The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) is soon to vote on a proposed decision that is expected to be harmful to the value of rooftop solar for renters in multifamily housing, farms, and schools.
The decision would disallow residents of multi-meter properties to consume their own rooftop solar production, even if they own the solar array. The policy forces customers to first sell their solar production to the utility, and then buy it back at higher rates.
“The CPUC is proposing a blatant seizure of property,” said the Solar Rights Alliance.
California’s existing Virtual Net Metering and Net Energy Metering Aggregation programs allow properties with multiple meters to install a single solar array for the entire property, sharing one system’s electricity and associated net metering credits with all customers and meters on the property. The proposed decision states that these customers should be limited in how much of their own solar production they can use, even if it is stored in their own battery.
“It would force customers in multi-meter properties—such as renters, small farmers, schools, and colleges—to sell all of their generation to the utility at low rates and buy it back at full retail rates,” said the California Solar and Storage Association (CALSSA).
“Under this scheme, [multi-meter customers] would lose all of the savings that single-family homeowners get,” said Solar Rights Alliance.
The decision to not let multi-meter properties consume electricity from a system they own and operate comes with a clear motive: profit protection. If a rooftop solar owner is using their own electricity, they aren’t buying it from the utility.
The proposed decision is gaining public infamy similar to the NEM 3.0 decision that has wreaked havoc on single-family rooftop solar in California. Despite round after round of anti-NEM 3.0 public comments and rallies that drew in thousands of California citizens, CPUC pushed the decision forward. Now, residential solar is experiencing a massive market contraction nationwide as a result.
The NEM 3.0 decision was backed by the three major investor-owned utilities in California based on a rationale that renters were being left behind by lucrative single-family home installations. Now a year later, CPUC and the three large utilities are coming after renters’ rights.
While the NEM 3.0 outcome was undesirable for California citizens, the many months of protest did bear some positive results. CPUC attempted to pass a similar invasion of personal property in NEM 3.0, disallowing customers from directly using their rooftop solar electricity generation and instead forcing them to cycle it through the utility’s meter first. Protest and public comment forced CPUC to throw out the decision, and instead implement an 80% cut in net metering payment rates.
“However, if the CPUC takes away the fundamental solar right for renters, there’s no doubt they will try again for homeowners at some point,” said Solar Rights Alliance.
Solar Rights Alliance is sounding the alarm for renters, farmers, and affordable housing advocates to voice their opinion on the proposed decision, which was recently pushed forward to November 2.
The organization has details on how to submit public comments and speak with legislators here.
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The solar companies need the power to produce all the bugs, synthetic fruits and vegetables to save the planet.
Stop spouting suchhyperbole. We need solutions, not pseudoscience.
1. Isn’t each solar producer independent and as such set the price of their energy sold to the PUDs.
2. Along that line groups of solar energy producers form a co-op. Co-op my have more legal standing than a single individual.
3. Isn’t much of the electricity use to heat water! Therefore if a solar panel produced hot water rather than electricity would the utilities inlaid your home to install a meter on your hot water tank?
I’m sure others can add to to this reasoning.
Obviously they have no concerns for the environment or personal property rights and freedoms, only profits. This is an example of a violation of our constitution, 4th amendment. California disrespects the US Constitution and violates the people’s rights. The legislation and governor has violated our 1, 2, 4, and 14th amendments. They should all be removed from office.
All the stupid regulations California is implementing is going to drive all the undesirables away. Just what they want!
The CPUC works for the electric companies, not the public. This is blatantly obvious by now. Nothing short of a complete firing of all the CPUC members and new members elected will suffice.
We should have a bill passed stripping companies the abilities of walking all over our rights.
Companies have proven all they care about is making money at our expense and they don’t care the welfare of the people or the planet.
This is straight bullshit and utterly wrong.
It may not be the case now, but utility companies know what’s coming. The more they go for owners power, the more the owners will attempt to keep it for themselves first. As they should.
It hasn’t been a huge problem until net metering 3.0 when people started turning to their own Battery Systems as they would be more profitable than selling power back to the utility for a lower rate.
Problem for the utility is that battery prices will continue to decrease, competition among different battery manufacturers, chemistries, and implementations will eventually make residential and Industrial batteries a no-brainer. The utilities can’t have that!
This sounds a lot like Gavin Newsom’s Democratic Socialist Party of America B.S. The California don’t get to vote on bills and laws. Wake up people!
