Debate begins over updating rooftop solar rules

Later this year, the California Public Utilities Commission expects to update the rules over how owners of rooftop solar systems are compensated and if the past is any indication, the debate will be a fierce one between the state’s utilities and the solar industry.

Monday marked the day the two sides — as well as other interested parties in the debate — had to turn in proposals to the commission concerning net energy metering.

The big three investor-owned utilities — San Diego Gas & Electric, Southern California Edison and Pacific Gas & Electric — turned in a joint proposal that looks to resolve their complaints that net energy metering results in a “cost-shift” that unfairly burdens customers who do not have solar installations at their homes and businesses. “The structure to compensate solar customers is in desperate need of reform,” said Scott Crider, SDG&E’s chief customer officer.

Advocates of solar filed their own proposals Monday, saying the changes the utilities want will undercut the industry’s growth. “The real issue at hand isn’t so much a ‘cost-shift’ as the utilities claim but a ‘power shift’ from utility to consumers and small businesses” who install solar, said a statement from the Save Solar Campaign, a group that includes the California Solar and Storage Association and the Solar Rights Alliance.

Under net energy metering, or NEM, when a rooftop solar system generates more energy than the homeowner or business actually consumes, customers can sell the excess back to utilities via the grid and receive credits on their bills.

Net metering has been a flashpoint that often pits utilities against the solar industry.

Solar’s backers say distributed energy from rooftop systems helps lower strain on the grid, reduces the need to buy electricity during high times of demand and assists the state’s goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Utilities in California have argued that net metering as currently written allows customers to use the grid 24/7 while effectively selling the power produced by their rooftop systems at the full retail rate.

California’s net metering system was set up by the public utilities commission in 1995 when there were only about 10,000 home-based solar systems in the state.