What is net metering and how does it work what is net metering in solar energy what is net income what is net force what is title 42 what is rsv what is my ip what is normal blood pressure

What Is Net Metering and How Does It Work?

What Is Net Metering and How Does It Work?

If you're interested in setting up solar panels at your home, you've likely run into a number of new concepts when it comes to how utilities handle the electricity you'll generate. Perhaps you've run into the term "net metering" otherwise known as "net energy metering" or NEM, a concept unique to commercial and residential areas that generate their own electricity. 

With solar panels, you can generate enough energy to provide electricity to your home and, sometimes, more than you can use or store. When that happens, you can sell that excess electricity to the utility company to distribute elsewhere along the power grid. That process is known as net metering.

How does net metering work?

In states that offer net metering (check here to see if your state qualifies), you can sell your excess solar energy back to your utility company in exchange for credits that offset the cost of your energy usage. You may generate excess solar power when it is clear and sunny out, but see less energy than is necessary to power your home when it is cloudy or rainy. By selling your excess energy back to the utility grid, you'll be able to use the credit to cover the cost for any electricity you need to use. You end up paying only for the "net" energy, or the difference between how much you sold and actually used.

The types of net metering

There are three different models of net metering, and which one is available to you may depend on your state and your utility provider.

Net metering

Net metering is the most common arrangement, and works by selling any surplus power generated by your solar panels to the utility operator in exchange for credits, which offset any electricity you may need to use from the grid. The credit is applied at the retail rate, which means the rate that you pay for electricity. Only one meter is required to track this, though your meter may need to be upgraded when you go solar.

Buy all/sell all

The buy all/sell all model works by selling 100% of the energy that your solar panels generate to the utility company. It is sold at wholesale price, which is cheaper for the purchases. In exchange, you get 100% of your home's energy from the utility company, which you pay the retail rate to use. This requires two separate meters, and you will pay the difference -- if any -- between the amount generated and the amount consumed. It's important to note that under this model, you do not directly consume any of the energy your solar panels generate.

Net billing

Much like net metering, the net billing model allows you to use the electricity generated by your solar panels and sell the excess to the utility company at retail price. Unlike the net metering model, though, you cannot bank credits for future billing cycles. This arrangement is more common for commercial situations than residential ones. 

---

Advertiser Disclosure : CNET's corporate partner, SaveOnEnergy, can help you find the right energy fit for your home. The SaveOnEnergy marketplace helps you search, compare, sign up and save on the right energy fit for your home — all for free. If you're interested in solar, answer a few questions to get an exact price quote from our solar advisors. 

---

What to consider when it comes to net metering types

In some cases you won't have a choice when it comes to the type of net energy metering arrangement, as utility companies may only offer one option. However, if you can choose, you'll want to keep in mind a couple things.

Net metering is the most common option for a reason: it's the simplest to understand. You get credits for energy sold and those credits are at retail price, meaning they are paid at the same rate that you pay for your electricity. That makes the math simple.

However, that doesn't mean it's the best deal available to you. If you're in a situation where you expect to generate a lot of electricity -- a region where it is sunny most of the time and there isn't much rain or cloud cover to interfere with your panels -- a buy all/sell all option may work better. While you'll be selling at a wholesale rate, meaning it is a lower rate for you since you are acting as a provider, you'll also be selling much more than you otherwise would. All of your solar power generation will be monetized, as opposed to just the excess.

You should also keep in mind other fees associated with net metering. For instance, you may have to pay a connection fee. This is a monthly expense that you pay for connecting to the utility company's grid. It typically isn't much, between $10-20 per month, but it is an expense to keep in mind.

No matter what arrangement ends up working best for you, net energy metering a great way to get the most out of your solar panels. Not only does it allow you to power your own house or pay for your full electricity use, but it also allows you to monetize your energy generation and let others make use of it.

