California pushes a new plan to cut rooftop solar incentives with a lawsuit targeting a solar program adopted by the Nevada legislature.
By Alex J. Pellington
The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), meeting for the first time in several months, approved a $300 million settlement to resolve claims that the state’s Public Utilities Commission had failed to adequately review and approve the state’s adoption of a new law that cut off solar industry incentives in California.
The CPUC also approved the settlement for $80 million with the California Solar Power Cooperative, the new name of the California Public Power Association, which represents nearly 200 utility-scale solar panel installers. Under the terms of the settlement, the state will award the new cooperative (CPPC) more than $800 million and provide more than $100 million of the total for CPPC’s operating expenses.
The CPUC’s decision to grant the CPPC the new incentives over the utility-scale solar industry is just one of the major issues that the utility commission is facing as it wrestles with the implications of the Trump Administration and President Trump’s withdrawal of the U.S. from the Paris Climate Accord.
The CPUC was required to conduct a “due diligence” review of the new incentives and decide whether or not to authorize the new incentives, which are in addition to the existing solar incentives the California legislature had approved earlier in the year.
As required by law, the CPUC reviewed the new incentives and then made a finding of fact that “the state’s economic impacts studies were adequate and sufficient in their analysis, and that the state’s analysis in the review of the new incentives was adequate and sufficient with regard to the analysis and impact of the solar incentive program.”
“The CPUC found that the California legislature’s decision to increase the number of incentives and reduce the amount of solar capacity were the only rational choices that the legislature could have made in terms of the economic impacts of the solar program,” said the CPUC in a statement. “The CPUC could not justify cutting the existing incentives on the grounds that the additional solar power is not needed.”
The CPUC’s decision is a reversal of its decision last April when the CPUC granted solar incentives to solar panel installers and solar
