Reverse Metering

I've been thinking lately on ways to increase the generation of "green" power. Now one of the ways one can do this is to have the government legislate reverse metering. What's reverse metering? It is a way for individuals who produce their own power to put that power back on the grid and get paid for it. So for example, if I have a small wind turbine on my roof, when I'm not using the power it's generating, that power goes out onto the grid and I get a credit on my power bill for that power. Reverse metering gives an incentive for everyone to get into the electrical generation game. So what reverse metering does is give everyone an incentive to generate electricity. Specifically renewable forms of electricity such as wind and solar power. I say this because for the individual consumer, generating with fossil fuels is more expensive than buying power from the grid. With wind and solar though, once the initial investment has been made, the power is free less some maintenance costs and hence cheaper than grid power. Now there will be times that the power I generate will be more than the power I consume. Right now, that extra power is either wasted or if it is put on the grid, I don't get paid for it.. With reverse metering, I get paid for the power I put out on the grid. This helps reduce my power bill for the times when my use exceeds my generation capacity. This further reduction of one's power bill (reduced once because you're using less of the grid power) gives a greater incentive to invest in alternative generation for the individual.

No of course, no one's going to be able to have enough generating capacity to meet their own needs and everyone will still need to buy power from the grid. However people having their own generating capacity will reduce the amount of power that needs to be generated using fossil fuels. Look at it like this. Lets say everyone who has a house in the city of Calgary goes out to Canadian Tire and gets the 400W wind turbine (unrealistic I know, but play along). If there are 300 000 homes, each with a 400W generator that creates a generative capacity of 120MW of power (enough to power 10 000 homes with 100 amp services at peak). Now of course this power is only available when the wind is blowing and at most times wouldn't provide enough power for all those homes in any event, but it would mean an reduction of 120MW of power having to be generated by a coal or gas fired plant. It also means that if a large number of those homes are using less than 400W of power, say the people who live there are out, then that power is available on the grid to power nearby homes. This closeness to the source of generation would also provide further power savings.

By having some of the generative capacity close to the point of consumption we save power since there is less transmission loss. Wire isn't perfectly conductive, it has resistance to the free flow of electricity. This resistance increases with the length of the wire. So if the generator is far away from the point of consumption, the generator has to produce more power than is needed by the consumer just to make up for the transmission losses. By having that 120MW of generation right at where it's needed, virtually all the 120MW of power gets used doing useful work, and not just heating the air around the transmission line. This would mean a savings to the grid of more than the power generated by the individual turbines.

Now no incentive program is going to get everyone in the city of Calgary to buy a wind turbine (or other alternative generating system), but if reverse metering gets 300 000 people in the province to buy that capacity, we've reduced the need to generate a lot of electricity through means that aren't as friendly to the environment. It also has the nice side benefit that it doesn't cost the taxpayer a dime and lower people's power bill to boot.

Of course the companies that generate power aren't too keen on this scheme. If, as in my example, 120MW of power is no longer demanded from their power stations, they stand to lose $73 million a year (at 7 cents a kWh). That's a lot of incentive for them to lobby the government to oppose reverse metering and is one of the main reasons we don't have it. Further, here in Alberta where most of the generative capacity uses coal, the coal companies aren't too keen on their major customer, the electrical generation industry, having a drop in demand. So the coal and to a lesser extent the gas companies are also opposed to measures such as reverse metering. It's due to the power of these two lobbies that the province, until about a month ago had a cap on how much wind power could be generated. It will take some work to convince the province that reverse metering is a good thing.

Now I'm not suggesting that reverse metering will replace the power companies. It won't. It's not possible for someone like me, who lives in a city, to have enough generative capacity to power my house completely at all times regardless of the source. It will give people an incentive to generate a small part of their power needs though, and to conserve power as well (since if they don't use it, they get to sell what they don't need). It also could spur those with the space, i.e. farmers, to set up their own wind or solar farms as if they generate more than they use, they make money. It's something to think about.