> I've never heard of any utility in the US buying solar production at more than retail rates.
That doesn't refute the parent's claim of it being greater than the market rate. The residential retail rate [1] usually doesn't change, except on a long time scale, after regulatory approval, while the market rate changes intra-day, based on supply and demand.
If peak sun doesn't correspond to peak demand (and, from what I've read, it doesn't), those periods are where the utility could be taking a huge loss. For example, if PG&E has a customer in the top marginal usage tier is "selling" power at 25c/kWh when the wholesale market is selling it at 4c, that's a pretty tremendous loss.
[1] Often not even a single rate but a tiered one, so a heavy residential user could be "selling back" power at a particularly high retail rate, much higher than average.
That doesn't refute the parent's claim of it being greater than the market rate. The residential retail rate [1] usually doesn't change, except on a long time scale, after regulatory approval, while the market rate changes intra-day, based on supply and demand.
If peak sun doesn't correspond to peak demand (and, from what I've read, it doesn't), those periods are where the utility could be taking a huge loss. For example, if PG&E has a customer in the top marginal usage tier is "selling" power at 25c/kWh when the wholesale market is selling it at 4c, that's a pretty tremendous loss.
[1] Often not even a single rate but a tiered one, so a heavy residential user could be "selling back" power at a particularly high retail rate, much higher than average.