Solar incentives not yet dead in east valley

Indio resident Paul Nelson has been unable to use his newly installed solar panels, seen on May 9, 2016, due to decisions made by the Imperial Irrigation District.

By Sammy Roth, The Desert Sun

Imperial Irrigation District officials hope to bring back a popular solar incentive program — but under terms that could make rooftop solar too expensive for most of the agency's Coachella and Imperial valley customers.

The district abruptly shut down its net metering program in February, saying it would no longer compensate solar-powered homes and businesses for the electricity they send onto the grid. The announcement infuriated solar companies and left hundreds of families scrambling to figure out whether they could still afford to go solar, even though many of them had already signed contracts with installers.

Irrigation district staffers have now proposed a compromise: They want to reopen net metering indefinitely, but under new financial terms. Homes and businesses that go solar under their tentative proposal — including the hundreds stuck in limbo — would receive something like 4 cents per kilowatt-hour for their solar generation, rather than the 12 cents homeowners receive now, district Energy Manager Vicken Kasarjian said.

That plan is still subject to approval from the Imperial Irrigation District's board of directors, which could decide it's not interested. Last month, the board rejected a staff proposal that would have reopened the original net metering program to some of the customers stuck in limbo. At the time, board member Stephen Benson said he has "a problem with the idea of solar."

In a meeting with The Desert Sun's editorial board on Wednesday, district General Manager Kevin Kelley referred to Benson's statement as an "unfortunate remark." Kelley said he hopes the district's board will approve the new proposal.

"We knew that in California, in the hottest part of the state, we couldn't simply turn our back on rooftop solar," Kelley said. "We're actually anxious to get this back in front of the board, and to be a leader."

But the new proposal is already raising alarm bells for the solar industry. Bernadette Del Chiaro, executive director of the California Solar Energy Industries Association, said cutting the compensation rate for homeowners from 12 cents to 4 cents would essentially make solar three times more expensive.

"That would significantly slow down, if not pretty much kill the rooftop solar market. You can't take the economic profile of solar and reduce it by a third, and expect the market to just rebound overnight," she said.

The rooftop solar industry fought successfully to prevent Southern California Edison, Pacific Gas & Electric and San Diego Gas & Electric from making similar changes to their net metering programs. Edison had proposed to lower its compensation rate from around 15 cents per kilowatt-hour to 8 cents — a change that was ultimately rejectedby the California Public Utilities Commission.

The Imperial Irrigation District doesn't need approval from the utilities commission, because its a publicly owned rather than an investor-owned utility. And district officials are wary of net metering. They believe the program forces non-solar customers to subsidize their solar-powered neighbors, and they don't think that's fair — hence their proposal to slash the compensation rate.

Kelley said the district lost $9 million in revenue due to rooftop solar in 2015. If the agency just continued the old net metering program, he said, it could lose so much revenue it would be forced to raise electricity rates for everyone, so it could afford to keep the grid running. Right now, the district's residential electricity rates — 11.69 cents per kilowatt-hour — are significantly lower than Southern California Edison's residential rates.

"Solar is a burden. It has benefits, but it's a burden for the system," Kasarjian, the district's energy manager, said Wednesday.

Clean energy advocates, though, say rooftop solar benefits everyone in ways that utilities aren't taking into account. Those benefits include limiting the need for expensive new power plants and reducing strain on the grid, which can help utilities avoid costly maintenance. Solar panels can also displace fossil fuels, the main cause of climate change and a serious contributor to local air pollution.

Just last week, the left-leaning Brookings Institution released a paper suggesting that rooftop solar is more likely to be a net benefit than a net cost to all energy consumers. Meanwhile, the Natural Resources Defense Council and SolarCity — a major environmental group and a national solar installer, respectively — released a study finding that rooftop solar is saving all Nevadans between $7 million and $14 million per year.

"That's the piece that they're missing. They're missing that rooftop solar provides value to the utility and all ratepayers," said Del Chiaro, from the California solar trade group.

District officials still need to work out the details of their new solar proposal. On Tuesday, they'll ask the board of directors for permission to develop a new net metering program, which they hope to finalize by July.

“You think we can control the board? They may say no to the whole thing," Kasarjian said.

