The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) unanimously voted to approve Net Energy Metering 3.0 (NEM), slashing payments for excess solar production sent to the grid by 75%.
CPUC voted to cut the average export rate in California from $0.30 per kWh to $0.08 per kWh, making the cuts effective on April 15, 2023. Customers who have new systems installed and approved for grid interconnection before the effective date in April will be grandfathered in to NEM 2.0 rates.
During the vote, the Commission said the balancing of costs and benefits continue to be “quite generous” under the decision.
Currently, average net metering rates range from $0.23 per kWh to $0.35 per kWh, and the new proposed decision cuts those rates to an average of $0.05 per kWh to $0.08 per kWh. This is set to be the largest cut of export rates in U.S. history, in a market that represents roughly 50% of the nation’s residential solar market.
Payments were cut as a result of a reported cost shift where non-solar owners cross-subsidize solar owners for maintaining the grid. The utility-backed concept suggests poorer Californians are paying higher utility rates to pay for lost profits that utilities endure in order to pay solar owner for delivering clean energy to the grid.
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory studied the effect, and found that for the vast majority of states and utilities, the effects of distributed solar on retail electricity prices will likely remain negligible for the foreseeable future.” The study found that distributed solar “likely entails no more than a 0.03 cent/kWh long-run increase in U.S. average retail electricity prices, and far smaller than that for most utilities.”
Return on investment periods are estimated to move from an average of about 4.5 years to 6.5 years to 14.5 years, said Centrica Business Solutions.
As exported power loses its value, Californians now have their hand forced to adopt batteries with their solar installations if they want a reasonable return on investment.
“We believe this would represent a potential 70-85% drop in economic value for solar-only systems, which would suggest California would effectively become a 100% solar and storage end market, which ultimately makes solar much less accessible and affordable,” wrote Phil Shen, managing director, ROTH Capital Partners.
The Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) said the decision is “too abrupt” and will slow rooftop solar deployment in the state. “The failure to adopt a more gradual transition to net billing risks putting solar out of reach for millions of residents across the state,” said SEIA.
In 2016 to 2018, the state of Nevada went through massive oscillations in rooftop solar deployment after a similar net metering value reduction was approved. A $35 solar penalty fee, and a 75% drop in fees led to a nearly 90% drop in rooftop deployment growth in the state.
“California’s residential solar segment could be down 30% year-over-year in the 12 months after this becomes effective,” wrote Shen.
The California Solar and Storage Association (CALSSA) said the state is currently installing roughly 30,000 batteries compared to 200,000 solar systems. High costs, supply chain constraints, inflation and permitting and interconnection delays and challenges means it could take years for storage to catch up to solar, said CALSSA.
Currently roughly 1.5 million consumers in California use net metering, including thousands of churches, farms, and affordable housing units. In total, 13 GW of distributed solar capacity has been installed across the state, the size of six Diablo Canyon nuclear sites.
Rooftop solar is valued for its ability to efficiently deliver clean power, limit the amount of transmission infrastructure needed to support generation, provide backup power and grid services, support small business, and more.
The CPUC found that California must triple the amount of local, distributed solar to reach the clean energy mandate laid out by the state’s Senate Bill 100. The California Solar and Storage Association forecast rooftop solar could save California ratepayers $120 billion by 2050, or $300 per person per year.
Environment California found that, based on a state regulator estimated deployment of 28.5 GW of rooftop solar through 2045, rooftop solar could prevent the development of 148,000 acres of land versus a centralized utility-scale-only model. That is an area about half the size of Los Angeles that could be preserved.
“[The decision] comes as climate-related disasters continue to intensify and the electric grid remains vulnerable to aging infrastructure and volatile global energy markets,” said SEIA. “Distributed solar and storage helps strengthen the grid and boost our resilience to these threats.”
Mark Jacobson, fellow and professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford University, said rooftop solar is important in protecting human health and minimizing risks. Replacing overhead wiring, overloaded transformers, and natural gas piping, rooftop solar replaces harmful and dangerous infrastructure from the built environment.
“The argument this proposal will help disadvantages communities is wrong… it will disproportionately kill them,” said Jacobson.
In 2017, electric utility PG&E’s downed transmission wires were found to be the cause of massive wildfires and leaving many Californians without homes. The company was stuck with a $7.5 billion bill as it was found at fault for negligence in maintaining vegetation around its centralized transmission wires. These costs incurred by the utilities are harmful to all Californians, as the financial fallout from these disasters is picked up by ratepayers in the form of a higher bill.
CALSSA called the new decision a “loser” for California. “For the solar industry, it will result in business closures and the loss of green jobs. For middle class and working class neighborhoods where solar is growing fastest, it puts clean energy further out of reach. For our grid reliability needs, it fails to promise robust growth in battery storage. And for California’s race to clean energy, it puts us behind our goals and out of step with the national pro-solar agenda,” said Bernadette Del Chiaro, executive director, CALSSA.
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“Payments were cut as a result of a reported cost shift where non-solar owners cross-subsidize solar owners for maintaining the grid.”
Not fair? All that says is that these subsidies are self funded out of the revenue collected from customers… as opposed to taxpayers. Transfers are never going to be “fair”. Taking money from one guy and giving it to another is not fair. Being fair isn’t the purpose. Their purpose is modification of behavior… in this case, expanding the amount of solar energy on the grid.
The main metrics we should care about for NEM 2.0 versus 3.0 is how it impacts emissions over time. That’s it. All other considerations are distant seconds in importance, yet the fairness issue is all we hear about.
