Solar Energy Show

Copyright 2021 - The Energy Show, Barry Cinnamon I’ve been bombarded with customer questions about the change from Net Metering (NEM) 2 to NEM 3. If you haven’t heard, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) is in the process of effectively eliminating Net Metering. If the preliminary decision by the CPUC goes through, the solar industry — including both new and existing solar customers — will be clobbered. Here is the current situation in a nutshell. The CPUC decided to add a fixed charge of about $60 per month to the average new solar customer’s electric bill, reduce the daytime reimbursement rate from $0.30 to $0.05 per kwh, and reduce the grandfathering period of all customers (even existing customers) from 20 years to 15 years. They call this NEM 3, but new solar customers are better off effectively disconnecting their solar and battery systems from the grid — not net metering at all. This poorly-reasoned NEM 3 decision is scheduled to go into effect on May 28, 2022. To compare NEM 2 to NEM