Not sure about Cali and disconnection specifically, my personal experience is in AZ. But I don’t know of a single person that actually had ever wanted to disconnect from the grid. Usually that kind of setup is planned for new builds and never connected at all.
Out of the handful of people I know that are generating at self-sufficient levels, all but one were planned that way from the beginning. Their houses were built to be passively solar, and their solar system built specifically to be off grid. They never had a connection.
The one friend that I know that added solar to their existing home a could months ago and has a system large enough to fully offset, but without batteries, still has a bill for the various maintenance fees and usage when not generating enough or overnight. The amount is just offset by the amount of production they push back into the grid. So their last bill was -$27 because their credits for supplying the grid at wholesale cost are still more than all of their fees and usage. Not sure of their exact amounts because there have been a few different solar plans our utility has used over the years, but it’s probably similar to mine. We are paid $0.08/kWh for what we generate and send the grid, but we pay $0.13/kWh during peak times. From my understanding, this is how most solar grid connected plans are setup nowadays. It is not a 1:1 credit system like some old systems from like a decade ago.
My dad’s solar system on the other hand is older and on a 1:1 kWh credit system plan, so he pays the fees out of pocket. Most of his bills are just the fees since he generates surplus during the day until the grid to offset what he uses overnight.
So there could be an argument with the old 1:1 systems that the base fees don’t pay for maintenance from usage. It’s a weak argument, but there’s something there at least. With current systems that credit based on the much lower wholesale power cost though, that’s literally what any other power generator on the grid in the area is paid, it specifically doesn’t include the maintenance costs because that’s included in the retail price for the usage itself, which is still paid when you pull from the grid.
Not sure about Cali and disconnection specifically, my personal experience is in AZ. But I don’t know of a single person that actually had ever wanted to disconnect from the grid. Usually that kind of setup is planned for new builds and never connected at all.
Out of the handful of people I know that are generating at self-sufficient levels, all but one were planned that way from the beginning. Their houses were built to be passively solar, and their solar system built specifically to be off grid. They never had a connection.
The one friend that I know that added solar to their existing home a could months ago and has a system large enough to fully offset, but without batteries, still has a bill for the various maintenance fees and usage when not generating enough or overnight. The amount is just offset by the amount of production they push back into the grid. So their last bill was -$27 because their credits for supplying the grid at wholesale cost are still more than all of their fees and usage. Not sure of their exact amounts because there have been a few different solar plans our utility has used over the years, but it’s probably similar to mine. We are paid $0.08/kWh for what we generate and send the grid, but we pay $0.13/kWh during peak times. From my understanding, this is how most solar grid connected plans are setup nowadays. It is not a 1:1 credit system like some old systems from like a decade ago.
My dad’s solar system on the other hand is older and on a 1:1 kWh credit system plan, so he pays the fees out of pocket. Most of his bills are just the fees since he generates surplus during the day until the grid to offset what he uses overnight.
So there could be an argument with the old 1:1 systems that the base fees don’t pay for maintenance from usage. It’s a weak argument, but there’s something there at least. With current systems that credit based on the much lower wholesale power cost though, that’s literally what any other power generator on the grid in the area is paid, it specifically doesn’t include the maintenance costs because that’s included in the retail price for the usage itself, which is still paid when you pull from the grid.