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The state government where I live was captured by the power company basically. They have rules, permits and fees designed to make it cost ineffective to ever recover your expense using residential solar. There is finally a class action suit on these rules which are known to have been crafted by the power company.I consult on the utility side. Washington State is unique with most of the state served by nonprofit electrical utilities supplied by the nonprofit Bonneville Power Administration. In 1980, the Northwest Energy Act required a 20 year power plan every 5 years and that in that plan efficiency receive a 10% premium over new generation construction. There is a regional technical process by engineers that studies efficiency and publishes the cost and savings by deemed efficiency measures.
Further Washington is a net energy exporter, primarily to California. That can be seen by the US Department of Energy real time electricity map https://www.eia.gov/electricity/gridmonitor/dashboard/electric_overview/US48/US48. If you click on a circle, there is a graph of interchange - power imports and exports. There are also some policy projects driven by the for-profit utilities I strongly disagree with to reduce the price California, primarily for-profit utilities pay for clean energy imports from Washington. That can be seen by the West Coast energy pricing system driven by California at https://www.caiso.com/todays-outlook/prices.
The point is that Washington really does not need to build as much new renewable generation as it is doing and it does not need to join the California for-profit energy market.
Since the 1980, the State of Washington has applied the ideas of the Bonneville efficiency engineering cost/benefit studies to the building code. Washington was an early leader in another dynamic efficiency system, customer load flexibility. That requires the building heating and cooling and hot water heating respond to utility signals when energy prices are high on the hottest and coldest days in the afternoon and evening. That simple flexibility can save a lot of money.
If you are building residential, the Washington code is likely requiring building sealing, thicker insulation, better doors and windows, and more efficient mechanical systems. Space heating and cooling with heat pumps is easy. I would agree heat pump water heaters are not ready for prime time, yet. Generally residential customers expect at least a 10 year life for their mechanical systems.
If you are building in Clark County, they are somewhat of a special case as a slice customer. They have an about 250MW natural gas generator that takes a long time to start and stop. They would likely seek to phase that out and replace it with renewables backed by storage, or with increased purchases from the Mid-C generators, Chelan, Douglas, and Grant.
In summary, Washington and its nonprofit utilities have world-leading energy planning policy, low electricity prices, and efficiency in buildings other states can emulate.
If you are in the Clark-Thurston area, I'm in Portland and glad to chat over coffee. I'm interested in the architect/builder efficiency experience.
Long way around to say, they have the option for a minor rebate in your bill if you allow them to have a kill switch on your HVAC unit. They won't use it more than 30 minutes at a time per day. This would allow them to shift some peak demand in the summer when they are having to run up near the limits. Of course this saves me no money as the HVAC just has to work harder after it comes back on to catch up. When they send me the mailers trying to get me to opt in my thought has always been, "if only there were a way for me to generate some extra power on those cloudless hot days to help reduce their peak needs. You know something that worked best the sunnier it is. Oh yeah, there is and the bastards make it unaffordable for me to have that."
Now I would be happier if they invested more in large solar so I can just pay the bill. They have a couple projects in the works, but have been foot dragging on implementing it for a few years. Maybe it doesn't make for good economics for them. They still don't have to artificially make it bad economics for me to do it locally. Maybe a 15 year pay-off suits me and it is too slow for them. We'd both benefit if I did it.