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Nevada regulators voted unanimously late Friday to slash net-metering payments without grandfathering existing solar-energy customers, despite opposition from 55,000 Bring Back Solar Alliance supporters. Within an hour of the 3-0 vote by the Nevada Public Utility Commission, Sunrun ( RUN ) executives were already planning to file suit, Lauren Randall, the company’s public policy manager, told IBD. “Even NV Energy recommended grandfathering current solar customers for a period of 20 years, but once again, Governor (Brian) Sandoval’s commission gave the monopoly utility more than it asked for,” she wrote in an email. “This decision is clearly unjust and unacceptable for Nevadans. “We will sue to overturn the anti-solar rules, and we will win.” The decision follows a week of testimony, including commentary from Tesla Motors ( TSLA ) CEO Elon Musk, chairman of No. 1 solar installer SolarCity ( SCTY ). Both Sunrun and SolarCity criticized the net-metering cut — payments that solar customers get for selling excess energy to utilities — and exited Nevada in December when the PUC first approved the new rates. Solar advocates’ hope momentarily gleamed last month when Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway ( BRKA )-owned utility, NV Energy, proposed a 20-year grandfathering caveat to the new solar rules. But Friday’s vote puts the final nail in Nevada’s solar coffin , according to Bryan Miller, Sunrun vice president of public policy and power markets. He’s also president of the Alliance for Solar Choice president. “(PUC Commissioner) Dave Noble was wrong when he predicted his initial order would not kill the industry,” Miller said in an email Thursday. “He has now flip-flopped and argues that the commission can legally kill the industry.” Nevada incentivized more than 17,000 residents to install solar, BBSA spokesman Bob Greenlee said in a statement Thursday. Since 1997, net-metering policies have required utilities to purchase excess power fed into the grid from solar customers at a retail rate. Under the new rules, the reimbursement rate will step down five times over 12 years to reach what the Nevada PUC calls a “cost-based structure.” Although TASC estimates that solar customers will still save about a third on their electric bills, the rate shift doesn’t allow them to recoup the costs of their systems, Greenlee said. Early Friday, he said the BBSA planned to cart “six wheelbarrows full” of signed commitment cards from supporters. “Fully 89% of Nevadans believe that the Public Utilities Commission made the wrong decision when it ended net-metering, refused to grandfather existing solar customers at their current rates and destroyed one of the fastest-growing solar sectors in the country,” Greenlee told IBD via email following the vote. Greenlee tallied 55,000 commitment cards — the same number of petition signatures needed to put the matter on a referendum ballot in November. The PUC, however, argued within its draft order Wednesday that grandfathering existing customers under the old rates would perpetuate the $16 million that utility customers now pay annually to subsidize solar customers. Proposals to delay the necessary correction in rates to a cost-based structure only serve to kick “the can down the road,” the PUC said. Over 40 years, the subsidy borne by non-solar customers would grow to $640 million. “These proposals do nothing to address the problem of antiquated rates that were instituted nearly 20 years ago to jump-start an industry,” the commission wrote. “The old net-metering rates are not reflective of accurate price signals or actual costs to serve.” Scalper1 News
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