Since the district announced it was shutting down net metering on February 29, it's experienced a surge in applications from homes and businesses hoping to turn on their solar panels: nearly 1,200 in all. If the board agrees to develop a new net metering program, those customers would be able to enroll in that program — if they still want to go solar under the less favorable economic terms.

Meanwhile, hundreds of customers who got in line before February 29 are still waiting for permission to turn on their systems. District officials say it simply takes time to process interconnection applications, and that they'll continue to process applications in the order they're received. Kasarjian said the district planned to approve 250 applications on Wednesday, which would leave 235 customers in the queue.

Nate Otto, founder of Hot Purple Energy in Palm Springs, said he has about 15 completed installations "sitting there in limbo" in Imperial Irrigation District territory, unable to connect to the grid and unsure how much money the'll save if they do. He's not sure what those homes will do if the district doesn't reopen some form of net metering. If worst comes to worst, he said, he might buy the systems back from those customers.

"Some of them haven't paid, and I haven't drilled them either," he said. "I'm not going to leave them out there and say, 'That's too bad.'"

Imperial Irrigation District customers who are already enrolled in net metering haven't been affected by any of the changes, and are still being compensated for the electricity they generate.

Source: http://www.desertsun.com/story/tech/science/energy/2016/06/01/solar-incentives-not-yet-dead-east-valley/85263124/

New exhibition pavilions at Intersolar North America showcase early-stage and mid-stage solar companies

Intersolar North America, the most attended solar industry exhibition and conference dedicated to the North American market, will showcase two exhibition pavilions at this year's event that highlight innovative start-up and mid-stage companies. 

After a successful debut at last year's event, the California Solar Energy Industries Association (CALSEIA) will once again host the California Pavilion, featuring member companies in the solar and energy storage industries. 

Pavilion to highlight solar software, finance and storage startups

New to this year's exhibition is the Powerhouse Pavilion, hosted by Powerhouse – the world's first and only incubator and accelerator dedicated to solar. The Powerhouse Pavilion will highlight solar software, finance and storage startups.

In addition to showcasing products from established companies, Intersolar North America highlights groundbreaking products and services from start-up, early and mid-stage companies. 

As the first major solar industry event of the year in North America, Intersolar will unveil the next-generation products to help reduce costs, boost efficiency and drive the solar market forward. The event will feature more than 500 exhibitors and host an expected 18,000 visitors.

The CALSEIA California Pavilion, located on the first level of Moscone West, will allow attendees to connect with solar and energy storage companies from one of the country's leading markets. 

The expanded pavilion will educate attendees on the latest trends shaping the California solar and energy storage economy, and offer access to CALSEIA representatives to learn more about the organization's policy initiatives in the state and get involved. 

“The companies exhibiting in the California Pavilion represent a cross section of CALSEIA's member companies that are working together to ensure the continued growth of California's solar industry,” said Kelsea Jones, membership and marketing director for CALSEIA. 

“From the diverse to the ingenious, and from the entrepreneurial to the enduring, California is the playing field where the new gets tested and the old gets perfected.”

Solar Foundation to discuss job creation within the solar industry

The Solar Foundation joins Intersolar North America exhibition for the first time this year. Known for its annual National Solar Jobs Census, the organization is dedicated to delivering analysis and actionable information to inform solar policy decisions across the country. 

Representatives from The Solar Foundation will discuss job creation within the solar industry and new programs to maintain, grow, develop, and train the solar workforce. Through a new initiative, The Solar Foundation will collaborate with Intersolar and CALSEIA to produce a white paper focused on the potential solar workforce opportunities and challenges that come with solar-plus-storage system configurations, which will be published and presented at this year's event.

“America's booming solar industry is now a major job creator and a key driver of economic growth,” said Andrea Luecke, president and executive director of The Solar Foundation. 

“We are excited to come to Intersolar and share our ongoing research on the rapid increase in solar jobs nationwide as well as our initiatives on workforce development and solar jobs training.”

The Intersolar North America exhibition will be held July 12–14 at the Moscone West Center in San Francisco and is co-located with both ees North America, the platform to connect stakeholders in the rapidly growing energy storage market, and SEMICON West, the world's marketplace for microelectronics innovation.

Source: http://www.solarserver.com/solar-magazine/solar-news/current/2016/kw20/new-exhibition-pavilions-at-intersolar-north-america-showcase-early-stage-and-mid-stage-solar-companies.html

California Continues to Make Big Strides on Solar

Building on a foundation of pioneering green policy, a new bill would make rooftop solar affordable for thousands more Californians. 

