In 2019, the utility paid $2.3 million in credits to rooftop solar customers for generating excess electricity, according to Hall. "The decline in solar installations has thus resulted in hundreds of jobs lost, sales and property tax declines for the state, and significantly reduced capital investment," Evans said. Following the transition program's implementation, there were 9,582 installations in 2018, and 3,540 in 2019, he said. In 2015, according to Evans, customers installed 1,633 rooftop solar systems in Utah, with 4,140 in 2016 and 12,408 in 2017. "The growth of rooftop solar has slowed tremendously from the track it was on prior to the transition program," Ryan Evans, president of the Utah Solar Energy Association, said in March testimony to regulators. Nearly 10,000 customers are signed up to the transition program, Hall said. Gary Herbert called it "an unprecedented accomplishment in the advancement of sustainable rooftop solar energy in Utah." In 2017, Rocky Mountain Power, state regulators and rooftop solar advocates reached a settlement agreement that created a transition program to remain in place until the parties could agree on the value of rooftop solar energy. Utah's original net metering program began in 2002, and 30,870 customers are grandfathered into it, according to Hall. In Utah, regulators aim to design a new net metering program for customers who purchase solar systems beginning in 2021. In April it reached the power industry's highest regulatory body, when a utility-aligned group asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to declare that the commission has jurisdiction over rooftop solar sales, which advocates worry could upend net metering programs established by states. The battle over distributed solar programs, which often pits utilities against the customers they serve, has for years been contentious. Setting the rate "at its proper value will protect all other non-solar customers from paying higher rates," Hall said. #ROCKY MOUNTAIN POWER NET PAY INSTALL#Spencer Hall, spokesman for Rocky Mountain Power, said the utility is "proposing a net billing program to compensate at a fair rate for the excess power while protecting customers who do not elect to install solar from being required to subsidize solar customers." The state lags behind its neighbors in terms of MW of installed residential solar capacity. The utility, which serves roughly 907,000 customers in Utah, has a total of 40,450 rooftop solar customers. "What Rocky Mountain Power is proposing - it's really an effort to reduce the number of customers who go solar, and I think the reason is likely that the utility sees those customers as competition," Gallagher said. He said there's no "logical justification" for it. The net-metering cut would be one of the steepest in the nation, said Sean Gallagher, vice president of state affairs for the Solar Energy Industries Association Inc., or SEIA. #ROCKY MOUNTAIN POWER NET PAY PLUS#Rocky Mountain Power, or RMP, also wants to charge a one-time fee of $150 for interconnection applications, plus a one-time customer generation meter fee of $160. Currently, the company pays customers 9.2 cents/kWh for the excess energy they supply. is looking to dramatically cut the rates it pays to rooftop solar customers in Utah for sending energy back onto the grid.Ī proposal before the Utah Public Service Commission would slash the payments made by the PacifiCorp subsidiary for customer-generated solar power, under a system known as net metering, to between 1.3247 and 2.6293 cents/kWh in billing credits, depending on time of use. Source: S&P Global Market IntelligenceĮven as it transitions away from coal-fired power generation in an effort to reduce carbon emissions, Rocky Mountain Power Inc. Rooftop solar owners in the state are facing reduced rates from Rocky Mountain Power for the energy they send back onto the grid. Ethan Schow, a solar installer with Auric Energy, in front of a rooftop solar array in Herriman, Utah.
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