A much anticipated bill that would have expanded access to solar energy to the majority of Californians failed in the final hours of California’s legislative session on Friday.

SB 843, sponsored by Senator Lois Wolk, would have created a 2 GW shared solar program that would have enabled millions of California renters, small businesses, and public agencies to go solar the first time. By allowing customers to participate in community shared renewable energy systems, it would give customers a way to go solar even if they don’t have a suitable roof of their own. » Read the rest of this entry «

Introduction: Vote Solar’s Annie Carmichael recently sat down with Stan Greschner, Director of the Single-family Affordable Solar Homes Program (SASH) at GRID Alternatives. We learned some surprising facts about who’s going solar in California. » Read the rest of this entry «

Credit: Environment CA

This morning our friends at Environment California released a new report ranking California cities by the amount of solar they’ve installed. The good news?

“From Fresno to San Francisco and Clovis to Culver City, solar power is becoming a mainstream technology throughout California,” said Michelle Kinman, clean energy advocate with Environment California Research & Policy Center and co-author of the report. “Solar power is booming in California and with the right leadership we can continue to benefit from the cleaner air and local jobs that this industry inevitably brings.” » Read the rest of this entry «

Looking to build a more sustainable, secure and prosperous energy future for California, Governor Jerry Brown has called for the development of 12,000 MW of distributed renewables like rooftop solar. To put that impressive goal in perspective, it’s more than twelve times the amount of solar that’s been deployed to date under the state’s popular CSI program. Achieving the Governor’s vision requires participation and collaboration from utilities, industry, consumers, regulators and local government alike – no small feat. Addressing those challenges is the focus of a two-day conference taking place at UCLA. Our own Adam Browning will be adding his insights in tomorrow’s financing design discussion – but today’s agenda kicked off with introductory remarks from the Governor and a panel of industry representatives. » Read the rest of this entry «

Good news from Sacramento on the push to make California’s the strongest renewable goal in the country. The much-anticipated bill to increase our renewable energy requirement (RPS) to 33% has passed the Senate. Now we need the Assembly to do the same. » Read the rest of this entry «

For the past few years, Southern California Edison had a feed-in tariff for renewables up to 20 MW in size, priced at the MPR (250 MW total per year).  It’s called the Renewable Standard Contract program.  In 2009, they did 140 MW of PV…the rest a bit of wind, a bit of biomass.

This year, they shifted from a fixed-price to a competitive solicitation.  Result: all 250 MW is PV, all below the MPR (the Market Price Referent is the an annual calculation of the 20 year levelized cost of energy of a combined cycle gas turbine).  See the advice letter filing, here (pdf).  Signficantly, SCE reports that it received over 2.5 GW in bids.

That’s a lot of solar, at a good price.

The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power is one of the largest utilities in in California. It’s also one of the dirtiest.  Alexandra Kravetz has been working for us to try and make some changes.  In addition to building support for a comprehensive solar plan with the City Council, she’s been engaging with DWP on their planning efforts.  LADWP recently released its Integrated Resource Plan; here are the comments (pdf) we submitted with CEERT and the Coalition for Clean Air.

However, one of the impediments to long-term planning at the Department is the uncertainty over leadership.  The Mayor has just announced a new general manager — if confirmed by the City Council, Ron Nichols would be the sixth person to head the Department since 2005.  Ron has a good reputation; here’s hoping he can also bring some stability.  Good luck, Ron…

Amid the flurry of local and state ballot initiatives Californians will be voting on next month, we’re here to highlight TWO that have tremendous implications for our clean energy future:

Prop 23: Puts Climate Change Action & Renewable Progress on Hold: VOTE NO
Funded by out-of-state oil companies, Proposition 23 would suspend California’s landmark greenhouse gas law – AB 32. As if that’s not bad enough, Prop 23 isn’t just about cap-and-trade. A number of California’s clean energy policies, including our 33% renewable energy requirement and low carbon fuel standard, are wrapped into the state regulator’s AB 32 authority. If Prop 23 passes, that whole suite of clean economy policies are at risk too. » Read the rest of this entry «

On July 15th, the interstate electricity regulators at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issued a ruling with ramifications for feed-in tariffs in the United States. In an Aug 4 article for Greentech Media, Vote Solar’s Adam Browning discussed options for designing state wholesale DG solar programs that comply with the FERC ruling. We have reprinted the text below.

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A feed-in tariff, in its common form, is a requirement for utilities to buy wholesale electricity under a fixed-price contract. That’s electricity delivered to the grid for resale to other utility customers, as opposed to retail electricity that is used on-site; this approach lowers the consumer’s utility bill through mechanisms like net metering. This market mechanism is popular in Europe; FERC’s recent ruling provides clarity regarding just what states can and can’t do when it comes to feed-in tariffs here in the U.S.

The history behind FERC’s recent decision starts in 2007, when the California Legislature passed AB 1613, which established a feed-in tariff program for small combined heat and power systems in the state.  As the California Public Utilities Commission began implementing the new law, some investor owned utilities objected on the basis that the state does not have the jurisdiction to mandate this kind of program.  Their argument: the Federal Power Act gives FERC exclusive authority over wholesale electricity sales in interstate commerce, and states are pre-empted from setting wholesale power rates that exceed utility avoided cost.  This is not a new issue — energy practitioners have been confronting it for a long time.

