Simultaneous to the Intersolar and Energy Storage North America conference in Long Beach, California, thousands of Californians in Los Angeles and San Francisco took to the streets to show their opposition to the proposed net energy metering (NEM) 3.0. The demonstrations were designed to garner the attention of the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) and Governor Gavin Newsom, both of which will play a role in the fate of the proposed decision.
The California Solar and Storage Association organized the event, which drew over 1000 protestors in front of the PUC, and nearly 2000 in Grand Park, Los Angeles.
We will keep on fighting for our solar jobs, our solar businesses, for a clean energy future. Over a thousand workers in front of Public Utilities Commission today, plus nearly 2000 in LA. #savesolar @californiapuc @GavinNewsom @CALSSA_org pic.twitter.com/pBKBOQ8sNn
— Bernadette Del Chiaro (@DelChiaroSolar) January 13, 2022
The Interstate Renewable Energy Council (IREC) reports the U.S. solar industry employs about 230,000 workers, and SolarReviews estimates that as many as 68,000 jobs are at stake due to the value-slashing nature of the proposed decision.
A recent survey held by SolarReviews found that 95% of active California solar shoppers would decline to go solar if the proposed decision is passed in its current form.
In a webinar held by ROTH Capital Partners, grid and rate design expert Dr. Ahmad Faruqui condemned the proposal, saying that it would expand the payback period for a typical solar system to 20 years or beyond.
The proposal includes a roughly 80% reduction in the payment for excess solar energy sent to the grid, and tacks on an $8 per kW monthly charge for all solar customers, regardless of whether they have battery energy storage or not. A common-sized 8 kW system would be charged $64 a month, a fee that makes solar cost-prohibitive for most customers.
NEM 3.0 is set to be decided on January 27th by the CPUC.
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We had a good turn out here in San Fracisco of solar installers and management of solar installation companies but the real people who should have been here are all the people with rooftop solar or solar roofs. Since they are grandfathered into their existing NEM-2.0, that don’t really care that the next guy is going to have to pay more. The problem is, if they can shorten the NEM-2.0 contract term to 15 years from the originally promised 20 years, what will stop them in five years, when NEM-4.0 is proposed to shorten the NEM-2.0 to 8 years and then the NEM-3.0 people will say, “we have to pay, so should you.” Divide and conquer is going on with new hires at businesses, offering no benefits and lower wages that really undercut the workforces’ power to keep a living wage. This is also really about stopping the climate change believers, from gaining any advantage from putting solar on their roofs to slow down climate change and more about lining the pockets of utility executives, since none of the proposed fees have any earmarks to upgrade battery storage or make the grid more reliable with micro grids mandatory. Only 2% of all the electricity, used in California, comes from rooftop solar and most of that is used up in the homes they are attached to. Fortunately, every homeowner can install any new system “Off-Grid” and not sign the NEM-3.0 agreement at all. Just charge their own batteries and use the power without feeding back onto the grid. There is no law you have to buy your electricity from any one vender. You can be your own vender and decide when to connect your house to your own inverts and batteries or when you wish to buy electricity from the utility. If your system already has batteries, you are doing it already.
The so-called cost shift is an example of the confusion created by mixing NEM customer-generator’s wholesale export compensation with the utility’s retail charges to NEM customer-generators for power imported from their utility. Because wholesale energy exports are regulated federally by the FERC, and retail energy imports are regulated by the CPUC, by separating wholesale from retail components under its NEM 3.0 proposal CARE’s proposal alone had a ratepayer impact measure (RIM) score of 1.0 in E3’s analysis of all the NEM 3.0 proposals
Why isn’t the media talking about this?
The elephant in the room is the CPUC’s and IOUs’ don’t want you to talk about is the avoided cost, and how it’s calculated, and who decides.
Who decides this is not the CPUC but a Federal Judge in the U.S. District Court Central District California Honorable John W. Holcomb, presiding. [CARE v. CPUC, Case# 2:11-cv-04975-JWH-JCG.]
The dispute is CPUC wants to use it’s avoided costs calculator (ACC) which works out to around 6 cents per kilowatt hour export compensation. Full avoided cost is based on the utility’s system cost for their utility owned generation (UOG) [not the customer-generator’s system costs] which for Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) last year was 35.6 cents per kilowatt hour at the full avoided cost compensation rate. [See UOG Solar Photovoltaic 0-3 MW pages 23 and 24 of the CPUC’s 2021 Padilla Report https://www.cpuc.ca.gov/-/media/cpuc-website/divisions/office-of-governmental-affairs-division/reports/2021/2021-padilla-report_final.pdf ]
35.6 cents per kilo watt hour looks high to me since regular customers pay only 22.5 cents for tier-1 and 30 cents for tier 2 rates. Maybe that is why the utility is asking for a 30% rate hike. My off-grid system is 16 cents per kilo watt hour when I pro rate the cost of the system plus the battery replacements. I will need. over 25 years. The average cost to utility customers nationwide is 12 cents per kilo watt hour.
Ed, That $0.356/kWh is what the CPUC reported to the California Legislature in their 2021 Padilla Report. That’s what PG&E charged their ratepayers for their utility owned [solar] generation in the 0 to 3MW nameplate capacity range. They collected an additional 11% rate of return on top of that guaranteed by the CPUC. Why isn’t the media talking about that cost shift onto their ratepayers for their UOG solar panels is the question no one is asking about.
By the end of 2021, the classic dispute over the increase in the minimum wage emerged. This is the post that better explain the situation.
Increasing the Minimum Wage Goes into Effect for Small Businesses in California – https://remotoworkforce.com/increasing-the-minimum-wage-goes-into-effect-for-small-businesses-in-california/