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PG&E Fights "Civil Right" of Solar Rooftops

Is net energy metering a "civil right?"

  • Yes

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • No

    Votes: 1 100.0%

  • Total voters
    1

Robert Heiny

Research Scientist of Learning and Education
Flight Instructor
Through a process called net energy metering (NEM), public utilities give consumers financial credit for the renewable energy they generate and feed back to the grid. Net metering has increased since it started in 2003. All states except Tennessee participated in these offerings in 2010.

NEM allows solar households to roll their meters backward for every kilowatt-hour they send to the grid (up to the point where their bills zero out). The return they get on the electricity they generate is the same retail rate they pay for what they consume." It benefits about 90% of solar households.

"... the average annual growth in customer participation was 56%, with a 61% increase between 2009 and 2010." This growth represented 0.1% of all customers in 2010.

The total number of customers increased to 155,841, of which California accounted for 56% (86,495). The next largest states were Colorado (9,776), Arizona (8,559), New Jersey (7,526), and New York (5,638).

Residential applications made up 86% of total net-metered customers in 2003 and 91% in 2010.

A fight exists in California over the future of net energy metering. NEM benefits some 99 percent of that state’s solar owners. "

David Hochschild explains that “Net metering is like the civil rights legislation for solar." It will soon be almost the only thing left to drive solar growth.

The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) is expected to hand down a decision on May 24 of how to define the NEM cap, the maximum amount of payment the utility is required to make.
 
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