---

Source

These galaxy s22 ultra camera features means these galaxy s22 ultra camera features meanings these galaxy s22 ultra camera failed these galaxy s22 ultra camera capabilities these galaxy s22 ultra these galaxy s22 phone these galaxy flip

These Galaxy S22 Ultra camera features mean better pictures of your dog

These Galaxy S22 Ultra camera features mean better pictures of your dog

The Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra's appealing display and sneaky hidden S-Pen stylus is exciting, but as a professional photographer, it's the camera setup I'm most keen to dive into. 

The S22 Ultra, launched at today's Unpacked event alongside the Galaxy S22, S22 Plus and Galaxy Tab S8, is already starting from a good place. Its predecessor, the S21 Ultra, had a superb camera, and much of it hardware carries over: The main camera still has a 108-megapixel resolution, the ultra-wide camera is 12-megapixels, there's a 10-megapixel lens offering 3x optical zoom and an additional 10-megapixel periscope lens offering 10x optical zoom. It's an almost identical setup to the S21 Ultra, but Samsung uses this as a foundation for changes that largely affect the software side. 

Read more: The Galaxy S22 Ultra fails to excite this pro photographer. And that's a problem

The bad news is that if you were hoping for some photography revolution, like the rumored 200-megapixel sensor or continuous zoom, then you'll be disappointed. Let's dive into what has and hasn't changed.

Improved low light and AI

The main driving force behind Samsung's promised boosts in low-light photos is something called "pixel binning" in which multiple pixels combine to form a larger pixel that's capable of capturing more light. In the S22 Ultra's case, 9 individual pixels combine to create a single pixel in a process called "nona binning." But the image also uses details captured by the 108-megapixel camera to create a shot that's bright, vibrant and free of image noise, but still packed with detail. At least, that's the idea. 

We're looking forward to seeing how well the phone copes in dark situations like this.

Samsung

Samsung also says it's improved the AI processing of images, especially night shots, to further reduce image noise and improve the overall quality. Whether these software tweaks make a noticeable difference in night-mode shots remains to be seen, but the phone will have to work hard to compete with the night mode shots from the iPhone 13 Pro and Pixel 6 Pro. 

Read more: Samsung's Galaxy S22 vs. iPhone 13 and Galaxy S22 vs. Pixel 6 Pro

Better portrait blur, now with added doggos

Portrait mode photos with artfully out-of-focus backgrounds aren't new, but they've been getting steadily better over the past few years, yielding more natural-looking results. Samsung reckons its most recent algorithm updates can pick out even a single strand of hair from its background, ensuring your subject stays entirely in focus, with a natural blurred background (called "bokeh") around them. 

The phone will apparently be able to do this even with complicated backgrounds. Samsung showed one demo involving a girl standing in front of what looked like a fishing net, and the blurring around her looked spot-on. 

Once you've captured the perfect dog photo you can use the S-Pen to draw all over it like the monster you are.

Samsung

But more excitingly still is that it apparently will work just as well with portrait photos of dogs and maybe other pets too. Whether it can really identify every hair around a poofy Pomeranian very much remains to be seen, but anything that encourages more photos of beautiful golden retrievers gets the seal of approval from me. 

Improved video quality

Like its predecessor, the S22 Ultra can shoot videos at up to 8K resolution from its main rear camera and at 240 frames per second at full HD for cool slow-mo videos. And while we aren't getting any more great leaps in resolution, high speed or video zooming here, there are some "behind the scenes" tweaks Samsung has made to improve video quality generally. 

The AI algorithms have apparently been boosted across the board, resulting in better HDR video footage, balancing those bright skies and those shadowy areas for a more even-looking shot overall. The AI also promises better auto focus and lower noise, particularly at night. 

Samsung promises better-looking low light in video, too.

Samsung

Videos can now be shot using an automatic, variable frame rate, which will change depending on conditions and could help reduce that annoying flicker you can get when shooting under artificial lighting. A higher frame rate can also help achieve smoother footage when filming fast-moving objects, such as cars whizzing past at a motor race. 

The downside is that variable frame rates can be very difficult for video editing applications like Adobe Premiere to handle, so if you plan on shooting and editing your footage this might be a function to avoid. 

Samsung's also added an auto-framing option for video, whereby the camera will automatically zoom in and out when you're filming people to capture everyone in the scene. It can detect up to 10 individual faces, and tapping on one person's face will allow the camera to automatically zoom in and track them in the scene. 

