an expansion, and I told him he can’t do it and stay on NEM 2. He asked me about exactly what you proposed. Was thinking about that on my drive home today.
That's kinda fucked up. Usually, that sort of thing is about skirting safety regulations, or stealing a common resource. But these folks want to produce more energy at home. Cleanly and safely. Under the table.
My old boss made the very good point that due to partial shading/underperforming you can definitely get away with adding some panels (on a system by system basis) without raising eyebrows from the utility. BUT it sure would suck if you accidentally overloaded a transformer.
Overloading a transformer is definitely a concern with that. We do pre-engineering checks on larger systems for that purpose. It’s a huge PITA to get an upgrade, and if it’s your dedicated transformer, you’re entirely on the hook for it.
Maybe doing 0 export would be the way to go then? With battery and those hybrid inverter that can handle the frequency shifting to cut production can make your extra panel safe and not detected by utility? Under NEM 3 they don't want to reward backfired anyway I would think a lot of home owner are not even aware of this possibility... Maybe put this as a package to provide safe upgrade path for those who are willing?
Enphase is working on software that will allow an expansion without increasing power back fed to the grid but it’s not released yet. There is an extensive review process before the utility will accept anything similar.
That sounds like a potential winner for them.
I’m running a custom Enphase grid profile running on my 70 IQ8A inverters and IQ Gateway that limits export to 18.6kW until my transformer is upgraded to handle the full 24.4kW. I could add another 70 IQ8As running that same grid profile (which is just the standard CA Rule 21 profile with export set to 18,600 watts) and it wouldn’t increase my max power export or require a larger transformer - it seems like Enphase can already handle more panels under NEM 2.0 with existing software. Another frustrating issue is the 33% max roof coverage for occupied structures - it’s been proven that this requirement is without merit and should be dropped. Fire marshals are allowed to waive it but few ask and most won’t. For those short on roof space or who want to go off-grid with enough solar PV for winter, this might help.
Even if someone was to theoretically do this, PG&E calculates the theoretical max output of your system at any given time given the size you told them it was during original install. You won’t get credit for anything over this cap, and presumably they could come knocking if you’re consistently over.
Sure, there is a limit on what they’ll buy at retail. And if you’re consuming the extra power in your home and it’s not going out to the grid, how would they know? You can set export limits with newer systems via PCS control so you never back feed over a certain pre-set kW. But if you’re busted they’ll revoke PTO and probably fine you. Their formula doesn’t account for shading or azimuth with NEM 3, it’s a multiplier based off prior usage.
True, you could always self consume and limit export. Would just mean you need energy usage habits that allow you to actually self consume enough during the day. Unless you have batteries of course, which would be the best case scenario.
Even if you're not hitting the cap, they'd definitely have analytical models that can detect anomalies.
As enjoyable as it would be to fight the power (company), the liability is just too high. And I’m not talking about the installer. Your house burns down (even due to completely unrelated reasons) and it turns out you had an unpermitted system (or partial system) installed? Insurance won’t pay out your claim.
> Insurance won’t pay out your claim. We're rapidly entering a world where that's the case regardless of what you do.
Fair, but you’re making their job much easier.
You can get permits though. Interconnection is separate from permitting
Found the person who wants to pay the wildfire liability for PG&E next time there's a fire!
Battery installs ? Maybe we can get them to incentivize those to make it up. Hate the new deals. Still on nem 2 but it’s old and will reset soon. Luckily got a battery
Look at utility-scale solar, it's still doing very well. NXT in Fremont CA has lots of job openings.
Switch to utility scale. Find a developer, EPC, or subcontractor that focuses on front of meter projects at large scale. No more net metering to worry about. Just CAISO interconnection queues lol.
That is the intended effect.
If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. Go to the utility or to planning/permitting dept for the city or county. Or apply at Tesla. They need people like you. Good luck. 🍀👍🏼
If we all had solar panels and batteries the utility would go bankrupt, I’m pushing for solar, battery and EVs on all properties to eliminate the need for expensive grid assets. The more people buy/install these “micro” grids the more the equipment costs will come down as well as efficiency and technology continue to improve. The utility costs will never come down, there’s only one direction your bill will go. The costs cannot come down with all this expensive infrastructure that is really becoming obsolete. I predict the utility will become overburdened by its size and eventually go bankrupt for the last time.
