WHY SAVE CALIFORNIA SOLAR?
What is at stake for the future of rooftop solar in California?
California leads the nation in expanding solar, but utilities are trying to block California’s path to 100% clean energy.
Out of public view, utilities are hoping to increase profits at consumers’ expense. Utilities want to block competition from rooftop solar, monopolize energy, create unnecessary infrastructure costs that drive profits, and raise rates for all consumers, all while kicking clean energy and resilience goals down the road.
They are calling for drastic changes to “net energy metering,” the state policy that makes rooftop solar affordable for consumers of all types by crediting them for the excess energy they produce and share with their neighbors.
Utility-backed changes to net metering in the CPUC’s latest proposal would would immediately slash net energy meeting credits by 75 percent, down to between $0.05 and $0.08 per kilowatt.
What is net energy metering (NEM)?
Solar is becoming more affordable in California due to popular policies like net metering.
Sometimes rooftop solar panels produce more electricity from the sun than a home or building needs. When that happens, this extra electricity goes into the electric grid to be used by someone else nearby. California's net metering program compensates people who have rooftop solar for their excess electricity. They receive a bill credit close to the full rate consumers otherwise pay for that electricity. The credit helps reduce the electricity bill for people who have rooftop solar.
Utilities would like to eliminate net metering and the local solar market it supports. That's because rooftop solar creates competition that cuts into profits for monopoly utilities.
What do California voters think of rooftop solar?
California is a solar state, and voters here recognize the benefits of rooftop solar. 70% of voters want California to do more to encourage the use of solar power.
A super-majority of 80 percent of voters across parties support net metering when provided a neutral statement on the program. 71 percent of voters want to see California do more to encourage and expand rooftop solar across the state. Another 14 percent want the state to at least maintain its current commitment.
Not surprisingly, 64 percent of voters oppose utility proposals to reduce the credit that people who have rooftop solar receive from their local utility for any extra electricity that their rooftop solar generates and feeds back to the grid, with just 25 percent supporting the utility effort.
Who benefits from rooftop solar?
Everyone benefits when one person invests in solar energy. Today, over one million solar systems are located at schools, farms, businesses, homes, and low-income apartment buildings throughout California. Thanks to programs like net metering that make solar more affordable, 42% of the rooftop solar market is in working-class and middle-class neighborhoods. Each of these projects represents an exciting new way to build a modern electric grid— a grid that is smarter, more reliable, and clean.
Rooftop solar saves everyone money. Every solar system reduces the need to maintain or build expensive transmission lines and other grid infrastructure. In 2018 alone—thanks to rooftop solar and more energy efficiency—state energy officials canceled or modified dozens of massive power line maintenance projects, saving the state $2.6 billion. A new grid modeling report from Vibrant Clean Energy shows growing local solar and storage would save California ratepayers $120 billion over the next 30 years, the equivalent of $295 per year for the average California ratepayer.
How does solar fight climate change?
California's rooftop solar systems produce nearly 13 billion kilowatt hours (kWh) of clean energy each year, avoiding 5 million metric tons of CO2 annually. Attached to a growing number of these solar systems are more than 30,000 battery storage systems, adding 1 million kWh of storage capacity.
What’s more, rooftop solar helps shut down old, polluting natural gas plants. In 2016, for example, regulators canceled a contract with an aging gas plant in southern California thanks to the growth of rooftop solar. Installing more rooftop solar in California also generates essential renewable electricity while protecting our open spaces. A new Environment California study found that building 28.5 GW of rooftop solar, rather than utility-scale solar, would enable California to maintain existing land uses on an area about half the size of the City of Los Angeles.
The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power released a comprehensive study which found L.A. can reach 100% clean energy by 2035. The path to clean energy for the nation’s second-largest city was hailed as a “road map” for other cities and states. Key to that road map is a significant growth in rooftop solar and battery storage, which the study assumes based on the continuation of popular programs like net metering.
How does solar impact jobs?
Solar creates local jobs that cannot be outsourced. Local solar and energy storage projects are job intensive. Sixty full-time jobs are supported by every megawatt (MW) of local solar energy built, and California made over 1,200 megawatts of local solar in 2019.
Investing in rooftop solar not only creates a lot of jobs but it creates good jobs that are inherently local. The majority of solar construction businesses are local companies that live and invest in their communities. A recent study found a sustained investment in local solar and storage could create 100,000 jobs by 2030, and 374,000 jobs by 2050. Investing in rooftop solar is an investment in the economic growth of your local community.
What’s the right balance between rooftop and large scale solar?
California’s clean energy needs demand more solar energy of all types. However, utility scale solar is slower to build and more expensive than rooftop solar. And more dangerous transmission lines are not what Californians have in mind for our clean energy future.
Utility scale is often locally controversial and in conflict with California’s conservation goals. Installing more rooftop solar in California also generates essential renewable electricity while protecting our open spaces. A new Environment California study found that building 28.5 GW of rooftop solar, rather than utility-scale solar, would enable California to maintain existing land uses on an area about half the size of the City of Los Angeles.
We need more rooftop and larger-scale solar to meet California’s clean energy goals, but the utility attack on rooftop solar will only make the clean energy transition more expensive and damaging to the environment.
What are the utilities are pushing for?
California’s investor-owned utilities, PG&E, Southern California Edison, and SDG&E, are calling for drastic cuts to net metering that would make solar more expensive and further out of reach for most working and middle-class people just when recent studies show they make up nearly 50% of today's market.
Utility-backed changes to net metering in the CPUC’s latest proposal would would immediately slash net energy meeting credits by 75 percent, down to between $0.05 and $0.08 per kilowatt.
How do we keep progressing as a solar state?
Solar advocates want to keep rooftop solar growing in California. Over one million consumers have gone solar to date and 160,000+ households, schools, farmers, renters, and businesses are choosing rooftop solar each year. California is in a race for reliable energy before the next crisis hits and cannot move backward on solar at a time when our electric grid and climate needs demand we go forward.
We are calling on the CA Public Utilities Commission to strengthen net metering in two ways:
Make it easier and cheaper for everyone—including lower-income Californians and renters—to benefit directly from rooftop solar and batteries too.
Increase battery accessibility for those who go solar, thereby increasing the community benefits of rooftop solar.
What can Governor Newsom do to help?
Governor Gavin Newsom can and should enhance every Californian’s rights and ability to go solar— not cut back on our clean energy progress. As mayor of San Francisco, Gavin Newsom put in place a groundbreaking program to grow local solar and create jobs and economic opportunity in the city. He could do the same thing for the entire state, but we need his leadership.
Click here to sign our petition to the governor and take other actions to help us protect solar energy for all.
