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PG&E turned down our request for an interview for this report, referring us instead to a coalition it belongs to called Affordable Clean Energy for All. It's the solar customers that are causing rates to go up,'" said Heavner.
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"Then they turn around and say, 'Don't look at me. His group analyzed PG&E records that show customers are paying an average of $996 dollars a year on their bills for transmission and distribution, up from $660 dollars a year five years ago. "Rates have gone up a lot in recent years and the reason rates have gone up is because of wildfires and because of the cost of transmission lines," said Heavner. "They are using lousy math to trump up all the costs," said Heavner.Īccording to Heavner, cheaper energy from solar farms actually costs a lot more when you factor in transmission all the way from the desert to the cities. So what that means is that the solar rooftop owners are being overpaid for their solar," said Toney.īut Brad Heavner with the industry group California Solar and Storage Association disagrees. 3 cents per unit versus 25 cents per unit. The solar rooftop: we're paying 25 cents per kilowatt hour. "Solar comes from two different places, from large scale operations, that's 3 cents per kilowatt hour. "TURN believes it's absolutely important to put solar equity first," said Mark Toney, Executive Director of Toward Utility Rate Normalization or TURN, a consumer group that supports reducing incentives for solar. They also want to add a monthly grid access fee.
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Under a proposed new net metering system, utilities including PG&E would cut the rate they currently pay rooftop solar customers for that excess power from about 25 cents per kilowatt hour to potentially as little as 6 cents per kilowatt hour. At night when there's no sun you buy electricity back, spinning the meter forward. The utility buys your electricity and your electric meter spins backwards. Here's how it works: During the day when solar panels produce more electricity than you can use, the excess is sent to the grid. At stake: Something called Net Energy Metering, the way the utilities currently calculate the bill for solar customers.