– Local solar installer Solarponics took a road trip to San Francisco and Los Angeles last week to protest the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) and their proposed new solar energy rate plan, NEM 3. Nine employees from the company participated in the rally, seven going to the CPUC office in San Francisco, and two going to Los Angeles.
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California’s long-awaited proceeding on distributed solar compensation may offer important answers to new questions about the costs of renewables that will come with the Biden energy transition.
Net energy metering (NEM) compensates distributed solar owners for generation exported to the power system at the retail electricity rate. At low solar penetrations, that may not impose significant costs to other customers. But utilities and solar advocates differ on the cost-benefit balance at the higher penetrations now forecast by the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), and others. To get past the controversy, stakeholders across the U.S. are working toward a successor to NEM.