The CPUC then petitioned FERC for a Declaratory Order to clarify the subject, and the utilities responded with a petition of their own.  Multiple organizations, including the Interstate Renewable Energy Council, SEIA, CalSEIA, the Solar Alliance and Vote Solar, intervened with arguments for more flexibility.

The decision? From the summary:

“FERC affirmed in its order that its authority under the FPA includes the exclusive jurisdiction to regulate the rates, terms and conditions of sales for resale of electric energy in interstate commerce by public utilities. FERC also explained that the role of States in setting wholesale rates is limited to determining “avoided cost” rates for qualifying facilities pursuant to PURPA.

FERC thus found that the CPUC’s decision under AB 1613, including the CPUC-set price, would be consistent with these federal laws as long as it satisfies certain requirements:

●     The CHP generators must be QFs pursuant to PURPA.

●     The CPUC-set price must not exceed the avoided cost of the purchasing utility.”

In other words, state legislatures and regulators are restricted in their ability to mandate premium, fixed-price requirements.

What does this mean going forward? While this decision clearly limits feed-in tariff options, it does not preclude effective wholesale distributed generation programs. When the issue came up in a recent, similar proceeding — the CPUC’s effort to expand the renewable feed-in tariff program under AB 1969 (R.08-08-009) — parties were required to file legal briefs on this subject. Here are a few policy approaches that fall within state’s price-setting authority:

●     Set the feed-in tariff price at utilities’ avoided cost

●     Establish a more targeted requirement (e.g., solar PV systems from 1MW to 10 MW) and let the market set the price

●     Set a price at avoided cost, and cover the marginal gap to a workable price with a tax benefit or renewable energy credit from a public benefit fund.

There are a few real-world examples of feed-in tariffs that use this approach.  The Sacramento Municipal Utilities District recently issued a feed-in tariff priced on their time-differentiated avoided cost of generation (modeled on expected PV output, it comes out to a levelized rate of about 14 cents per kWh).  All 100 MW of the available contract capacity was immediately sold out, principally in 5 MW chunks (note that similar programs eligible for only smaller sytems have proven less effective).

Another take on this approach comes from California’s SB 32. Passed in 2009, it is a fixed-price feed-in tariff that attempts to raise the ‘avoided cost’ by capturing as much value associated with distributed generation as possible (avoided transmission and distribution upgrades, etc.).

The downside to using the avoided cost approach, of course, is that these costs can vary widely, are the subject of much contention, and there is no guarantee that the final price will be sufficient to deploy renewables.

Which brings us to another option: mandate the desired outcome, and let the market set the price.  The CPUC has proposed a 1 GW pilot program, called the ‘reverse auction mechanism’ (RAM), which elegantly deals with the problem by guaranteeing a market instead of guaranteeing a price.  Utilities would be required to do multiple annual solicitations for systems from 1MW to 10 MW in size, and the best price wins.  All parties to the proceeding seem to agree that this approach is jurisdictionally compliant.  We are currently waiting on the Administrative Law Judge assigned to the matter to issue his proposed decision.

We have some real-world examples of logic behind this market approach. For the past several years, Southern California Edison has had a voluntary Renewable Standard Offer program, consisting of a fixed-price offer to buy renewable energy from systems under 20 MW in size, with the price set at the Market Price Referent (‘MPR’ is calculated annually by the CPUC; it’s the 20-year levelized cost of energy of a combined-cycle natural gas plant, meant to represent the next marginal unit of generation).  In 2009, SCE contracted for 140 MW of PV.  It’s a great story — here are significant amounts of solar purchased below the cost of fossil fuels.

The big question, though, is whether this pricing will work in the future. Natural gas prices have plummeted, and the MPR went down about 20% this year.  Is the new ‘avoided cost’ price enough to deploy solar?  This could pose a significant problem.

To address this concern, SCE recently announced that it will change its pricing approach going forward.  Instead of pricing solar based on the cost of natural gas, they will price solar based on the cost of solar as bid.  In order to make sure that the bids are viable and not aspirational phantom projects, the program requires development security of $20/kW and project development timelines.  To reduce parasitic transactional costs and help developers line-up financing ahead of time, the program uses standard, non-negotiable contracts.  In order to drive projects that can come on-line quickly and don’t need new transmission, this policy is only applicable to projects under 20 MW.  (Note that SCE also has a similar program for rooftop PV systems that are 1MW to 2 MW in size.  On July 27, it released the results of the first solicitation: 60 MW of projects throughout its service territory.)

This market-based approach is FERC-compliant, captures the latest in solar’s cost reductions and delivers that value to ratepayers, and helps drive down solar’s costs by sending helpful market signals throughout the solar value chain. Think of it as the next generation of the feed-in tariff: FIT 2.0.

So, even though the FERC decision clearly restricts states’ feed-in tariff authority, it is important to recognize that there are still ways of designing successful programs for procuring wholesale distributed generation.

In the California Public Utilities Commission proceeding to set a net-excess generation compensation rate pursuant to AB 920, Vote Solar co-filed with the Solar Alliance.

Workpapers showing calculations of the rates for each IOU can be found here (each are Excel files of approx 6 MB):

PG+E

SCE

SDG+E

The record of all filings can be found here.