It would be interesting to see if the same relationship exists for places with high solar power penetration. If a country is going āgreenā, it makes sense they probably also provide incentives to build a lot of solar power, along with the wind farms.
Solar power could actually drive the retail price of electricity higher than wind. Not many private customers have their own wind turbine supplying electricity to their property. But an increasing number of people have solar panels on their roofs. Every region will have its own rules and policies, but if a person generates their own power, that is electricity the utility canāt sell them. Solar power users are still connected to the grid, but they donāt pay as much as those people who donāt have solar panels. Therefore, the lower-income people without solar panels pay a larger amount for the upkeep of the grid than those people producing at least a portion of their own power. Lower income people are often renters, and renters generally donāt have the budget, or even the ability, to put up solar panels.
This results in a system where the costs of keeping the grid operational are paid for by a smaller customer base. Price per kilowatt-hour goes up, in order to keep the cash flow going to the utility, so it can maintain the grid.
Add in the extra costs of building and maintaining new transmission lines out to remote wind farms and utility-scale solar farms, and the lower income people end up paying, while the upper income folks who can afford their solar roofs donāt pay as much.
I donāt know if I explained this properly, but below is a link that also addresses the issue. California has gone big into both wind and solar power, so now Californianās electric rates are skyrocketing.
From the link:
However, because lower-income residents use only moderately less electricity than higher income households, they end up with a disproportionate share of the burden, according to the study. And while the bills of older, wealthier Californians continue to decrease as they adopt cost-efficient alternatives like the stateās Net Energy Metering solar program, costs will keep rising for a shrinking customer base composed mostly of low- and middle-income renters who still use electricity as their main energy source.
āWhen households adopt solar, theyāre not paying their fair share,ā Fowlie said. While solar users generate power that decreases their bills, they still rely on the stateās electric grid for much of their power consumption ā without paying for its fixed costs like others do.
