It’s been a long road. Utilities like Tucson Electric Power have been trying to reduce competition from rooftop solar for many years, but we can trace this rate case back to March of 2015, when TEP put forth a proposal to gut net metering, an important policy that allows a one-to-one credit for any “extra” energy from a solar electric system that’s sent to TEP. (For more info on how energy flows in a grid-connected solar electric system, see our infographic).
In that case, TEP proposed that customers should be credited about 55% of the retail electric rate for energy sent back to their grid, which would have upended the economics of rooftop solar. More perniciously, they also proposed an arbitrary date for this change of June 1st, 2015 in their application, without any approval by the Arizona Corporation Commission. This was in contrast to the ACC’s established precedent against retroactive rates, and no reasonable outside observer thought it likely that the ACC would approve that date. However, it cast a long shadow on the solar market. We objected strenuously. Many customers were concerned that they would not receive net metering if they installed rooftop solar. At Net Zero Solar, we had to both lay off co-workers and take pay cuts.
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