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California has seen large progress throughout its solar energy sector — utility-scale photo voltaic, industrial photo voltaic, and residential photo voltaic have all boomed up to now decade plus. Nonetheless, the utilities have been on a mission to squeeze out the little guys (distributed photo voltaic vitality) for years, and after achieving quite a success on the residential side with Net Metering 3.0they’ve moved on to limiting progress of group photo voltaic — through their basically captured regulatory fee, the California Public Utilities Fee (CPUC).
Final week, the CPUC “voted to approve its proposed decision that crushes any chance of a scalable community solar program succeeding in California,” the Photo voltaic Power Industries Affiliation (SEIA) writes.
“Today the CPUC is doing the bidding of monopoly utilities to block a functional community solar program in California. This decision effectively shuts out the vast majority of low-income Californians, renters, and others that can’t install solar directly on their homes from participating in the clean energy economy,” Stephanie Doyle, California State Affairs Director for SEIA, acknowledged.
“Right now’s vote ignores calls from the photo voltaic trade, environmental justice organizations, buyer advocates, and labor teams to create a workable program. It additionally places into query the standing of federal Photo voltaic for All funding, which is solely devoted to increasing photo voltaic accessibility. This can be a surprising choice from a Fee that’s charged with defending ratepayers and holding electrical energy payments reasonably priced.
I famous above that California has seen large progress throughout the solar energy sector. Nonetheless, it has really not been a pacesetter locally photo voltaic realm. It has put in simply 163 MW of group photo voltaic, far lower than the two,000 MW put in in New York and even the 1,100 MW put in in little outdated Massachusetts. California had an opportunity to lastly catch up and make vital progress on group photo voltaic with a current vote from the CPUC, however they determined as a substitute to incorporate strict necessities that can restrict new initiatives and progress, requiring, for examplethat the prices not exceed the prices of electrical energy the utility may get from one other supply. That takes away the potential for much less prosperous residents of condominium buildings to take part within the photo voltaic vitality revolution, as smaller-scale photo voltaic is just not as low-cost as utility-scale photo voltaic or wind solely taking era prices into consideration (and ignoring transmission and grid infrastructure prices).
Let’s rewind a bit, although. “The Community Renewable Energy Act (AB 2316) was sponsored by the Coalition for Community Solar Access (CCSA), and supported by the Solar Industries Energy Association, GRID Alternatives, Vote Solar, the Sierra Club, and more. However, the CPUC opposed the bill,” pv magazine writes. “The CPUC asserted in its proposed decision that the Net Value Billing Tariff (NVBT) outlined in the Community Renewable Energy Act “conflicts with federal law and does not meet the requirements” of the invoice, which CCSA has famous is misguided.
“In comments filed in March by CCSA, it characterised the unique proposed choice as misguided and misinformed, and decided it won’t end result within the improvement of group photo voltaic initiatives as envisioned by the legislature with the enactment of AB 2316.
“Now the CPUC has revised its proposed decision and in it concedes that it needs guidance as to what a successful community solar program looks like.”
Because it has been authorised by the CPUC, this system depends on subsidies from the EPA’s Photo voltaic for All program. Whereas, advocates need it to depend on the personal market with the intention to make it sustainable and extra fruitful.
Additionally, this system is missing varied crucial particulars and steerage — “the revised proposed decision gives no details such as a method for dispersing external funding to the projects and participating customers, reporting requirements, the process for participating, eligible tariffs, cost recovery mechanisms, and more.”
It sounds just like the CPUC was compelled to maneuver ahead with one thing, however then gave it a half-hearted try with varied flaws that might cripple California group photo voltaic in its crib.
“The CPUC’s decision primarily benefits the financial interests of utilities and does not support the State’s climate goals or the aim of reducing electric bills for low-income Californians, which was the purpose of AB 2316,” says Aaron Halimifounder and president of Renewable Properties.
“It’s also further evidence that California’s utilities are doing everything they can to stifle distributed energy generation in order to tighten their grip on the state’s electricity grid. The vote solidifies California’s place near the bottom of community solar markets nationwide, ceding leadership to other states to truly democratize solar energy and fulfill national energy equity goals,” provides Coalition for Group Photo voltaic Entry (CCSA).
General, the photo voltaic trade could be very sad with how California has been continuing (i.e., going backward) on solar energy recently. “The CPUC’s recent series of decisions threatens to unravel California’s clean energy progress,” SEIA writes. “It’s past time for Governor Newsom and state leaders to reign in the commission before it inflicts more damage on customers and the state’s clean energy economy.” It’s laborious to argue in any other case.
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