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There have been assaults on photo voltaic web metering for a decade or extra, as a result of the truth that web metering shifts income and revenue from utilities to particular person householders. An excessive assault on California photo voltaic web metering arose previously yr, however then just lately stalled and received punted indefinitely after a number of backlash. We’re not but positive the way it will resurface. Hear in as photo voltaic trade professional Alex Williams of Photo voltaic Power Companions talks to CleanTechnica’s Zach Shahan about these matters.
Observe that it’s the California Public Utilities Fee (CPUC) that’s tasked with managing rules comparable to photo voltaic web metering, and Alex shared that every one 4 of the present CPUC commissioners and present CPUC president have been appointed by Gavin Newsom previously couple of years. In easy phrases, some pro-utility dangerous apples appear to have finagled their method onto the board and have develop into a severe risk to rooftop solar energy in California, and thus the nation (California dominates the rooftop photo voltaic trade). Calling it a little bit of “overreach,” Alex mentioned, “It’s sort of like they noticed a crack within the door and tried to drive a truck by means of it.”
I requested Alex for extra particulars on how the proposals from earlier within the yr would influence present rooftop photo voltaic panel house owners in addition to individuals who need to go photo voltaic. He identified that there have been two primary matters: 1) how a lot the utility costs to be linked to the grid, and a pair of) how lengthy they may honor web metering guidelines. One egregious a part of the proposal was to chop the time period of current web metering clients from 25 years to twenty years — even though individuals went photo voltaic anticipating 25 years of web metering funds primarily based on the legal guidelines in place on the time they went photo voltaic.
Alex and I additionally talked concerning the numerous advantages of rooftop solar energy for slicing down on utility infrastructure prices, slicing down on effectivity losses, lowering air air pollution and thus well being prices, including grid resiliency and grid safety, and extra.
One factor that stunned me fairly a bit, although, was how instantly Alex pushed again towards the widespread utility declare that rooftop photo voltaic advantages the tremendous wealthy at the price of the remainder of society. He mentioned that wasn’t the case in any respect from his expertise within the trade. “I’ve all the time discovered that that’s a really attention-grabbing argument to attempt to make as a result of, being within the trade, I imply — 75 possibly 80 p.c of our clients can be thought-about lower-middle [income] and even lower-income. And so, for me it’s all the time been like: the wealthy individuals aren’t those getting photo voltaic. Now we have actually 1000’s of installs a yr taking place and a excessive, excessive, excessive share of them are usually not what individuals would think about rich.” He added that everybody within the trade he’s mentioned this with has mentioned the identical factor.
We additionally talked a bit concerning the function of Gavin Newsom in serving to the rooftop photo voltaic vitality trade struggle towards anti–rooftop photo voltaic rules.
Except for the web metering battle, we talked at size about Photo voltaic Power Companions, which now has greater than 1,000 photo voltaic vitality consultants/reps on its solarizing group. He talked about their intensive deal with coaching — “practice first, practice second, practice third” — in addition to their method to broader photo voltaic training and set up. Maybe most attention-grabbing in any respect, we talked concerning the tradition of Photo voltaic Power Companions and the founders’ deepest goals.
For extra, take a look at the entire podcast interview by way of the embedded SoundCloud participant above or in your favourite podcast community: Anchor, Apple Podcasts/iTunes, Breaker, Google Podcasts, Overcast, Pocket, Podbean, Radio Public, SoundCloud, Spotify, or Stitcher.
You too can be taught extra on the Photo voltaic Power Companions web site.
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