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New Hampshire Net Metering Veto Could Crush Rooftop Industry

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent

New England is one of the hottest solar areas of the country, with New Jersey, New York and Massachusetts getting all the attention. Unfortunately, New Hampshire may not be joining them after their governor vetoed a bill designed to raise an arbitrary 1 MW cap on net metering.

The Concord (N.H.) Monitor reports on the turmoil into which the veto has thrown the rooftop solar industry. As David Brooks writes:

Not surprisingly, the governor’s veto of a bill to make large solar projects more profitable has put a number of municipal solar projects on hold, or at least up in the air.

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Under current law, any project over 1 MW is not eligible for net metering. The bill would have raised that cap to 5 MW had the governor not vetoed it.

But Governor Chris Sununu vetoed the bill anyway, arguing that net-metering compensation would hurt other non-solar consumers, who would pay for grid upkeep that solar consumers don’t pay for. In other words, it’s the old cost shift argument raised to the level of the governor’s office.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with the “cost shift” argument, it is the erroneous lie that solar consumers don’t pay their fair share of costs for grid upkeep. The truth is that the cost shift doesn’t happen until at least 10% of a state’s electricity is generated from solar – currently only the case in five states, of which New Hampshire is not one.

And even in those five states, the cost shift is only only a fraction of a penny per kilowatt-hour. In other words, it’s not even worth talking about.

It’s the one disappointing part of Brooks’ article, which otherwise is quite good. He accepts the cost shift argument without challenge. It’s a common error among the popular press, who aren’t as familiar with the reality of the solar industry as some of the rest of us are.

It’s up to us to point this out in an effort to educate more people about this pernicious lie so that utilities – and their politicians like Sununu – can’t pull the wool over the eyes of the general public.

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Veto of net metering bill puts solar projects on hold

Could DTE Proposal Kill Rooftop Solar In Michigan? Advocates Say Yes

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent

Just when you think Michigan is finally getting its solar act together, utilities like DTE Energy hatch plans to destroy rooftop solar in the state, at least according to the advocates that talked to our friends at Inside Climate News.

Becky Standfield, the Midwest director for Vote Solar, isn’t one for hyperbole. She’s one of the most level-headed solar activists I’ve known. So to see her say this to ICC was both startling and arresting:

“It is very clear that DTE is trying to put a dagger in the heart of rooftop solar in Michigan.”

Whoa. And that’s not even the strongest comparison advocates are making.

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A little background on this fight is necessary here. Traditionally, net metering is done at a the retail rate – a one-to-one exchange. But under current Michigan law, there is no set level of compensation set, meaning utilities can pay solar consumers at whatever rate the Public Utilities Commission will allow.

Right now, DTE Energy has a proposal before the PUC that will allow them to compensate solar consumers at the wholesale rate, which would be approximately 75% under retail rate.

How can they justify this highway robbery? Well, it’s the zombie lie of the “cost shift” again raising its ugly head. In case you’re not familiar with this well-worn piece of nonsense (and utilities across the country cling to it like a drowning man to a life preserver), the “cost shift” argument holds that solar customers don’t pay their fair share of grid upkeep. Therefore, the “costs” of their energy self-production are then passed on to non-solar consumers.

And as I’m sick of writing, it’s complete bunk. The cost shift doesn’t happen until a state gets at least 10% of its electricity from solar power (which only occurs in five states now, and Michigan is not one of them). Once the cost shift happens, it’s only fractions of a penny per kilowatt-hour – so even at its worst it’s a marginal cost at best.

A 75% cut in compensation for electricity exports would essentially kill rooftop solar in Michigan, mirroring, says Inside Climate News, the screeching halt a similar proposal in Nevada visited up on that state’s solar industry.

That was so bad that it took two years before the solar industry was even a shell of its former self, and three years later the rooftop solar industry is still recovering.

Michigan should learn from Nevada’s example. It’s PUC should reject DTE Energy’s ridiculous request.

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High-Stakes Fight Over Rooftop Solar Spreads to Michigan

Could EVs Eliminate The Need For Stand-Alone Batteries? Berkeley Says Yes

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent

Recently, President Donald J. Trump yet again riffed on how much wind power kills birds and opined that if the wind doesn’t blow (for wind power) or the sun doesn’t shine (for solar power), “we have a problem.”

Well, according to the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, EVs could be the way to solve renewable energy’s intermittency problems at a fraction of the cost of what widespread stationary battery use would cost.

That’s what a report by two writers at the National Resources Defense Council discuss in a fascinating article at the Microgrid Knowledge website. As usual, California is the overriding example of a state that could do it absolutely right.

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As the authors write:

A study recently published by researchers at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) shows that the electric vehicles (EVs) expected in California in 2025 could be used to meet the majority of the Golden State’s energy storage mandate that calls for 1.3 gigawatts (GW) of battery capacity by 2024.

The keys from the Berkeley paper are as follows:

Let’s sum up the findings from the paper on how the expected number of California EVs can help to ensure grid stability and fulfill the intent of the storage mandate:

Without hindering drivers’ transportation needs, smart charging or V1G can easily provide 1 GW of storage, or about three-quarters of the 2024 storage mandate.
V1G and V2G combined can offer an astounding 5 GW of storage, dwarfing the storage mandate, and enabling the integration of much higher quantities of renewable energy.
Crucially, while V1G may require a system-wide investment of around $150 million, that’s substantially less than the $1.45-$1.75 billion that equivalent stationary (non-EV) storage would cost. (The paper used stationary storage costs from 2015, the latest available at the time of its writing, but even with the substantially lower storage costs of today, V1G implementation remains far cheaper.)
Using a similar approach, the value of grid services associated with V2G in addressing the “duck curve” is equivalent to $12.8 to $15.4 billion in equivalent stationary storage.

In other words, Tony Seba could well be right when he said at Intersolar North America that if we just electrify everything, we can stabilize the grid and meet 100% of our electrical needs from renewable energy in the next thirty years.

Sorry, President Trump – those are just the facts

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Study: Using EVs Instead of Stationary Batteries Could Save Billions

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.

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