Photo voltaic advocates gathered in San Diego and 9 different California cities Thursday to let utility regulators know they do not like a proposed plan for rooftop photo voltaic.
Power customers, local weather activists and photo voltaic workers gathered exterior St. Stevens Church of God In Christ. Protesters rallied in help of fixing the California Public Utilities Fee’s (CPUC) plan to rewrite the state’s internet power metering (NEM) guidelines.
These guidelines decide the worth of electrical energy generated by photo voltaic rooftops.
Cloudy skies cling over a typical San Diego day, simply because the clouds cling over a proposal unveiled final month by the CPUC.
“We’re in a local weather disaster and the communities of concern are sometimes affected first and worst,” Bishop George Dallas McKinney stated on the entrance garden of his southeast San Diego church. “Taking away entry to wash power at present is an atrocity.”
State regulators dropped the heaviest a part of their first proposal to rewrite the principles in December.
The excessive necessary grid connection payment just isn’t within the revised plan, which was unveiled final month. However the brand new proposal requires deep cuts within the quantity of electrical energy generated on rooftops and bought again to the grid.
“This can scale back the price of photo voltaic power, 75% in a single day, whereas rising utility income at public expense beginning subsequent yr,” stated Danica Tomayo, of the local weather advocacy group San Diego 350.
Photo voltaic advocates are calling on the fee to undertake a plan nearer to present guidelines.
They are saying making photo voltaic storage reasonably priced for middle- and low-income residents will assist the state meet robust greenhouse gasoline discount objectives.
However California’s investor-owned utilities are engaged in an extended marketing campaign to alter the present NEM system.
Pacific Fuel and Electrical, Southern California Edison and San Diego Fuel & Electrical all help a plan just like the one unveiled a yr in the past.
These embody necessary month-to-month grid connection charges and deep cuts to what utilities are compelled to pay photo voltaic rooftop homeowners for the electrical energy they promote again to the grid.
That plan was strongly panned and rejected a month later.
Whereas the utilities haven’t spoken publicly on the problem, regulatory filings and hearings have clarified their place. Power firms argue that the price of photo voltaic subsidies goes to the payments of shoppers who haven’t got photo voltaic panels.
“The present program is structured in order that (it) primarily hurts Californians, low-income seniors, renters, individuals who haven’t got photo voltaic who haven’t got entry (or) subsidize the advantages primarily to rich Californians who personal properties who can afford to put in photo voltaic rooftop panels on their properties,” stated Kathy Fairbanks, of the utility-funded Inexpensive Clear Power For All.
The utilities push the argument that shifting the price to non-solar clients is unfair they usually proceed to push for a plan that eliminates a lot of the monetary advantages to customers of including photo voltaic panels.
Photo voltaic advocates say the rule modifications outlined within the CPUC’s proposal would shake up the nation’s most profitable photo voltaic business.
Practically 1.5 million properties in California have photo voltaic panels.
The CPUC is scheduled to debate the problem at its Dec. 15 assembly and will select to undertake the plan, modify it, or reject it.