The argument that affluent, middle-class homeowners are benefiting, and that this is disadvantageous to less affluent homeowners is false. The utilities are charging less affluent people higher rates, so that they can keep putting $$ in their pocketbooks. Residential solar, with net metering 2, is excellent for poor people as well. PGE and the other utilities need to be disbanded. That is the only way to a fair outcome. Energy from the sun is so much more efficient, and cheaper, and that is why we should all benefit. The interested parties at the utilities just want to keep their skyrocketing profits in the form of high CEO, salaries , etc.
And it’s not even a logical argument. There are other ways to combat this “unfairness” which is just being used as a smokescreen to line people’s pockets. Now THAT is unfair. They tried it in New Engalnd, they tried it in Nevada. Let’s see how this plays out. Ultimately, the people need to be able to influence and limit these shenanigans of an all too powerful group of decision makers.
It’s not only about emissions, especially here in CA. It’s also about the cost to get there, time to get there, and grid resilience in a heavily fire-prone state. I’m not going to make this a long reply with all the details of that, because they can be easily found, but rooftop solar — and distributed generation in general — positively impact all of those things. The biggest problem with this proposal is not that some changes weren’t necessary — all sides agree with that — but that ALL of the positive effects of rooftop solar on decarbonization were not included in the ‘avoided cost’ calculation, both the utilities and the CPUC cherry-picked in a way that biased the results away from distributed generation.
1) The CPUC is made up of former Utility Executives.
2) The fairness argument was just a convenient and politically correct way
to frame the profit grab for the utilities. The CPUC has been trying to kill
net metering since it started.
Notice we don’t see Gavin Newsom stepping in to slow global warming when a real opportunity presents itself.
Killing the rooftop solar industry in CA will hurt lower income families more as the installer jobs are mostly filled by these families.
Wow, someone in Sacramento made a decision entirely detached from logic and reality? Tickle me surprised!
Point of use solar exporting to the grid firstly reduces transmission losses because the mean distance per Amp is reduced, but also means that the utility can reduce investment in new generation facilities, and phase out out end-of-line plant without replacement (or invest in energy storage).
The problem are the hidden rates in NEM 3.0. Forcing anyone with solar to pay their power company $8/month per Kw system installes. Meaning of you install a 10kwh system you will be paying $80/mo + $15/mo to your power company just for the privilege of having solar. This is corruption at it’s best. Next you will need to start paying Honda because you bought a Toyota.
So disgusting!!! They are going to put thousands out of work and could care less!!!
This same knee-jerk reaction happened here in Hawaii. The rates went from parity to payments of .105 cents a kilowatt hour. Using the same excuses, they haven’t lowered the rates (they’ve raised them) and they are still paying quarterly dividends (the for profit company hasn’t missed a quarterly dividend in over 100 quarters).
Why do I visualize the Simpson’s Mr. Burns wringing his hands with glee muttering to himself “We can’t have the sun providing free energy to middle class homeowners who have to buy electric cars.. No never! Hahahaha”
Thank you for this news, a plain and useful explanation,
(at unfortunate leader CA’s expense). May CA suddenly reverse course, (against a large and formidable corporate treasury, and lead again), for our confused old SB 358-trapped Nevada. Nevada could now recognize, still in time, a chance to – not – become part of the last century “large array” tech and business model culture – necessary – for 1872/1976-dependent utility scale energy developers’ preferred profit margin in the western states…. Onwards and upwards, into the evolving sunny rooftops and “built surfaces” era. Soon, as – this – news spreads.
The CPUC reeks of corruption. . . . .
https://www.propublica.org/article/she-noticed-200-million-missing-then-she-was-fired . . . . .
https://www.ukiahdailyjournal.com/2021/11/21/the-observer-corruption-and-the-puc/ . . . . . .
https://www.vcstar.com/story/opinion/columnists/2019/10/04/signs-nothing-change-corrupt-puc/3856747002/ . . . . . .
https://www.abc10.com/article/news/local/abc10-originals/abc10-sues-release-messages-between-newsom-staff-pge-regulators/103-2623b613-3cba-4903-9080-1b7c80e3d777 . . . . . .
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-05-27/how-the-california-public-utilities-commission-circumvents-the-state-public-records-act
Yes, and the ABC10 research shows that this is all about Newsom. The CPUC doesn’t do anything that doesn’t get Newsom’s approval, so he is totally onboard with this biased proposal. My hunch is that the only ‘red lines’ for Newsom were the solar tax and the gutting of grandfathering, and once those were removed, he was fine with the biased avoided cost model.
Seems like it would have been wiser to retain net metering for 6 years per property and then revert to these wholesale rates. The wholesale rates are still great for savings after the payback is completed on the up front investment.
Ideas like this are what many in the solar industry were advocating, but the CPUC was far more influenced by the utilities than the public or the solar industry.
We have to homes in California with solar under NEM 2.0. We have only been getting compensated for the price SCE and PG&E charge for the power. They don’t compensate you for the distribution and transmission costs. So on both homes we have been getting about $0.05/Kwh for surplus power we send back the the Utilities while we get charged $0.35-$0.50/Kwh for the power we use. One home has a Tesla Power Wall and one has no storage.
By funding and supporting NEM 3.0 the Big Utilities may have just started to fund their own demise. When residents and business learn they can build enough solar and storage on their own lands to provide 100% of their own power, why then should they be connected to the grid. All we need now are good means of storing excess power on site. New battery technologies are coming plus there is also the possibility of generating H2 and storing that for use in fuel cells or even combustion.
