California Powers Up Solar, Doubles Rooftop Array Buy Back Cap

California seems determined to maintain its lead as the country's top solar energy producer with a new law that will make rooftop solar more attractive in many ways. And this time around, solar advocates and investor-owned utilities both seem to support it. After the variety of setbacks we've been reporting on recently, it's good to see a step forward for the Smart Grid.

 

New California legislation expected to be signed into law today will double the amount of electricity the state's investor-owned utilities (IOUs) will be required to buy back from customers with rooftop solar arrays. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is expected to sign the bill which will raise the rooftop solar cap from 2.5% to 5%.

 

Existing state law requires IOUs to commit to net metering contracts for up to 2.5% of their electric load. The new law, advocates say, will mean customers can recover their investments more quickly, which will make the rooftop solar arrays more attractive, and will be a significant factor in reaching the state's goal of one million rooftop installations by 2017.

 

California now has more than 65% of the solar arrays installed in the country, Assemblywoman Nancy Skinner (D-Berkeley) was quoted as saying in the Los Angeles Times. "Net metering has been absolutely fundamental to that success," said Skinner, who wrote the new bill.

 

Roughly 50,000 California customers are in net metering programs now. State officials want the number of rooftop solar arrays to grow to the point that they can generate 3000 MW of power. One would think it wouldn't be that difficult in a state with legendary sunshine and about 36,756,000 residents, by far the largest population of any state.

 

Public utilities and IOUs have been uniformly leery of rooftop solar, preferring instead larger traditional solar energy production arrays. But proposals to build them on environmentally sensitive desert lands and the transmission lines required to move power to where it's needed have been controversial.

 

Apparently, they've seen the writing on the wall.

 

The LA Times article noted that IOUs, which beat back two earlier bills — one to get rid of the cap and one to hike it to 10% — support the 5% cap.

 

Bernadette del Chiaro, energy specialist for nonprofit Environment California, told the newspaper the state has barely tapped solar. "We haven't reached our true potential for solar power, partly because of a lack of support by utilities who still see customer-owned solar power as a threat to their business model. California should ultimately not limit the number of people capable of going solar, plain and simple, even if that is what utilities clamor for."

 

From the source ...

Los Angeles Times

 

Related SGN resources ...

Smart Grid Leadership: The Top Ten “Smartest” States in 2009

Smart Grid Distributed Generation & Renewables

Smart Grid Policy and Regulation

 

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