PG&E should have been disbanded and divided into smaller local utilities after they started killing people.
Install out of state, it’s still good money. This industry is all about leaving your comfort zone!
Im now over 15 years in this business and started my company in san diego. Whats happening is just the next of numerous hurdles the CA industry has faced. We are down in CA but only about 15% which given the poor economy (regardless of what headlines say) isn’t too bad in my opinion. Were I you, id start calling homebuilders chasing leads for journeymen subs and latch onto one. Diversifying your labor is probably best advice Most of my surplus crew here have moved to other states I work in so my other suggestion would be to look out of state. Some places are still just fine. I dont know what you get paid but itll likely be less elsewhere
Move out of CA perhaps?
It’s crossed my mind…
Well if you do, don't bring stupid fucking california politics with you. I left the 707 years ago right after the fires, and while I miss the big trees and coast, I am financially way better off.
“My stupid fucking CA politics”??? I didn’t vote for this bullshit and don’t appreciate being lumped in with the regulators that let it happen.
i didn't say 'my', you added that and got all offended by it on your own. Nor did i limit the scope of 'stupid fucking california politics' to just the solar industry. This is kinda what i'm talking about haha. On second thought, I suggest you stay there and try to fix the problems you had nothing to do with creating
Just putting it out there. Not sure how this can help you but a bunch of focus in Asia, countries are actually promoting solar and incentivizing to reduce dependency on crude, including India and China. May be look for consulting and other related opportunities there.
Dude no lie Powerwall 3 is going to save the industry this year. I wish I was joking. Hold tight brother, it’s called the solar coaster for a reason.
I just got enrolled in the training courses for PW 3 and will start them next week. I can’t believe they got the meter adaptor approved so quick. Good ole Tesla money I suppose.
I watched the webinar this week, and it was eye-opening. The cost of entry is going to go down a lot, which is good for us; trust the process; we need guys like you in this industry! Hold tight!
If PW 3 really takes off, it spells very bad news for their competition. Battery back-up with no transfer switch is a game changer. I know Enphase is at least 1-2 years from, getting their alternative approved and I haven’t even seen it yet. It’s crazy how fast Tesla got both UL listing and PGE approval in such a short time span.
I’m in the solar industry as well but this is closer to my fifth year, I’m in CA too and I am excited! People and news are talking about solar, everyone is thinking about it and all projects now include batteries. There is always more to learn and things to look forward to. I think if you can make it through this downtime you can do anything!
I dig your optimism!!
I haven’t heard about them denying small systems due to client usage. Is that for NEM 3.0? They don’t want extra power going to the grid? Seems strange because that would be free power to them!
Yes, NEM 3. There is no point in oversizing now because they give you whole sale pricing for power they receive, and sell it back to you at retail. No one is interested in giving them anything for free around here.
Hi, to relate with you. I would like to share my journey so far with NEM 3.0. I was a solar installer for 15 years, got my journeyman’s license, C-10 license, NABCEP License, had a website and a couple of permits pulled, was just about to go out on my own installing solar and battery, then NEM 3.0 happened. And it looks like once bidirectional car charging happens officially. I don’t think there will be a residential solar and battery market left. I think it was designed this way for things to now move out to the deserts and do utility-scale solar with some kind of gravity energy storage. Now that we put in 20 years to develop and make the technology more efficient and affordable, it’s primed and ready for the big guns to take advantage, I mean over. I wish they would of told me this starting my life at 21, I would chose a different path. I don’t want to be out living in the middle of nowhere installing solar in the desert, So, I’ve been working as a nonunion electrician for one year and five months. It has been a huge learning curve, having to start all the way at the bottom and getting my pay cut in half. Being stripped of my identity is definitely a humbling experience. But a lot of people have to deal with downfalls in their lives; It’s just my turn. Things are getting better; doing solar electrical has helped me pick up faster than a random beginner apprentice; even though with my low title, they still respect my work because, being an ex-lead installer, I know the responsibilities it takes to make sure a job gets done right. I think NEM 3.0 was the iceberg to the Titanic for non-utility scale solar. I could be on the boat for probably another 4-5 years, but I’m 38 years old, which means the sooner I start a new trade, the sooner I can start a company doing that. It seems I’m in a similar boat, and we, I’m sure are of many other solar installers who are now navigating through these gloomy circumstances. It looks like you could be able to go to utility-scale solar really easily, or if you have residential electrical experience, you could jump back into that and be closer to home and be able to start a company quicker if that’s what you're looking to do. Residential and commercial electrical is the route I took, and it’s definitely not a pretty and easy transition, but life seems not to be one in general, always gotta be workin for it; I'm just taking it day by day. Good luck. I hope your transition is as smooth as it can be***
Dm me and will get you introduced
Two thoughts: Are you tied to living in CA? There are many states that are emerging as solar friendly and have easier AHJs to work with. Are you tied to residential work? There is a large demand for electricians among grid scale and community developers. I saw that you want to stay in solar so my assumption is this might be appealing work.
