California regulators ought to revise a brand new rooftop photo voltaic plan to make photo voltaic extra reasonably priced for low-income communities, dozens of teams will inform the California Public Utilities Fee at its meeting Thursday. The fee’s plan drastically slashes the credit score new photo voltaic customers would get for sharing their additional photo voltaic power with the grid.
Greater than 100 teams are urging the fee to delay implementation of the plan till it could actually resolve points raised in an administrative attraction for rehearing filed in January by the Heart for Organic Range, Shield Our Communities Basis and the Environmental Working Group.
Along with testifying on the assembly, which begins at 11 a.m., teams will submit a letter Thursday to Fee President Alice Reynolds urging a delay and revision of the net-metering plan regulators authorised in December.
“There’s nonetheless time to repair this with out going to court docket,” stated Roger Lin, an legal professional on the Heart for Organic Range. “Failing to contemplate rooftop photo voltaic’s advantages to environmental justice communities makes it tougher for these households to afford it, and that’s unlawful. Commissioners needs to be making certain that everybody can profit from native clean-energy technology, not placing up pointless roadblocks. Beneath this plan, the hole will widen between those that can afford photo voltaic and those that can’t.”
The brand new plan makes “photo voltaic much less reasonably priced for thousands and thousands of working folks, companies, church buildings, faculties, farms and neighborhood service establishments,” the teams’ letter stated, at a time when “the local weather emergency — and state regulation — requires that we get off fossil fuels and increase the usage of native, clear and reasonably priced power technology.”
A brand new Heart report explains the various advantages of rooftop photo voltaic and internet metering and why for-profit utility corporations try to kill this system.
The fee’s newest plan deserted a hefty photo voltaic tax however decreased the compensation rooftop photo voltaic clients earn from sending electrical energy they don’t use again to the grid. This threatens the rising rooftop photo voltaic market by placing reasonably priced and resilient renewable power out of attain for working-class Californians, who would in any other case have the ability to afford rooftop photo voltaic by making the most of Inflation Discount Act tax breaks.
Of their letter, the teams stated the fee ignored its personal guidelines by failing to contemplate all the advantages of rooftop photo voltaic. These advantages embody a extra dependable grid, vital reductions in greenhouse gasoline and different air air pollution and native financial advantages, together with new jobs.
As a substitute, regulators relied on averted prices to find out the worth of rooftop photo voltaic, which suggests new rooftop photo voltaic clients will obtain a fraction of the worth of additional energy they generate and ship again to the grid.
“For the sake of working communities and California’s clear power objectives, we urge the CPUC to fastidiously re-hear the problems raised within the attraction earlier than implementing drastic modifications that undermine California’s rooftop photo voltaic program,” the letter stated.
Information merchandise from the Heart for Organic Range