I can't think of a lot of occasions where this function would be all that useful to me, but that might just be because I've not been around more than three people at once since the end of 2019. 

Expert Raw sounds like it could offer great images. But why does it need to be a separate app?

Samsung

Expert Raw for better pro shots

Samsung is introducing a dedicated pro photography app -- called Expert Raw -- which will allow for manual control over settings like shutter speed, ISO and white balance, while also allowing for capturing images in 16-bit DNG raw format. Raw images typically allow for much more control over editing in apps like Adobe Lightroom, while also capturing more details in bright highlights and dark shadows than JPEG images are usually able to. Exactly how this will differ from its existing "Pro" mode, which also gives control over those settings and lets you shoot in DNG raw, remains to be seen.

Samsung also mentioned in its briefing that Expert Raw will also allow for "high dynamic range pictures in multiframe raw format" -- potentially meaning it will be able to combine different exposures into one HDR image with better dynamic range, yet still produce a DNG raw file that offers the flexibility of raw editing. This sounds very much like computational raw photography and it's exactly what Apple did with the introduction of ProRaw on the iPhone 12 Pro. 

However, it's not clear at the time of writing if this definitely is computational raw, or if it's just regular raw files that may allow you to pull back a bit more highlight detail. I've reached out to Samsung for clarification and will update this article when we hear more. If it is then that could be an exciting step forward for the phone's photographic capabilities, but it's baffling why this is only something you can apparently only do in a dedicated Expert Raw app that requires downloading from Samsung's Galaxy Store, rather than directly from the main camera, as you can do with the iPhone. 

For more, check out how Samsung's new Galaxy phones compare, what to know about nightography and what the Galaxy S22 means for the Galaxy Note series. Looking to buy one of the new handsets? Take a look at CNET's guide to Galaxy S22 preorders. 

---

Source

Inflation interest rates and jobs how today stencile inflation interest rates and jobs how today weather inflation interest rates and jobs howard inflation interest rates and jobs howell inflation interest rates and jobs howey inflation interest rates and jobs howden inflation interest rates and recession inflation interest rate calculator inflation interest rates inflation interest rate relationship jimmy carter inflation interest rates inflation interest rate history

Inflation, Interest Rates and Jobs: How Today's Economy Compares to Recessions of the Past

Inflation, Interest Rates and Jobs: How Today's Economy Compares to Recessions of the Past

This story is part of Recession Help Desk, CNET's coverage of how to make smart money moves in an uncertain economy.

What's happening

There's still debate about whether the US economy is officially headed into a recession, but the economic downturn is causing widespread stress.

Why it matters

Periods of financial volatility and market decline can drive people to panic and make costly mistakes with their money.

What's next

Examining what's happening now -- and comparing it with the past -- can help investors and consumers decide what to do next.

Facing the aftershocks of a rough economy in the first half of 2022, with sky-high inflation, rising mortgage rates, soaring gas prices and a bear market for stocks, leading indicators of a recession have moderated slightly in the past month. That could mean the economic downturn won't be as long or brutal as expected. 

Still, the majority of Americans are feeling the sting of rising prices and anxiety over jobs. The country has experienced two consecutive quarters of economic slowdown -- the barometer for measuring a recession -- even though the National Bureau of Economic Research hasn't made the "official" recession call.  

At a time like this, we should consider what happens in a recession, look at the data to determine whether we're in one and try to maintain some historical perspective. It's also worth pointing out that down periods are temporary and that, over time, both the stock market and the US economy bounce back. 

I don't mean to minimize the gravity and hardship of the times. But it can be useful to review how the economy has behaved in the past to avoid irrational or impulsive money moves. For this, we can largely blame recency bias, our inclination to view our latest experiences as the most valid. It's what led many to flee the stock market in 2008 when the S&P 500 crashed, thereby locking in losses and missing out on the subsequent bull market. 

