NM Supreme Court Rejects Utilities’ Challenge to Community Solar Rules

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In a powerful victory for neighborhood photo voltaic advocates, the New Mexico Supreme Courtroom definitively rejected electrical utilities’ efforts to reshape the state’s community solar program. The courtroom launched a comprehensive 58-page opinion yesterday, which affirmed its March 2024 verbal determination upholding the implementation guidelines from the Public Regulation Fee.

New Mexico’s neighborhood photo voltaic program was enacted in April 2021enabling people, small companies, and non-profit organizations to learn from solar energy with out having their very own photo voltaic set up. One essential facet of this program is the stipulation that 30% of every undertaking’s subscribers have to be low-income, providing potential electrical energy invoice financial savings of as much as 30% for members.

Nonetheless, this system’s rollout has confronted important delays as a consequence of authorized challenges from the state’s three investor-owned utilities — Public Service Firm of New Mexico (PNM), El Paso Electrical (EPE), and Southwestern Public Service (SPS). The utilities contested the PRC’s billing guidelines, particularly the fee’s prohibition on charging neighborhood photo voltaic customers for transmission prices.

“We hold that the Utilities, in their various challenges, failed to meet their burden in demonstrating that the (Community Solar) Rule is unreasonable or unlawful in light of the (Community Solar) Act,” Justice Briana H. Zamora wrote within the unanimous opinion. The courtroom particularly upheld the PRC’s authority to ban the subtraction of transmission prices from invoice credit, calling it “a reasonable exercise of the policy-making authority delegated” to the fee.

The ruling additionally validated different contested elements of this system, together with the PRC’s determination to make use of a third-party administrator for choice processes, and its rejection of SPS’s billing plan and not using a listening to. Whereas PNM has indicated its intention to maneuver ahead with implementation, spokespeople for SPS and EPE declined to touch upon the ruling.

Renewable vitality advocates celebrated the courtroom’s determination whereas additionally expressing frustration over this system’s delayed implementation. “This ruling is significant because it upholds the method for calculating the community solar bill credit rate, outlined by the prior commission, which ensures that subscribers receive fair compensation for the solar energy they use,” mentioned Christian Casillas, government director of Coalition of Sustainable Communities New Mexico.

As reported by the Santa Fe New MexicanMariel Nanasi, government director of New Vitality Economic system, was extra pointed in her criticism of the utilities’ actions, stating they’ve been “fabricating confusion and creating disputes where there aren’t any” as a part of their “modus operandi to prevent competition.”

Regardless of the PRC’s approval of quite a few tasks for this system’s first spherical, and an elevated photo voltaic capability cap for a second spherical of undertaking bids, precise building has but to start on any authorized tasks. The courtroom famous in its March order that the appeals had “frustrated attempts to implement the Community Solar program” and urged the fee to proceed swiftly with implementation.

The ruling represents a big victory for community solar advocates and probably clears the way in which for this system to lastly transfer ahead, however the historical past of delays means that many challenges should still lie forward in bringing these tasks to fruition.