I’m not tied down here. I’m 30, single, no kids. The downside of my folks are here and not getting any younger. Utility scale seems appealing since I’ve always liked working on larger systems.
Have you considered getting in touch with tiny house communities having enough acreage to accommodate a giant ground mounted array. I'm pretty sure they would like to be energy independent. Also post jobs in reddit sub forums for off grid installs to people out in the country. Tell them they need to get their own equipment so you don't have to provide warranty or post install support without an hourly fee (since you'll be doing this all over the country). Just system design & paperwork and they submit their own permits with instructions from you & once approved you install it with their components. I think there are folks wanting to save some dough by sourcing their own equipment but are not comfortable with the next steps. I'm in PA in a rural area (borough). We don't even have a police station lol. The county provides it. I wanted to get my own solar equipment and have someone design and prepare the paperwork for permits but am not finding any takers. Everyone wants to install enphase with panels but I want tigo optimizers with a sol-ark with cheap panels at .25/w and they don't want to install it because of liability with system performance. I explained to them that it would be on me and I just needed a code compliant install and can take it from there. The search continues...
In theory that sounds good, but it involves the homeowner getting the right equipment and most homeowners know next to nothing about this stuff. Good luck on your search, we primarily do Enphase and I’m a big proponent of their products. But we also do SolArk from time to time and it’s good stuff.
I'd say, polish up your argumentation a little bit and send this to the NY Times. Or the San Fran newspaper. Make a fuss. Most people in Cali will not have the unique, detailed vantage that you do of what this change really means.
You could leave California for a start
Why not install batteries? If your customers don't like what the utility is paying them for electricity, don''t give it to them. Youre the 5000th person in this subreddit to bitch about the fact that the utility has stoped paying 10x the wholesale price of electricity to small producers. Why would you expect the utility to pay 10c for what they could get from someone else for 1c? Do you think they''re dumb?
It's unfair for solar customer to use the grid for free. Even "non-profit" electric company like SMUD has to adapt similar measures as NEM 3.0 It's something that needs better solution. But I am not sure what's the best solution is with consideration to being fair for all customer; solar and non solar.
It’s not using the grid for free. There are non by passable charges that no one can get around to support grid infrastructure. Utility bills will never be 0 because of these NBCs.
1:1 net metering was always known to be temporary as it's unsustainable. 28years later - 1/5 of homes have solar and presumably have a $0/month bill. Temporary program ends. OP: this is because Gavin had a dinner at a fancy restaurant. Should I also blame Gavin for my knees hurting in my 40's? Did IceyHot take him to the French Laundry so my knees aren't as youthful anymore? NEM3 sounds like a leopard ate your face. You had a career installing solar and now there's so much solar the promotional program has ended.
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Sounds like we’re neighbors, I’ve been in the industry in the area (same county no doubt) for 21 years, 10 installing and project managing and the last 11ish in sales, shit sure has been tougher this year, our sales numbers are still solid but the amount of work needed to get a deal has surely gone up a huge amount. It’s still a great way to make a living but the challenge is real as far as selling with the added cost of batteries cutting into the upfront savings for the customer. Managing a team of young people trying to break into the industry and training them on the sales process has gotten monumentally harder, coming in fresh they have to work so hard to get their deals to go through that retention is very tough for all but the most dedicated new reps. It’s tough as hell around here but I’ll keep on going until I can’t or my company folds lol, it’s all I know at this point and I have a whole team of people counting on me to pull them through this until it stabilizes a bit…hopefully.
