California pushes a new plan to cut rooftop solar incentives while providing incentives for rooftop solar owners to back their solar energy. But the solar energy incentive program will not be free.
The proposed regulation that is aimed at making the program more attractive for homeowners also increases the solar energy fee paid by large commercial and industrial customers.
“The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) has issued two rules to increase the solar energy incentive program,” said Alex Traver, Director of the Public Advocate. “The first rule would lower the cost of a solar system and the second rule would raise fees in order to compensate for the costs to customers. These proposed rules will make the solar energy incentive program even less attractive for consumers.”
The proposed regulations would reduce the price for a home owner to install solar and increase the cost customers pay for solar power. The proposed regulations would also reduce the cost that a solar home owner must pay for energy.
“The new rules will raise the cost for installing solar and reduce the financial incentive solar provides to homeowners to go solar,” said Traver. “The proposed changes to the solar energy incentive program will make the program less attractive to potential customers and homeowners. The CPUC has had no public meetings to discuss how and why these regulations will affect consumers’ solar energy choice.”
Among the proposed changes, the regulation would reduce the price that homeowners pay to install solar, but increase the cost to large commercial and industrial customers to install solar.
“These proposed rules include an increase in the solar energy incentive program fee for large commercial and industrial customers who install solar systems that provide power to their customers. According to the CPUC rules, these large commercial and industrial customers will have to pay more for their solar system than the average residential customer.” said Traver. “The CPUC claims that these large commercial and industrial customers can’t afford to install solar. But our proposed rules do not include any new, meaningful Solar Incentive program fee increase that would impact these large commercial and industrial customers. Instead