By Julian Notaro, The American Prospect

California, the country’s solar energy pioneer, continues to lead the way in protections for solar consumers, thanks to a strong political and public consensus on the importance of renewable energy. A proposal working its way through the California State Assembly would curb the ability of municipal utilities to control net metering, a policy that allows consumers to sell surplus energy generated by rooftop solar systems back to the electric grid at retail rates.

Last year, solar customers in the northern California town of Turlock saw their bills soar after the municipal utility, Turlock Irrigation District Water and Power, eliminated net metering entirely. The change priced some Turlock consumers out of solar altogether; the measure would prohibit these types of changes. The bill passed the State Assembly’s Utilities and Commerce Committee overwhelmingly, 10 to 2. The change would affect nearly 50 of the state’s 81 utilities. Under California law, larger, investor-owned utilities are already required to offer retail rate net metering.

A recent National Renewable Energy Foundation study found that up to 74 percent of California’s total electricity usage could be generated by rooftop solar power. But the state only derives 2.4 percent of its energy from rooftop solar systems. To meet that goal, California would have to implement additional regulatory reforms, such as establishing statewide interconnection standards that allow Californians to connect to the grid no matter where they live, and clarifying the solar system installation permitting process to eliminate hidden fees. 

Pro-solar environmental advocacy groups like Vote Solar, a nonprofit grassroots group with offices in California, Colorado, Florida, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania, has joined with other advocacy groups like the California Solar Energy Industries Association, a statewide coalition of contractors, manufacturers, distributors, and others to exert considerable influence on California energy policy. Their aim is to increase renewable energy sources in California’s energy mix, in part, by making rooftop solar systems more affordable.

California solar proponents have had a series of notable policy wins. In 2008, California allowed individuals and businesses to enter into solar power purchase agreements, a long-term financial arrangement whereby photovoltaic manufacturers design and finance a rooftop solar installation and charge the property owner for power generated. This development helped make rooftop solar systems more affordable for Californians who could not afford to purchase expensive solar equipment outright.

Earlier this year, the California Public Utilities Commission voted to preserve the state net metering program. Vote Solar joined other groups to deliver wheelbarrowsof petitions signed by more than 130,000 residents. The goal, says Vote Solar’s Adam Browning, was to demonstrate public support for a regulatory system that makes solar available to ordinary Californians. “If you want cheap solar, all you have to do is buy it, but in order to do that you have to have a regulatory structure that allows for long-term contracts,” says Browning. After the vote, three major utilities filed applications urging the commission to vacate or modify the ruling.

California’s solar dominance has bipartisan roots.

California’s solar dominance has bipartisan roots. Former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger was one of the first Republicans to buck the national GOP’s stances on climate change and clean energy and actively worked to promote renewable energy sources like solar during his tenure in the early 2000s. Under the 2006 Global Warming Solutions Act, California became the first state to cap greenhouse gas emissions. That same year, Schwarzenegger also signed the Million Solar Roofs Initiative, which laid the groundwork for California’s solar infrastructure by setting a 3,000 megawatts goal for rooftop solar installations by 2017. (That initiative also expanded net metering in the state, but stopped short of equalizing rates statewide, which the new bill seeks to do.)

Democratic Governor Jerry Brown picked up the clean energy baton in 2011. Brown ran on a platform that viewed California’s preeminent position in clean energy as an antidote to the disruption sparked by the Great Recession. “Investing in clean energy and increasing [energy] efficiency are central elements of rebuilding our economy,” said Brown. In 2015, Brown signed a climate planinto law that called for half of California’s energy to be generated by renewable energy by 2030.

Solar power enjoys widespread public support in California. A July 2015 poll found that 88 percent of Californians support the construction of large scale solar power plants, while 78 percent of state residents support additional tax incentives and financial benefits for the construction of rooftop solar panels. Solar energy is also important to the state’s economy: There are more than 2,300 solar companies in California and the industry employs over 75,000 residents.

The fight over net metering is far from over, but political and public support for solar in California serves as a check on the power of traditional utility companies, a regulatory environment that few other states have been able to duplicate. “It starts with political leadership, we have leadership that treats global warming seriously, as the crisis that it is,” says Adam C. Schultz, program manager at the Energy Institute of the University of California, Davis.