Screw your greediness. This is exactly why I left California. It’s hard enough for people to survive but then the government has to go and make it even harder by taking something nature provides free to the public and forcing them to sell cheap to utility companies just to have to buy it back at higher price. How about generate your own power and leave everyone else alone. If people want to use solar from their own solar system it should not be controlled by a utility company who already is well known for burning down entire towns and destroying people’s lives. Thank God I moved out of California. I will continue to refuse working with utility companies. I will continue raising my own food to avoid spending money at grocery stores. It’s time for the government to realize the people don’t need to rely on them. They just need to move away to places they can live their lives without the total control of the government.
Having been a long time utility professional who came up from the field to management has provided some interesting insights. Please appreciate that I understand the complexity of this issue and I am adding comments for discussion sake. The challenges for utilities is simply stated that they have spent a phenomenal amount of investment for decades in building the power infrastructure. Obviously the payback including profit comes through rates and careful management of that infrastructure through maintenance programs and the like and all of that with the intent to provide reliable service 24/7. Now comes solar and the utilities view is who is going to pay for the ongoing maintenance and replacement of aging infrastructure while continuing to make a return on investment namely profit. From the solar customer perspective they want to essentially get off the grid to some extent, but have the ability to sell back power at a reasonable rate which helps to pay for the homeowners investment as well as have the ability to have the electrical grid available in the event of a whole host of possible challenges, like long periods of cloudy weather as one one example or perhaps a mechanical type failure on the home owners system. As one potential consideration for both sides of this discussion is perhaps the utilities need to consider a buy out option whereby the utility purchases the homeowners solar system. Obviously the devil as they say is in the details however both the utilities nor the homeowners could not have foreseen the ability to tap into opportunities like are available today and more to come going forward. The CPUC needs to be sure to create a means to have stakeholder involvement that ensures that both parties, the homeowners and other related stakeholders and the utility sector discuss numerous options to address these type of changes.
Agreed!…btw, which state would be best to go to to have the independence of self reliance but also flexibility of urban accessibility?…considering leaving California one day
This sounds like a violation of the 5th Amendment to the US Constitution:
“nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.”
Here the State, through the CPUC, is taking people’s property (the electricity they produce). It is like taking the produce of a farm by force, and selling it back at a higher price. Crops, of course, are also a solar product.
Off grid solutions, whether individual properties or community/neighborhood, seem to be the only way to cut the head off the cpuc dragons. They will always say: ” our grid, our rules, take it or leave it” they know that they are in a death struggle and will not go quietly into their goodnight.
Seems these housing groups may have to get into the fight, before people are breaking their lease because they are no longer receiving the benefits of solar energy. The electric companies better err on the side of their consumers, lest they cause a mass exodus.
Not surprising for California… Fossil fuels or green energy, the utility company has to keep people dependent on them and justify their existence.
Nice project forward soon future but remember that High production of solar Energy is very necesary upgrade luminaire like street light, industrial companis, homes etc. Just to save global heat
The Constitution, through the Fourth Amendment, protects people from unreasonable searches and seizures by the government. The Fourth Amendment, however, is not a guarantee against all searches and seizures, but only those that are deemed unreasonable under the law.
No need to handle the upkeep and other costs. Just remove the systems and sell them. And nobody will install them anymore. Which once again proves how ignorant most all of California governing bodies are.
Utilities should be scared. DC nanogrids are going to give ’em a linkin’.
The federal government and California are not your friends.
Smacks of corruption.
The most simple solution would seem to be eliminating most all requirements for utilities to buy back customer generated power. If homeowners want solar power, let the government (local, state, federal) offer them subsidies/tax breaks (possibly even grants or low interest loans – if distributed solar power systems are deemed a societal benefit) for building their solar collection and battery storage systems. There is economic room for both top-down, for profit, energy distribution corporations, and bottom-up, energy self-sufficiency energy production/storage systems within our economy.
Welcome to the reality of disruption.
The incumbents have realized that distributed solar generation is/will be cheaper than centralized generation plus grid distribution can compete with. Just the capital expense for grid generation and distribution is $0.07/kwh. Rooftop solar plus storage is rapidly approaching this price. That means utilities literally will not be able to compete with having your own rooftop generation. These are billion dollar companies looking at their cash cows evaporating into sunk assets.
This isn’t just greed. This is drowning man grasping at anything to keep them afloat.
The really dangerous part is… Everyone who doesn’t have their own rooftop solar and storage still needs them.