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
I come at this from a different point of view or perspective. I started experimenting with solar power about 20 years ago when the Enron thing was going on and there was a shortage of power in California. I am aware that no one knows what it means to experiment.
I disconnected a grid tied attic fan and designed one that ran off two 60 watt solar panels. It removed so much heat out of the attic that it lowered the electric bill for cooling the house in the summer. When the experiment was over I would have thrown everything in the garage and called it a day, but something really weird happened. There was an energy crisis in California in 2001 or 2002 that I wasn’t paying any attention to.
I got a letter from PG&E and the state of California thanking me for reducing my electrical usage by 20% and that they were going to pay another 20% of my bill on top of that. I thought to myself: Woo, what just happened here. I was forced to stick with a new hobby—experimenting with solar power.
The grid will always be owned by the power company and NOT by the end user. It will be a long drawn out court case and in the end the power company wins.
The state could have taken over the power company after the fires and that includes the one that destroyed the town that I was living in and the 85 people who died. The state chose not to. It is to late to go back on that decision now—they had their chance.
The power company has been around since 1905 and they are not going anywhere.
The one thing that we will have control of in the end is the amount of power that we use compared to how much we really need.
Calling a 1-800 number and having $50,000 worth of stuff put on the roof is something that many people feel comfortable doing—and in the end they are trading one bill for another. The power company knows that the roof on the house will need to be replaced and those panels will be coming off the roof with new ones being installed with new payments starting on a new contract. That is the real reality of solar.
I just contacted someone in the Bay Area who has pallet after pallet of used solar panels for sale that have been removed from roof after roof. He is selling pallets of them for $200 to $300 just to get rid of them. He told me that his used panels would not be a good fit for me because he knows that they are worn out. And he knows that I know that also.
People who are in the business of selling solar will sell you as much as you are willing to buy because they have a dog in the fight—it’s their bottom line.
If you upgrade appliances like the HVAC to one with a much higher SEER rating and the electric water heater to a heat pump type water heating system then you will not need as much solar installed on your roof that will need to be replace in 10 or 12 years when you need to have the roof replaced.
I know that people are fascinated with solar and really don’t care about my opinion and that’s ok.
I just try to educate people about what they are really getting into.
While I like to see solar arrays on parking garages and parking lots, I don’t understand how those installations can be less expensive than attaching to an already built roof!?
The industry seems to be moving to larger panels (requiring 2 person lift/install) and frames that then require cranes to lift and install. The frames require structural steel foundations and supports like bridges to resist the climate change driven hurricanes.
These huge installations will then require their own electrical substations.
This all reminds me of when the utilities owned the coal fired powerplants and controlled their own network, earning a PUC set % profit on all investments.
In this day and age what about distributed generation scares off the utilities
It’s unconscionable that the CPUC would take away rooftop solar incentives. Homeowners, schools, businesses, and local governments will lose energy cost savings so the Utilities can pad their profits. The climate crisis means nothing to this agency or the power companies. The state is on fire due to climate change induced drought and lack of maintenance on the long distance power lines. The people will not stand for this and the CPUC should take notice we will not allow them to complete this blatant utility profit grab.
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.