Texas should pay home solar energy owners
Texans know nothing comes free, and certainly not energy. So when homeowners are sending their own self-generated solar energy to the grid to prop up its strained resources and reduce their energy usage, they want to see the money.
Yet that’s not happening in Texas. This summer, it was revealed that a major energy customer received millions of dollars to reduce their energy use. A bitcoin mining company, in fact. Meanwhile, average Texans cut back on their air conditioning in extreme heat for free.
What is wrong with this scenario? It shows that corporations are valued more than Texans trying to get through their daily life. Policy reform is vital to ensure that Texas families and small businesses receive their fair share for the self-generated energy they send to the grid and the energy they don’t use.
Right now, Texans do not see rates that fully, or fairly, compensate for energy generated from home rooftop solar. That means it’s less financially viable, and fewer Texans are able to invest in solar and battery solutions to lower energy bills and power through increasing grid outages.
It’s imperative that we start addressing policy reforms that empower and encourage customers to conserve energy and be compensated fully for the energy they send to the grid.
Already we’ve seen the enormous benefits of home solar and batteries in our state. During Winter Storm Uri, which left, by some estimates, more than 700 dead, these home solar and battery systems enabled some people to keep their homes open to their communities for basic electrical needs. More reports show that adding batteries to the grid is preventing blackouts.
After all, it wasn’t home solar and batteries that failed in these extreme weather events — it was traditional energy resources.
Now, as Texans prepare for unpredictable cold weather, our regulators are asking if there will be enough reliable power this winter. We need every electron to support our grid and Texas’ growing demand for energy.
Yet the patchwork policies from Texas’ utilities inhibit the growth and deployment of these resources. Most rural electric cooperatives, and some municipal utilities, have no “net metering” policies, a billing mechanism that fairly credits solar users for the excess energy they send to the grid, usually at the retail rate. The rest have drastically reduced the rate paid to solar users. High permitting fees and interconnection hurdles add more cost.
These challenges for households stack up, all while more calls have gone out to Texans to voluntarily conserve to help protect against power outages. If rooftop solar customers were fairly compensated and encouraged to share their solar power with neighbors and the grid, more people would buy rooftop solar systems. And that would mean fewer peak load crises and calls to conserve.
The good news is, simple solutions are ready to deploy home solar and batteries at a fair rate for Texans. Our Public Utility Commission and state Legislature can and should enact policies and laws that put in place mechanisms recognizing the true value that solar and batteries bring to the grid. Ensuring compensation for home solar users sending energy to the grid, and paying homeowners to conserve during peak demand periods, is only fair in a state where we subsidize crypto miners.
But even as we await the next full legislative session, the Public Utility Commission of Texas can make immense progress quickly by expanding energy efficiency and demand response programs. This would allow utilities to tap into solar and batteries for energy during times of peak demand.
It’s also up to the PUC, city leadership and utilities to encourage and enroll more solar and storage systems. That can only be done by cutting the red tape surrounding permitting processes and through shortened interconnection timelines, reducing costs for homeowners who want to install solar for their homes.
We Texans pride ourselves on our self-sufficiency and our care for our neighbors. We also care about good business. Freeing home solar and batteries from these obstacles will give us the ability to do what Texans do best: take care of each other with free market solutions.