You are correct. Solar and storage is less today than 15 years ago when just solar costs were even more than the combined costs of solar with batteries today. Hundreds of thousands of solar adopters, around the world, have already gone off grid with battery backup and transfer switches and that number will grow to millions as utilities decide they no longer value the output from rooftop solar systems. NEM 1.0 and NEM 2.0 made the public go into grid connection because of lower costs and bigger payouts but the “times they are a changing” and I have noticed a trend toward batteries, transfer switches and self-islanding inverters being the future as power failures, brown outs and blackouts have been hitting folks at the most inconvenient times of late. Along with special low interest financing offered by solar installers and the new Federal IRA program that pays for batteries as well as solar panels, you could be correct about the residential consumer base disappearing from the grid.
In the long run, something like that may happen with emerging technologies. Still, today the only bright side is that our social justice lawmakers and governor will now have funding to stay in power, and our old utility will have financing to upgrade its infrastructure and pay its fines. PG&E gets reimbursements and credits for building its solar farms, which will make its future brighter in the medium term. Another way to look at it is that solar will have a brighter future if powerful interests are the ones who profit from it.
Because most people cant get financing to do what you are talking about. They can get solar on their roof for zero money down. Sure if everyone had equity in their home to draw out cash to do what your talking about that would be a different story. The hard working middle and lower middle class always get the shaft. Sure if you have cash and the know how do exactly what your talking about,, then do it. Unfortunately, most dont have the skill set to do that. You do, but would you be willing to put it in and volunteer your labor and time for all your neighbors. I doubt it. Thats why the zero down is so appealing. Even if it is a little more. Its still a good choice when it comes to solar.
This is the reason I built my system off grid and separately fed part of my home and did not interconnect to the grid. Now all new California Rooftop solar systems will be like those that have worked well in Hawaii and be self-islanding, stand-alone systems that will no longer export power to the California utilities. When CAISO askes where is all that solar, we need we will say “locked up in our own paid for personal batteries” as the grid fails on hot days in the future.
Realistically, this isn’t efficient. There will be times, especially in the summer, when the sun is shining but the batteries are full. In those cases, the solar panels will have to shut down, wasting electricity that could have been made, if you don’t have a grid connection. It is better to send it to your neighbors, so that they can be a little greener. Don’t forget solar seasonality. If you’ve provisioned your house to have enough solar capacity to keep your off grid house heater in winter, even with the low angle of the sun and more frequent clouds, then you probably are over producing in the summer by a wide margin, maybe a factor of 3.
So what Ian – I’m happy to over-produce with my off-grid system in the summer in order to have plenty in winter. And also happy NOT to be participating in the utility monopoly’s and CPUC’s rubber-stamped NEM 3.0.
But when the batteries are full is not 75% of the time and that is what the utility is going to take away with no compensation. We use the times, when the batteries are approaching full in the afternoons to run the dishwasher, the laundry and run air conditioning off the pure sine wave inverters thus not wasting any excess power. If we had an EV, that would also be a good time to give it a “juice up” of anther 30 miles. I have had less than 5% waste over the past 15 years of off grid solar. The only thing is the expense of the batteries, but my deep cycle lead acid batteries are only 20% of the cost of lithium and are very easy to user replace when they are old.
Great job. Grid tied solar is foolish. Not being able to store and use power that’s generated on your roof makes no sense. Partnering with the grid is foolish, it’s a conflict of interest. This battle is only going to get worse. I foresee retail electricity rates hit dollars per kwh in no time. People are going to be forced to install solar + storage + heat pumps. It’s about time.
Pure fiction. Non solar customers are not subsidizing solar customers grid maintenance. That maintenance is part of your basic bill and solar customers that are tied to the grid still pay this base bill. The only difference is non solar customers see this charge monthly vs annually for solar customers. I have a solar lease and this how my bill works.
This is an intentionally misleading proposal and it wreaks of corruption. There’s no mention of a rate rebate or a rate reduction or even a rate freeze for renters or economically challenged energy users. Any commission that is responsible for economic policies must NOT receive money from any non-governmental agency – especially not for research or investigation. That leads most directly to corruption and collusion and bad scientific investigations with corrupted results and findings. I believe in science and scientific investigation, but I know that most scientists are corrupted by the policies of the institutions supporting their research. It’s difficult and damaging to a scientists career to come up with findings contrary to the objectives of those paying for the research; And it’s too easy to pay a group of desperate (compliant) scientists to find anything they want to find and have them say anything that they want said.
All new homes in California need to be equipped with photovoltaic and battery backup for safety and reliability as well as for environmental and economic reasons. These systems only cost twice as much as getting new shingles on your roof! They are less than 10% of the cost of the new homes houses or condominiums. Utilities should be included in the rent by law. That way, landlords would be much more conscientious about making their rental properties energy efficient. As it is, landlords have no real economic incentive to make their homes more energy efficient. I am a scientist and researcher. My brother is a landlord of 5 homes – none of his rentals has photovoltaic because it’s not necessary or economically beneficial. That should be changed.
Landlords don’t usually include utilities in the rent and there is no profit in solar for landlords. Tennent’s pay their own electricity, gas, garbage etc. Only by legislating “all rentals must have solar” could this ever be effective.
Put solar on the rental properties, increase the rent, and the landlord keeps any utility profits. I agree.
The utilities have a valid argument that grid maintenance costs are shifted to non-solar owners.
What I haven’t seen is an estimated cost shift for paying for the land to build solar farms, the equipment, the labor to install and maintain it all. Plus taxes and insurance. All of which was being paid for by the homeowners with rooftop solar.
Technically all those costs are already included in the wholesale cost of electricity.
