Dive Brief:

  • The California Public Utilities Commission has proposed an update and expansion of the state’s existing community solar programs to align them with California’s Assembly Bill 2316, rejecting calls for a complete overhaul by a broad industry-led coalition.
  • The March 4 proposal calls for the expansion of the Disadvantaged Community Green Tariff Program, creates an additional community renewable energy program with capacity reserved for low-income customers, and aims to streamline and simplify other existing green tariff programs.
  • But the Coalition for Community Solar Access, or CCSA, argues that the proposal missed an opportunity to expand access to solar energy in California by rejecting calls to create a Net Value Billing Tariff for community energy projects.

Dive Insight:

Everybody wants to improve low-income households’ access to solar energy, Derek Chernow, western regional director for the CCSA, said. But he argues it’s hard to encourage low-income participation in projects that don’t exist, and that the current structure of community solar programs in California hasn’t encouraged developers to build community-scale projects.

“We know from past mistakes that it’s not the way to scale up, it’s not the way to leverage private investment, and it’s not the way to get to the clean energy goals that California has set for itself,” he said.

CCSA believes that implementing a net value billing tariff, with monthly netting and indefinite rollovers, would trigger the development of 8 GW of community solar plus storage projects without the need for grid upgrades. The tariff, which under CCSA’s proposal would come with a guaranteed 20% savings for low-income participants financed by the sale of electricity at peak hours, is necessary to create market incentives for community solar developers, Chernow said.

“You still need to get the projects online, and at the end of the day we still have a shortage of clean energy projects … needed to get to California’s goals,” he said. “We’re not going to get there by waiting around and hopefully getting projects interconnected down the road.”

But the CPUC rejected this proposal on Monday, opting instead to expand and update the state’s existing community solar programs and a Disadvantaged Community Green Tariff program that reduces participating customers’ electric bills by 20%. Administrative law judge Kelly Hymes ruled that a net value billing tariff would shift the costs of community solar to nonparticipating customers in violation of state law after reviewing data provided by Pacific Gas & Electric.

Jeff Monford, a senior advisor for corporate communications at Edison International, said the utility company believes the CPUC proposal strikes the right balance between the needs of developers and low-income customers.

“The [net value billing tariff] as proposed would have given the lion’s share (80-90%) of benefits to the developers, and not to the participating customers,” he said. “We believe that the CPUC framework can be a win-win situation, giving developers fair compensation as well as subscribing customers, especially low-income customers, a generous incentive to participate in community renewable energy programs.”