NY TIMES: A Fight Over Rooftop Solar Threatens California’s Climate Goals

Utility regulators have proposed slashing the incentives homeowners receive to install solar panels, a long-sought goal of utilities and labor unions.

By Ivan Penn

California has led the nation in setting ambitious climate change goals and policies. But the state’s progress is threatened by a nasty fight between rival camps in the energy industry that both consider themselves proponents of renewable energy.

The dispute is about who will get to build the green energy economy — utilities or smaller companies that install solar panels and batteries at homes — and reap billions of dollars in profits from those investments. At stake is whether the state can reach its goal of 100 percent clean energy by 2045.

SAC BEE: Cutting rooftop solar subsidies would be a huge mistake. California needs to reassess .

BY THE SACRAMENTO BEE EDITORIAL BOARD

The last thing California needs is a new barrier to clean energy production. Yet the state Public Utilities Commission is poised to add one at the behest of private companies that see rooftop solar as a threat to future revenue.

California’s utility regulator could vote as soon as Thursday on a proposal to undercut the net energy metering program, which has led to rooftop solar installations on more than 1.3 million California households — the most in any state. Under the program, utility companies credit solar customers for the surplus energy they export to the grid, driving down their monthly bills and paying off the installation costs faster.

According to private utilities, customers who don’t use solar pay an estimated $3.4 billion a year more as a result, subsidizing the program through higher monthly bills. Utilities such as Pacific Gas and Electric Co., Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas and Electric Co. have weaponized this so-called cost shift to compel the PUC to act, claiming vulnerable, lower-income customers are harmed the most.

Schwarzenegger: We Put Solar Panels on 1 Million Roofs in California. That Win Is Now Under Threat.

New York Times Opinion

California has more rooftops with solar panels than any other state and continues to be a leader in new installations. But a proposal from the state’s public utility commission threatens that progress.

It should be stopped in its tracks.

When I was California’s governor, we set a goal in 2006 of putting solar panels on one million roofs across the state. Skeptics said it couldn’t be done, but with bipartisan support in the State Legislature, California met its goal in 2019.

NY Times: California regulators propose raising fees on owners of rooftop solar systems.

By Ivan Penn, New York Times

California regulators on Monday proposed requiring people with rooftop solar panels to pay more of the costs of operating the electric grid, a plan that some supporters of clean energy argued could greatly reduce the incentive for new residential installations.