"It's our human tendency to project the immediate past into the future indefinitely," said Daniel Crosby, chief behavioral officer at Orion Advisor Solutions and author of The Laws of Wealth. "It's a time-saving shortcut that works most of the time in most contexts but can be woefully misapplied in markets that tend to be cyclical," Crosby told me via email. 

Before you make a knee-jerk reaction to your portfolio, give up on a home purchase or lose it over job insecurity, consider these chart-based analyses from the last three decades. We hope this data-driven overview will offer a broader context and some impetus for making the most of your money today.

What do we know about inflation? 

Historical inflation rate by year

Macrotrends.net

Current conditions: The US is experiencing the highest rate of inflation in decades, driven by global supply chain disruptions, the injection of federal stimulus dollars and a surge in consumer spending. In real dollars, the 8.5% rise in consumer prices over the past year is adding about $400 more per month to household budgets. 

The context: Policymakers consider 2% per year to be a "normal" inflation target. The country's still experiencing over four times that figure. The 9.1% annual rate in July was the largest jump in inflation since 1980 when the inflation rate hit 13.5% following the prior decade's oil crisis and high government spending on defense, social services, health care, education and pensions. Back then, the Federal Reserve increased rates to stabilize prices and, by the mid-1980s, inflation fell to below 5%.

The upside: As overall inflation rates rise, the silver lining might be increased rates of return on personal savings. Bank accounts are starting to offer more attractive yields, while I bonds -- federally backed accounts that more or less track inflation -- are attracting savers, too. 

What's happening with mortgage rates? 

30-year fixed-rate mortgage averages in the US

Current conditions: As the Federal Reserve continues its rate-hike campaign to cool spending and try to tame inflation, the rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage has grown significantly. In June, the average rate jumped annually by nearly 3 percentage points to almost 6%. In real dollars, that means that after a 20% down payment on a new home (let's use the average sale price of $429,000), a buyer would roughly need an extra $7,300 a year to afford the mortgage. Since then, rates have cooled a bit, even dipping back down below 5%. What happens next with rates depends on where inflation goes from here.

The context: Three years ago, homebuyers faced similar borrowing costs and, at the time, rates were characterized as "historically low." And if we think borrowing money is expensive today, let's not forget the early 1980s when the Federal Reserve jacked up rates to never-before-seen levels due to hyperinflation. The average rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage in 1981 topped 16%. 

The upside: For homebuyers, a potential benefit to rising rates is downward pressure on home prices, which could cause the housing market to cool slightly. As the cost to borrow continues to increase with mortgages becoming more expensive, homes could experience fewer offers and prices would slow in pace. In fact, nearly one in five sellers dropped their asking price during late April through late May, according to Redfin. 

On the flip side, less homebuyers mean more renters. Rent prices have skyrocketed, and housing activists are asking the White House to take action on what they call a "national emergency."

What about the stock market? 

Dow Jones Industrial Average stock market index for the past 30 years

Macrotrends.net

Current conditions: Year-to-date, the Dow Jones Industrial Average -- a composite of 30 of the most well-known US stocks such as Apple, Microsoft and Coca-Cola -- is about 8.5% below where it started in January. Relative to the broader market, technology stocks are down much more. The Nasdaq is off almost 19% since the start of the year. 

The benchmark S&P 500 stock index hit lows in June that marked a more than 20% drop from January, which brought us officially into a bear market. Since then, it's bounced back up a little, but some experts warn that a current bear market rally is at odds with expected earnings and we could see even lower stock prices in the near future.

The context: Stock price losses in 2022 are not nearly as swift and steep as what we saw in March 2020, when panic over the pandemic drove the DJIA down by 26% in roughly four trading days. The market reversed course the following month and began a bull run lasting more than two years, as the lockdown drove massive consumption of products and services tied to software, health care, food and natural gas. 

Prior to that, in 2008 and 2009, a deep and pervasive crisis in housing and financial services sank the Dow by nearly 55% from its 2007 high. But by fall 2009, it was off to one of its longest winning streaks in financial history. 

The upside: Given the cyclical nature of the stock market, now is not the time to jump ship.* "Times that are down, you at least want to hold and/or think about buying," said Adam Seessel, author of Where the Money Is. "Over the last 100 years, American stocks have been the surest way to grow wealthy slowly over time," he told me during a recent So Money podcast.

