New Mexico Commission Could Eliminate Stand-by Fees On Solar Customers

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent

An ongoing controversy in New Mexico over stand-by fees on solar customers may finally becoming to an end, according to an article in the Santa Fe New Mexican.

A hearing officer recently recommended that regulators make Southwestern Public Service Co. stop collecting a “standby fee” from customers with solar systems, saying a study the utility used to justify the fees is “riddled with errors and unreliable.”

Color me shocked (not shocked): A utility is using flawed materials to justify treating solar customers like separate-class citizens. Sounds an awful lot like the “cost shift zombie myth” we spend a lot of time debunking around these parts.

Wait, the zombie lie is part of this bad information? Of course it is.

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As hearing officer Carolyn Glick wrote in her finding suggesting the fees be done away with:

the company failed to demonstrate the surcharge “appropriately recovers the costs of ancillary and standby services” used by solar customers or that the fees are “based in any actual difference in costs the company incurs to serve [solar] customers.”

Glick wrote that Southwestern Public Service can’t show it “provides distinct ‘standby service’ for [solar] customers that it does not already provide to all full-requirements customers.” She also said the utility can’t show that solar customers “are not already paying their proportionate share of system costs.”

Solar advocates like Vote Solar and the Coalition for Clean Energy blame the fees for stunting solar growth in the state, which goes against other efforts by the state to encourage solar growth, including requiring utilities to include storage in their long-term resource plans and the creation of a disclosure form that makes installing solar much safer for consumers.

At the end of the day, these “stand-by” charges are just fixed charges by another name. Here’s hoping the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission recognizes them for the price-gouging they are and eliminates them from solar customers’ bills.

More:

PRC asked to end fee charged to Eastern New Mexico solar users

Maine’s War On Solar Continues As Supreme Court Rejects Net Metering Appeal

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent

From an outsider’s perspective, it sure looks like Gov. Paul LePage of Maine is winning his longstanding war on solar.

Armed with zombie lies about cost shifts and allowing utilities to run amok with special burdens on solar users, LePage has fought for at least three years to strangle the solar industry in his state, vetoing three different pieces of legislation that would have helped set the Maine solar industry on more solid footing.

Now the Supreme Court has gotten into the act, saying solar advocates’ attempts to challenge current net metering policy to the state’s highest court was improper and sending the case to a lower court. Current net metering reduces compensation rates over time and only grandfathers current solar installations at full retail net metering for 15 years.

Critics say 15 years isn’t long enough to receive full payback on the system, to which LePage and his allies scoff, point and laugh. The Supreme Court, on the other hand, said, “Go away kids, you’re bothering us.”

The case will now be handled by a lower Superior Court.

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The crux of the issue in the case is best laid out in the Portland Press Herald:

During those arguments, the justices were already questioning whether it was appropriate for the state’s top court to handle the case. Under Maine law, challenges to PUC rules typically go before Superior Court judges first, but the law foundation appealed directly to the Supreme Judicial Court. The foundation had argued the rule was actually a rate change, which can be appealed directly to the higher-level court.

The justices ultimately dismissed the foundation’s appeal of the rule. In her written opinion, Chief Justice Leigh Saufley said the foundation is required to take its case to a Superior Court before it can come before the Supreme Judicial Court.

The case isn’t over yet, but it does look like it’s going to be a long slog for solar advocates in the state, especially in the face of such overwhelming opposition from the governor’s mansion. It’s worth paying attention to and supporting our solar sisters and brothers in the state as they continue the largely thankless job of advocating for solar in such a state. Godspeed to all of you.

More:

Maine’s top court says appeal of changes to solar incentives must go to lower court

Nevada Comes All The Way Back, Bumps Into Net Metering Caps For First Tier

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent

What’s happening in Nevada right now is frankly amazing.

If you had told most observers that Nevada would ever hit net metering caps after its Public Utilities Commission ended the program without warning at the end of 2015, they would have told you that you were crazy.

And yet, three years (and a lot of mea culpas later), here we are, with the state’s installed and applied-for solar capacity hitting the cap for what’s allowed by law at full retail net metering rates.

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What that means is that any rooftop solar installation will at this point be compensated at 88% of the retail rate in what is being referred to as Tier 2. There are currently four tiers in Nevada’s net metering program.

Nevada’s solar industry has been ping-ponging between support and opposition for the solar industry since December 2015, when the state’s Public Utilities Commission abruptly ended net metering, which compensates solar users for the excess electricity they export back to the grid. It caused several national solar installers to pull out of the state and set off a firestorm of criticism from the state’s rooftop solar industry, which cratered in response.

Obviously, the ping-ponging has come to a stop, as rooftop solar has clearly taken off under the latest round of legislation. Solar Industry has the details on what’s next:

Under A.B.405, NEM customers in the Tier II category will receive an excess energy credit of 88% of the retail rate for the net excess electricity sent back to the grid and beyond what was delivered to them by Nevada utility NV Energy over the monthly billing period (as opposed to 95% in Tier I). Customers in the Tier II category may have the opportunity to move into Tier I through attrition and until Tier I closes. Tiers III and IV have rates of 81% and 75%, respectively.

All this activity comes as a ballot initiative moves forward in the state to raise the state’s renewable portfolio standard to 50% by 2030. If the latest numbers from the PUC are any indication, Nevada and its solar industry are healthy and growing – something that should excite solar advocates everywhere.

More:

Nevada Hits Milestone For Newly Revived Rooftop Solar Market

Chinese Module Companies Boost Production Despite Reduced Domestic Capacity

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent

When China suddenly decided to slash its domestic solar industry by cutting off its expansion of new plants and cutting back on subsidies to end-users, some in the industry thought it might be a boon to the U.S. solar industry.

After all, those modules that were in the process of being produced had to go somewhere if they weren’t going to be used domestically, and the U.S. market – especially in light of the 30% tariffs – seemed a logical place for those modules to go.

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And indeed, you’ve seen some of that. According to solar installers I’ve talked to, module prices have already dropped to pre-tariffs prices, which means some projects that had been discarded as too expensive are now back under consideration.

Well hold on to your hats because Reuters is reporting that not only did Chinese module manufacturers not slow down production as a result of the domestic cuts, they inexplicably increased production so far in 2018.

To wit:

[China Photovoltaic Industry Association (CPIA) Vice-Chairman Wang Bohua said] the production of silicon wafers – a key solar component – rose 39% year-on-year to 50 GW in the first half, with solar module output rising to 39 GW, up 22%.

Reuters also reported Wang saying this:

Domestic market weakness has driven down prices and stimulated foreign sales, with solar component export earnings rising 21.2% to $5.51 billion in the first six months.

But overall profits and utilization rates in the sector have continued to decline, Wang added, with some manufacturers even making losses in the first half.

“As competition in the sector continues to intensify, and as subsidies are cut, the sector has entered into a period of low profit,” Wang told the conference.

I mean…wow. This is more amazing than any of us here in the United States could ever have imagined. Not only are inexpensive modules from China going to flood this market, there are even more of them than originally expected.

Lower prices could buoy an industry that had expected to struggle as the tariffs kicked in, and that could mean good things for employment, too. In other words, despite having a Trump Administration that seems hellbent on destroying the solar industry, the Chinese might be coming to our rescue with overproduction and inexpensive modules.

How does one say “Hallelujah” in Mandarin?

More:

China solar manufacturers raise first-half output despite capacity cap: association (Reuters(

Chinese Solar Market Suffers Severe Setback As Government Slashes Subsidies, Projects (SolarWakeup)