A trio of environmental teams need the California Public Utilities Fee to upend final month’s determination to overtake guidelines affecting 1.6 million Californians who set up rooftop photo voltaic on their houses and enterprise.
The Shield Our Communities Basis, based mostly in San Diego, joined the Environmental Working Group and the Middle for Organic Range in submitting an software for a rehearing and reversal of the fee’s Dec. 15 ruling.
“They’re improper,” stated Invoice Powers, an engineer and board member of the Shield Our Communities Basis. “It was the improper determination.”
At difficulty is the so-called NEM 3.0 — the third iteration of California’s Web Vitality Metering guidelines that decide the quantity of credit prospects obtain on their utility payments when their photo voltaic methods on the roof generate extra vitality than they use.
Handed by all 5 commissioners voting in favor, the complicated 260-page determination would come with $900 million in upfront incentives for purchasers to pair photo voltaic with battery storage methods, with $630 million in reserved for low-income prospects. The fee estimates the up to date guidelines will save the typical residential buyer with solar-plus-storage no less than $136 a month on their utility payments.
One of many key provisions adjustments the way in which rooftop photo voltaic homeowners are paid for extra electrical energy despatched to their grid methods.
As an alternative of being credited on the retail electrical energy fee, prospects are billed for “precise prevented prices.” That quantity is decrease than the retail fee throughout sunlight hours when photo voltaic vitality is considerable and low cost, however it’s larger throughout nighttime hours – when photo voltaic manufacturing drops to nearly zero when the solar goes down and California’s electrical grid is underneath essentially the most stress.
The California Photo voltaic & Storage Affiliation – which strongly opposes the principles adjustments – estimates that the typical compensation fee will fall from 30 cents per kilowatt to eight cents, a discount of 75 %.
The NEM 3.0 guidelines are set to enter impact in mid-April and can have an effect on new photo voltaic prospects.
The request for a rehearing zeroes in on a state regulation that kinds a part of the Public Utilities Code. A piece of the code directs the fee to make sure “that customer-based renewable distributed era continues to develop sustainably and consists of particular options designed for development amongst prospects dwelling in poor communities.”
In a submitting by the Shield Our Communities Basis, the EWG and the Middle for Organic Range argued NEM 3.0 was written to “fail to conform” with that order.
Putting in rooftop photo voltaic can price tens of 1000’s of {dollars} and the teams say the brand new guidelines will lengthen the system’s payback interval, discourage prospects from investing in photo voltaic, and scale back the financial savings prospects obtain on their utility payments.
Due to this fact, they stated, the choice “will destroy photo voltaic adoption charges and thus (fail) to make sure the continued sustainable development of distributed era.”
On the day the brand new guidelines had been adopted, CPUC commissioner John Reynolds predicted the adjustments wouldn’t damage photo voltaic development in California. When the principles had been final up to date in 2016, Reynolds stated, there was a lower within the variety of photo voltaic methods linked to the utility grid however the numbers rebounded and reached a report excessive in 2022.
“All of that is to say that there can be a measure of decline after this determination that’s absolutely anticipated,” Reynolds stated, “however it won’t herald the loss of life of the business or the rooftop photo voltaic market.”
The fee additionally obtained one other software for a rehearing — from Michael E. Boyd, president of Californians for Renewable Vitality, a Santa Cruz County nonprofit.
As for what occurs subsequent, CPUC spokeswoman Terrie Prosper stated in an e-mail to the Union-Tribune that whereas the fee will difficulty a proper determination on the functions for a rehearing, “there isn’t any particular timeline” for when the choice can be issued. .
The Powers of the Shield Our Communities Basis stated it didn’t count on the fee to reverse its determination however cited a procedural requirement known as “exhaustion of administrative cures” that mandates that challengers pursue all obtainable administrative channels and lift all points earlier than submitting a lawsuit in opposition to a public company.
“So if we do not file an software for a rehearing, there is no chance of it going to the appeals court docket,” Powers stated.