*One caveat: If you're closer to or living in retirement and your portfolio has taken a sizable hit, it may be worth talking to a professional and reviewing your selection of funds to ensure that you're not taking on too much risk. Target-date funds, a popular investment vehicle in many retirement accounts that auto-adjust for risk as you age, may be too risky for pre- or early retirees. 

What does unemployment tell us? 

US unemployment rates

Current conditions: The July jobs report shows the unemployment rate holding steady, slightly dropping to 3.5%. The Great Resignation of 2021, where millions of workers quit their jobs over burnout, as well as unsatisfactory wages and benefits, left employers scrambling to fill positions. However, that could be changing as economic challenges deepen: More job losses are likely on the horizon, and an increasing number of workers are concerned with job security. 

The context: The rebound in theunemployment rate is an economic hallmark of the past two years. But the ongoing interest rate hike may weigh on corporate profits, leading to more layoffs and hiring freezes. For context, during the Great Recession, in a two-year span from late 2007 to 2009, the unemployment rate rose sharply from about 5% to 10%. 

Today, the tech sector is one to watch. After benefiting from rapid growth led by consumer demand in the pandemic, companies like Google and Facebook may be in for a "correction." Layoffs.fyi, a website that tracks downsizing at tech startups, logged close to 37,000 layoffs in Q2, more than triple from the same period last year. 

The upside: If you're worried about losing your job because your employer may be more vulnerable in a recession, document your wins so that when review season arrives, you're ready to walk your manager through your top-performing moments. Offer strategies for how to weather a potential slowdown. All the while, review your reserves to see how far you can stretch savings in case you're out of work. Keep in mind that in the previous recession, it took an average of eight to nine months for unemployed Americans to secure new jobs.

§

What's happening

Home prices overall are up by 37% since March 2020.

Why it matters

Surging home prices and higher interest rates make monthly mortgage payments less affordable.

What's next

Rising mortgage rates will make borrowing money more expensive, which will lessen competition to buy homes and eventually flatten prices.

Home prices continued to skyrocket in March as buyers tried to stay ahead of rising mortgage rates. 

Prices increased by 20.6% this March compared to last year, according to the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Indices, the leading measures of US home prices. This was the highest year-over-year increase in March for home prices in more than 35 years of data. Seven in 10 homes sold for more than their asking price, according to CoreLogic. 

Out of the 20 cities tracked by the 20-city composite index, Tampa, Phoenix and Miami saw the highest year-over-year gains in March. Tampa saw the greatest increase, with an almost 35% increase in home prices year-over-year. All 20 cities experienced double-digit price growth for the year ending in March.

The strongest price growth was seen in the south and southeast, with both regions posting almost 30% gains in March. Seventeen of the 20 metro areas also saw acceleration in their annual gains since February. 

"Those of us who have been anticipating a deceleration in the growth rate of US home prices will have to wait at least a month longer," said Craig Lazzara, managing director at S&P DJI, in the release. "The strength of the Composite indices suggests very broad strength in the housing market, which we continue to observe."

Since the start of the pandemic in March 2020, home prices overall are up by 37%. The current surge in home prices is a result of tight competition between buyers in a low-inventory market as they attempt to lock in lower mortgage rates before rates jump even higher throughout the year, as experts predict they will.

If you're considering buying a new home -- or are actively in the market -- the news isn't all bad. Interest rates are at their highest point in more than 40 years, and one potential benefit of that may, eventually, be downward pressure on home prices. As it becomes increasingly expensive to borrow money, fewer people will seek to do so, and homes for sale may receive fewer offers leading to, eventually, lower prices. In fact, nearly one in five sellers lowered their asking price during a four-week period in May and April, according to Redfin.

"Mortgages are becoming more expensive as the Federal Reserve has begun to ratchet up interest rates, suggesting that the macroeconomic environment may not support extraordinary home price growth for much longer," said Lazzara. "Although one can safely predict that price gains will begin to decelerate, the timing of the deceleration is a more difficult call."

---

Source