DESCRIPTION
Imagine you bought a new, efficient air conditioner. It cuts your electricity usage
10%. You'd expect your bill to go down 10%. So would someone who put in a set
of new solar panels. But in many states, that's not the case. Even after they
complete the technical process of interconnection, solar users can be set back by
pitfalls in the financial arrangement of net metering. There are a few simple
principles that can make sure clean energy customers can make back their investment:
Make sure clean onsite power is paid the same as grid power.
Doing otherwise can make it impossible to pay off a system. Many utilities charge solar
users full retail rates for all the power they use but pay only lower, wholesale
rates for the power they create – as if they were a coal plant 500 miles away
from where the power was used, instead of a solar panel up on the roof and
wired directly to their own load.
This despite the fact that solar comes on line just
when it's most needed – during the sunny, hot midday
hours when power is at its most expensive.
Allow large systems for large loads.
Many states unfortunately enforce low
system capacity limits that allow small systems to participate, but keep the
largest, cheapest solar systems off the market. The solution to making sure
customers don't oversize their system is to make sure there's no incentive to do
so – not to cap systems across the board.
Permit significant deployment.
The purpose of any solar policy should be to deploy panels. Restrictions
that keep small generators to an insignificant percentage of retail sales prevent success right off the bat. Any
grid concerns are handled by the interconnection process – so why put a cap on how much clean,
customer-sited generation goes in?
Eliminate special fees for customer generators.
Whether called "standby fees" or by another name, these
fees attempt to charge the customer for saving energy. Customers who reduce grid strain and emissions
prices shouldn't owe their utility money for saving energy any more than they would for turning off the
lights.
Establish "rollover" provisions.
During the hottest summer months, when
electricity prices soar, a solar home might put out extra power to its neighbors,
bringing that customer's usage to less than zero. Those
"rollover credits" should be available in the next
months to offset their bill – not donated to the utility,
nor sold at a wholesale price.
In all cases, the intent of the law should be to allow customers to save energy – not to build a for-profit
power plant in their rooftop. But preventing that is easy; by stopping any rollover annually, and paying only
wholesale rates, you can ensure that no one can make money from their system – only save it.
Solar customers save energy – they
should save money, too. Learn how
to give customers energy choice so
that their energy savings can help
pay for their solar investment.
Next: Pillar #3 of 4 
