Solar offsetting electric is costing non-solar customers more

....  and is not sustainable (no surprise).

San Jose Mercury News/Business/Dana Hull, 9/26/13.  "Report says popular solar 'net metering' policy will cost California's non-solar customers $1.1 billion a year by 2020."  

You're going to love your solar panels
until the State fixes the inequity

"A long-awaited analysis of "net metering," the policy that allows homeowners, school districts and businesses to offset the cost of their electric use with the rooftop solar power they generate and export to the grid, finds the policy will cost California's nonsolar customers $1.1 billion a year by 2020. 

The lengthy "California Net Energy Metering Evaluation," released Thursday by the California Public Utilities Commission, will strongly influence discussions among state regulators about how to restructure electric rates. 

....  "There's no question that there's a subsidy to solar customers," said Marcel Hawiger of TURN, the Utility Reform Network. "Net metering was a policy designed to jump-start the solar industry in California, but it's not a sustainable policy."  Read article. 

Related article -  Reuters/Nichola Groom, 9/26/13. "Net metering allows businesses and residential solar customers to sell excess, or "net," power generated by their panels back to the utility, giving them a credit on their power bill.  .... It is unclear what impact the report will have on the policy given that the state passed a law last month authorizing the CPUC to reform utility rates and design a new net metering program that would take effect in 2017."

Note:  photograph from Mandurah mail.com.

Posted by Kathy Meeh