California’s Public Utilities Commission (PUC) has allowed PG&E to institute a plan to eliminate future residential solar production. The California PUC is basically run by ret. executives from PG&E. The latest approval for residential solar production ends the possibility to break even on solar panel instillation.
The Net Metering 3.0 proposal that was put into effect April 2023; under the current NEM 3.0 jurisdiction residential solar production isn’t equally credited to the charge for grid production. Furthermore, under NEM 3.0 PG&E was allowed to raise the charge for 1k/watt/h to $.30 from $.18.
So, for example, under the current NEM 3.0, during the day when your residential system produces sufficient electricity to run your home, and a surplus about that goes back into the grid, PG&E pays you $.06 / 1k/watt/h. After the residential system stops producing electricity at night when the home draws electricity off the grid, PG&E charges you $.30 / 1k/watt/h. Plus, PG&E charges you $10/month for your net metering as a surcharge, and PG&E wanted to increase that to $70/month. That proposal has been put off for future PUC planning, but you can be sure that the net metering surcharge will increase in the coming months.
Currently, any solar system that submitted a NEM interconnection application by April 14, 2023 will continue to operate under NEM 2.0, or equal k/watt/h production for k/watt/h usage off the grid. There is a large backlog of systems being installed under these year old NEM 2.0 interconnection applications. Already, over 17,000 solar jobs have declined as the industry lays off employees and closes down operations and prepares for the end of solar installations in California and currently survive installing NEM interconnection application submitted before. April 14, 2023
As a political aside, Gavin Newsom signed this NEM 3.0 bill into law, and has always taken up the gavel for PG&E and SDG&E.