Despite budging on solar, CPUC'S responsiveness remains in doubt

Only rarely does the California Public Utilities Commission, long known in state government as the agency least responsive to consumer concerns, return to the drawing board once it proposes a problem's “solution.”

That's partly because when the CPUC floats ideas, it's essentially proposing them to itself. The five commissioners charged with coming up with ideas are also the ones with the votes to impose them on every affected Californian.

So the new rules for rooftop solar energy that the commission proposed in November are very unusual: An almost completely reworked proposal that's meant to keep rooftop energy expanding but also to bring more equity for electricity consumers unable to pay for rooftop solar or who are living in apartments, condominiums and other places where they can't install it.

The originally proposed new rules, offered in late 2021, were intended to cut payments by 80% to solar rooftop owners for excess power their panels generate that's then sent to the overall state power grid and thus increases the renewable electricity supply for everyone. They also would've charged rooftop solar owners a fee of about $60 a month for linking to the grid, which would have let them draw power when solar-linked storage batteries ran dry.

Since most solar rooftop owners pay more than $20,000 for panels and installation in order to avoid monthly electric bills, this plan promised to cut installations vastly. That would put about 67,000 installer and manufacturing jobs at risk, while slowing California's march toward 100% renewable electricity.

Consumer groups and solar rooftop owners howled. Soon Gov. Gavin Newsom, who appoints CPUC members to staggered six-year terms but can't fire them once they're confirmed by the state Senate, joined the chorus. So in a virtually unprecedented move, the commissioners pulled back their plan from the brink of adoption, promising to create a revised proposal.

The new plan would still cut what solar owners are paid for excess energy but not by as much. This is their sop to advocates for utility customers unable to afford or install solar rooftops. The new rules would apply mostly to new solar rooftop owners.

Some advocates for nonrooftop electric customers have complained that they pay monthly to maintain the state's grid while solar rooftop owners who link to that grid for emergency use don't help with that cost. At the same time, the new plan eliminates the proposed $60 monthly fee.

So this is a compromise. It doesn't make anyone very happy but was fair enough to avoid the kind of withering criticism that drew Newsom to oppose the previous proposal. The new plan's exact reduction in what each solar rooftop owner can get for excess power will be based on the state's “avoided cost” calculator, which figures how much solar rooftop owners save on electric bills each month.

Solar rooftop advocates like the Oakland-based Center for Biological Diversity concede that the new plan is an improvement but oppose the reductions in electricity prices paid to owners. The group says the avoided-cost calculator “ignores many benefits (of solar rooftops returned to the grid) … such as (improved) grid reliability, reduction in greenhouse gas and air pollution and local economic benefits, including job creation.”

That likely will not convince the commissioners, who appeared bent on imposing their new plan in a meeting scheduled for this week.

Yet the new plan is the first sign in many years that the CPUC may occasionally listen to consumers rather than just utility companies. The commission has been widely criticized for more than 50 years for favoring companies like Pacific Gas & Electric, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric over their customers.

This time, with all three of those companies firmly behind the original version of the new rooftop solar rules because it would have mostly eliminated their payments to small solar rooftop owners, the CPUC has bent a bit to a specific group of consumers, the residential solar owners.

That still leaves the commission far short of looking after the interests of most utility customers, as the new responsiveness mainly benefits a group with above-average wealth. That makes the new solar metering plan an improvement but does not lessen big doubts about the CPUC'S responsiveness.