After 11:59 p.m. on Friday, April 14, most Californians who want to put panels on their roofs will no longer have access to the same incentives that have helped more than 1.6 million homes and businesses go solar. What happens next? Sammy_Roth reports:
It’s been nearly a decade since California lawmakers ordered the state’s Public Utilities Commission to revamp a rooftop solar incentive program called net metering. In two weeks, we’ll finally begin to see the consequences of that decision.
That should be welcome news to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s appointees on the Public Utilities Commission, who said one of their goals in lowering incentive payments for standalone solar systems was toAn employee of rooftop solar company Sunrun installs a lithium-ion battery at a home in Granada Hills in 2020.One in five solar companies said they plan to slow hiring. Nearly three in five said they’re less confident in the industry’s future in the state than they were a year ago.“This is bad.
“Our people are working around the clock,” said Mark Figearo, chief executive of Green Convergence in Santa Clarita.Before a home or business can power up its solar panels and connect to the grid, it must file an “interconnection request” with its electric utility. For many Californians, getting those requests approved has been slow as utilities grapple with the large increase in applications. Edison has told customers it may take up to 20 business days to review their requests.
Vincent Battaglia, chief executive of Renova Energy in the Coachella Valley, told me he’s set a deadline of March 31 to submit requests to Edison, out of fear the utility will scour the paperwork for small, insignificant mistakes to try to limit the number of people who can qualify for net metering and secure years of higher payments for the solar electricity they produce.Brad Heavner, policy director at the California Solar & Storage Assn.
“Recently, we’ve been able to get through the whole application process until we try to pay with a credit card, and the credit card processing has been crashing,” said Barry Cinnamon, chief executive of Bay Area solar installer Cinnamon Energy Systems.When I ran that complaint by PG&E spokesperson Lynsey Paulo, she blamed a “significant increase in traffic,” about three times the typical monthly average to the solar applications page.
“Our hope is that the commission recognizes that this is an opportunity for them, and that we don’t bureaucracy ourselves out of innovation and competition,” said Meghan Nutting, Sunnova’s executive vice president for government and regulatory affairs.Whoever is right, this is another example of state officials grappling with the growing number of people and businesses looking for alternatives to traditional monopoly utilities — and at least so far, choosing to play it slow and cautious.
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