No, it’s not a valid argument. Why do you think so? Solar relieves the burden of providing additional capacity and strain on the grid, thus reducing costs for everyone.
Rooftop PV penetration is 12%+ in Cali, so full retail NEM utilities supporting it at $/kWh essentially lose 12% of their residential revenue that funded grid O&M, fuels, reserves for plant and equipment replacement, overhead, G&A; along with profits funding R&D, grid expansion and dividends to INVESTORS who own shares of the utilities net worth in stocks and bonds.
Natural monopolies require private investors…like railroads before state and municipality property taxes forced passenger service into federally subsidized AMTRAK in 1972…now with fed subsidies amounting to $100/passenger. Only private freight survived without government subsidies. Who knew?
So, without investor incentive dividends, you’d be paying smaller scale, more costly and less efficient munies, co-ops or a large scale politicized, unionized state owned & operated utility with myriad rates and taxes. Envision a U$P$ equivilent with $Billion$ in annual operating debt we still pay for…beyond Postage Stamps, despite Amazon’s Sunday deliveries with USPS’s rolling assets.
A federally owned/operated/subsidized grid? ELEKTRAK?
Probably WATT$ coming next…since our president says he rode rode AMTRAK twice daily for centuries…
Florida just tried cancelling kWh/kWh energy credit based NEM, but Gov DeSantis vetoed it since costs shifts of Florida’s puny 0.6% to 1% rooftop PV penetration only amounted to a Starburps Latte Grande or two per year per average non-solar customer. Hence the potentional for Multi-Million$ Cla$$ Action $uits otherwise ~$1/month on average cost shift to utility customers and even less to the LMI.
BTW: If all our 133 million US households switched to LEDs, utilities’ annual revenue loss could total $30-Billion and only a portion (~1/3rd) of that would be offset by fuel savings (cost). Nothing can prevent that or other electric bill cost savings from reducing one’s usage, rate adjustments in arrears take it into account. But Rooftop PV is too extreme at 10%+ penetration (Eg: Hawaii’s NEM suspension in 2015) for non-solar customers to bear.
With politicized eco-maniac tax funded state rebates and credits on top of it, spawning rooftop PV growth had mostly benefitted those with mean$ to afford it AND obviously their electric bills.
Hence the growing pushback from lower income electorate feeling robbed by rooftop solar. Reality is..most only believe in $aving real Greenback$, not sea level hype. Besides, fossil fuels are predicted to start running out by the end of this century…something newborns will have to face…with all of its national and global consequences. It will be coal and nuclear carrying the nighttime load batteries can’t handle, especially after days of stormy weathet.
Costs of large scale solar farms are largely land lease or rental fees, typically 30 to 35 years, the service life of arrays. So owners/lessors can rethink their land use options when replacement time comes. Installed utiluty scale array costs are 1/4th that of rooftop PV and bifacial single-axis tracking panels are 30% more efficient. Hence fuel cost offsets should be reflected in future rates along with repayment of solar farm build out costs. Solar benefits will be for all customers, not just rooftoppers.
Land Lease costs are factored into rates that everyone pays for their share of usage from utility scale solar farms. And that INCLUDES 88% of Cali customers who don’t own rooftop PV, or even their roof for that matter.
Those who do will get the same $/kWh credits for their solar excess under NEM-1 or NEM-2. But only 25% of it under NEM-3 if they install after April 14th, 2024. So Cali’s NEM-3 is a pretty severe but still more generous wind-down, unlike Hawaii’s total NEM shutdown for new customers in October 2015. Something to keep in mind.
Hence, if utility scale solar farms lower future utility rates with fuel cost savings, your rooftop payback period will increase proportionately in addition to any damage$ done by NEM-3 for future rooftop PV owners.
NOTE: NEM-3.0 is not retroactive. Based on the current timeline, this new net metering policy will only apply to homeowners that submit their solar interconnection applications after April 14, 2023.
$ooo…Better Getter Done…this time…or fogetaboutit!
All sides agree that some changes are necessary from the old full-retail netting model, but the cost shift and the ‘avoided cost’ models that the proposal is based on are both biased. The CPUC purposefully ignored a large body of research and went with only what was presented by the utilities, and they should probably be sued over that as setting public policy based on undue influence from the private utilities (just my opinion). The details are out there and can be easily googled for, so I’m not going to make this post long by duplicate them here, but as you point out, a lot of the inputs to the model, including additional benefits of rooftop solar and distributed generation in general to the grid and decarbonization were not included. The model uses highly cherry-picked inputs.
I believe that in terms of raw cost, grid scale PV installations cost about 1/3 per kWh of doing it on your roof. If we all lived in a communist planned economy, it would be fairly clear that (distribution issues aside) we should have only grid scale PV installations. Rooftop is expensive.
Putting our capitalist hat back on for a moment, I should point out that we are running out of water in a big way in the valley, and there are lots of farms that are going to find their almond orchards infeasible as time progresses. Solar takes very little water! This seems like one way farmers might go. There are also mixed use cases. For a number of crops, having panels over head increases yield and reduces water usage.
In Vermont, the utilities were given 20% and not 75% and that covered the costs but with the bankrupt California utilities, they want it all and that will eventually make everybody disconnect from the greedy, privately held Utilites and self-generate. Remember; Vermont is not sunny, mild winters California.
I believe this will mandate better battery storage and operating without the need for connecting to the utilities. The utility is there to serve a property, so the best reaction to the commissioners and the utility would be for the property owners to become independent from the utility. That should make a better green future for the California.
