I agree with the International Energy Agency that people are free riding that why there needs to be a carbon base loading factor applied to solar powered home on the network.

Establish a fair price for each kWh shipped on the grid. Those that use it the most can pay the most. Being a monopoly grid prices will need to be set by a government agency.

Electricity sellers can set their rates based on their costs and bill accordingly. That will create incentives to provide electricity at the lowest possible price.

US grid losses are more in the 7% range and falling.

eta: Grid losses in some countries can be high. India suffers a lot of electricity theft, for example.

Solar produces most of its power during grid Peak hours which cost the utility more than triple off peak power costs. This cost is reflected in all rates for all rate classes. Specifically in residential rates this cost is spread over all kWh charges levied on the consumer giving them a blended flat rate in most cases which is much higher than true off peak costs. When Solar offsets this higher cost by pushing power back into the grid at peak times, the utility needs to purchase or produce less expensive energy during this peak period which is a net benefit to the utility and indirectly to the solar producers neighbors if the utility passes on the savings.

Since the solar producer offsets their own power and provides peak demand load shedding for the utility, the need for power plant expansion, power line and transformer upgrades is diminished proportionally to the increase in distributed solar generation. This is clearly evidenced in the mature German solar market.

The utility saves money by not needing to expand generation capacity or distribution volume and any ongoing maintenance of these assets.

Since distributed solar is consumed on site, 1kWh is consumed for each kWh generated. When the utility generates power miles away from the source of consumption, more than half of the power is lost to the inefficiencies of the grid itself meaning the utility must generate 2-4kWh for each kWh consumed. Distributed solar has a multiplying effect on utility generation reduction.

I am more than a little disappointed in the sliver of data that the IEA used to make this erroneous point. It is woefully uninformed makes assumptions using a sliver of available data, all of which points to their premise. The whole picture tells a very different story…the real story. Solar is a net savings to the utility.