(Editor’s note: News releases are published unedited unless they contain factual errors.)
PHOENIX—December 13, 2016 – Arizona Shines, a coalition of Arizona homeowners, businesses, and community organizations dedicated to protecting rooftop solar and energy choice for all Arizonans, debuted a new billboard in the Phoenix area last week. The billboard features the five members of the Arizona Corporation Commission and notes that their upcoming decision in an effort to create a methodology determining the benefits and costs of distributed generation (Docket E-00000J-14-0023) “could save Arizonans $25 million/year by avoiding utility costs.”
The recommended order and opinion (ROO) for this docket proposes two possible methodologies to value solar. If adopted, the proposals before the Commission would ignore the long-term benefits of rooftop solar, and equate the benefits and cost savings of rooftop solar with utility-scale solar. However, rooftop solar is unique, and offers many benefits that are not accounted for in the pending ROO. If adopted, the ROO will significantly undervalue this technology. With respect to the comparison to utility-scale solar, the ROO does not take into account the more than $25 million savings that rooftop solar provides to ratepayers annually through reduced energy line losses and avoided utility power and distribution lines. Utility-scale solar does not provide these benefits.
In order to fully value rooftop solar, the Commission must recognize the long-term benefits that rooftop solar provides to all Arizona ratepayers, and specifically the benefits that are unique to this technology.
