By Jeff St. John | Greentech Media
For years, California’s solar industry and its investor-owned utilities have been fighting over the future of net metering, the state policy that require utilities to pay residential solar system owners for the green power they send back to the grid.
Now a potential long-term solution to this conflict is finally within reach, in the form of proposed state legislation that was, until as recently as last week, being attacked as the bête noire of the solar industry.
It’s a remarkable turnaround for a bill, AB 327, which has been the subject of public protests, harsh rhetoric and a series of anti-utility press releases and cable TV ads over the past few months. Solar advocacy groups have joined forces with state politicians, environmentalists and groups representing low-income California residents, to paint the bill as an attempt by big utilities like Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric to destroy rooftop solar in the state.
What upsets these groups is AB 327’s proposals to change the state’s electricity rate structure for residential customers. Those changes would both allow utilities to flatten the higher prices per kilowatt-hour that heavy residential power users pay for marginal amounts of electricity used on a month-by-month basis, and provide the potential for them to charge flat monthly fees to all residential customers.
