The decision, which would reduce the incentive for homeowners to install solar panels, could influence other states to make similar changes.
By Ivan Penn
California regulators voted unanimously on Thursday to significantly reduce how much utilities have to pay homeowners with rooftop solar panels for power they send to the electric grid — a decision that could hurt the growing renewable energy business.
The five members of the California Public Utilities Commission said the existing payments to homeowners through a program known as net metering amounted to an excessively generous subsidy that was no longer needed to encourage the use of solar panels. Under the proposal adopted on Thursday, compensation for the energy sent to the grid by rooftop panels will be reduced by about 75 percent for new rooftop solar homes starting in April.