California regulators: Rooftop solar customers keep credit

 By Scott Smith , Associated Press

California homeowners and businesses installing rooftop solar panels can keep offsetting their energy bills by sending surplus power back to the grid, regulators said Thursday in a decision celebrated by the solar industry.

New guidelines narrowly approved by the California Public Utilities Commission add fees to future solar users, but they fall short of what utility companies sought to charge customers for their use of the grid.

Solar customers will pay up to $150 in a onetime fee for connecting to the grid and up to $10 each month. Existing solar customers aren’t affected by the changes approved by the commission in a 3-2 vote.

Bernadette Del Chiaro, executive director of the California Solar Energy Industries Association, said that the ever-dropping costs of solar equipment should offset the new fees.

“At the end of the day, going solar in California will remain a very good economic investment,” Del Chiaro said, adding that Nevada and other states have raised fees on customers, pushing the solar industry out of the market.

“This has been a clear signal that California is building our grid in a different way,” she said. ...

Source: www.washingtonpost.com/national/regulators-rooftop-solar-customers-keep-credit/2016/01/28/fd99d2c2-c620-11e5-b933-31c93021392a_story.html

California regulators approve net metering 2.0

The California Public Utilities Commission has narrowly ruled in favor of a successor program to net metering in the state, which looks generally similar to the original program.

ByChristian Roselund, PV Magazine

A long and contentious process over the future of net metering came to a close this morning in San Francisco, with the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) voting 3-2 in favor of a Proposed Decision for a successor program to net metering which was produced the previous afternoon.

The decision preserves many of the basic features of retail-rate net metering, and rejects utility attempts to change the program in ways that would significantly weaken the economics of customer-sited solar. The new program will begin in July 2017 or as soon as net metering caps are reached in the service areas of the state’s three large investor-owned utilities. 

California Solar Energy Industries Association (CalSEIA) estimates that net metering caps will be reached in San Diego Gas & Electric Company's (SDG&E) service area in April and in Pacific Gas & Electric Company's (PG&E) service area in August.

Utility customers who own PV systems at their homes or businesses will receive retail-rate credits for the electricity they generate, minus “non-bypassable” charges of around US$0.02 per kilowatt-hour, which CalSEIA says is a workable solution. These non-bypassable charges will also be applied to virtual net metering systems.

PV system owners will also move to mandatory time-of-use rates in 2018, except San Diego customers, who will have a five-year period to transition from tiered rates. This will not affect businesses and farms which participate in net metering, as such customers are already on mandatory time-of-use rates. Finally, the commission imposed a $150 application fee for new customers in the program.

“It’s hard not to feel good right now in California,” CalSEIA Executive Director Bernadette Del Chiaro told pv magazine. “It was a 3-2 vote and a real nail-biter, but at the end of the day California just protected net metering and that’s huge.” ...

Source: www.pv-magazine.com/news/details/beitrag/breaking--california-regulators-approve-net-metering-20_100022989/#axzz3ygOq3yX2

California Extends Payments for Rooftop Solar Customers

By Carolyn Whetzel, Bloomberg News

Rooftop solar customers of California's three investor-owned utilities will continue to get paid full retail rates for the excess energy their systems generate, under a net metering program the California Public Utilities Commission approved Jan. 28.

In a 3-2 vote, the California Public Utilities Commission updated the existing net energy metering structure. The decision preserved a provision requiring Pacific Gas & Electric Co., Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric Co. to pay rooftop solar customers the full retail rate for electricity they add to the grid.

...

The California Solar Industries Association said the decision maintains the full retail credit for net metering for 20 years. The updated program also expands access to solar for renters and retains access for farmers, the group said.

“We all know that California is a world leader when it comes to being ‘green,' ” CALSEIA Executive Director Bernardette Del Chiaro said in a written statement. “But today's vote is more than that. It is about California continuing to champion innovation and a different way of doing things, in this case, building a smarter energy grid and allowing individual consumers to generate their own clean energy.”

The new net metering program is effective once existing solar customers meet current participation caps, or July 1, 2017, whichever occurs first, the commission said.

Source: www.bna.com/california-extends-payments-n57982066706/

Utilities lobby for changes to rooftop solar decision

Major utilities are once again urging state officials to make it more expensive for homes and businesses to go solar, in a last-minute effort to undermine a plan that supporters say is critical to the rooftop solar industry's future.

For months, Southern California Edison and other utilities lobbied the California Public Utilities Commission to slash the rates at which solar customers are paid for the electricity they generate, and to approve new monthly charges. Commission President Michael Picker rejected those ideas last month, proposing to leave the state's net metering program for rooftop solar customers mostly in place...