Here We Go Again
Wisconsin’s monopoly electric utilities are once again trying to do everything they can to make it as difficult and uneconomical as possible for us to put in solar power. They are required by law in the state to buy power from homeowners who have solar power systems but they try to do everything they can to make it as hard as possible for you to actually do it, they add in all kinds of junk fees to make it costly, and now they’re trying to cut the price they pay for that power to almost literally nothing.
One utility company in the state has already dropped the amount they pay to home solar owners to a whopping 4 cents per kilowatt hour, and two more have filed applications with the public service commission to do the same. And they will almost certainly be granted that new rate because the PSC will claim that it is “in the best interests of the consumer”.
Meanwhile the utility companies will gladly sell you all the power you want, at 16 to 28 cents per kwh depending on what company you’re dealing with and what plan you have. That means that if you have a solar power system and you’re selling power to the utility instead of using it yourself you’re losing anywhere from 12 to 24 cents per kwh for every kilowatt you sell them.
See why I don’t like grid tie systems?
Let’s Play Spot The Turtle!
Do you see him? Do you? I almost missed him when I was out on the bike and I stopped at the stone bridge to look at what’s left of the river. If he hadn’t moved his head I never would have spotted him.
This Sunflower. WTF? Seriously, WTF?
This is one sunflower plant. Just one. I counted 37 flowers on this thing. I’ve never seen anything like this before.
Personally I think its aliens.
Speaking Of Aliens…
Now I’m not a historian, but I suspect that our current Congress has to rank as the single worst and perhaps the stupidest Congress in the history of the country. In fact it probably ranks right up there with the top ten worst governing body in the history of the entire planet.
Why? California is on fire. Again. Wildfires are moving from Canada into the US. Large parts of the country are experiencing the most extreme heat ever recorded. Every other day there is another mass shooting somewhere in the country. Deaths from overdoses of illegal drugs have reached epidemic proportions.
And what is the U.S. Congress doing? That distinguished body is holding hearings on aliens. No, not the illegal kind. The space kind. They were actually sitting there, people who claim they are reasonably intelligent representatives of the American people, listening some “witness” claiming that “someone” told him that the US government has actual real alien spaceships, actual real alien bodies, and has been keeping it secret since the 1940s. And they’re taking it seriously. Did this witness have any actual, well, proof? No. No documents, no photos, no videos, no audio recordings, no first hand witnesses. Nothing. Just “A friend of a friend told me that someone he knows said that they overheard someone saying that the Army had a spaceship…”
Sigh… Like I’ve said before, the human race is going to be the first species in the history of the planet to stupid itself into extinction.
grouchyfarmer 
Your remarks re: Congress … C’mon now! You do realize, don’t you, that we could be attacked any day now! MUST address this VERY urgent issue.
BWWWAHHHHAAA!!
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Hee Hee Hee!
I find myself wondering – Are they really this stupid or is this all smoke and mirrors to try to distract the voters from the fact that they haven’t done a bloody thing to solve our real problems?
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“the human race is going to be the first species in the history of the planet to stupid itself into extinction.”
One of those things that can be comical, pathetic, and deadly serious, all at one time.
I blame greed/capitalism, living to excess, being outbred by idiots, and social media giving those idiots a platform to spread stoopid like the corona virus…
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That’s all certainly part of it.
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In defense of Congress, because I went there on June 13th ’23 to meet with some Congressmen from Virginia about enacting a carbon tax with rebate (through Citizens Climate Lobby), all three offices we visited were actually working on multiple pieces of legislation related to solving our CO2 problem. Their staffers (in spite of having their own ideas) listened attentively to us as we made our suggestion in favor of this or that. Not all in Congress are bright, but I came away feeling a lot of respect and also some pity for the three we visited. They seem to me to be trying harder than anyone else (except people who install their own solar panels!) to make things happen. So, we must appreciate their efforts and the complexity of the workings of our system. The power industry is often the problem, pressuring all involved who want to stay in office….
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The thing about Congress is they can offer many bills but if they go nowhere…..I ask were they legit attempts or fodder for their re-election campaigns? If they spent as much time in DC as they do back home schmoozing donors, big donors then I might have a bit more respect. For me Congress is the problem. chuq
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We have a similar situation here with our water bills …they recently changed our minimum usage charge from 10 units to 3… we used to be able to use 10 units before a bigger bill came in the mail and now the bigger bill comes after we use 3 units –not to mention they doubled the price of our water when they redid the system a few years ago …some of our residents now get water bills as high as Two Hundred dollars per month …and as to the congress — you said, “They were actually sitting there, people who claim they are reasonably intelligent representatives of the American people.” (and I say, “An elected representative does really good just after he or she gets elected, butg once they get a taste of the Washington high life, their entire focus switches off the needs of their constituents and becomes keeping their cushy new job no matter what …promise everything and do nothing… or do just enough to prevent riots in the streets …America is headed for some dark days …
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