By David Wichner | Arizona Daily Star
An administrative judge mulling Tucson Electric Power Co.’s treatment of future rooftop-solar customers has backed a new reimbursement rate for excess solar energy production close to what TEP requested, spurning a higher rate pushed by solar advocates.
And though the judge also backed a new monthly meter fee for solar customers, she rejected the utility’s rate-design proposals — including a new solar “grid-access charge” — ruling the plans were based on flawed cost studies.
In a much-anticipated recommendation filed Thursday, Arizona Corporation Commission chief administrative law judge Jane Rodda proposed an initial TEP solar-energy export rate of 9.64 cents per kilowatt hour starting July 1, compared with the retail rate of 11.5 cents current rooftop-solar customers receive.
For UES Electric, TEP’s sister rural utility that serves Santa Cruz and Mohave counties, Rodda recommended an export rate of 11.5 cents per kilowatt hour compared with the rural utility’s 2016 average rate of 10.8 cents.
