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California has seen large development throughout its solar energy sector — utility-scale photo voltaic, industrial photo voltaic, and residential photo voltaic have all boomed previously decade plus. Nonetheless, the utilities have been on a mission to squeeze out the little guys (distributed photo voltaic power) for years, and after reaching fairly a hit on the residential facet with Web Metering 3.0, they’ve moved on to limiting development of group photo voltaic — by way of their basically captured regulatory fee, the California Public Utilities Fee (CPUC).
Final week, the CPUC “voted to approve its proposed decision that crushes any chance of a scalable community solar program succeeding in California,” the Photo voltaic Vitality Industries Affiliation (SEIA) writes.
“Today the CPUC is doing the bidding of monopoly utilities to block a functional community solar program in California. This decision effectively shuts out the vast majority of low-income Californians, renters, and others that can’t install solar directly on their homes from participating in the clean energy economy,” Stephanie Doyle, California State Affairs Director for SEIA, said.
“At the moment’s vote ignores calls from the photo voltaic trade, environmental justice organizations, buyer advocates, and labor teams to create a workable program. It additionally places into query the standing of federal Photo voltaic for All funding, which is solely devoted to increasing photo voltaic accessibility. This can be a surprising resolution from a Fee that’s charged with defending ratepayers and protecting electrical energy payments inexpensive.
I famous above that California has seen large development throughout the solar energy sector. Nonetheless, it has really not been a frontrunner locally photo voltaic realm. It has put in simply 163 MW of group photo voltaic, far lower than the two,000 MW put in in New York and even the 1,100 MW put in in little outdated Massachusetts. California had an opportunity to lastly catch up and make important progress on group photo voltaic with a latest vote from the CPUC, however they determined as an alternative to incorporate strict necessities that may restrict new initiatives and development, requiring, for instance, that the prices not exceed the prices of electrical energy the utility may get from one other supply. That takes away the potential for much less prosperous residents of condo buildings to take part within the photo voltaic power revolution, as smaller-scale photo voltaic is just not as low-cost as utility-scale photo voltaic or wind solely taking technology prices under consideration (and ignoring transmission and grid infrastructure prices).
Let’s rewind a bit, although. “The Community Renewable Energy Act (AB 2316) was sponsored by the Coalition for Community Solar Access (CCSA), and supported by the Solar Industries Energy Association, GRID Alternatives, Vote Solar, the Sierra Club, and more. However, the CPUC opposed the bill,” pv journal writes. “The CPUC asserted in its proposed decision that the Net Value Billing Tariff (NVBT) outlined in the Community Renewable Energy Act “conflicts with federal law and does not meet the requirements” of the invoice, which CCSA has famous is misguided.
“In feedback filed in March by CCSA, it characterised the unique proposed resolution as misguided and misinformed, and decided it won’t outcome within the growth of group photo voltaic initiatives as envisioned by the legislature with the enactment of AB 2316.
“Now the CPUC has revised its proposed decision and in it concedes that it needs guidance as to what a successful community solar program looks like.”
Because it has been accepted by the CPUC, this system depends on subsidies from the EPA’s Photo voltaic for All program. Whereas, advocates need it to depend on the personal market with the intention to make it sustainable and extra fruitful.
Additionally, this system is missing numerous crucial particulars and steering — “the revised proposed decision gives no details such as a method for dispersing external funding to the projects and participating customers, reporting requirements, the process for participating, eligible tariffs, cost recovery mechanisms, and more.”
It sounds just like the CPUC was pressured to maneuver ahead with one thing, however then gave it a half-hearted try with numerous flaws that might cripple California group photo voltaic in its crib.
“The CPUC’s decision primarily benefits the financial interests of utilities and does not support the State’s climate goals or the aim of reducing electric bills for low-income Californians, which was the purpose of AB 2316,” says Aaron Halimi, founder and president of Renewable Properties.
“It’s also further evidence that California’s utilities are doing everything they can to stifle distributed energy generation in order to tighten their grip on the state’s electricity grid. The vote solidifies California’s place near the bottom of community solar markets nationwide, ceding leadership to other states to truly democratize solar energy and fulfill national energy equity goals,” provides Coalition for Group Photo voltaic Entry (CCSA).
General, the photo voltaic trade could be very sad with how California has been continuing (i.e., going backward) on solar energy these days. “The CPUC’s recent series of decisions threatens to unravel California’s clean energy progress,” SEIA writes. “It’s past time for Governor Newsom and state leaders to reign in the commission before it inflicts more damage on customers and the state’s clean energy economy.” It’s exhausting to argue in any other case.