Too much of a good thing finally drove Cali’s NEM Rooftop PV off a cliff. NEM customers in other states better beware.
Given the present shortage of solar materials, they’re better committed to large scale utility projects at one-fourth the cost and 30% higher efficiency of rooftop, benefitting everyone, not just a few who own a suitable roof with means to go solar.
Especially since everyone is sharing in the cost of Biden’s IRA with $370-Bazillion$ of Green $tuff on OUR Green Backs. That’s an average cost amounting to $2,775 per US Household. Who knew?
It’s IRA and then $$$$$OME…
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.democrats.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/inflation_reduction_act_one_page_summary.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwiz-Mn99_z7AhXcmYQIHW2kBTwQFnoECCAQAQ&usg=AOvVaw0fSos20X6p61MhUpaxBZ3t
TOPLINE ESTIMATES:
TOTAL REVENUE RAISED $739 billion (or $5,542.50 per household)
15% Corporate Minimum Tax
$313 billion*
Prescription Drug Pricing Reform
$288 billion**
IRS Tax Enforcement
$124 billion**
Carried Interest Loophole
$14 billion*
TOTAL INVESTMENTS $433 billion (or $3,247.50 per household)
Energy Security and Climate Change
$369 billion***
Affordable Care Act Extension
$64 billion**
====================
TOTAL DEFICIT REDUCTION $300+ billion…
Yeah, right…$eeing is believing…
====================
* = Joint Committee on Taxation estimate
** = Congressional Budget Office estimate
Off-gridders with money to waste on bragging rights may save a little, but NOT ALOT.
Why? Expensive batteries need replacing in 10 years, panels in 30. So that offgrid assets will lose real value at about 6%/year.
Better putting $30 to $50-Grand into high yield stocks like Verizon, paying a 7% annual dividend. $2,100 to $3,500 can pay for lots of kWh or other bills “…with nothing to install.” There are over five hundred stocks paying 4% or more.
Plus, years out good stocks will be worth MORE than you paid, and they can move with you!
Remember, ONLY PEOPLE PAY TAXES AND UTILITY BILLS, NOT GOV’Ts OR CORPORATIONS!
Corporate Greed! I wonder how many California Utility Pension Plans are invested in Solar Battery Companies and all the companies this 3.0 will affect.
It’s so simple, the grid and production facilities can’t have the same owner.
The grid must be an independent service.
Furthermore the war in Ucraine has shown the importance of distributed power generation.
My power company is a non-profit rural electric cooperative. They have split the bill into a $25 base service fee, and a separate kWh charge. The base fee covers line maintenance, office expenses, and other overhead that are *per customer* rather than demand based. This way, they don’t care if you go solar, they just charge you for what you use. They also offer “community solar”. The panels are in a solar farm, and you lease them by the month if you want. That way renters, or people like me who have big trees I don’t want to cut down, can still use solar.
Only corporate providers of electricity can get paid going rates . INDIVIDUAL providers of electricity deserve nothing, because they can’t provide massive donations to politicians and the PUC ,or is that the corporation utilities comission?
Not putting solar on my apartment buildings or rental properties, just so the utilities can get cheap resources. I f I pit one on my homes it will NOT be connected to he grid!
Is California schizophrenic? First it mandates all new construction must include solar, and now it says it won’t pay for customer energy?! Greed, politics, Big Energy…how I wish our species was wiser.
I do believe an audit needs to be conducted of all people on the public utilities commission, these people that made this decision I guarantee were paid off by the power companies How much money were they each given to sell out their citizens of the state?
Installed in solar rooftop in 2021. Wanted to add a battery and was told that unless I bought their battery my warrenty would be voided. Thanks Sunpower. $18000 for a 13kwh battery???????
“As exported power loses its value, Californians now have their hand forced to adopt batteries with their solar installations if they want a reasonable return on investment.”
This is the problem and the solution. New solar installations should always have included storage. Now they will. As long as energy replacement costs are reasonably high in the evening, that is the way forward for installers. Larger gross, larger profit, say I. Also, it will help keep those fossil fuel peaker plants off in the evening. This is good for everyone.
CPUC IS A FAILURE AT EVERYTHING IT DOES. THEY HAVE RUBBER-STAMPED ALL REQUESTS FOR INCREASES FROM SCE RUSULTING IN COSTS OF 30 CENTS PER KWH VERSUS NATIONAL AVERAGE OF 18 CENTS PER KWH.
My next investment might be a gas driven moped. Zero elektrik. Get it! Like my spelling?
A new day is rising, ain’t it beautiful?
California always leads the country and world. On 12/15 the CPUC in a new direction showed the world how to dramatically slow new rooftop solar installations. The result. our carbon footprint will be impacted. The California Central Valley will be at risk to rising sea levels and salt water levels.
New Californua Values!
Everyone, please write Governor Newsom today and voice your concerns. We need our leaders to stand against this CPUC decision.
D
This is a much needed reality check. Rooftop solar was never meant to be grid-tied. Not being able to actually power the house that the solar is installed onto makes no sense. Solar + storage + electric appliances was always the clear and obvious answer, and finally it’s going to be mandatory.
Unfortunately, this is how the world works. The ones with the power and money (protected energy companies, and corrupt officials) make the rules. They do not care about the hard working people, unless those hard working people cut into the profits. None of us are going to change anything. Our government can’t even balance a checkbook, and that is the real reason why all of us suffer these laws. Imagine for a moment, if we were not 31+ trillion in debt, all of these bad laws would be funded and you and I would not have to pay more. But, here we are in beautiful California governed by the dumbest smart people around.
