Observe: This petition was dismissed on July 16, 2020.
On April 14th, 2020 a gaggle referred to as the New England Ratepayers Affiliation (NERA) filed a petition with the Federal Vitality Regulatory Fee (FERC) asking FERC to evaluation its authority to declare unique federal jurisdiction over all “era sources on the client aspect of the meter” underneath the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act of 1978 (PURPA), or the Federal Power Act.
Merely put, NERA is asking FERC to permit all utility corporations nationwide to pay wholesale costs for extra electrical energy generated by photo voltaic panels on houses and companies. That might be very dangerous for photo voltaic house owners, as a result of wholesale costs are typically solely a small fraction of the credit score most photo voltaic house owners at present get pleasure from underneath web metering.
Happily, there’s a manner to assist: in case you’re a photo voltaic proprietor, photo voltaic advocate, or member of the photo voltaic trade, go to this website and fill within the applicable part to inform your governor to take motion.
The deadline for states to intervene on this petition is June fifteenth, 2020, so submit your assist for photo voltaic as quickly as doable to present your governor time to prepare a response.
Learn extra about what the petition means beneath.
If NERA’s petition takes maintain, US householders with photo voltaic shall be massively affected. Picture supply: Flickr
Why the NERA petition issues
A ruling in favor of NERA’s petition to pay householders wholesale costs for the surplus electrical energy their photo voltaic methods produce can be a reversal of FERC policy established in 2001—a coverage which has been key to the fast adoption of photo voltaic panels over the previous 20 years.
That coverage permits utilities that are ruled by state Public Utilities Commissions (PUCs) and legislatures to resolve how they wish to compensate house owners of photo voltaic panels for his or her extra electrical energy that’s despatched to the grid.
At the moment, photo voltaic house owners in lots of states get full retail credit score for extra electrical energy underneath a web metering billing association.
Web metering is why residential solar energy makes monetary sense in a lot of the nation. Ending it could trigger an enormous monetary disruption to photo voltaic house owners in every single place.
Who’s NERA anyway?
The New England Ratepayers Association, also referred to as NERA, is a nonprofit advocacy group that claims to “give a bigger voice for the households and companies which are served by regulated utilities.”
Nonetheless, many individuals within the power trade consider NERA to be one thing extra nefarious—a entrance for giant enterprise with comparatively few members that every contribute tens of 1000’s of {dollars} NERA makes use of for lobbying and advocacy, like submitting petitions to FERC and arguing in favor of pure fuel pipeline expansions.
NERA’s web site lists an advisory board that incorporates three people: a former Vermont governor, a New Hampshire State Consultant, and a PhD Senior Fellow on the free-market assume tank referred to as the Pacific Analysis Institute.
In 2018, the group Public Citizen (a client rights non-profit group with a division centered on power and local weather coverage) intervened in one other NERA petition case earlier than FERC, asking FERC to compel NERA to reveal its full membership. Public Citizen’s request was unsuccessful, which means we nonetheless don’t know who funds NERA’s assaults on photo voltaic.
What occurs if web metering goes away?
If FERC grants NERA’s request and asserts authority over billing between photo voltaic house owners and utility corporations, web metering is over and all extra power from a photo voltaic set up should be bought to the utility on the “prevented price” fee, which is often just some cents per kilowatt-hour.
To be clear, that doesn’t imply small-scale photo voltaic immediately turns into a monetary nightmare. Most electrical energy generated by small photo voltaic installations is used to energy the houses and companies of photo voltaic house owners. That electrical energy remains to be primarily definitely worth the retail fee, as a result of it reduces utilization of grid energy.
The best way web metering works is, solely the surplus electrical energy that’s despatched to the grid when photo voltaic panels are making extra power than the home can use can be credited on the wholesale value. That wouldn’t be superb for photo voltaic house owners, and in lots of circumstances, it may prolong the time it takes for photo voltaic panels to pay their price again by a number of years.
States with out good web metering insurance policies in place now embrace Alabama, Kansas, Oklahoma, and South Dakota—a number of the worst states with regards to the monetary return of dwelling photo voltaic.
If the complete nation was pressured to desert web metering, as many as 2.2 million folks throughout the nation would see their electrical payments go up. Hundreds of thousands extra who wish to set up photo voltaic panels will discover dwelling photo voltaic to be a lot much less useful for his or her households.
Additional studying
Once more, one of the best ways to advocate for the fitting to web metering is to go to SaveSolar.org and submit your assist with their easy-to-use kind.
In the event you’d prefer to learn extra concerning the petition, try Vote Solar’s issue brief.
You may also learn the NERA petition, and monitor the FERC docket because it progresses by trying to find Docket EL20-42 on the FERC Docket Search page.