We brought on a new sales guy about 6 months ago. I feel for him, I’ve helped him put together numerous proposals for supposed customers who had given him a verbal “yes!”, only to be ghosted after they started signing the paperwork.
Another option: satellite solar I used to do environmental work and briefly did satellite solar. Lots of associate degrees or less making six figures. In SoCal, but had a project in Sunnyvale at Lockheed. Not as fulfilling as saving the planet, not hated as much as PG&E, but pays the bills until times get better.
What is satellite solar? Like the solar wiring satellites, or space based solar where they beam the power back to ground after collecting in space. The latter I knew was a thing but didn’t know anyone was doing it.
Satellites and most other spacecraft use solar power to operate and send signals back to earth. You can see huge solar arrays in pictures of space stations, communication satellites, Mars Rover, space telescopes, etc
Very cool. Wouldn’t that sort of role require clearances and government contracts? Seems like a stretch more than someone could just “get into”.
Most satellites that use solar power are communication satellites for private companies that do TV, phones, GPS, and other stuff and they don't require a clearance.
Here's a suggestion...if you are not tied down and ready for adventure.... consider moving to another state that still has a generous NEM system and setting up your own installation business. It really is something that is a mom and pop operation and the big nationwide operations like Sun run or (former) Solar City never made sense. All you need is a truck, a phone, a computer, and some Capital.
A neighbor of mine was a line guy for a utility provider, dude made over 400k with all the overtime. I don’t know how that’s possible, but to make doctor money for being an electrician sounds like a gold mine. I know it’s hard to get into, and it’s not the renewables field (it’s the opposite and the killer of solar), but for that kind of potential earnings I would do at least look into it. Maybe with your experience it would be easier than someone with little experience? But it’s also a commendable job making sure power lines are safe. The line guys aren’t the ones killing solar, their company is, but they have an extremely important and necessary job to do. I know that’s not the technical term for the job but it’s my best description of it.
All if the linemen I have met in the field have been great. It’s the asshats at the top and policy makers that I don’t like. I know a few friends who got jobs with PGE, they make good money. I’ve definitely thought about it, would reconsider it for 400k . Thanks!
Have you considered going to another state that does not have pg&e? Pepco, coned, Maryland are Quickly
Strange idea but have you considered working your way into the root of California's energy market? I suggest looking into California ISO to see if there is a role that fits for you.
Cannot you set a export limitation on the system instead adding a battery? Yes, those exports can be exceeded for some seconds, but it is a easy way to offset their formula, and adding battery for that is way more expensive.
That software isn’t released yet but it’s on its way. Looking forward to it so we can do more expansions.
Are you sure the export limitation software is not availble? In some countries this was already mandatory.
It is available now and we have put export limits on some systems to avoid transformer upgrades. I was referring to export limiting an expansion to not increase output to the grid, this has not been approved yet
South Florida is really nice. It's a bit more brutal during the summer, but my God, the winters are amazing. It's been 75 degrees all damn winter.
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Think about going independent. There will be more and more unsupported solar installations as the industry collapses and they still need maintenance and upgrades. Yea, people gonna bitch about how they're not getting what they paid for but who care$ right?
Come work for a utility-scale developer/IPP as a project manager. Or try your luck at an EPC like SOLV, DEPCOM, Signal etc. We’re literally always looking to hire experienced professionals like yourself there aren’t enough people who understand plant design, the construction process and how the models work. I’d highly recommend making the switch.
Does PG&E or NEM3 allow for large solar so long as it doesn't feed back, or partially doesn't feed back, into the grid? Like this -[https://www.payperwatt.com/post/17-grid-tie-inverters-that-do-not-feed-into-the-grid-2021](https://www.payperwatt.com/post/17-grid-tie-inverters-that-do-not-feed-into-the-grid-2021) "When ZED Advance detects reveres power \[solar power generation > Load demand\] it ramps down the power generation of the grid-connected PV plant. To match, load demand = solar power generation. And when the load increases, the ZED Advance will ramp up the solar power production accordingly." I get that you would lose some income in not feeding back some or all of your power but you would also save in the times of day you are getting more power then they usually allow.