Source: http://prospect.org/article/california-continues-make-big-strides-solar

Imperial Irrigation District slams brakes on solar

By Sammy Roth, The Desert Sun

Solar installers and homeowners who want to go solar are furious with the Imperial Irrigation District, saying the utility has made it impossible for the vast majority of homes and businesses to afford solar panels.

The district stunned customers in February by abruptly shutting down its solar net metering program, which compensated homes and businesses for the electricity they generate. Since then, hundreds of customers who applied for net metering before the cutoff announcement have been in limbo, unsure whether they'll be able to go solar — even though many of them already have panels on their roofs, ready to be switched on. District staff had hoped to allow some of those customers to sign up for net metering, but the agency's board rejected that proposal in a 4-0 vote Tuesday, with several board members expressing hostility to rooftop solar.

The months of uncertainty have already wreaked havoc for district customers in the Imperial Valley and eastern Coachella Valley, and for the region's growing solar industry. Rooftop installers have started telling homes and businesses that it doesn't make financial sense for them to go solar, and one company was forced to fire about a dozen employees. A developer building homes in Indio doesn't know what to tell 55 families that have signed contracts for solar-powered homes, under the assumption of net metering. Some homeowners who have had solar panels installed on their roofs could ask the installers to come back and take them down.

And for months, the Imperial Irrigation District has refused to give many customers permission to switch on their solar panels. It's still unclear when those homes will be given the go-ahead.

"I've already paid for the system. I've got my investment just sitting there, doing nothing," said Paul Nelson, who had Palm Desert-based Renova Solar install 28 panels on the roof of his Indio home in March. "I figured my return on my investment would be the reduction in my monthly bills. Well, guess what? I'm still getting monthly bills."

La Quinta residents Bob and Arlene Livon signed a contract in December with an Oakland-based company called Sungevity, which agreed to install 45 solar panels on their roof. The Livons didn't expect to recoup their investment for eight to 10 years, but they saw solar as "the right thing to do," Arlene Livon said — their own small contribution to the fight against human-caused climate change.

Now that the Imperial Irrigation District has ended net metering, the Livons probably won't go solar, after all. The costs just don't pencil out.

"They're basically stopping people from doing it, is what they're doing. It's not economically feasible," Bob Livon said.

Imperial Irrigation District spokesperson Marion Champion said none of the agency's energy officials were available to comment Monday or Tuesday. Asked if customers who have been waiting to switch on their solar panels will be given permission to operate soon, Champion said in an email that the district "will continue to process interconnect requests based on the order that they are received."

Under net metering, consumers pay for all the electricity they use, but are compensated by their utility for the electricity generated by their solar panels. California's major investor-owned utilities — Southern California Edison, Pacific Gas & Electric and San Diego Gas & Electric — tried last year to slash their compensation rates, but they were rebuffed by the California Public Utilities Commission, which required them to keep their current net metering programs mostly in place.

Publicly owned utilities like the Imperial Irrigation District, though, aren't as strictly regulated as the investor-owned utilities. Under state law, all they're required to do is offer some form of net metering until the amount of solar power covered by their program reaches five percent of their "peak demand" — the highest electricity demand they experience at any one time. The district calculated its peak demand as 1,004 megawatts, meaning it could stop offering net metering once it had enrolled 50.2 megawatts of solar power in the program.

The district said on February 29 that it had accepted too many net metering applications, and that its program would exceed 50.2 megawatts if all of those applicants were allowed to sign up. That left several hundred homes and businesses stuck in limbo, unsure whether they'd made it in under the cap. Most of them still aren't sure what's going to happen, since the district has told them little to nothing over the last few months.

"We’re sitting here in May, and a lot of these projects were built in January. There’s been no communication," said Bernadette Del Chiaro, executive director of the California Solar Energy Industries Association, an industry trade group. "It's been an unprecedented and almost unfathomable relationship with their customers."

Solar advocates say the district should have been required to let more than 50.2 megawatts of solar into its net metering program. State officials have required the investor-owned utilities to calculate their peak demand in a certain way, but the Imperial Irrigation District used a different formula, which had the effect of lowering its requirement. If the district had used the formula investor-owned utilities are required to use, that may have doubled its net metering requirement, Del Chiaro said. A bill currently pending in the state Legislature — Assembly Bill 2339 — would require publicly owned utilities to use the same formula as investor-owned utilities.

