Anyone familiar at all with solar power knows of the contentious relationship between utilities and residential solar.
So far, the situation has been quite apparent; many energy corporations in the United States have not been too happy, and have even discouraged the spread of residential solar power. It’s quite simple, this idea initially represented a loss in revenue and a serious threat to their business model.
However, utilities are finally crunching the numbers and realizing that residential solar energy might actually be a good thing for them as well.
How could residential solar competition actually be a good thing for power companies? Well, in short, it can help them reduce future costs.
Significant ongoing costs for utilities include building new sources of power generation, grid maintenance, and transmission investments. Residential solar can help utilities drastically reduce these costs. Distributed solar also helps utilities gain access to more stable and cheaper energy pricing, especially during summer months.
The largest of these avoided expenditures is the avoided electricity costs. Producing power to sell to consumers is a considerable part of the ongoing cost of doing business for utilities, especially in the summer time when energy prices increase significantly.
All of this bodes well for future residential solar power owners all across America. There are certainly many homeowners who live in states that currently make it difficult to go solar. As utilities in those states start to realize that residential solar can actually help them save money as well, Net Metering laws will finally become favorable for homeowners who wish to install solar panel systems there as well.
It can also be fair to assume that there are many homeowners that would have already gone solar if they knew that it was an idea that was fully supported and encouraged by their local utility. This will help these people make the decision to do so knowing they are not doing anything that is not fully supported by their local power company.
In summary, the full financial value of residential solar goes well beyond the financial benefit to homeowners. Power companies across the country can add more residential solar into their power mix to enable future savings.
