California Public Utility Commission (CPUC) is failing Californians by gutting the state’s solar program.  The big utilities — Pacific Gas and Electric, Southern California Edison and Sempra Energy — are pushing the policy change. Clearly, the utilities — and their unions — see the growth of personal solar systems as a potential threat to their financial future. 

I am against CPUC’s attempt to kill off much of the rooftop solar photovoltaic (PV) industry in California. I am against CPUC’s move to slash solar incentives for customers of investor-owned utilities. CPUC is working for these utility companies when they are facilitating a back-door effort to get middle- and working-class homeowners to pay the damage costs of explosions, blowouts and fire damage caused by the utilities themselves. 

NEM 3.0 is a controversial proposal from the CPUC that would introduce some massive changes to net metering for solar customers of the three major electric utilities in the state.

The credit for energy that residential solar owners put back into the grid would be slashed to a wholesale rate of about $0.04 per kWh. On top of slashing net metering rates, the NEM 3.0 proposal adds a new fixed monthly charge for solar owners of $8 per kW installed on their roof. It means that someone with a 10 kW system has to pay $80 per month to their electric utility just to stay connected to the grid and send back electricity at a new lower rate.

The new proposal, which is currently being reviewed by CPUC, has been slammed by solar companies and environmental groups for discouraging a shift to residential solar, while the three major electric utilities – – have voiced their support for the proposal. Naturally!