Even after it chose to use the more restrictive formula, solar advocates say, the district could have chosen to let more customers sign up for net metering. The state's five percent requirement is a floor, not a ceiling.

As of late April, 3,096 Imperial Irrigation District customers were enrolled in net metering, according to the agency's website. That's about one-fifth of one percent of the district's more than 150,000 customers.

"They really could take the mantle and become the leaders of all municipal utilities in renewables. That is the direction that the world is going, certainly the state," said Vincent Battaglia, founder and CEO of Renova Solar. "And yet they decide to hide behind confusion, obfuscation and just pure bad policy.”

After months of complaints about the sudden end to net metering, district staff released a proposal last week that would have raised the cap from 50.2 megawatts to 55 megawatts. That change would have allowed some of the customers who submitted applications before the February 29 announcement — but not all of them — to sign up for net metering.

But the district's board of directors rejected that proposal in a 4-0 vote on Tuesday, with one abstention. Board members expressed concern about the impact of rooftop solar on the utility's revenues, since net metering allows consumers to lower their energy bills. If they didn't shut off net metering, board members said, it could force them to raise electricity rates for non-solar homes and businesses, to make up for the lost revenue.

"I support rooftop solar...but I do not support it to the point where other ratepayers are having to subsidize it," board member Jim Hanks said.

Southern California Edison and other investor-owned utilities made a similar case to the California Public Utilities Commission last year, arguing that net metering was forcing non-solar customers to subsidize their solar-powered neighbors. Academics who have studied this "cost shift" generally say that many more people need to go solar before it becomes a serious problem. The public utilities commission acknowledged concerns about the cost shift but rejected the utilities' plans to gut net metering, saying the proposed changes would have made rooftop solar too expensive for most Californians.

The Imperial Irrigation District board, though, wasn't especially concerned by how its decision would impact customers' ability to go solar. Board member Stephen Benson said he has "a problem with the idea of solar."

"If we dropped all tax credits and everything else, it would go away. That's where I stand," he said. "I'm up for re-election in December. You can vote me in or vote me out."

Before their vote on Tuesday, district board members heard from energy consumers who would be affected by their decision. Among the public commenters were several representatives from Shea Homes, which is building Trilogy at the Polo Club, a 750-home development in Indio. The company has already closed with 55 families that expect net-metered solar panels on their homes, the representatives said.

The board also heard from Jimmy Slemboski, president of Zing Solar, an installer with offices in San Diego, New Mexico and Utah. The firm opened an Imperial Valley office in El Centro earlier this year, hiring about a dozen people who live in the area. Slemboski saw huge potential for rooftop solar in the sun-drenched Imperial Valley.

"When it was all said and done, we would have employed a minimum of 30 El Centro residents, potentially even as many as 50, depending on how well it went," he said in an interview before Tuesday's board meeting.

But when the district ended net metering earlier this year, Slemboski said, he had no choice but to put his expansion plans on hold. He fired all but one of his new employees as he waited to see what the district would do next. Before the layoffs, though, Zing Solar had already installed panels for 17 Imperial Valley customers. Slemboski said before Tuesday's meeting that he might have to remove those systems and "eat a massive loss."

Slemboski's fears came true on Tuesday, when the district board voted not to raise its net metering cap. "The outcome couldn't have been worse, I don't think," he said in a text.

Board President Norma Galindo expressed sympathy for families who expected to live in solar-powered homes at the Trilogy development in Indio, asking district staff whether there was anything the agency could do to help the developer honor those contracts. She ultimately voted not to raise the net metering cap, though, as did board members Benson, Hanks and Bruce Kuhn. Board Vice President Matthew Dessert abstained.

Del Chiaro, from the California solar trade group, predicted that ending net metering would reduce solar installations by 85 to 95 percent in Imperial Irrigation District territory, based on what's happened in other states when utilities have made solar less affordable.

"Only the extremely wealthy, for whom money is not an object and payback is not a concern, will be able to go solar," Del Chiaro said. "In this place with double-digit unemployment, and a dire need, and all this sunshine — for Imperial to be against this, and the extent to which they are, it's almost shocking to me how bad it is."

Source: http://www.desertsun.com/story/tech/science/energy/2016/05/10/imperial-irrigation-district-slams-brakes-solar/84198932/