SACRAMENTO, Calif. (KNX) — A nearly three-decade-old program to encourage Californians to equip their homes with rooftop solar panels may be eclipsed as state regulators consider lowering installation incentives.
The current program, known as “net energy metering,” has allowed residential solar customers to sell excess energy back to power companies at a retail rate — usually tacking big discounts onto their energy bills.
But big utilities insist the savings are overkill, with customers selling power back to the grid for more than it is worth. And as a result, they contend solar customers across California are no longer paying their fair share into the state’s energy infrastructure.
As of 2020, there were 1.3 million residential solar installations in California — more than anywhere else in the United States. Estimates predicted that number would grow after a law implemented last year dictated all newly constructed homes in the state come equipped with solar panels.
The California Public Utilities Commission began planning reforms to the program last year, all of which center on spreading grid maintenance costs more equally among customers.
The commission also explored options for making solar panel installation more affordable. A chief criticism of net energy metering is that it reserves savings for customers in the least need. Most households equipped with solar panels are high income, given that it can cost between $20,000 and $25,000 upfront to install the technology.
Environmentalists and solar-energy proponents have opposed state efforts to lower solar incentives, advocating for options that allow fewer people to rely on traditional power plants and transmission lines.
“Utilities are really threatened now by batteries,” Bernadette Del Chiaro, executive director of the California Solar and Storage Association, which represents 700 businesses in the solar-power market, told the Associated Press. “They’re really putting up a big fight to try to slow down this market.”
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