Council approves introduction of energy purchase program

The Lodi City council approved the introduction of a proposed energy purchase schedule for solar customers following a public hearing during it’s meeting held Wednesday night in Carnegie Forum.

The vote was 4-1 with the Councilwoman JoAnne Mounce opposed. Mounce didn’t see where the incentive was with the proposed energy purchase schedule.

According to Lodi Rates and Resources Manager Melissa Price, previously the city was required by state law to offer net energy metering to its customers until the electric utility reached 5 percent of its system peak. The utility has met its requirement, and in an effort to create a fair balance for all customers, solar and non-solar, city staff is proposing to replace the net energy metering program with an energy purchase schedule.

Previously with the net energy metering program, customers were compensated at the full retail rate for electricity they generated onsite while shifting costs to the majority of customers who are nongenerators.

In addition, those same customers avoided charges on their bills for operating and maintaining the distribution system along with other fixed expenses, despite using the distribution grid to maintain steady access to power when on-site operation is sufficient.

With the new energy purchase schedule, an advanced meter will be used to record delivered energy that will be charged to the customer at the standard rate and received energy that will be credited to the customer at the utility’s avoided cost of 6 cents per kilowatt hour.

Customers will not be billed for energy generated and consumed onsite but will be responsible for metering and interconnection costs.

Existing Net Energy metering customers will be grandfathered into the current net energy metering program until 20 years from the date of interconnection.

The average monthly bill for solar customers using 750 kilowatt hours under the new schedule would be $50 compared to $35 those on the previous net energy metering schedule would pay, Price said.

Council is expected to give final approval on the schedule at its Aug. 2 meeting. If approved the schedule will take effect Sept.1.

Several people voiced concerns about the proposed energy purchase schedule during the public hearing Wednesday night.

“This new plan will severely hurt the installation and continued support of solar in the city” Ryan Wentz said. “I think you’ll see a drastic drop in the applications because really the savings is not going to be there anymore unless you get a really good deal on a solar system.”

Lodi Resident Chris Wilkinson, who works in the solar industry, questioned how the new schedule would affect the number of people looking to participate in solar.

He said some of his customers that applied for solar but missed the 5 percent cap are frustrated with delay of a new program for those wishing to switch to solar. The net energy program ended in late December and Wilkinson said customers have been waiting on the city to implement a new program for months so they could take advantage of the savings by switching to solar.

Lodi resident Don Daley said he was also frustrated with the delay in a replacement for the net energy metering program and questioned why the city hadn’t already come up with an replacement plan in anticipation of the net energy metering program ending.

“You don’t always know when fire is burning, how quick it’s going to accelerate,” City Manager Steve Schwabauer said in response to Daley’s concerns. “Net energy metering and meeting our cap was a very unpredictable burn. We didn’t know when we were going to reach it.”

Jim Jenner, owner of Fusion Power Design, didn’t feel that the avoided cost of 6 cents factored in all of the benefits that solar has to offer the city and suggested it at least go up to 10 cents.