The Center for Biological Diversity, Protect Our Communities Foundation and the Environmental Working Group appealed the California Public Utilities Commission’s (CPUC) decision to slash compensation to rooftop solar customers. The appeal is based on the groups’ belief that commission’s decision will harm the ability of environmental justice communities to benefit from solar energy.
In December the CPUC voted unanimously to approve Net Energy Metering 3.0 (NEM), slashing payments by 75% for excess solar production sent to the grid. 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. During the vote, the Commission said the balancing of costs and benefits continue to be “quite generous” under the decision.
“California is drowning in climate-driven deluges, and we have to make it easier for communities to embrace rooftop solar to survive the climate emergency,” said Roger Lin, an attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. “By slashing the net metering program, state regulators made it even harder for environmental justice communities to get solar. We’re appealing because this flies in the face of the commission’s mandate to ensure that rooftop solar is accessible to low-income Californians.”
The groups believe the decision threatens the growing rooftop solar market and puts affordable and resilient renewable energy out of reach for most communities.
“California’s private utilities have been relentless opponents of rooftop solar for many years, because it undercuts the golden goose — new high-profit transmission line construction. They have convinced regulators of the alchemy that they are protecting the interests of lower-income customers — and not shareholder interests — by devaluing rooftop solar,” said Bill Powers, an expert witness in the proceeding and a board member of the Protect Our Communities Foundation.
The appeal says the commission should redo its analysis because regulators devalued rooftop solar based on flawed modeling that ignored net metering’s benefits to environmental justice communities. Those benefits include decreasing the state’s dependence on fossil fuels and providing local economic benefits, including new jobs. The commission also failed to analyze non-solar customer bills and ignored or underestimated harms from fossil fuel energy, particularly to low-income communities and communities of color.
“By making residential solar economically untenable for millions of working families, the CPUC has sidelined the only competition the big utilities face. It will allow PG&E and the other power companies to keep wasting ratepayer money on misguided, high-cost infrastructure investments,” said Ken Cook, president of the Environmental Working Group Ken Cook. “The CPUC needs a reset to fit an emerging new world of electric power. We now have strong competition for utilities from distributed solar, battery storage and microgrids, a technological and economic transformation the likes of which we haven’t seen in more than 100 years.”
The groups noted that the commission also abandoned a $600 million equity fund aimed at getting more clean renewables to low-income communities. Regulators claimed the state’s battery storage fund would achieve the same result, but Gov. Gavin Newsom recently cut that fund by 30%.
Opposition to the commission’s decision is widespread. More than 125 California and national climate and equity groups representing millions of people previously called on the governor’s office to reject the commission’s flawed analysis and maintain the state’s solar credit to grow rooftop solar in environmental justice communities. Bernadette Del Chiaro, executive director, California Solar and Storage Association called the NEM 3.0 decision a “step backwards”. “It is a dark day in California when the utility regulators try to block out the sun,” Del Chiaro said.
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The group of people most hurt by the higher costs are the very people the Utilities said they were trying to help because of cost shift when the poor end up paying more for all services they need because the savings will disappear. The CPUC gave absolutely nothing to the poor ratepayers or help them own solar panels of their own. The Robin Hood CARE program will still take money from the middle-class ratepayers and give it to the qualified low-income ratepayers. All the extra money goes directly to the stockholders, management and labor at the utilities and no financial relief at all to rate payers. This is why the big utilities paid out close to 2 million collars in attorney’s fees, publications and disinformation about NEM3.0 before it was passed by the CPUC.
I believe the only way forward would be voter referendum or a cease and desist order for NEM 3 until a class action lawsuit is completed. The California Private Utility Commission did not listen to the vast majority of commenters, Scientific papers, experts, or voters. It refused to step back from the utilities hype and falsehoods. There really should be a criminal investigation of their committee. Amazing how right after NEM3 was approved rates shot up making all the rhetoric spouted invalid and based on nominal rates that are now $0.40 to $0.84 per kwhr. In the summertime NEM3 reimbursement will be one tenth of what it reasonable. TOU plans are bad enough but NEM3 just puts profits into the utilities pockets while increasing costs to ratepayers.
The passing of NEM 3.0 will now require battery storage to be installed on all future PV systems to create a financial benefit for installing solar. However, expensive battery systems push up monthly payments on solar loans and leases beyond what most homeowners currently spend remaining with the grid. Low-income households no longer have a choice to save with solar. Good job CPUC!
I used 80 Deep Cycle Marine/RV batteries on my off-grid system and that cost, with copper wire, terminals and charge controllers was $10.000.00 where the same sized lithium battery system would have cost $28,000.00 plus installation costs. The weight limits imposed by electric vehicle do not apply to home installations since the batteries do not need to be pulled around with a vehicle but are static in an outside battery shack in the back yard or in the garage. Although the lead acid batteries have a 6-year life, they get a faster payback before the next battery swap out and will last over 2 additional swap outs 18 years where lithium only will last 12 years. Lower battery cost, non-flammable lead acid is the way to go both in safety and in overall costs until lithium prices drop by 60%. A Tesla Power Wall should cost no more than $3,000.00 to match the cost of lead acid batteries in a system.