The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) voted unanimously to approve major modifications to the “Avoided Cost Calculator” (ACC) that deeply undercuts the value of rooftop solar on Thursday. The vote came after over 7,000 public comments were submitted to the commissioners protesting the modifications and after dozens of members of the public called to testify at the commission meeting.
The ACC is a model developed by E3, a consulting firm regularly used by utilities to put out research products biased against distributed energy generation, that is also under contract with the CPUC. The ACC measures utility avoided costs from customer solar — how much utility costs go down for every solar roof built in California. It is the state’s official “value of solar” calculator.
This year E3 and CPUC included major revisions that cut the value of rooftop solar in the 2021 calculator by about one-third the value in the 2020 version. The calculator has an additional 30 GW of utility-scale solar and storage going online by 2025.
“Rooftop solar is essentially crowded out by these new resources and its value is measured to be lower,” industry advocacy group Save California Solar stated in a press release. “The idea of 30 GW of utility-scale solar and storage being installed over the next four years is wildly out of step with reality.”
In the four-year period between 2017 and 2020, just 6.4 GW of utility-scale solar was installed. A total of 15 GW of utility-scale solar has been built in California to date.
The calculator uses an entirely new and untested model for predicting how wholesale energy pricing will behave in the future.
“CPUC cannot start using this new model to set rates, including net energy metering values, without thoroughly vetting it with a wide range of stakeholders,” Save California Solar added. “These cooked numbers and biased calculations are contained in CPUC Draft Resolution 5150, which was adopted by the commission on June 24.”
Rooftop solar maintains popularity in California, with voters overwhelmingly opposed to changes that would halt the expansion of solar in working and middle-class neighborhoods. Industry members expect this vote could take California back to a time when solar was only affordable to wealthy households.
Rooftop solar with net metering support is key to the California Energy Commission’s joint agency “road map” to get California to 100% clean energy, and a generally more affordable route than utility-scale solar.
“Efforts to undermine rooftop solar through ACC updates or in the CPUC’s upcoming changes to net metering are out of step with California’s goals and values,” the group stated.
News item from Save California Solar
Having lost my home in Santa Rosa’s Tubbs wildfire in October, 2017, due to PG&E’s ineptitude, and living through almost 3 years of unimaginable living situations, I’m back in a house. What I knew about PG&E before Tubbs, and what I’ve learned since, is that they are a for-profit corporation with shareholders and their mantra, as with the majority of corporations, is growth and larger profits, period. Money talks. And the unanimous(!) decision by the CPUC is so revulsive to me, especially in light of the planet on the tipping-point of global warming catastrophies, I can only imagine the members have their priorities focused on short-sighted personal gain as opposed to the realities already grasped by the – remember the word, CPUC members? It’s in your title – Public.
How does the public protest this terrible decision. Where do we provide input during the 30 day public comment period?
The government doesn’t know what’s going on. You have this big push to go solar and then they undermine it or don’t even know it’s being undermined,
This has been the problem all along. These companies are looking for deep pockets and those would be in the utility industry. The IOUs work within the wholesale market and crow about their economies of scale. You can drive down the cost of a 1GWp solar PV farm to around $1/watt installed and drive down wholesale energy costs to $20/MWh and the retail residential market will still be expensive. Bundled costs for, existing debt, fuel charges, TD&D charges and specialty programs like TOU rate spiking are all bundled into the retail rate of electricity. I know for a ‘fact’, I have been able to pay for my homeowner’s insurance for the year with the money saved from not buying retail electricity. I’ve been doing this for 16 years now.
It’s the half truths, that become monstrous lies that constricts homeowners from “going solar”.
I’m disappointed in this decision. I think it’s s power grab away from the growing number of middle and lower income people who want to take responsibility for their energy uses, costs, and still help our power grid. Plus, I don’t like the idea of massive solar farms. Rooftop is the way to go.