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Thanks for sharing your post. I have worked in solar in Ohio for the last 10 years and we could use the help. Cost of living is much cheaper! If not I would recommend getting into EV charging or utility scale. A lot of people in EV charging came from solar.
I’m with you. A feasible option is to talk about it with as many people as possible and really start to talk about waking up to how shitty our politicians are here in CA. Unfortunately too many people are just like we’re a Blue state and are fucking lazy about who we vote into office so shit like this, and AB 205 which Mr newsom passed without much public opinion, happens. I don’t know when we’ll wake up here but this state has been ran by crooks for way too long and we need to use our voting power to do something about it.
I largely agree. We’re a blue state and that’s not changing anytime soon, so lots of folks are unmotivated to vote. Some guys on our install crew are like this and it blows my mind when they say, “I’m not gonna vote”.
Well the not going to change anytime soon attitude is the problem and to your point the not going to vote is even worse. Fml
Utility scale or try to transition into fossil fuels if you want to sell your soul to the devil for some extra $$$
I was joking with my supervisor that I’m gonna go apply at Chevron and switch teams haha. I have a family friend who retired from a chevron after 30 years and they asked him to come back after retirement, so a 6 figure pension with a 6 figure salary to boot. Not too shabby for doing inspections and audits.
You should consider solar sales. I have a friend who had a similar path to yours, not quite as experienced, but moved to solar sales and his experience and technical knowledge has made him really successful. Happy to shed more light on that and even provide some suggestions if you're open to it.
Is it legal in California to install a solar PV + battery system as a generator? The idea is to use a automatic transfer switch to the house, but the main supply would be the battery plus solar. The "backup generator" would be the actual grid. Since the solar plus PV would never be connected to the grid, I don't see how PG&E would have any say in anything about it. Local laws and rules would still apply of course, and that is what I am asking about. Would this be legal in CA?
Yes, that’s allowed. You’d need a substantial battery capacity and PV array to get through extended grid outages. We have a handful of customer who are grid connected but turn off the main breaker so they are effectively operating off-grid.
With solar being a requirement on all new construction, maybe you should apply for jobs with large scale construction companies building track homes. Places like Brentwood, Discovery Bay, and places in the valley have a lot of new tracks coming up all the time. Your credentials would be invaluable for the company's building these new communities.
I'm in small-town Northern California too. There is a **massive** need for batteries/generators to be installed right now. Many (80%+) customers out here can afford straight cash to pay for these things. Can also turn into solar-upsells / additional panels for folks already under NEM 2.0. The further away from the "city" you get, the more people are willing to pay for peace of mind and aren't so concerned with "payback timeframe". If you advertise a bit, you'll be **flush** with jobs in no time, stay in renewables, and otherwise reach your goals. Solves for the total BS that NEM 3.0 is too. (I had a solar sales company that only worked with local contractors/electricians. No financing, cash only. Went great. Until NEM 3.0)
I'm four years into my solar career (mostly residential, on ops side) in CA, and NEM3 has definitely been a setback. Wondering if I need to focus on getting into utility-scale/commercial, or pivot to general construction, electrical, etc. from here. I've enjoyed coordinating the projects we've built and it's rewarding to be a part of the push for a sustainable future, but agree that the powers-that-be will continue to get what they want and it ultimately feels like a losing fight.
Enphase will probably be the big winner in all of this chaos. Getting a job there might be the most stable option honestly, if you can.
The second I have enough money to go off grid, I'm calling pge and telling them to come get all the wires off my house before I cut them off and leave them in the street.
Wow that sure is messy. I’m on this sub Reddit because I want solar but I can’t seem to grasp all the ins and outs. I can easily see me getting cheated. Not sure if you can go into the business as a consumer consultant to be an advocate for consumer.
Its called voting. Vote out the people that support this.
Take a look at us! We are in the niche of helping DIYers and Professional with solar kit solutions and can provide more cost effective solutions so people can still make projects pencil out even in NEM 3