The people who put solar panels on their roofs to be “self-sufficient” and pay less for electricity, in the long run, feel cheated and penalised by the astronomical network charges set by the Energy Agency. This is now also the claim of the “electrogenius” and Prime Minister Golob and Energy Minister Kumer. The same applies to other members of the current government, who, after receiving the first bills after the changes came into force, have “seen the light” – but this is all just a show for the public.
The words “seen the light” are written in quotation marks because the huge problem of excessive network charges was already pointed out to them by many before implementation. This list did not include only the opposition. At least Minister Kumer, and the energy expert and Prime Minister Golob were probably aware of the problem beforehand. That is why many people believe that all this is also a deliberate show for the public, which will ultimately only benefit the energy companies, who want to double the cost of upgrading the electricity network and probably get even more money out of the pockets of electricity consumers.
This is also the view of Tadej, an owner of solar panels, who wrote: “Maybe they are doing it consciously, they have raised the price (network charges) by a couple 100 percent to make people resist, and now they will ease up a bit – as if to please them, but we will still be paying unrealistically too much and a second time to finance the network upgrade out of our pockets.”
They want to steal from us
The reader who sent us the letter we are summarising has not seen the real facts about network charges anywhere – it is all about diversion and “trying to steal from us”. As he says, no one explained that we pay two different network charges – firstly, we pay a network charge on energy, which is a flat rate tariff equal to the electricity consumed. The owners of the solar power plants pay this grid fee only on the difference in energy consumed.
The solar panels owner, Tadej, explained this by saying: “We have a power plant and a user A with a solar power plant and a user B who does not have one but is a consumer and uses electricity. It doesn’t matter to the grid, it’s the same load if user B gets electricity from the power plant or from user A, plus they charge user B a grid fee on the energy they got from user A. If they charged this grid fee on top of the grid fee to user A with the solar power plant, they would be charging twice for the same energy transfer! This part of the charging has not changed with the new way of charging the network charge! Everybody pays this part of the energy in the same way as before; even the owners of solar power plants pay the network charge on the difference between the energy produced and the energy consumed.”
The catch is the “spikes” in consumption
Our reader also pointed out something else – the second part has changed. Previously, we paid for connection power/fuses and a contribution for renewable energy sources and co-production of heat and electric energy, two items for network maintenance to the state, but now we pay a network fee based on power instead.
As he pointed out, the fused connection power has been abolished under the guise of a per-connection power charge, taking only the “peaks”, so that even though the average consumption is e.g. 2 kW, the consumer has to pay the network charge for three “peaks” (e.g. 4 kW, which is more than twice the actual use).
It gets even worse if the user in the third block exceeds the “peak” of the first and, at the same time, the most expensive block, e.g. 5 kW. Then the first block is charged at the more expensive variant. In reality, the average use is 2 kW, but the price paid is the same as the 5 kW use. This applies to everyone, including owners of solar power plants.
Connection consents
Let us remind you how we got to the electricity connection. We all had to pay a contribution and a connection consent, equal to the connection power, i.e. the fuses, and then pay the connection power and the contributions for renewable energy sources and co-production of heat and electric energy on a monthly basis. This took thirty years or more, and involved building, maintaining and upgrading the network.
Why does an electrical connection require consent? A house consumes, say, 2 kW or, to simplify (in layman’s terms, to make it more understandable, not using scientific terms that nobody understands), a fuse and a consent under the old system of 20 A. There is a transformer on the street, part of the network is 200 A. Consents are issued to up to ten houses at 20 A each, for a total of 200 A. If a new house is built in the estate, no one should issue a consent that exceeds the transformer or the network, but another transformer should be added, or the existing one increased to 400 A, which would be enough for the next 10 houses, making a total of 20.
“We paid for this with consents, by paying for the connection capacity by fuse and contributions,” noted our reader, pointing out that the electricity distributor found that the real consumption of all 10 houses averaged 20 A was less than half, so it took this as a reserve and connected another 10 houses of 20 A each to the transformer supplying the network with 200 A without upgrading the network (only 200 A instead of 400 A). All this despite the fact that he was charging all 20 houses for a total of 400 A, as the owner of the solar power plant, Tadej pointed out.
“This is certainly recorded, documented, it would just be necessary to find the consents and who issued them, signed them, the connection beyond the network’s capacity, that is, who is responsible. With the green transition came a sobering, in line with the push for more efficient use of energy, users started to use paid and guaranteed power, if you are paying 20A, why not use, say 15A instead of 5, and the operators have not upgraded the network despite charging and paying for it, and there are overloads,” said Tadej.
On network burdening
He also pointed out another lie, namely that solar power plant owners are putting additional strain on the network. This is, of course, not true, as it does not matter which way the electricity flows – from the solar power plant owner or to the user who has the solar power plant. All that matters is that it does not exceed the paid connection capacity, for which the user and the owner of the solar power plant have consent. For example, 2 times more electricity flows through the grid than before because of solar power plants.
The problem remains the same – the grid is overloaded because it has not been upgraded to the purchased and paid for capacity, but only to the real consumption. They have also granted consents well beyond the capacity of the grid. “And solar power plant owners pay exactly the same grid fee per connection capacity of, say, 20 A into this system as others without solar plants!” noted our reader.
Energy storage is a fool’s errand
Solar power plant owners are further upset by the additional energy storage charges that have been imposed on them. Energy cannot be stored because all electricity generators connected to the same grid (nuclear, thermal power plant and solar power plant, which make up only a small proportion) have to provide the energy they need at any given time, irrespective of where it comes from. The system must provide the sum of the connection capacities. If it is summer, there will be more power from the solar power plants, less from hydro and thermal power plants. The reverse is also true – energy flows abroad and back as needed.
Slovenia is not energy self-sufficient
“What about, say, the Šoštanj Thermal Power Plant or the Krško Nuclear Power Plant, do they also pay for storage when they have more electricity than we need or can sell at any given time?” wonders a reader. He also pointed out that Slovenia is not self-sufficient at any time, we always consume more energy than we produce, we have to buy it from foreign distributors. “Why, then, do solar power plant owners have to be charged for ‘storing’ energy?!” he added.
Robbed twice?!
We, the users, bought and paid for the grid according to the powers written in the consents, and then those responsible did not upgrade the grid according to the consents issued, despite us being charged and paying for these upgrades. We have been robbed, as the owner of the solar power plant pointed out, who believes that they would like to rob us a second time by charging high network charges to pay for the network upgrade once again. “It would be interesting to find the culprits behind the consents issued over the network capacity and punish them, all the consents are recorded and signed!” he noted.
C. R.
