The favored Georgia Energy web metering program won’t develop in Georgia in 2023.
The tri-annual Georgia Energy Built-in Useful resource plan hearings earlier than the Georgia Public Fee – typically known as the Charge Case – cowl a number of subjects together with the enlargement or initiation of a brand new web metering program, the place tags Owners with rooftop photo voltaic promote the surplus vitality they generate again to the grid.
Many have advocated for the buyback fee — the speed at which Georgia Energy buys extra electrical energy — to be set on the fee the utility costs clients to make this system extra enticing. Some have known as for an enlargement or extension of the pilot program from a number of years in the past the place Georgia Energy bought electrical energy on the Photo voltaic Prevented Vitality price fee. Nonetheless, nothing seems to be occurring, successfully including a bump within the street for encouraging photo voltaic adoption across the state.
The pilot program, RNR Month-to-month Netting, allowed 5000 members to promote extra electrical energy Photo voltaic Prevented Vitality price fee and reached capability in July 2021. Advocates known as this system successful that reveals the potential for photo voltaic in Georgia and hopes to see the favored program develop past the 5000 buyer restrict, or see a brand new program begin fully.
Requires enlargement of this system have led to campaigns such because the Georgia Photo voltaic Vitality Affiliation Get the Photo voltaic Cap marketing campaign.
Owners with photo voltaic outdoors of this system can solely promote their electrical energy at a fraction of the retail fee presently. Though this fee has elevated in the latest Charge Case, though some argue that it isn’t sufficient to make this system sustainable and enticing to shoppers.
The compromise
The present buyback fee for photo voltaic clients is 2.26 cents per kWh. That appears to obtain a bump up with the Public Service Fee and Georgia Energy deciding on 6.68 cents per kWh for a buyback fee within the new case. Which means that Georgia Energy will purchase the surplus electrical energy again at a fee of 6.68 cents per kWh as soon as the electrical energy invoice is paid, as a substitute of taking it out of the home-owner’s month-to-month invoice.
Whereas this will seem to be an enchancment, some argue that the buyback fee remains to be too low to really stimulate the photo voltaic market in Georgia and encourage funding into rooftop photo voltaic for owners. For reference, in response to Vitality Sage, “the common residential electrical energy fee in Georgia is 14 [cents per kWh.]”
At present, greater than half of the states within the nation have web metering insurance policies that permit owners to promote extra electrical energy at market charges.
Dr. Marilyn Brown, Regents Professor on the Georgia Institute of Know-how, is a champion of photo voltaic and web metering in Georgia. He acknowledged that Georgia Energy is ready to purchase again electrical energy very cheaply from owners, but in addition acknowledged that the agreed fee is just not as dangerous because it might be. He felt that protecting the two.26 buyback fee as a complete would hamper the trade within the state.
Brown additionally mentioned he wasn’t shocked the agreed fee was within the center, citing a distinction in views from the two.26 fee and people arguing for a retail fee.
He added that the brand new fee is just not notably encouraging for low-income owners, though it is sufficient to spark curiosity from middle- and high-income households.
“They do not get nearly as good a deal as [Georgia Power] for the 5000 households which have participated in the previous couple of years. However it’s sufficient to make it reasonably priced for middle- and upper-income households,” Brown mentioned. “I am very involved that this simply places photo voltaic out of the vary of prospects for individuals who have low incomes, who’re struggling and haven’t got some huge cash to spend. [on solar panel investments]”.
The lower-than-retail buyback fee, mixed with the actual fact of a 12 % enhance in charges over the subsequent three years, may exacerbate disparities in entry to photo voltaic panels, Brown mentioned. Exhausting-pressed households who now should pay for his or her month-to-month payments have much less cash to spend to spend money on photo voltaic panels, which can take longer to recoup prices than if the acquisition fee had been mounted on the value. in retail.
Georgia Energy argues that web metering locations an unfair price on non-solar clients — a “shifting price.”
The case for web metering
Brown testified earlier than the Georgia Public Fee on November 30 about alternatives for web metering in Georgia on behalf of the Southern Alliance for Clear Vitality and Southface Institute.
Brown made a case for a one-to-one netting for solar-generated electrical energy and the grid — primarily, sending solar-generated electrical energy to the rooftop on the fee Georgia Energy sells the electrical energy. .
“Of the seven states within the Southeast, North and South Carolina and Florida have web metering tariffs, and so they even have the very best customer-sited photo voltaic penetration charges within the area,” Brown mentioned. “The opposite 4 Southeastern states – Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and Tennessee – don’t permit one-to-one netting for grid-supplied electrical energy, and they’re all within the backside eight states of these phrases of rooftop photo voltaic penetration”.
Whereas one-to-one netting for photo voltaic is nowhere to be present in Georgia right now, Brown believes the photo voltaic trade will proceed to develop — particularly with assist from the Inflation Discount Act.
Within the IRA, the Funding Tax Credit for photo voltaic installations are prolonged by 10 years to 2032. IRA Funding Tax Credit score offers a 30 % tax credit score to owners seeking to set up photo voltaic on their roofs. Efforts like this, Brown mentioned, could make a distinction in an issue that does not lose time.
“We’d like photo voltaic on roofs, and we want photo voltaic farms additionally in rural areas… The challenges we face within the local weather disaster require us to make use of all of the assets. That is why I hope which can play a job within the argument [for solar] sooner or later” mentioned Brown.