Knew!! This would happen! This is your modern day independent capitalism.
Puts a hampering effect on Green Energy. Feed you propaganda, those with meager means, invest and get on board and then come thee olygarts, riding on your investments!
Cut the lock on your meters, take it too the curb and call your utility provider come pick it up!
Then call your Attorney tell him you want there lines, poles off your property within 30 days or they will be hit with fees putting false teeth in his, GREAT Great Grand children’s mouths and yours for years too come!
Don’t be shy about it either!
“ Payments were cut as a result of a reported cost shift where non-solar owners cross-subsidize solar owners for maintaining the grid.”
What is the extent of these cross-subsidies? How do they compare to the utilities own-future cost of expansion (capital cost, transmission expansion, etc.)? Do they account for impact of transmission and generation expansion imposed on community lands (poor communities)? In their cost-benefit analysis, do they account for future gains from accelerating distributed solar systems, including meeting climate targets, and increasing resilience to climate disasters? Are utilities only tracing losses to current NEM payments? Assuming there’s rapid and mass adoption of self generation plus storage despite the long payback (from reduced NEM rate) what economic impact would this pose on utilities long-term?
What is the extent of these cross-subsidies? How do they compare to the utilities own-future cost of expansion (capital cost, transmission expansion, etc.)? Do they account for impact of transmission and generation expansion imposed on community lands (poor communities)? In their cost-benefit analysis, do they account for future gains from accelerating distributed solar systems, including meeting climate targets, and increasing resilience to climate disasters? Are utilities only tracing losses to current NEM payments? Assuming there’s rapid and mass adoption of self generation plus storage despite the long payback (from reduced NEM rate) what economic impact would this pose on utilities long-term?
The whole save the planet hype is so corrupt it actually makes me want to toss it. Hypothetical question, if you were an alien civilization observing earth from a distance. What would you do to save earth? Unanimous answer; destroy humanity.
Maybe we should consider trying to make better humans that actually care about each other not money.
Eminent Domain should be used to convert the grid into a co-op because it is a natural monopoly.
As pointed out above, while it can be good for private owners to develop power sources, it is political corruption to allow rent seeking monopolies of public infrastructure.
Aha, Non-Solar Customer Reparations are finally on the way.
California has become a cesspool of corrupt corporations and politicians. It’s no longer the beautiful state that it wants used to be. So much greed and so many lies have taken the State to the point of it no longer being Golden. It’s time to move out of this place for we can no longer stand the smell. Merry Christmas for all those individuals that have ruined it. Sweet dreams and good night let your profits be merry.
Rooftop PV penetration is 12%+ in Cali, so full retail NEM utilities supporting it at $/kWh essentially lose 12% of their residential revenue that funded grid O&M, fuels, reserves for plant and equipment replacement, overhead, G&A; along with profits funding R&D, grid expansion and dividends to INVESTORS who own shares of the utilities net worth in stocks and bonds.
Natural monopolies require private investors…like railroads before state and municipality property taxes forced passenger service into federally subsidized AMTRAK in 1972…now with fed subsidies amounting to $100/passenger. Only private freight survived without government subsidies. Who knew?
So, without investor incentive dividends, you’d be paying smaller scale, more costly and less efficient munies, co-ops or a large scale politicized, unionized state owned & operated utility with myriad rates and taxes. Envision a U$P$ equivilent with $Billion$ in annual operating debt we still pay for…beyond Postage Stamps, despite Amazon’s Sunday deliveries with USPS’s rolling assets.
A federally owned/operated/subsidized grid? ELEKTRAK?
Probably WATT$ coming next…since our president says he rode rode AMTRAK twice daily for centuries…
Florida just tried cancelling kWh/kWh energy credit based NEM, but Gov DeSantis vetoed it since costs shifts of Florida’s puny 0.6% to 1% rooftop PV penetration only amounted to a Starburps Latte Grande or two per year per average non-solar customer. Hence the potentional for Multi-Million$ Cla$$ Action $uits otherwise ~$1/month on average cost shift to utility customers and even less to the LMI.
BTW: If all our 133 million US households switched to LEDs, utilities’ annual revenue loss could total $30-Billion and only a portion (~1/3rd) of that would be offset by fuel savings (cost). Nothing can prevent that or other electric bill cost savings from reducing one’s usage, rate adjustments in arrears take it into account. But Rooftop PV is too extreme at 10%+ penetration (Eg: Hawaii’s NEM suspension in 2015) for non-solar customers to bear.
With politicized eco-maniac tax funded state rebates and credits on top of it, spawning rooftop PV growth had mostly benefitted those with mean$ to afford it AND obviously their electric bills.
Hence the growing pushback from lower income electorate feeling robbed by rooftop solar. Reality is..most only believe in $aving real Greenback$, not sea level hype. Besides, fossil fuels are predicted to start running out by the end of this century…something newborns will have to face…with all of its national and global consequences. It will be coal and nuclear carrying the nighttime load batteries can’t handle, especially after days of stormy weathet.
Costs of large scale solar farms are largely land lease or rental fees, typically 30 to 35 years, the service life of arrays. So owners/lessors can rethink their land use options when replacement time comes. Installed utiluty scale array costs are 1/4th that of rooftop PV and bifacial single-axis tracking panels are 30% more efficient. Hence fuel cost offsets should be reflected in future rates along with repayment of solar farm build out costs. Solar benefits will be for all customers, not just rooftoppers.
Land Lease costs are factored into rates that everyone pays for their share of usage from utility scale solar farms. And that INCLUDES 88% of Cali customers who don’t own rooftop PV, or even their roof for that matter.
