Clean energy advocates say rules threaten growth of solar panels

About half created a clear vitality South Aspect group group, accumulating cash on utility payments to offer extra free meals, job coaching and authorized companies.

The opposite half sits inactive, not topic to laws.

However as regulators work to replace almost 20-year-old guidelines on customer-owned turbines, clear vitality advocates fear they have not completed sufficient to repair the issues. permits utility corporations to limit rooftop photo voltaic installations.

The Public Service Fee revised the executive code governing “distributed era amenities” — outlined underneath state legislation as turbines of lower than 15 megawatts which can be positioned close to the place the vitality that helps the ability grid.

Clear vitality advocates initially cheered the choice to vary the rule, which was adopted in 2004 when photovoltaic photo voltaic panels had been comparatively new and didn’t even point out battery storage.

The proposed adjustments authorized by the fee in October will account for vitality financial savings and make the method of hooking as much as the grid extra clear. However the adjustments additionally threaten to undermine the expansion of customer-owned era, stated Elizabeth Ward, director of the Sierra Membership’s Wisconsin chapter.

Among the many environmental group’s issues: The proposed guidelines would elevate consumer hookup charges, pressure prospects to pay for unspecified “cost-based” engineering research and a doubtlessly costly dispute decision course of that enables utilities to delay hookups.

The Sierra Membership estimates new charges of $150 to $300 for commonest residential-size methods alone costing prospects as much as $5 million a yr.

“Distributed era and storage, together with photo voltaic panels and rooftop batteries, each save all ratepayers cash by decreasing the necessity for utility funding in fossil gasoline energy crops and different capability and empowering particular person prospects relating to their very own vitality consumption,” the group wrote.

PSC Chair Rebecca Valcq stated the payment construction is designed to match the precise prices incurred by utilities.

“Not everybody will likely be comfortable,” Valcq stated. “As a common matter these payments mirror the reality, and I feel that is necessary.”

The Wisconsin Utilities Affiliation, which represents the biggest investor-owned utility corporations, agreed with the fee’s proposed adjustments.

PSC spokesman Matt Sweeney stated the fee is at present reviewing public feedback and suggestions of the Legislature’s nonpartisan authorized service. The fee should approve the ultimate rule language earlier than submitting it to the governor and Legislature for approval, which is predicted to occur in early 2023.

The adjustments don’t repair what clear vitality advocates take into account “pointless” insurance coverage necessities that create undue burdens, notably on farmers and non-farmers. enterprise organizations such because the Catholic Multicultural Middle.

In an effort to cut back vitality prices and be environmentally sustainable, the middle put in a 15.5-kilowatt photo voltaic array in 2014.

Two years later, with the assistance of further donations, the middle added a second 13.8-kW system.

Beneath present guidelines, anybody putting in a system bigger than 20 kW is required to hold at the very least $1 million in legal responsibility insurance coverage and should cowl the utility within the occasion of any injury to the grid.

“That is once we bumped into bother,” stated middle director Steve Maurice.

As a result of it’s a part of the Catholic Diocese of Madison, the middle is insured by the Catholic Mutual Group, which refuses to offer further legal responsibility protection. The middle tried to buy further protection however couldn’t discover an insurer that may difficulty a reproduction coverage.

With the utility not wanting to maneuver, the middle was unable to hook up the second row, which had already been put in.

5 years later, it nonetheless hasn’t generated a single kilowatt-hour of vitality or the hundreds of {dollars} in financial savings that might have funded extra free meals, job coaching or immigration companies.

Maurice stated it was irritating to be constrained by a requirement to insure towards a “very far-fetched” situation the place photo voltaic arrays might injury the grid.

“We’re a small nonprofit,” he stated. “MGE, a multimillion utility firm, wants this from us.”

MGE spokesman Steve Schultz stated the utility can not focus on particular person prospects however famous that insurance coverage necessities are spelled out within the rule.

Renewable vitality advocates say the fee ought to observe the suggestions of the nonprofit Interstate Renewable Vitality Council, which says there are not any recognized claims of methods that primarily based on the inverter that may injury the utility grid and that there’s a “low theoretical potential for injury” in a system of lower than 1,000 kilowatts.

The fee voted to maintain the insurance coverage requirement however added new language that may permit prospects to show monetary duty by means of different means if the utility agrees.

“Simply because there is not an event the place an insurance coverage declare is critical doesn’t negate the necessity for insurance coverage,” stated Valcq.

Michael Vickerman, coverage director for Renew Wisconsin, stated little might be completed to unravel the issue if the Catholic church — an establishment older than the state and the electrical trade — cannot fulfill the utility’s want for safety. in finance.

“Holding all of the playing cards right here, the utility has full management over what’s a passable workaround,” Vickerman stated. “If the utility is unwilling to pursue a very good religion compromise on the insurance coverage requirement, there isn’t any alternative for the shopper however to desert the undertaking.”

The fee launched a tweak designed to account for the rising use of batteries in residential-sized methods.

That helps prospects like Michael Savagian, who put in a 16-kilowatt photo voltaic array to energy his northern Wisconsin house and two electrical vehicles.

When he tried to put in a battery to offer backup throughout frequent energy outages he was advised that may require further insurance coverage and would make him ineligible for internet metering, a billing mechanism. which credit photo voltaic house owners for the surplus vitality they ship to the grid.

With the excessive price of batteries, Savagian argues that it does not make sense to export vitality for lower than 3 cents per kilowatt-hour.

“Who sells electrical energy from a battery?” Savagian stated. “That is impolite.”

Beneath the proposed adjustments, batteries paired with methods of lower than 20 kilowatts won’t be counted within the capability vary so long as they don’t seem to be configured for export. However there isn’t any prescribed definition of that association, which means utility corporations nonetheless get the ultimate say.