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Re: Selling electricity back into the public grid



Harry H Conover <conover@max.tiac.net> thus misinforms us: :-)

>The problem is, on the scale of your operation, your cost to produce
>the electricity is (when you amortize the cost of your equipment
>into your overall cost), is far less than the wholesale electric
>prices that the electric company will pay you.

In many states, eg Pennsylvania, the PUC interpret the PURPA law to mean that
the electric company must buy back electricity from even the smallest 
producers at the retail rate, ie the same price they sell it for, until
the producer reaches zero net monthly consumption, at which point they start
paying a lower wholesale rate...

Residential, home-heating-oil-burning Intelligen cogeneration systems
typically pay for themselves in 3-5 years, by zeroing out peoples' electric
bills, without even counting income from net overproduction of electricity. 

Nick