Those who do will get the same $/kWh credits for their solar excess under NEM-1 or NEM-2. But only 25% of it under NEM-3 if they install after April 14th, 2024. So Cali’s NEM-3 is a pretty severe but still more generous wind-down, unlike Hawaii’s total NEM shutdown for new customers in October 2015. Something to keep in mind.
Hence, if utility scale solar farms lower future utility rates with fuel cost savings, your rooftop payback period will increase proportionately in addition to any damage$ done by NEM-3 for future rooftop PV owners.
NOTE: NEM-3.0 is not retroactive. Based on the current timeline, this new net metering policy will only apply to homeowners that submit their solar interconnection applications after April 14, 2023.
$ooo…Better Getter Done…this time…or fogetaboutit!
Yup! That’s the way to go. Been doing that, completely off grid, for 11 years now. Pursuant to Ian’s comment, A) there are LOTS of ways to create excess current dumps and use them, B) panels that are in rest make gains in longevity, C) I couldnt care less about others who are grid tied and making them more “green”… they can pursue that route themselves if they so desire, but in no way is it my responsibility to benefit them with my own resources. Decentralized point-of-use utilities are far more efficient than communal distribution centers ever can be, once the human factor is reckoned into the equation. Now, if we actually lived in a world where people, and especially those in positions of authority, truly concerned themselves with the welfare of others, my position in this matter would be highly prone to change. But as it stands, I’ll do me and the rest can do themselves.
Well then, I guess failure is imminent? When the grid fails, you’ll be glad they did this. “Hey, we need your power.” “What power? Oh, you mean the .60c p/Kwh power I’ll sell you?” Noooo no no.
Time to move out of Comifornia!
They used to credit us for the energy produced, one to one, because we were offsetting that load from the grid. Then they reduced it to a rate that is less than we pay for energy. Now they want to reduce it next to nothing, getting the energy nearly free while charging us through the nose when we need it. They are artificially fixing prices of a commodity, aren’t there laws against that? We could benefit from an open energy market like they have in Texas.
Stupid and ridiculous, the push for self sustainable off-grid power is now gonna be greater. Were gonna see community based solar systems where PG&E is replaced with contractors maintaining neighborhood solar fields or rooftop systems. Monopolies have no place here, when they only look to their paychecks as a way of seeing how well their bills and policies work. What a major let down, no wonder California is stuck paying bills to cover negligence, maybe they should have their wages garnished and not just put the bill on law abiding citizens who have no options but to go along with increased costs. They have also made hook up and even Solar installations a for-profit service because they’re greedy and want to maintain their 6 or 7 figure salaries.
Texas it’s only 5 cents, I’d take 8 any day. My 60k system will be a 30 year payoff, I’m ok with that. Get over it, power companies aren’t financing your energy.
The answer is nuclear power: cheap, clean efficient, effective, reliable.
Every blue state is becoming a corrupt cesspool. I may move to California at least temporarily and self identify as a black man to take advantage of those $220K-800K restitution payments.
I bought a junked Tesla at a scrapyard that still had the battery intact. I jury rigged it so that my solar panels would divert the excess into the battery. You have to configure the battery to dual separation, and insulate it in case a surge or overcharge causes a catastrophic failure which of course could lead to a fire. My “charge” never dips below 90% even on the hottest days. I even let my neighbors plug in and they are getting free power as well.
I’m not sure people understand the decision. The utilities’ motives of course should be questioned, but NEM 2.0 is a big tax incentive for the wealthy. Nearly half of people in California do not own a home to put PV on. There is no sense in reimbursing those at market rate at 12pm for excess power when the grid doesn’t need it. The PV system sized for a modest amount of exports STILL provides a return on investment under NEM 3.0. This is why California is requiring a small battery system coupled with a PV system for new, single-family residential construction. This ruling is forward-looking: while currently roughly 6-7% of homes have PV, at some point the installed rooftop capacity will severely impact those least able to afford the rate hikes. PV without battery storage cannot meet a large portion of your load.
Equity is not a convincing reason. It was never a goal, so it is a contrived concern after the fact and irrelevant to net zero. Also the “rich people” argument is not really substantiated.
As to storage… multi day backup for the grid simply has to be at grid scale with today’s technology. Pumped hydro and flow batteries for example seem like a long term sustainable solution. But you’re not going to have either at home.
John, I agree with your comment about rich people putting up solar. In no way would I and my wife be considered rich, we are retired and on ssi. We do have some savings but it’s not endless. We decided several years ago to add solar to our house because it was an investment against a for profit energy provider who keeps raising the rates. My only regret was not adding more panels, so I could tell them to disconnect me.
John makes a good point. There will always be some things that poorer people cannot afford. The question is whether they are subsidizing richer people. This was the utilities’ argument, but only the utilities’ own research shows this. Everyone else’s (universities, etc.) shows that while this exists, it is a very small effect even in California. What tiny amount of cost shift there is could be easily compensated for by rebates to lower income people.
Correct, John, this would not be built into a normal 5,000 square foot lot and home. This is a community wide decision to have a stand-alone installation and would need utility approval. Even though my entire back yard if full of batteries, inverters and solar panels, I just do not have the room for hydrogen conversion system and a fuel cell generator to use that hydrogen plus the $200,000.00 plus to build it.
