2. If you have two-way net metering (a few states), when you generate more than you’re using, the energy flows back through the meter out into the distribution system and transmission system. If the retail rate is set up properly (almost nowhere), you should be paid for net electricity you produce with the price set at the marginal cost of producing energy in your area. That’s possible but likely not set up in most regions of the US.

3. In some states, you get a tax rebate or credit against the purchase/installation cost of the solar equipment.

These rules vary in every state.

So if consumers use less electricity or natural gas, that just means the utility doesn’t have as much fuel costs to pass through, and they have no incentive to encourage conservation. In fact, if conservation reduces the demand for new plants, they lose the opportunity build more and put the capital costs into rate base, on which they earn a regulated rate of return, usually 8-10 percent.

So in the 1980s, NRDC, the Californian Energy Commission and others promoted rate reforms that would allow the utilities to “profit” from the investments in energy efficiency and conservation, and once we made it worth their whiles, the utilities in California put in over a billion dollars into conservation investments. It was very successful for a while. When the market restructuring came along in the mid 1990s, it undermined the rationale for that set of reforms. I left about then, but I think the mechanisms are no longer there.

I can’t understand why there is so little talk about how to conserve energy. I hear a lot of bullshit that if you turn your heat down it will only waste more energy. Talk about stupid!