"If you're like me, very dismayed about climate change, now and into the future, I challenge you to watch the 1st 2 videos @ www.GiveNOLA.org/ProRateEnergy  donate and resend this text to 10 of your friends. Please help us continue our important work. If you read further at the same site, you'll learn that we have 7 innovations and have influenced two utilities."

Today is the last day of this fundraising project.

Who besides ProRate Energy has your back?

Let me tell you about the NEXT BIG Change your donation will support.  The following is an excerpt of a draft motion ProRate Energy will file by May 10 into our Community Solar docket.  It points out how to solve two seeming unrelated problems: both Community Solar and Rooftop Solar are growing far slower than they should and this situation harms both the less affluent among us and the opportunity to make deeper investments in energy efficiency and load flexibilty can turn utility bills into profit centers for the most affluent! And this can be done in a synergistic way with no adverse cross-subsidies.

WHEREAS: Since 2006, ENO’s remuneration for rooftop solar is Net Energy Metering (NEM); where NEM provides kWh bill credits when monthly production is more than consumption but never a cash credit; these credits can only be used to discount future bills.

WHEREAS: Investments in Rooftop Solar are 1/3 as cost-effective than investments in Energy Efficiency (EE) in a utility with flat rates[1] and investments in Load Flexibility (LF) can be more cost-effective than either in a utility with time varying rates, a.k.a., Time of Use (TOU) rates.[2]

WHEREAS: EE and LF investments are "constipated" in a Rooftop Solar home if the annual kWh production is close to or exceeds consumption, because they then provide no future bill savings or income.

WHEREAS: More affluent homeowners are the most likely to benefit from tax credits, normally invest in the future, and will tend to do that with rooftop solar and energy efficiency; but because of the previous two assertions, the most cost-effective choices, EE and LF are often off the table.

WHEREAS: New Orleans has more than 50 MW of rooftop solar.[3]

WHEREAS: “Rooftop Community Solar (RCS), WHICH PRORATE defines as standard Rooftop Solar complemented with remuneration received monthly: wherein all the dollar value of electricity generated in excess of local consumption in any 5 minute perios is shared with neighbors in the Community Solar way and at the same price”, may already be legal in New Orleans because PRE’s careful reading of the current CS rules indicates that it may already be a legal way to roll out CS.

WHEREAS: Taking all of the assertions on this page together indicates that we can grow community solar at 1/3 the cost and much faster with RCS than with macro CS, namely at nearly 5 MW per siting, by investing in EE and LF in many to most of our large cadre of homes that already have in aggregate: more than 50 MW of rooftop solar.

WHEREAS: In 2022, Together New Orleans (TNO) submitted a proposal to UD-21-03, the resilience docket, to build tens of Community Lighthouses (CL) expressly for the purpose of providing a place to allow our residents to go to get cool, recharge cellphone, find food, etc. that would be sited around the city so that no person need walk more than ½ a mile to get to one.

WHEREAS: Each CL would be composed of a large building (often a place of worship) that would be fitted with many tens of KW of rooftop solar and a commensurate battery system so that the stated goals CL could be provided in the aftermath of a storm like H. Ida. 

WHEREAS: Because a rooftop solar array sized for the needs a mere church is far less than the needs of a CL, annual generation from the solar panels to provide the CL function will highly likely exceed the church's consumption and thus there is very low economimic benefit.

WHEREAS: There was not then, and there may not be now, any means for the excess generation produced at the CL to be shared with others and even more unlucky: most of that unconsumed electricity cannot be used as future bill credits via NEM for even the church.

WHEREAS: Myron Katz shared this explanation to Brod Bagert, Jr on the same day and soon after TNO’s presentation/proposal within UD-21-03 (resilience Docket) for the tens of CL’s and explained to Brod that to get this to work, we need the community solar docket to be reinstated and geared up to allow this; and the current CS Rules (i.e., those of 2019) do not allow for this; because (among many other things) those rules do not allow any solar panel used to create electricity for a Community Solar Generator to be used for any other purpose.

THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED THAT:

Changes should be made as necessary so that no part of the current Community Solar Rules or UD-18-03’s resolutions prevent "Rooftop Community Solar" in the way ProRate Energy defines RCS.

Conclusion

PRE is aware that the Council is supportive of Community Solar, and new federal funding supporting Community Solar, Energy Efficiency and Load Flexibility is expected this year. PRE respectfully submits these requests and patiently awaits a response from the Council.  

___________ _____________________  

Myron Katz, PhD

VP of ProRate Energy

 
[1] https://www.aceee.org/sites/default/files/solar-and-ee-042519.pdf see table 1.
[2] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0306261913007198
[3] https://www.eia.gov/state/analysis.php?sid=LA#117