Groups plan creative “Lights Out” protest of TEP solar rate hike
Tucson Electric Power’s planned demand charges and extra fees, levied solely on solar customers, has led conservation groups to ask the city’s residents to turn off all their lights tonight at 8:30 p.m. local time in protest.
Storage saves
Sustaining the market: As the leading solar state in America, California’s behind-the-meter solar markets are seeing challenges as they explore new terrain. CALSEIA’s Bernadette Del Chiaro explains how the industry is navigating these changes, and what to expect in the future.
RMP, Utah solar advocates reach net metering agreement
Existing net metering customers are grandfathered into the current net metering arrangement for 18 years, while ending net metering for customers installing solar after Nov. 15. After that, a three-year transition to a program based on a value of solar methodology will commence.
Battle between ideologies could determine trade case’s fate
According to reports, President Donald J. Trump’s economic nationalism is at war with his advisors’ market fundamentalism. Here’s what the outcome of that conflict could mean for the solar trade case.
Community solar, PACE policies moving forward in Illinois
ComEd’s community solar tariff faces intervenors in regulatory approval. Meanwhile, Illinois has signed into law legislation enabling Property Assessed Clean Energy.
Duke Energy to U.S. ITC: Trade case could “destabilize” the U.S. industry
Saying that higher prices for panels would discourage utilities like itself from investing in solar, the North Carolina utility requests the commission reject the petition that “would ultimately harm the very domestic solar manufacturing industry the petitioner is attempting to protect.”
Sharp shift stiffs solar as CPUC approves later TOU peak time
Over the passionate objections of national and state-level solar advocates, California’s utility regulators approved a peak-usage time shift from 3 pm to 4 pm for San Diego Gas & Electric rates, leaving solar customers compensated for less energy because its production would be off-peak.
Inside the DOE grid study – an interview with Mark Dyson of RMI
Mark Dyson, a manager at Rocky Mountain Institute’s electricity practice, has some things to say about what the DOE grid study released last night got right – and what it got wrong.
New Mexico requires utilities to consider storage in resource plans
With new technologies available and prices coming down, the NMPRC decided the time was right to add it to the data requirements included in the reports, which were mandated by a 2008 rule.
DOE grid study less politicized than expected
While the final version of the Energy Department’s overdue study on the electricity system is more restrained that many of the Trump Administration’s talking points, it still relies on outdated assumptions about the U.S. power system.
