California Companies Back Down in Slashing Solar Incentives

The most powerful utility companies in California want you to believe that there is a covert war going on between ordinary consumers and the 1.3 million who have solar panels on their roofs. Utility providers credit solar users for the surplus energy they export to the grid after they’ve powered their houses under a practise called net energy metering. Customers that do not utilise solar pay an estimated $3.4 billion extra each year, thus forcing them to make up the difference through increased monthly costs.

Corporations such as PG&E, Southern California Edison, and San Diego Gas and Electric Co. say that this rooftop solar methodology harms communities of colour and lower-income households the most. Households with photovoltaics aren’t paying their fair share when they use grid-supplied energy at night, according to utilities, resulting in an unfair cost shift that must be corrected. This sleazy, corporate-driven argument stinks from top to bottom.

If the California Public Utilities Commission, the state’s utility regulator, sides with the firms, net energy metering will be eliminated, and California thriving solar energy industry will be drastically altered. Several proposals from public advocacy groups and the state’s largest utilities are currently being considered by the CPUC, some of which would reduce solar subsidies and impose fees for grid usage, making it more difficult for homeowners to pay off their solar installations.

The movement for rooftop solar improvements is unrelated to ideology, classism, or systemic inequity. It’s about businesses trying to persuade the public that democratised clean energy production is harmful to the state. The allure of rooftop solar and the immediate and long-term savings has never been stronger, and the widespread availability of the self-sustaining technology has made it affordable to most California families.