CANARY MEDIA: California’s rooftop solar policies threaten progress on climate

NEM 3.0 rules have undermined California’s rooftop solar industry and could hamper the state’s efforts to meet its climate targets.

By Julian Spector

When California undercut its own rooftop solar market one year ago, it surrendered a crucial tool for achieving its ambitious climate goals.

For the last two decades, California set the national standard for clean energy policy. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, jumpstarted the rooftop solar industry in 2006 with his Million Solar Roofs initiative, and championed binding carbon-reduction goals with AB32, which guides the state to this day. Successor Jerry Brown, a Democrat, signed into law a deadline to switch to a zero-carbon electricity system by 2045. Now the state is working to cut the fossil fuels it relies on for nearly 40 percent of its electricity, especially when the nation’s largest solar fleet goes to sleep for the night.

CAL MATTERS: What’s happened since California cut home solar payments? Demand has plunged 80%

BY JULIE CART

Ken Wells runs O&M Solar Services, a small residential solar company in South Los Angeles, where he works with disadvantaged communities. But a new state rate structure for rooftop solar has decimated his business. He had to lay off all 20 employees. Photo by Lauren Justice for CalMatters

Weldon Kennedy and his wife make it their business to keep up with California’s fast-changing clean energy landscape. So when the climate-conscious couple began planning to add a solar system to the roof of their Oakland home, they took their time to talk to installers and shop around for the best deal.

But then, last spring, he heard that a neighbor had decided to accelerate their solar project. Other homeowners in the area were rushing to get in line, too.

“I don’t think I fully understood the scope of it, but I had people telling me, ‘You better get going, get your solar now,’ ” Kennedy said. “It seemed like a bunch of tomfoolery was coming down.”

Kennedy’s neighbors and other consumers were reacting to a profound policy shift in California: The state Public Utilities Commission in late 2022 slashed by about 75% the rate that utilities pay homeowners with new solar panels when they sell surplus power to the grid. The rate structure went into effect for solar applicants beginning last April. 

PUC Decisions Cripple California’s Solar Industry, Jeopardize Clean Energy Goals

By Nancy Price, Multimedia Journalist

Recent decisions by the California Public Utilities Commission to reduce what utility companies pay Californians for electricity generated by rooftop solar are endangering the solar industry. In addition, those decisions could prevent the state from meeting its clean-energy goals, industry officials and an environmental advocate said Thursday morning.

They were on a webinar panel organized by the California Solar & Storage Association to discuss the impacts of the PUC verdicts. The impacts include reducing payments to solar households for their generated power and denying customers direct access to solar power generated at schools, small businesses, farms, and portions of multifamily housing. Instead, the power goes directly to the utility companies to sell back to the customers at retail prices.

KPBS: New California rules are crushing the solar industry

By Erik Anderson / Environment Reporter
Contributors: Roland Lizarondo / Video Journalist

Ross Williams has worked in the San Diego region’s residential solar industry since 2010, and he has never seen a darker business outlook for his firm, HES Solar.

That grim future is tied to the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) changing the state’s solar rules a year ago, slashing the value of rooftop generated electricity.

The legislatively mandated review led to changes that cut the value of electricity generated by residential solar panels by 75% in the CPUC ruling, making it harder for residents to recover the cost of installing new systems. Solar arrays can carry price tags in the tens of thousands of dollars.

The change is pushing sales down and layoffs up as the nation’s largest solar industry shrinks in the face of a cloudy future.