“This ruling is forward-looking”
The problem is not that encouraging batteries isn’t forward-looking — it is, and we need to move in that direction; the problem is that the avoided-cost calculation used by the CPUC is heavily utility-biased, leaving out many of the long-term benefits of distributed generation to the grid. This is because those benefits tend to reduce the long-term profits of the IOUs, so they focus only on the *instantaneous* avoided cost. There are many resources and articles about the large body of independent university research which was effectively ignored by the CPUC. It’s easy to search for and I don’t have time to list it here, but the CPUC should be held to task for this since it is biasing policy toward a private industry rather than fairly between industry and the public that it is supposed to protect.
Exactly correct. If utilities are adding storage to neighborhoods for both better distribution and potential power failures, then every customer, with a utility meter, should pay into the program equally since they all benefit. Singling out rooftop solar users or any other demographic population because they have larger homes, is just not fair to those who made the larger investments and pay the higher taxes. The 75% utility steal of rooftop solar is quite unfair since the infrastructure is only 40% of the outstanding costs outside of long-distance transmission costs that do not apply to the local output and use of rooftop solar. If the utility took 40% and left the homeowner 60% plus allowed the homeowner to install a larger system capable of being a net generator plus having the winter reserves, this would have been a fairer outcome. 75% is just a “power Grab” and many will just not send any electricity to the grid in protest and install batteries so they can use 100% of their own power. Existing systems get to stay on NEM 2.0 until their contract ends and then will have to add batteries and decide if they wish to remain a grid tied system or go off grid with heir rooftop solar panel system.
“There is no sense in reimbursing those at market rate at 12pm for excess power when the grid doesn’t need it.” . . . . . If “the grid doesn’t need it”, it won’t take it – you can’t put more energy into the grid than what is being consumed at the moment. Therefore, there is no “reimbursement” because nothing is being supplied at that time. If the grid does take the energy from homeowners at 12pm or whenever, then the utility is reducing their use of energy coming from burning coal, gas, or oil, by the same amount, and therefore homeowners should be reimbursed for supplying it.
Saw that coming, if I were to ever install solar it would be off grid and on my own batteries.
I did that in 2007 and built up a system from 700 watts to 8,200 watts. It is fun and can save money. Just look at the RV systems that can be ramped up in size to power the whole home with 12 volt Deep Cycle Marine/RV batteries. Everything you need is available from Home Depot, Lowes and Walmart. Build it yourself for under $2.50 a Watt including the batteries, charge condolers and pure sine wave inverters after the Federal 30% tax rebate.
Of course, the state with plenty of sun and not much rain that claims to be green is stopping the incentive to install solar power systems. Probably like in Nevada when the governor stopped solar for the benefit of the utility companies he had friends at and shares.
As usual, California wants something for nothing. They want rooftop solar owners to supplement the grid but don’t want to do pay for it. Install storage and get off the grid and then tell them to stick it.
I went off grid but did not tell them to stick it. I still use their lowest priced electricity to charge my batteries, when it is convenient. Buy from them low, use it when they price the power high, and you can say…”no thank You” to peak tiered pricing.
In some communities it’s not an option to not be connected to the grid. So even if you produce enough for 100% of your needs, you still need to pay a monthly minimum amount. I like having options anyway, in case of storm damage, etc.
” Buy from them low, use it when they price the power high”
The interesting thing is that this is actually good for the grid, and it’s what grid-scale storage aims to do. The only thing is that you do have something like a 20% charge+discharge efficiency loss that eats into your savings a bit, but the difference in rates is usually greater than that.
Peak summertime rate from 4:00 PM to 9:00 PM is 49 cents per kilo watt hour minus the tier 1 – 9 cent discount. The lowest tier 1 rate in the mornings and after 9:00 PM is 26 cents per kilo watt hour. When you are a net generator, they pay you in tier 1 automatically. A 20% loss means you pay 26 cents plus 5.2 cents for the loss or 31.2 cents to get back 40 cents under NEM 2.0. This is why grid connected solar with batteries forbid the homeowner from charging their solar connected battery off the grid. However, you can get the special discounted 16 cents charge rate from 1:00 AM to 11:00 AM for an EV separate meter that could also be plugged into one’s solar panel system to feedback from 4:00 PM to 9:00 PM with a 20% loss on 16 cents of 3.2 cents or 19.2 cents per kilo watt hour doubling the value when sold back from 4:00 PM to 9:00 PM every evening at 40 cents per kilo watt hour. If you feedback 10 kilo watt hours per hour times 5 hours, you have 50 kilo watt hours making 20 cents per kilo watt hour or $10.00 per day for the months of June through September or 153 days or $1,530.00 profit off the EV battery every summer. N02 if you charge it with the solar panels instead, the amount will double to $3,060.00 per year just selling power from the EV to the grid during the 5 summer months under NEM 2.0.
The relative value of electricity at noon vs 5pm when everyone is turning on their stove and AC is a factor too often ignored.
Pure net metering has created a perverse incentive to create south facing arrays to maximize overall solar generation when West facing arrays would provide more valuable input up the grid.
The way the law treats new installations vs existing systems is problematic, locking in profits for some while excluding others.
This battle will rage across the country as long as the lawyers can make money off it. I’ve heard of utilities even trying to get money from those who go off-grid. Some nonsense about the utility still has lines going to the property that must be maintained even tho they aren’t being used!
One mentioned that solar owners also pay for the grid which is included in the price of electricity. The problem is they have reduced or eliminated what they pay with the panels. Then those who cannot afford solar are carrying the grid costs. Maybe you should petition the CPUC and the power company to let you off the grid. Some people are too old to benefit from solar, some don’t have enough sunlight like me. The only reason it is cheaper now is the panels and components being in China with coal and Diesel fuel. Don’t forget how much fuel is burned shipping those panels over here. Mining bauxite and silica takes energy too.