Under the proposal by the California Public Utilities Commission, new solar customers would face a one-time fee for connection to the electric grid. Time-of-use rates, which increase during high-demand periods of electricity, will apply to new customers as well.
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In a coup for future rooftop solar customers and California’s booming solar industry, regulators Tuesday proposed keeping largely intact the system that compensates homeowners for sending electricity back to utilities from their panels. The three investor-owned utility companies the proposed decision affects – Southern California Edison, San Diego Gas and Electric and the Pacific Gas and Electric Company – are expected to hit their caps next year.
California’s utility regulator has ruled that the state’s flagship net metering regime will be maintained in broadly its current form beyond 2017, in what is being hailed as a major victory for the pro-solar lobby. The panel also proposed revoking an exemption for existing solar customers on some charges that typically cost 2-3 cents per kilowatt hour of energy.
Additionally, new net metering customers will move to time-of-use rates, with those interconnecting systems in 2018 required to utilize them immediately. The new system will not consider the amount consumers use to offset energy provided by the electric utility. The push to create a new solar tariff came in 2013 under Assembly Bill (A.B.) 327, which directed the Commission to come up with a new tariff no later than December 31, 2015.
Picker’s decision would take effect on July 1, 2017, or whenever caps for the existing incentive program are reached – whichever comes sooner. The utility’s plan also added an additional monthly fee based on energy demand.
The PUC’s overhaul of the old solar rules was mandated by the state Legislature, which wanted to encourage the continued growth of rooftop solar installations while spreading costs fairly to all electricity users.
The proposed decision is scheduled to be voted upon by the CPUC board on January 28. The fee has to be paid only once, when you connect to the electric grid and it will probably cost about $75 to $150.
“Although we don’t like everything in the proposed decision, it is a fair compromise that will maintain the opportunity for customers to go solar”, Heavner says. Under Edison’s proposal, the average solar customer would have seen her or his monthly bill increase from $65 to $135 – a difference of more than $800 per year. “It rejects the utilities proposals to lower people’s compensation for their solar electricity program, and just pretty much preserves California’s very successful net-metering program”. So far, that cost has been distributed among all utility customers.
The California Solar Energy Industries Association – the state’s leading rooftop solar trade group – was more measured in its praise, but still happy with the decision.
“We think they can pay that fee without jeopardizing the economics of the installation”, Kamins said.
“A thoughtful, gradual transition to time of use rates for solar customers will enable the market to continue growing rapidly, while incentivizing Californians to use their home-generated power in a way that provides maximum value to our increasingly renewables-dominated grid”, Evan Gillespie, Director of the Sierra Club’s My Generation campaign, said in a written statement.
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Available in early 2016, PG&E’s new Solar Choice program expands solar power to customers who are unable to install rooftop solar panels. “While these rates can send helpful signals about when to use electricity, we urge the PUC to closely examine the impacts of mandating time-of-use rates”.
